CircleOfDeath Rules

Circle of Death, otherwise known as Around The World (or sometimes Four Kings, King of Beers), is a DrinkingGame.

This version promotes responsible drinking; exceptions to the 'no leaving the circle' rule should be made to those who are unfit for further play, and the designated driver shouldn't be playing at all.

Lay a deck of playing cards (jokers removed) in a large circle on a table, ensuring there are no gaps between cards (each card overlaps with the next).

Take it turns around a circle drawing one card at a time, with the cards having the following meanings:

• Ace: Waterfall: Everyone starts consuming. Only the Drawer may stop consuming, and you may not stop consuming until the person to your right has stopped consuming (you don't have to stop if you don't want.) Empty vessel is an automatic stop of consumption.
• 2 through 5: Allocate Consumes: Assign (don't point remember!) n consumes to any members of the circle (all 2 to GreigMcGill, one to DanielLawson and three to PerryLorier, etc)
• 6: Toilet Card: "Get Out Of Jail" card for access to the toilet. Only players with a toilet card may timeout for a toilet stop. If you don't have one, trade with someone who does ("I'll do your next X consumes for that toilet card." "2X." "OK done, I'm really busting."). Hint: Go between rounds.
• 7: The Sevens Game: Drawer starts counting at 1. Count continues to the left, incrementing by one, except that multiples of seven and numbers containing the digit 7 are not vocalized, you have to clap instead. Anyone clapping on the wrong number and/or not clapping on a 7 consumes and the subgame ends.
• 8: One Frog: Play a round of "One frog" "Jumped into" "The lake" "Plop". "Two frogs" "Two frogs".. etc. The person who eventually has to consume has to consume the number of the round they made the mistake in; ie saying "Five forsg.sdg... FUCK YOU!$$% <laughter>" results in five consumes for the frog, one for profanity, and the end of the subgame.
• 9: Rule Card: can introduce a rule to the game. Must be generally accepted by all players. A rule card can be used to break another rule.
• 9: Rhyme card: a popular one in the Banterbury HC, Drawer starts with a sentence and each player in clockwise manner must rhyme with this sentence, loser is the person who hesitates on a rhyme, does two Mal Maningers (fingers)
• 10: Question Master: persons who hold this card MUST have their questions answered with an agreed phrase, usually "Fuck you". Note: This is a permissable violation of the international courtesy rule. The next person to draw a 10 becomes the new question master; and the previous 10 is discarded.
• Jack: Thumbs Master: Hold this card; at any time you can place your thumb on the playing surface, and the last person to follow suit has to consume. Card then gets discarded.
• Queen: A Ship Came Into The Harbour: Drawer selects a category of objects/brands etc and says "A ship came into the harbour carrying a shipment of political party leaders, starting with WinstonPeters". Play continues to the left and each player must name a correct item in this category or consume to end the round. Note; the drawer can't suggest a shipment of items where there are less examples than players, ie "primary colours" in a game of 7 players. If challenged; the drawer has to name one item for each player, and then the accuser consumes.
• King: Vessel Consumption: The fourth king normally involves a vessel consumption of some sort. This variation lets the drawer of the first king suggest where the consumption must occur (within safe reason), the second selects how (ie gargling The Lumberjack Song at the same time) and the third suggests some silly modifier (such as no pants). Be warned, if you make someone suffer, there's always next round. (5 consumptions to you. Oh look, and another 5. And the fourth king this time has to do it completely naked.)

Variations

These are my favourite rules; if you have card variations list them below.

Add to Vessel: I will never play this variation myself; but you can have a empty vessel in the middle of the circle, and on each of the first three kings, the player drawing the card has to 1/3 fill the middle vessel with whatever beverage they have. Then, the player drawing the 4th king has to consume. We're all responsible adults now, aren't we? Don't accept this. You end up with beer mixed with wine mixed with vodka etc...

OrionEdwards> "This is the real rule. Contestants may also fill it will anything they like as long as it is not too putrid. Tomato sauce can be an acceptable ingredient. Salt is going too far (although I've seen it done). Contestants may put any combination of things in to fill up to their 1/3rd of the glass."

In case it wasn't made clear enough by the beginning, we're all responsible adults now and this variation is for drunken 16 year old idiots. If I want to play a nice social game I will. If I want to get munted I'll shoot myself in the head. See AlwaysMixYourOwnDrinks.

Beam Me Up Scotty: if there are no toilet cards available and someone really needs to go, they can say 'Beam me up, Scotty.' If someone else chooses to take pity on this person and says 'The transporter room is ready,', then they can leave for the toilet without penalty.

Card number variations: There are too many of these to mention, mainly because nobody can ever remember the proper variations and they are kind of randomly assigned on the night. Some play as Ace is nominate one consumption, waterfall and suchlike get moved to other cards, and (having never heard of one fron myself) one frog is not a part of it. --borland

Penalties

Breaking the circle: The first person to break the circle, ie remove a card so that there exists a card that does not overlap another card on both sides, is allocated a consumption.

Leaving the circle: Leaving without a timeout, or (especially!) attending the toilet without a toilet card, are worth a vessel upon the players' return. Note that some players are in no state to consume a vessel at this point, and so you should add it to their tab or find some other way for them to replay the games' players.

False accusation: if you accuse someone of breaking a rule and in reality they didn't, you take their penalty.