Toaster Trouble is a simple card based hidden identity game based on Battlestar Galactica and The Resistance.

Theme: Robotic Toasters have invaded the Earth. Your goal is to quickly escape before the toasters get to you. However, at least one person is a toaster masquerading as a human.

Victory

The humans win if they win 3 missions, and the toasters win if the draw deck runs out.

Setup

Shuffle the mission cards, and then give each player 5 mission cards from the deck. Then use the remaining deck to form a draw deck. The deck size should be equal to (number of players)*2.

Each card will have one of four suits, hearts, clubs, spades, and diamonds with values ranging from 2 to 10. This will determine what missions they are good on, and their strength.

Note: Players are not allowed to talk about specific cards in the hand. They must speak in general terms such as saying: “I have a strong hand of clubs”.

Number of traitors for each player count:

• 2 players:  No traitors
• 3 – 4 players: 1 traitors
• 5 -6 players: 2 traitors
• 76+ players: 3 traitors

Number of players per mission

• 2 -4 players: 2 players
• 5 -6 players: 3 players
• 7 + players: 4 players

Gameplay

Each turn, one player will be the leader, and propose one of two actions.

 

1. Propose a mission. Draw two cards from the mission deck, discard one and then play one face up. This determines what color the mission will be.
2. Quarantine a player. For the the remainder of the game, that player can only play one card per mission.
3. Remove a player from quarantine.

Then everyone simultaneously votes on the the action. If more than half of the players say yes, then we resolve the action. Otherwise, each player draws a card from the mission deck, and one card is discarded face down for each player in the game.

Mission resolution.

Starting to the left of the leader,  each player takes a turn to play any number of cards face down in to the mission pile.  If cards are of the same suit, then they add to the mission strength.

Each card of a different suit subtracts 1.

After everyone has played their cards, then reveal the cards in the mission pile. If the mission strength is greater than (3*number of players in the game), then the mission succeeds and all players draw a card from the mission deck.

If the mission fails, discard two cards face down from the mission deck for each player in teh game.

Speed variant

The mission draw deck is half as big, but players only need to succeed 2 missions.

Theme notes

• The traitors are toasters disguised as humans.
• Thematically, the missions will represent types of bread that you will need to feed toasters.
• There will also be special cards such as butter that will give you an advantage.

 

Variants

No traitors:  Nobody is a toaster, but each player starts with a hand of 4 cards instead of 5. This would be good as an introductory variant.

Parameters to consider adjusting

 

1. Difficulty of missions
2. Size of draw deck
3. Morale loss for failing missions or a vote.

 

Things to consider during playtesting

Balance

• Strength of cards required for each mission.
• Scaling the size of missions, number of traitors, and morale requirements based on the number of players.