DOPAMINE BOOSTERS — "THE PULL"

Chase the high. Cash out before the crash.

A press-your-luck gambling game for 2–6 players, 18+. ~25 min at four players; ~50 min at six. It's a poker-style tournament: bet your chips, build the best High, take the pot — go broke and you're out, last player with chips wins the night.

TWO THINGS, KEEP THEM STRAIGHT

• CHIPS = your money. Like poker chips. Every chip is owned by a player. They move stack → pot → winner unless a card says otherwise — a card may send chips straight to another player, or hold them on itself. No outside bank ever adds money, and no chip ever leaves the game. Hit 0 chips and you're eliminated.
• Your HIGH = your hand for the round. A running number you build by pulling cards. It is not money — track it with counters or a notepad. A CRASH wipes it. At the showdown, the highest High takes the pot. Then everyone's High resets — it was just this round's hand.

Cards give you High (the buzz). Chips are the cash you're playing for. Chase the high; cash the chips.

Chips on cards (the closed economy): - Any chips a card takes from a player go into the pot, unless the card names another destination. Nothing is ever destroyed. - "Sweeps" is for your High; "takes" is for chips. A swept High is just erased — it was never money. - When a card pays you (ROCK BOTTOM redemptions), it pays from the pot, up to what's there. If the pot is short, you take what's left. - You can only ever lose what you have. If a card takes more chips than you own, you give everything and the rest is forgiven. - Held chips (Permanently Suspended) sit on the card until reclaimed — hold as many as you have, up to the number printed. They still count as your banked chips for every purpose: elimination, who is LEADER or LAST, and any "if you have 0 banked chips" clause. If you are eliminated, held chips go into the pot.

COMPONENTS

• The Dopamine Boosters deck (your pulls).
• Chips — split evenly among players as starting stacks (12 each). That's all the money in the game.
• High counters (any tokens / a notepad) to track each player's hand. (Not money.)
• One d6 per player. (A standard 52-card deck or a coin only when a card asks.)

SETUP

1. Everyone takes a stack of 12 chips.
2. Shuffle your 20-card deck; lay the top 6 face-down in a row, slots 1–6 — the rest stay as your face-down draw deck beside the row. When a slot empties, refill it from the top of your deck. (When a card says "the top of your deck," it means that draw stack; "your row" means the six face-up/face-down slots.)
3. Pick a dealer; the start player rotates left each round.

A ROUND

1 · Ante (blinds rise). Everyone pays the round's ante from their stack into the center pot. The ante doubles every other round — 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 … — so chips drain toward the pot and the game always ends. (If you cannot cover the ante, pay everything you have and play on — you are all-in for this round.)

2 · The Pull — build your High. On your turn, press your luck: - Roll your d6 → flip the card in that slot of your row. You don't pick the card — the die does. That's the point: you can't dodge the busts. - Do what the card says. Its number goes onto your High. (A few cards are little gambles — roll the d6 for the amount, flip a coin, flip the top of your deck — that's the casino in the cards.) - Then CHASE (roll and flip again) or CASH OUT (stop, lock your High). - Flip a CRASH → your High is wiped, turn over (unless a SAVE eats it).

Running out of cards. Resolved cards go face-up beside your row as a discard pile. If your draw deck is empty when you need to refill a slot, shuffle your discard pile to make a new draw deck. If the die lands on an empty slot that cannot be refilled, roll again.

3 · Showdown. When everyone has cashed out or busted, the highest High takes the whole pot into their stack (ties split). Clear all Highs — the pot was the prize.

4 · Eliminate. Anyone at 0 chips is out. Deal the next round. Last player with chips wins the tournament.

THE SEVEN CARD TYPES

• EUPHORIA — the ceiling. Not a score — a state of being: the streak, the perfect morning, the feeling of being chosen. A generous blessing for anyone — but every EUPHORIA card carries a printed hubris clause for whoever has the MOST banked chips (the comedown finds the winner first). The mirror of ROCK BOTTOM: the floor is kind to the broke, the ceiling is cruel to the rich.
• MEGA HIT — transcendence. Takes of 5–8, far beyond any normal HIT — but every MEGA HIT has a string attached (you must CHASE again before you may CASH OUT, or the table hears about it). The high too big to walk away from.
• HIT — the score. Adds to your High. (The First Hit — take 4; It's Due — coin flip for 6.)
• TRICK — the manipulation. The mind-games and the gambles: SAVE, PEEK, STEAL from a rival's High, GAMBLE (coin / deck flip), DOUBLE, force a cash-out.
• CRASH — the comedown. Wipes your High, ends your turn. ~1 in 5 cards.
• MEGA CRASH — the catastrophe. Doesn't stop at your High — it reaches into banked chips, hits the whole table, or lingers into future turns. A SAVE does not cancel a MEGA CRASH — it only downgrades it to a regular CRASH.
• ROCK BOTTOM — the floor. Brutal loss plus public humiliation — but every ROCK BOTTOM card carries a redemption clause for broke players (printed on the card, usually "if you have 0 banked chips"). Rock bottom is where recovery starts. The only way is up.

KEYWORDS (printed on the cards)

• CHASE — flip another card (push it).
• CASH OUT — stop; lock your High for the showdown. A card that restricts CASH OUT never traps you — it always means "CHASE that many more times, then you may CASH OUT."
• High — your hand this round (a number). A CRASH wipes it; highest takes the pot.
• BANKED CHIPS / your stack — the chips you own. (LEADER = most banked chips; LAST = fewest.)
• TIES — a tie counts against you, never for you. 1. Penalty on yourself: if you are tied for the MOST, you count as having the MOST. Every EUPHORIA hubris clause fires on all tied players. 2. Bonus on yourself: if you are tied for the FEWEST, you do NOT count as being in LAST place. No tie ever pays you. 3. Targeting someone else: when a card must pick THE leader or THE last-place player and two or more are tied, the player resolving the card chooses one of them (never yourself, if the card targets an opponent). If no player qualifies, any chips that clause would move go into the pot instead.
• GAMBLE — a coin flip or deck flip for a bigger High (the card games).
• SAVE — cancel the next CRASH you flip this turn. Any effect that ignores or cancels a CRASH counts as a SAVE.
• BUST — lose your whole High and your turn ends (what a CRASH does to you).
• WHEN CARDS DISAGREE — can't beats must. If one effect forbids or gates your CASH OUT and another orders you to CASH OUT, the restriction wins and the order is ignored. If two effects both order you to do different things, the most recently flipped card wins.
• PEEK — look at the top cards of your deck (or row) and reorder them.
• STEAL — take points off a rival's High (their hand, not their chips).
• DOUBLE — double your current High.
• HOOKED — a lasting rule on you, for the rest of the game unless the card says otherwise: at the start of your turns you must flip once before you may choose. (Some are permanent — you can never remove the risk.)
• CONTROL — take over a chosen player's turn: you make their CHASE / CASH OUT choices (or arrange the cards you both see).
• PEER PRESSURE — choose a player; on their next turn they must CHASE (or can't CASH OUT until they've flipped).
• COPY — copy a HIT you have already played this game.
• ALL-IN — flip the top of your deck: a HIT pays double, a CRASH busts you.
• RUGPULL — the leader loses half their High (round down), then you bust your own. Everyone loses; you chose this.
• THE PACK — flip the top 3 of your deck and keep the best one.

DECK BUILDING

A legal deck is 20 cards with exactly 4 crash-family cards (CRASH, MEGA CRASH, or ROCK BOTTOM — the rest any HIT/TRICK/MEGA HIT you own), of which at most 3 may be plain CRASH — the fourth has to hurt. That 20% is the tuned sweet spot — the simulator confirms it keeps the game tense, fair, and finishing on time. Copy limit: max 2 copies of any one card per deck. Mega limits: a deck may run at most 1 EUPHORIA, 1 MEGA HIT, 1 MEGA CRASH, and 1 ROCK BOTTOM. They're the spikes, not the diet. (EUPHORIA counts on the HIT side of the deck, not the crash-family side.)

OPTIONAL: WET RULES 🍺

Bust on a CRASH → take a drink. Never required; chips win the game, not shots.

WHY IT'S FAIR (the math)

Measured over 30,000+ simulated tournaments against the real 127-card set (sim_thepull_v2.py):

• No seat advantage. Positional bias is 0.9% heads-up, 1.4% at three players, 5.5% at four — inside noise. The start player rotates each round, so nobody profits from acting last.
• Skill beats greed. A player who cashes out early wins 58% against one who always pushes for more. Knowing when to walk away is the game.
• The money is closed. Every chip is owned by a player and only moves stack → pot → winner. Chip totals are conserved in 100% of simulated games — nothing is ever created or destroyed.
• It always ends. Rising antes drain the stacks: ~8 rounds heads-up, ~12 at four players, ~18 at six, and 100% of games finish.

It's a gambling game first: luck runs hot, and a sharp player who banks the right TRICKs and reads when to cash bends the odds their way.