Joe Bob's Rasslin'

Wooooooooo, howdy, and welcome to Joe Bob's Rasslin, the card game that lets you crack skulls in the rasslin' ring!  Smash his haid!  Break his laig!!  Pile drive the sumbitch!!

Joe Bob's Rasslin' can be played by 2 to 8 players.  There are 108 cards in the deck, so you can make your own Joe Bob's Rasslin' deck from two decks of ordinary playing cards (with jokers).

Rules:

1. Each player gets 35 tokens, representing Stamina Points.  These tokens go in the Stamina Area.  Each player also has a Turn Damage Area, which is initally empty, and a Reserve Area, which initially contains 15 Reserve Points.  Finally, each player has a Status Marker, which indicates whether the player is on his feet or knocked down; initially all players are on their feet. 
2. Shuffle the deck and deal each player seven cards.  The remaining cards are placed face down in the Draw Pile.  Cards played or discarded during the game go face down in a separate Discard Pile.  If the Draw Pile is exhausted, the dealer shuffles the Discard Pile and uses it for the new Draw Pile.  The player to the left of the dealer plays first.
3. Play moves to the left.  On his or her turn, each player does the following:
   1. Collect all tokens from your Turn Damage Area, and remove them from play.
   2. If your Stamina Area is empty, move one or more tokens from your Reserve Area into your Stamina area.
   3. If you are knocked down, change your Status Marker to indicate that you are on your feet.
   4. Draw one card.
   5. Play one action against one of your opponents.  An action is one of the following:
      1. a Headlock card plus one of the headlock move cards (played simultaneously)
      2. a Rope Throw card plus one of the rope throw move cards (played simultaneously)
      3. an anytime move card (i.e. an Irish Whip)
      4. a knockdown move card (only if the target is already knocked down)
      5. a foreign object card
      6. a punch (no card is played, does one point of damage)
      7. a smile (no card is played, no damage is dealt)
   6. The target of the action may play an appropriate defensive move (see below) in response to your action, and you may respond with an applicable defensive move, and so on, until no response is necessary or the target player does not respond.
   7. If the action is a legally-played (see below) Pin or Victory Pin card, and the defender does not Kick Out, the defender loses and is immediately out of the game.
   8. If any players receive damage as a result of the action, stamina tokens appropriate to the damage dealt are removed from the players' Stamina Areas and placed in their Turn Damage Areas.  If doing so empties the Stamina Area OR brings the number of tokens in the Turn Stamina Area above ten, then that player has been knocked down.  If the knocked-down player's Stamina Area and Reserve Area are BOTH empty, that player loses and is immediately out of the game.  Otherwise, the player who caused the knockdown may perform one additional action (as in rule e. above) against the knocked-down player (with appropriate defensive responses, etc).
   9. At the end of the turn, all players (starting at left of the current player) draw or discard until their hands contain seven cards.
4. Special rules:
   1. Pin cards come in two varieties (Pin / Figure Four Leg Lock and Pin / Top Rope Ring Jump).  Pins are knockdown cards, and therefore they may only be used against players who are knocked down.  If the victim of a Pin card has no Stamina Points and cannot Kick Out, he or she is eliminated.  If the victim of a Pin card has Stamina Points, then the card acts as a Figure Four Leg Lock or a Top Rope Ring Jump, doing 5 points of damage (unless defended).
   2. The Victory Pin card differs from a Pin card in that it can eliminate a player who still has Stamina Points, while a Pin card cannot (a Pin becomes a Top Rope Ring Jump or Figure Four Leg Lock in this case).  In addition, if the Victory Pin is played on a player with no Stamina Points, that player is not allowed to Kick Out of the pin, and is thus immediately eliminated.
   3. Defense cards: The Escape Headlock card nullifies a headlock move.  Likewise the Duck Punch card nullifies a punch move.  Reverse Irish Whip nullifies an Irish Whip and also acts as an Irish Whip played against the original attacker.  EXAMPLES: The California Flash plays Headlock and Turnbuckle Slam on Preston Windsor.  Windsor plays Escape Headlock and takes no damage.  On his turn, Preston declares "punch", attempting to do 1 point of damage, but Flash plays a Duck Punch card and avoids any loss of Stamina Points.  Then on a later turn, Flash plays an Irish Whip on Preston.  Preston plays Reverse Irish Whip, avoiding any damage himself and inflicting 3 points on Flash.
   4. Reverse Rope Throw responds to a rope throw move, nullifying the move and allowing the defender (if he or she chooses) to play a rope throw move in response (no second Rope Throw card is needed).  Of course the original attacker may respond with another Reverse Rope Throw card (plus a rope throw move), and so on.  EXAMPLE: Enrico Suave plays Rope Throw and Elbow Smash cards against Preston Windsor.  Preston responds by playing Reverse Rope Throw and Lariat.  Enrico then plays a Reverse Rope Throw of his own.  Since Enrico did not play a rope throw move with his reversal, no damage is done (although Preston could play yet another Reverse Rope Throw if he wished).
   5. Like Pin cards, Kick Out cards come in two varieties (Kick Out / Reverse Figure Four and Kick Out / Dodge Top Rope Ring Jump).  Either may be used to kick out of a Pin or Victory Pin (except a Victory Pin when the defender has no Stamina Points).  If you successfully Kick Out of a pin, set your Status Marker to "on your feet" and, if your Stamina Area is empty,  immediately move one or more tokens from your Reserve Area into your Stamina Area.  The Kick Out cards may also be used to defend Figure Four Leg Lock and Top Rope Ring Jump moves.  Playing a Reverse Figure Four nullifies a Figure Four Leg Lock move and acts as a Figure Four Leg Lock played on the original attacker (which he or she may be able to reverse as well).   Playing a Dodge Top Rope Ring Jump nullifies a Top Rope Ring Jump and inflicts 5 damage points on the original attacker.  Dodge Top Rope Ring Jump cards may not be themselves dodged or reversed.
   6. The Referee card nullifies a foreign object card (metal chair, wooden board, leather whip, roll of quarters, can of mace), unless the original attacker can "deck the ref."  To deck the ref, the attacker must perform one action which inflicts four points of damage (to the referee); no defensive responses are allowed to this special action.  If the attacker cannot inflict four points, the foreign object is nullified.   Otherwise, the ref is temporarily knocked unconscious and the foreign object inflicts its normal damage.  Note that the attacker, in attempting to deck the ref, is allowed to perform an action which does less than four points of damage -- this stategy can help rid your hand of unwanted cards.  Also note that the attacker is allowed to use a foreign object to deck the ref (but of course not the foreign object used in the original attack).
   7. The Ring Out card is a rope throw move, and thus is played with a Rope Throw card.   If the defender does not reverse the rope throw, damage is dealt (5 points) and the attacker (if he or she wishes) may immediately play a headlock move WITHOUT playing a Headlock card.  The defender may then play an Escape Headlock; if not, the defender takes damage from the headlock move as well.  If either the initial 5 points or the headlock move damage (if any) causes a knockdown, the attacker may then also perform the customary extra action from causing a knockdown.  EXAMPLE: The California Flash plays Rope Throw and Ring Out cards on Doctor Mindbender.  Mindbender does not reverse the rope throw, and takes 5 damage points.  Flash then plays a Backbreaker card; Mindbender does not escape the headlock, and so he takes an additional 5 damage points and is knocked down.  Flash plays a Figure Four Leg Lock as his knockdown move, doing 5 MORE points of damage.
   8. The Mace card does only one point of damage, but it also causes the victim to become knocked down.  The attacker gets the customary extra move for the knockdown.
5. Example game:  Three players, Frank "The Hawk" Hawthorne, Bruiser Brown, and The Cavalier David Starr start a game.  Frank goes first.  After drawing a card, he plays a Headlock and Backbreaker on David, for 5 points -- David does not have an Escape Headlock card.  David marks the damage by moving 5 tokens from his Stamina Area into his Turn Damage Area.  Frank draws one card to get back to seven cards in his hand.  Bruiser is next.  He draws a card, then plays a Rope Throw and Shoulder Butt (a 2-point move) on David.  David plays a Reverse Rope Throw, but no rope throw move.  Bruiser then plays his own Reverse Rope Throw, this time with a Drop Kick.  David, having wasted his reversal, takes 6 points from the drop kick and is knocked down (11 points of damage in one turn).  Because of the knockdown, Bruiser gets to take one more action against David.  Bruiser has only four cards left but he manages to play a Pin / Figure Four Leg Lock on David.  Since David has 24 Stamina Points left, the card gets played as a 5-point leg lock, rather than a pin.  However, this time the joke is on Bruiser because David plays a Kick Out / Reverse Figure Four, reversing the 5 damage points to Bruiser.  Bruiser's turn is over and both players draw to seven cards.  David takes the 11 tokens from his Turn Damage Area and puts them aside, sets his status to "on his feet", then draws a card.  David plays the Board on Bruiser.  Bruiser plays the Referee card in an attempt to avoid the 8 points of damage from the Board, but David plays a Headlock and Suplex to "deck the ref."  The 8 points from the Board plus the 5 points from the reversed Figure Four are enough to knock Bruiser down, so David gets to take an extra action against Bruiser.  David plays the Victory Pin.  Bruiser doesn't have a Kick Out, and he is eliminated from the game.  What a great move by the Cavalier!  David draws up to seven cards.  Frank's turn is next; he draws and plays an Irish Whip.   David doesn't have the Reverse Irish Whip and takes 3 points of damage, leaving him with 21.  On his turn, David doesn't like the look of his hand; he declares "punch" and Frank takes 1 point of damage, leaving him with 34.  David must discard a card to get to seven cards at the end of this turn.  Frank's turn: he plays the Chair, doing a massive 10 points on David -- there is no escape, as the Referee has already been played.  David is knocked down and Frank plays a Pin / Top Rope Ring Jump to do 5 more points.  David now has only 6 Stamina Points left.  On David's turn, he gets to his feet and plays the Mace; Frank takes only 1 point of damage but he is knocked down.  For his extra knockdown move David plays a Headlock and Body Slam for 3 more points.  Frank's turn again; he gets up and plays a Headlock and Pile Driver.   This does 6 points of damage to David, reducing him to zero Stamina Points and thus knocking him down.  If Frank had a Pin card he could attempt to end the game now, but he doesn't have one; for his extra move he chooses to "smile", rather than play a card or punch.  After Frank draws back to seven cards, David must move some tokens from his Reserve Area into his Stamina Area.  He chooses to move 3 points, leaving him with 12 in reserve.  David draws a card and plays Rope Throw and Hip Toss; Frank takes the 3 points of damage, leaving him with 27.  Frank then starts his turn with a Rope Throw and Elbow Smash.  David has no defense and again he goes to zero Stamina and is knocked down.  This time Frank has a Pin and he plays it.  David has no Kick Out and he is eliminated, leaving Frank as the winner.

Cards: