In Vino Morte
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You've been invited to a top notch dinner party, and the host offers you a glass of wine. Do you drink it or pass on it? As your neighbors drop like flies, you need to press on, and most importantly, stay alive.
Goal
Be the last player alive.
Components
- 8 wine cards (or numbered Spades from a standard deck)
- 8 poison cards (or numbered Hearts from a standard deck)
Setup
- Choose a player to be dealer.
- The dealer takes all 16 (or 18 with a Standard Deck) cards, looks at them, then chooses and places one card face-down in front of each player (including themself).
- The dealer must place at least one wine card and at least one poison card each round.
- Players may not look at their cards.
- Any unused cards are placed aside, face down.
- The player to the left of the dealer goes first.
Turn
Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player will choose to drink OR swap.
DRINK
If they choose to drink, they flip their card over.
- If it's a bottle of wine, they survive to play the next round.
- If it's a bottle of poison, they die and are out of the game.
SWAP
If they choose to swap, they trade cards with any other player that has a face-down card.
- Both of these cards remain face down.
- Play continues clockwise until each player, except the dealer, has taken a turn.
- Once it gets back around to the dealer, each player who hasn't drank flips their card. Anyone revealing poison dies and is out of the game.
- All cards are collected, and all surviving players play another round with the surviving player to the right of the dealer being the new dealer.
Game End
Continue playing rounds until only one player is left. That player is the winner.
Cheese Variant (Caseus Vitae)
Include a number of cheese cards (or face cards from a standard deck) based on the number of players in the current round.
- 2 players = 0 cheese
- 3-4 players = 0-1 cheese
- 5-6 players = 0-2 cheese
- 7+ players = 0-3 cheese
Setup
When dealing out cards, you may also give out cheese cards to whoever you choose.
Each player gets a face down glass as normal, and some players may also get a cheese card
Turn
On a player's turn they can drink or swap glasses as normal, or choose to steal cheese from another player.
Players cannot give cheese away or have more than one cheese at a time.
When you drink, if you have cheese, the results of your drink are reversed: Wine will kill you and poison will not.
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