Late last year, Cheapass Games decided to gain a little leverage: a sizable portion of its 2001 printing of cheap but fun card games would be inserted into cardboard boxes. Although in layout such boxes are very similar to the original paper envelopes (a recognized company trademark), they do hold components better and with less risk of defacement. Prices, as one can imagine, went up, a buck in most cases.
Is the company deservedly famous for its "no frills" attitude getting pretentious? Hardly. Their weirdly-themed games, easy to learn and quick to play, still depend on extra bits they usually won't sell because you probably have lots of them at home already -- dice, markers and such. Why charge you more if, down to the core, what you need are rules, the necessary cards and perhaps a game board when required? Such scheme conquered the gaming world by its cleverness and financial fairness, and now James Ernest can concentrate on new designs, since selling apparently goes well.
One such new design is Witch Trial, a card game for three to seven players whose sarcastic theme -- reap money, er, "prestige" as a court advisor in the trials of suspected witches -- is reflected, first and foremost, on the cards themselves. They depict suspects, legal charges and evidence in hilarious prose. Cards are the primary fuel for laughs in the game, a fact which ultimately limits the game's replayability. But we'll come to that soon enough.
How it works
Three to seven players get dealt a hand of cards each. By placing a Suspect card face up beside a Charge card in front of you, you create a pending case. Sooner or later a pending case is taken to court, and that's when the fun begins.
In your turn, you can only complete a single action. Three common possibilities are creating a pending case, taking your already-completed pending case to court, or taking someone else's pending case to court, in which instance you'll necessarily become the defendant's attorney. If it's your case, you're prosecutor, and the defending lawyer which be chosen randomly amongst all other players.
Once a case is in court, a one-on-one exchange between prosecutor and defense lawyer can move a Jury toward acquital or conviction. The Jury itself is represented by a numbered scale (1 to 12) on the board; the higher the value, the greater the chance for the accused to be found guilty.
After all exchanges have been made, 2d6 are rolled. If the result equals or beats the Jury value, the defendant gets a ticket to the gallows or worse destiny... the game does not make that clear, and you shouldn't care. Because the point in the game is not quite saving people (or getting them hanged), but making money in the process.
You see, there is a sum of money (the "legal fees") in dispute as well. Depending on the gravity of the charge, as much as $150 can be paid to the successful enterpreneur, er, legal advisor, if he succeeds in his part. Since the object of the game is to have the most money in the end... well, you're beginning to get the idea. This is Cheapass, after all.
Charges are usually wild and absurd -- a person can go to court by Wearing a hat in theatre, Atrocious manners, Aloofness or, Heaven help our society, Golfing. By adding up a suspect's Guilt (valued one to six) and the gravity of the charge (also one to six), you'll have the initial Jury value. The prosecutor wants this to be as high as possible, and naturally the defending lawyer wants it low; so each contestant in turn play cards to alter the Jury value.
Evidence cards are the most common Jury value modifiers presented in court. All Evidence cards have positive and negative point values, so they can be played by either side. Rarely is that value the same, though, and it is an easily-verified fact that the defense will have a harder time to present a good case. That is why there's a separate "defense fee", a small amount printed on Suspect cards that the legal counselor gets before the case starts developing, and that he gets to keep whatever the outcome of the case may be.
You can also play suspects as Witnesses, which use their Guilt to reduce or increase the Jury value, as long as they convince the Jury with their testimonals (which means, as long as the die roll helps you).
Motion cards are special effects which you may bring during trial to gain an edge. "Research", for instance, lets you draw two cards at once. "Bribery" allows you to change the Jury value up to 4 points in any direction, as long as you pay $50 to the Court.
To counteract motions as they are played there exists a final class of cards, named Objections. An objection is the only thing you'll be able to play out of turn, and is also the only card you'll never discard. If used, it is handed to the victim, which will add it to his hand and later use it as he pleases.
But wait -- feeling you're gonna lose? Settle an agreement: decide on a division of the booty, er, legal fees, and all can go home happy. Not including the accused, of course, but then, who cares?
So, is it good?
With such simple and somewhat obvious rules, can this game be fun? Definitely -- although that will largely depend on the people you're playing it with. The game implicitly leans on the assumption that everyone hates lawyers and loves to mock them. In that light, roleplayers with no doubt use the golden opportunity given by cards to interpret lawyers as slippery and eloquent as possible, stating ridiculous misdeeds with unabashed seriousness. My group laughed almost to tears at certain points in the first game sessions. True to the spirit of backstabbing, in one session a single player had more money than everyone else combined. The imminent losers didn't care; after all, laughter paid best.
However, since the fun is fueled mostly by card text, a potential drawback of the game is that, after a few runs, even interpretation variations will be déja vu. Still, at six bucks, this game begs to be tried. (You'll need to bring in two six-sided dice and paper money). As long as you take it up as, say, a comic filler between heavier games, and gather players with at least enough high spirits to keep the ball rolling, you should be fine. Serious strategists in search of complex mechanics will likely pass this one; loonies and roleplayers at heart will have a blast.
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