Cockroach Poker is a bluffing game played with a deck composed of seven types of vermin. Your goal is to avoid being the first player to collect 4 of a set of these gross little pests in front of you. In order to do so, you'll be passing them around like the common cold. Lie through your teeth, or be just as truthful as you need to be to fake out your opponents. As long as you're gonna be playing with the rats and roaches, you may as well get a little dirty!
The Deck
We'll be playing with a deck of 65 cards, made up of the following:
8 of each: Bats, Flies, Cockroaches, Toads, Rats, Scorpions, and Stink Bugs
7 Royals, one for each animal (ie Royal Bat, Royal Fly, etc)
1 Crownless special card
1 Nothing special card
Set up
First, I'll shuffle the deck, and set aside 7 cards into the 'Penalty Deck'. The top card will always be face-up in the Penalty Deck.
Then all the remaining cards are dealt out evenly among the players. If any cards are left over, the First Player will take one, and the rest are added to the Penalty Deck.
Gameplay
The Starting Player will pass one card from their hand to another player face-down (I as the mod will facilitate all passed cards). As they do so, they will declare what the passed card is: {Bat, Fly, Cockroach, Toad, Rat, Scorpion, Stink Bug, or Royal}. Naturally, as this is a bluffing game, this statement may be a lie.
The receiving player will then have 2 options:
Option 1: Reveal the card
If they wish to reveal the card, they must first declare whether the claim about the card's identity is correct, or a bluff.
If they declare 'Correct', they believe that the card passer has been honest about the card they are passing. If they declare 'Bluff', they believe that the card passer is lying about which card they passed.
If the guesser is correct, the card that was passed will go face up in front of the card passer. If the guesser is incorrect, it goes in front of the guesser instead.
Whoever gets the card starts the next round by passing a new card from their hand to another player.
Option 2: Passing the card on
Instead of judging the card passers claim, the card receiver can instead just keep passing the card. In this case, they will look at the card they've just received, and then repeat the face-down passing action, choosing any player that has not yet seen that card (ie, hasn't been passed to in the current chain). As with earlier, when passing to a new player, the card passer must declare what the passed card is. They don't have to corroborate any earlier claims.
If the player receiving the card is the only player who hasn't seen it yet (ie everyone else has already passed that card around) they must choose to reveal the card.
Royal Cards
Royal cards are different from normal animal cards in that they have two 'correct' claims: the animal shown and 'royal' (ie, a Royal Rat is both a Rat and a Royal card)
Each time a player receives a Royal card and places it face-up in front of them, they must also take the top card of the Penalty Deck and place it face-up in front of them. If that card is also a Royal, they must draw again from the Penalty Deck.
Special cards
The Crownless special card is a joker for all animals without a crown. No matter what claim one makes this card is always 'correct', with one exception: Royal is wrong.
The Nothing card is empty. All claims about this card are wrong.
Players who get one of the special cards do not place them in front of them, but add it to their hand. They must also:
option 1: place one of the cards from their hand in front of them, according to the last claim,
option 2: if they cannot or do not wish to do the above, they must place 2 other cards from their hand in front of them
End of Game (How to Not Lose)
The game ends when a player has 4 Animals of one type in front of them (ie, 4 cockroaches, royal or no), or when it is their turn to pass a card but they have no more cards in their hand. In both cases, that player loses, and all others win!