Posse Comitatus

Description

A Gritty Game of Hue-and-Cry. Stop, thief! — or are they? Posse Comitatus is a small-box bluffing card game themed on the historical hue and cry of pre-police London. The Mechanic On your turn you slide a card face-down across the table to any opponent and declare a suspect type ("This is a Smuggler"). The receiver picks one of three responses: Call TRUTH — flip the card. If you're right, the sender pays a coin and adds the card to their rap sheet. If you're wrong, you do. Call LIE — same logic, opposite direction. Pass it on — pick the card up secretly, then slide it face-down to a different player (anyone who hasn't already touched it during this cascade) with your own fresh declaration. The cascade continues until somebody calls TRUTH or LIE. Only the FINAL claim — the one made just before the reveal — is tested. If you bluffed and the next player passed it on, you got away with it. Three of any one suspect type on your rap sheet and you're DISGRACED — out of the game. Last citizen standing wins. The Two Specials Magistrate (3 in deck) — When revealed, the receiver dodges entirely. No rap sheet penalty, no coin paid. The receiver also clears one card from their existing rap sheet. Wanted Felon (6 in deck) — When revealed, all stakes triple. Three Wanted Felons on a rap sheet is a disgrace, just like any other type. Optional Variants Hue and Cry! — Bystanders can side-bet on the reveal. The Bribe — Sender openly offers coins to influence the call. The Long Chase — Cards passed by 3+ players pay double when called. Background The mechanic is a refined cousin of Cockroach Poker (Jacques Zeimet, 2004): pass the card, claim, counter-claim, the wrong person ends up holding the bag. Two design refinements: A 60-card deck with eight distinct suspect types at calibrated frequencies — Magistrate count was reduced from 6 to 3 and three suspect types bumped from 8 to 9 each, after a 300-game Monte Carlo simulation showed the original mix made empty-hand the dominant disgrace mode instead of the intended rap-sheet-3. Two special cards that change the consequence of a reveal — Magistrate as a relief valve, Wanted Felon as a stakes amplifier. The History Is Real Every card type, every flavor line, and every variant is rooted in 18th-century London street history. The hue and cry was the actual law from the Statute of Winchester (1285) until the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 — refusal to join a chase was a criminal offense. The Magistrate's effect echoes R v Pinney (1832), which established that a magistrate who acted in good faith escaped prosecution even when the riot still happened. The £40 Wanted Felon is the actual bounty under the Highwayman Act of 1697 — the trade Jonathan Wild built his criminal empire on before being hanged at Tyburn in 1725. —description from the designer

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