GRIM TRIGGER

You’ve been kidnapped. They call themselves The Organization - a worldwide

conspiracy of the world’s greatest assassins.
Your handlers dragged you into the arena, still groggy from the sedatives. The lights,
the roar of the crowd, the kick to the back of the knee? You woke up quick. That’s
when you met your opponent.
If you want to survive, you’ll have to work together. The two of you can rise against
The Organization and find your way out of here.
Good luck. You’re going to need it.

In GRIM TRIGGER, you play an assassin. You’re one of the best in the
world, but you got sloppy and kidnapped by The Organization.
Now you’ve been dumped in a battle royale - an assassin’s tournament, a duel to the
death. The Organization thinks it’s powerful enough to toy with your life and turn you
into entertainment.
Thankfully, you and your opponent have reached an agreement. You aren’t going to let
The Organization get away with this. If you can work together, The Organization is
going down.
GRIM TRIGGER is a game for four players. You’ll need two decks of
playing cards.
Each player should describe their assassin. Tell a story about an old job, talk about
what kinds of weapons they use, what movie characters they most resemble.
Separate one deck into four hands of cards. Each hand should have all 13 cards of one
suit (Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades). The player with the most interesting assassin,
table vote, gets to pick which suit they want. Continue around the left until each player
chooses a suit.
Set the other deck to the side. This is the The Organization deck, and it represents the
resources of The Organization. Your goal is to remove all the cards in this deck.
Randomly match players into pairs. They are
opponents in the tournament, and must work
together to defeat The Organization. (It’s
probably best if the players sit across the table
from each other, but you know your table better
than I do.)
You’ll fight this opponent for four rounds of
play. You each need to put on a good show for
The Organization - you don’t want them
catching wise to your plan - but ultimately, you
want to take them down.
Each round, reveal the top card from the Organization
deck. Each player plays a card from their hand of an
equal or higher value. This represents your big action
during this round of the tournament - when you make
your move to strike against The Organization.
Go through the The Organization deck and remove all cards with
the same values played by the players, then shuffle the deck. For
example, if the players play a 5, 8, 9, and J, the organization
deck discards every copy of 5s, 8s, 9s, and Js from its deck.
The players return all the cards they played to their hand, unless
the rules say otherwise.

Take a few moments after each round to stare down your fellow assassins, talk strategy,
or stand stoically while your trenchcoat flaps in the breeze. You’ve earned it.
After the fourth round, the first match is over. Players take a few minutes to compose
themselves, then they’re forcibly relocated to the next match. Each pair switches
opponents.
Play continues for another four rounds in the same manner, or until the Organization
Deck runs out of cards. Once the Organization deck runs out of cards, or eight rounds
have passed, the player with the most cards in their hands wins. In case of a tie, all tied
players win.
People like us, we don't work together real well.

So what if you want to win the tournament? Sure, you want to stick it to The
Organization but maybe you got something to prove. Maybe you've got history with the
guy across the table. Maybe you just want to shake things up.
If you play a card with a lower value than the Organization’s card, things are a little
different. The Organization deck still discards cards as usual.
If you played a lower value card and your opponent played an equal or higher value card:
Your opponent discards the card they played, along with the cards one value higher and
one value lower than the card they played. You've successfully betrayed them this round,
and they're hurting for it.
If you both played a lower value card: You each discard the card you played, along with
a random card from your hand. You both tried to betray each other and it didn't work out
so well. Trust is a fragile thing.
If any of you run out of all your cards, you're dead. Out of the game - both the
tournament and GRIM TRIGGER. Better luck next time.

GRIM TRIGGER is brought to you thanks to Kwyndig, Tonya B, Michael Cassimaty, Rob
Kirchner, Stew Wilson, and the other excellent folks on Patreon. You can find more info at
http://www.patreon.com/funhavergames