Powder Keg

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Playing a turn
5. The powder keg
6. The action cards in detail
7. Pairs and triples
8. Winning the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Powder Keg is a quick, noisy game of nerve for 2–5 players. The draw pile hides a few powder kegs – the Kings. On your turn you may play cards from your hand, and then you must draw a card. If it is a King, it blows up in your face, unless you can douse it with a bucket of water (an Ace or a joker). Whoever can't is out. The other cards help you dodge the draw, peek at the pile, reshuffle it or push extra turns onto the next player. The last player left wins.

• Players: 2–5; best with 4 or 5.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck with both jokers.

Powder Keg is our own adaptation for an ordinary deck, inspired by Exploding Kittens (Elan Lee, Matthew Inman and Shane Small, 2015). The card names are our own, and the deck has 54 cards instead of 56: there is one Veto and one Peek fewer than the matching cards in the original. It has not been playtested in this form yet.

The cards

Suits don't matter in this game.

Setup

1. Take out the 4 Kings and the 6 buckets (4 Aces and 2 jokers).
2. Shuffle the other 44 cards and deal 7 cards face down to each player.
3. Give each player 1 bucket, so everyone has 8 cards. Keep your hand secret.
4. Shuffle into the rest of the deck: - Kings: one fewer than the number of players (2 players: 1 King, 5 players: 4 Kings). Put any other Kings back in the box. - The remaining buckets: with 2 or 3 players only 2 of them (the rest go back in the box), with 4 or 5 players all of them.
5. Put the deck face down in the middle as the draw pile, and leave space next to it for a face-up discard pile.
6. Choose a player to start. Play goes clockwise.

Because there is always one King fewer than there are players, the game ends with exactly one survivor – the draw pile never runs out first.

Playing a turn

1. Play cards – or not. Play as many cards from your hand as you like, one after another, face up onto the discard pile. Each card's action happens before you play the next one. You may also play nothing.
2. Draw. End your turn by drawing the top card of the draw pile into your hand – unless a Skip or a Double has already ended your turn.

There is no hand limit, and running out of cards doesn't matter: you'll draw again.

Example: Carla suspects a King is coming. She plays a Peek (7) and secretly sees K, 4, 9 on top. She plays a Double (J): her turn ends without drawing, and Dan must now take two turns. Dan has no Skip, so he draws the King…

The powder keg

If you draw a King, show it immediately.

• With a bucket: lay the bucket on the discard pile. Then put the King back into the draw pile anywhere you like – on top, at the bottom or somewhere in the middle – without looking at or rearranging the other cards. You may hold the pile under the table while you do it. This ends your turn.
• Without a bucket: you are out. Put the King and all your hand cards on the discard pile. You take no more turns and play no more cards (not even a Veto) this game – just watch the others, it won't take long.

A bucket can only be used against a King that you have just drawn. It can't be vetoed, and a King can't be vetoed either.

The action cards in detail

• Veto (Q): stops any action except a King or a bucket. Anyone may play a Veto at any time before the action has happened, even when it isn't their turn. The vetoed card stays on the discard pile as if it had never been played. A Veto can be vetoed too: then the original action happens after all – and so on. After you play a card, give the others a moment to shout "Veto!".
• Double (J): your turn ends at once, without drawing, and the next player takes two turns in a row (play cards, draw; then play cards, draw again). If you play a Double while you owe turns because of a Double, your turns end at once and the next player must take all the turns you still owed, plus 2 – so 4 turns, then 6, and so on.
• Skip (10): ends one turn without drawing. If you owe two turns, one Skip ends only one of them.
• Favour (9): the player you choose picks the card they give you.
• Shuffle (8): shuffle the draw pile thoroughly; nobody looks at the cards.
• Peek (7): don't show the cards and don't change their order.

Pairs and triples

Any two cards of the same rank make a pair, any three a triple – plain cards, but also two Shuffles, three Favours and so on. The Aces and jokers all count as buckets, so an Ace and a joker are a pair too. When you play cards as a pair or triple, their own actions don't happen; instead:

• Pair: choose another player and take a random card from their hand without looking (they fan their cards face down towards you).
• Triple: choose another player and name a card – a rank, such as "a Queen", or "a bucket". If they have one, they must give it to you. If not, you get nothing.

A pair or triple can be vetoed like any action. If the chosen player has no cards, you get nothing.

Winning the game

When only one player is left, they win. One game takes about 10–15 minutes, so play several: the winner scores a point, and the first to 3 points wins the evening.

Tips for beginners

• Keep your bucket. Early on the danger is small – save your good cards for later.
• Count the cards. You know how many Kings are in the pile and how big it is: 2 Kings in 10 cards means a 20% risk for the next draw.
• Peek, then act. A Peek followed by a Skip, Double or Shuffle is the classic escape.
• Remember where you hid it. After dousing a King, you know where it is – put it on top if the next player has no bucket left.
• Save a Veto for the moment someone uses a Favour or a triple to take your last bucket.

Variants

• Five different cards (from the original's older edition): play five cards of five different ranks and take any one card you like from the discard pile. Their own actions don't happen.
• Simpler Double: if you play a Double while you owe turns, your turns end and the next player takes just 2 turns (the original's older rule).
• Short hands: deal only 4 cards plus the bucket, as in the original's first edition. The game gets quicker and more dangerous.