Lighten the Load

What you need

• One complete personal deck of sixteen printed cards per player: exactly two copies of every value 1–8

• One player mat and twelve-round record per player, one shared chosen manifest and pencils

• Scissors and opaque scrap-paper backs or sleeves if faces show through; no ordinary playing deck is needed

Set up

1. Choose shared manifest A, B or C and leave its full twelve-target sequence visible. Use A first; B and C supply two further schedules. Everyone uses the same manifest.

2. Give each player their own sixteen-card deck. Label backs by player if needed, without identifying values. Never combine decks. Shuffle each personal deck face down. Start with empty HAND, DISCARD, CARRY and REMOVED areas.

3. Put one personal record beside each mat. All four trimming boxes start unused. Trimming is optional, limited to once per round and four times per whole game.

How to play

1. A changing deck. Complete twelve deliveries, one per manifest row, trying to total that row’s target. Your cards cycle through a draw pile and discard pile. You may keep one unused card for the next delivery, and permanently remove up to four unwanted cards over the game. Nobody buys cards, gains card powers or changes another player’s deck.

2. Draw to four. At the start of each round, move your CARRY card, if any, into your hand, then draw until you hold exactly four cards. If the draw pile empties while drawing, shuffle only your own DISCARD pile to make a new draw pile and finish the draw. Do not shuffle your current hand, CARRY or REMOVED cards. Drawing can straddle a reshuffle. There are always at least twelve cards still in your personal cycle, so a legal game cannot run out of cards to draw.

3. Choose one delivery. Privately select any nonempty subset of your four cards whose sum is no greater than the current target. Use each selected card once, adding its printed value; no subtraction, multiplication, split values or wild cards. Alternatively select no cards and pass for 0. Place selected cards face down and say ready; you may change them until everyone is ready. Once locked, reveal deliveries together. Keep unselected cards private.

4. Score the total. A delivery exactly equal to the target scores 3. A nonempty delivery exactly one or two below the target scores 1. Any smaller nonempty delivery scores 0, and a pass scores 0. Several legal subsets may give the same score; choose which cards you want to leave available. Check each total aloud in seating order, without changing anyone’s locked choice. Put all delivered cards into your own face-up DISCARD pile after checking and record the round score.

5. Trim, then carry. From your unselected cards, you may move exactly one card face up to REMOVED and cross off one unused trimming box. You may do this after a successful delivery, a low score or a pass. You cannot remove a delivered card, a card in the draw or discard pile, or a card belonging to someone else. REMOVED cards never return during this game. Next, you may keep exactly one remaining unselected card face down in CARRY, or keep none. Discard every other unselected card. You may carry the same card through several rounds if you leave it unused each time. Trimming never earns or costs points directly.

6. Begin the next row. Everyone finishes trimming and carrying before moving to the next target. Other players’ scores, discard piles, removed cards and remaining trimming boxes are public; hands, carries and unrevealed draw order are private. You may count visible cards but may not look through a face-down pile or reorder it. Public arithmetic help is welcome; each player makes their own choices.

7. Errors and illegal deliveries. If an oversize total or another illegal selection is found after locking, that delivery scores 0 and all selected cards still go to its owner’s discard pile. The player may trim or carry only from the originally unselected cards, as usual. If the hand size is wrong before locking, fix it: draw missing cards, or return excess cards unseen and shuffle the draw pile. If known excess cards were inspected, mix the whole hand back into the draw pile and draw the required hand size again; retain the fact that these cards were seen. If a deck-ownership or card-count error cannot be reconstructed before the next draw, that player finishes as practice and is excluded from comparison scores. Correct recorded addition from the retained score record whenever possible.

8. Finish twelve deliveries. After scoring row 12, stop; there is no reason to trim or select a carry after the last score. Add the twelve row scores for 0–36. Cards left in any area and unused trimming boxes earn no bonus. Highest total wins; equal totals share the win. Reset to all sixteen cards before another game, including every card previously removed.

Ending and ties

• Each manifest supplies twelve public targets and can be replayed with newly shuffled personal decks. Try A, B and C as separate games; restore every removed card each time.

• Removing a card can help some future hands and harm others; no deck composition or score target is claimed optimal. Automated card-conservation and scoring checks are not a live group playtest. The duration is an estimate.

Make room for everyone

• Use large value labels and read revealed totals aloud. Cards do not have suits or color-dependent information.

• Calculators and written sum trials are allowed. There is no timer, fast-player bonus or penalty for thinking time.

• A helper may shuffle and hold a player’s private hand, choosing only cards that player names. Larger separate envelopes can replace piles when cards are difficult to handle.

Bring it back to the table

• Use manifest A, then B, then C in separate games, restoring all sixteen cards and shuffling each personal deck before every start. The full future target sequence is always available for planning.

• On a repeated manifest, note which values you trimmed and which carried cards actually helped. Try a different deck shape rather than treating any value as universally bad; draws add variation and the game supplies no guaranteed best trimming recipe.

ROUND & REVEL / Lighten the Load / PLAYER MATERIALS

Printable materials

Print single-sided at 100% size. Cut only the pieces described in setup; leave boards and reference sheets whole. Check the print preview before printing.