Only the most ruthless, imaginative, and power-mad sadists in the galaxy have what it takes to seize command of an Imperial Star Ship. So you have that going for you. Even if you are just an Ensign. For now.
The Keptin Must Die! is a solo journalling game you play along with a game of standard Solitaire. As you lay out the cards, you'll scheme, bribe, and conspire to assassinate The Keptin and rise in the ranks. If you think your plan is good enough, go for it! Or bide your time and savor the thrill of the hunt.
Wealth, power, prestige, sex... it can all be yours!
But first, The Keptin must die!
To play, you'll need:
- A deck of 52 cards, jokers removed
- 2 six-sided dice
- A notebook or other journalling medium
- A viscious streak waiting to be indulged
That's it!
Begin by shuffling the deck.
Now find a Benefactor. Do this by pulling the top card. (As an Ensign, you may only pull one card when looking for a Benefactor. As you rise in rank, more cards become available.)
This will be your Benefactor, the person who inspired you to mutiny and kill The Keptin in the first place, provided you access to resources, and put you on the path to glory in the Imperial Fleet. Card in hand, consult the following tables:
| Card Value | Your Benefactor |
|---|---|
| Ace (1) | You, yourself, by your bootstraps |
| 2 | Your second cousin on your mother's side |
| 3 | Your humiliated parent |
| 4 | Your best friend from the Imperial Academy |
| 5 | A zealot who seems to know the future |
| 6 | An influencial "businessman" in the sector |
| 7 | A rival Keptin from their old days at the Academy |
| 8 | The military governor of a planet |
| 9 | An attache to an Imperial Senator |
| 10 | A family member attached to a major house |
| Jack (10) | Lord or Lady of a major house |
| Queen (10) | The Emperor's personal consort |
| King (11) | The Emperor's private secretary |
| Card Suit | Your Benefactor's Motive |
|---|---|
| Hearts | Betrayal of a personal relationship |
| Clubs | Brooking favor with the powers that be |
| Diamonds | Reneging on a business deal |
| Spades | Avenging a death at The Keptin's hands |
Open your journal to a new page and make note of your benefactor and their motive in helping you. This is the first page in your Mutineer's Log. Your benefactor will play a crucial role in deciding whether a plot is worth trying, or whether you should go back to the drawing board.
You also need personal motive. Pull a card and make note of the suit as described above. There you go.
Put all the cards back in the deck (no jokers!) and re-shuffle.
You're ready to play.
But first, it might help to know what's at stake.
Each card and suit represents a critical part of your plot to kill The Keptin.
| Suit | Implications |
|---|---|
| Clubs | Weapons and Traps with which to kill The Keptin |
| Diamonds | Bribes and Promises made to encourage allies |
| Hearts | Minions and Co-conspirators who will back you up |
| Spades | Killing Grounds where The Keptin will meet their doom |
| Value | Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ace | Your bare hands. | The common yearning for liberty among the people. | Curious bystanders. | I dunno... a hallway? |
| 2 | An actual club. Like, a big stick. | Portfolio exposure. | A guy who knows a guy. | Shuttle bay. |
| 3 | A fancier stick with a pointy end. | A promise to whisper in the right ear. | The ship's cook. | Mess hall. |
| 4 | Asphyxiation | A promise not to whisper in the wrong ear. | An Academy instructor who remembers The Keptin. | Observation deck. |
| 5 | Long term exposure to subtle radiation. | Credits. Lots of credits. | One of The Keptin's cast-off lovers. | Recreation suite. |
| 6 | A concealed explosive. | A sack full of exotic alien goods. | A crewmate who was passed up for promotion. | Turbolift C. |
| 7 | An exotic chemical compound. | Safe passage off the ship. | The transporter chief. | Transporter room. |
| 8 | A ray gun. | A stake in a promising business venture. | An ambitious Bridge Officer. | Firing practice range. |
| 9 | An experimental virus. | A favor to be decided on later. | The ship's Chief Medical Officer. | Medical Bay. |
| 10 | A severe equipment malfunction. | Liberation of a loved one from prison. | The Keptin's personal bodyguard. | The Keptin's secure quarters. |
| Jack | A BIG ray gun. Like, a portable black hole generator or something. | Guaranteed promotion. | The ship's Executive Officer. | The bridge. |
| Queen | A mysterious alien artifact that does God-only-knows-what. | A small ship of one's own and a fresh start. | The Keptin's current consort. | At an official function in front of a visiting dignitary. |
| Value | Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades |
The Solitaire game represents your patient-but-opportunistic gathering of forces to take The Keptin down. Perhaps The Keptin--being a paranoid bastard who is always supicious of everybody--suspects that something is up, but nothing leads to you directly. Yet.
Deal out and play a game of Solitaire. Refresher rules are included at the end of this document. Play until the Solitaire rules indicate you are done.
You must make any available move you see on the field before the game concludes. If you discover that you missed a legitimate move because you didn't see it, that's okay--just don't deliberately ignore a move that might otherwise hamper you. It is your duty to the Empire!
Keep in mind that the order in which you make those moves is up to you. Pay attention to your options and plan carefully.
Your strategy is twofold:
- build the most powerful chains of cards you can in the field without having the King involved
- move as many cards to the foundation piles as you can
A chain is only as powerful as its highest value card. But if The Keptin (represented by a King) sees you getting too powerful, everything you've done will go under the Keptin's control. But that can be useful too...
A King in play represents The Keptin's heightened paranoia as you scheme. Play any Kings as normal according to the solitaire rules. Any stacks moved to a King fall under The Keptin's control, and you cannot use them in your plot.
You must play eligible stacks onto King cards as per the Solitaire rules. Similarly, you must move a King to an eligible empty slot. The Keptin is in charge of the ship (for now) and will not be denied.
A short stack under The Keptin deprives you of very powerful cards! However, longer stacks are more unwieldy and actually take power away from The Keptin.
A "chain" is any column of face-up cards with more than one card in it or with a King in it. The Ace stacks at the bottom all count as chains as well, even if they only have an Ace on them.
Chains beginning with a King belong to The Keptin. Any other chains belong to the mutineer.
Here is a field at the end of play. Columns are identified A-G for reference. At the bottom A-D are the foundation piles (also called "build piles") with any cards the Players has captured. ("?" represents face-down cards.)
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K ♠ | K ♥ | ? | ? | ? | 4 ♦ | ? |
| Q ♦ | ? | 6 ♠ | ? | 3 ♣ | ? | |
| J ♣ | ? | ? | ? | |||
| 10 ♦ | 3 ♦ | 10 ♠ | ? | |||
| 9 ♠ | 9 ♦ | ? | ||||
| 8 ♥ | 8 ♠ | ? | ||||
| 7 ♥ | 7 ♦ | 6 ♥ | ||||
| 6 ♣ | 5 ♣ | |||||
| 5 ♦ | 4 ♥ | |||||
| 3 ♠ | ||||||
| 2 ♦ | ||||||
| ♣ | ♦ | ♥ | ♠ | |||
| A | A | 2 |
Columns A, B, E, and G all have chains. The single non-King cards in C and D do not count as chains because there is only one face-up card. Face-down "?" cards do not count as chains in any case. Foundation piles always count for the Mutineer, even if there is just one card, so A♣, A♥, and 2♠ are their own chains. (The empty Diamond build pile is shown for clarity.)
- The Keptin's hand always contains the lowest cards of their chains.
The Keptin's chains are A and B, because they start with a King (even though B only has one card, that card is a K, so it counts).
Find the card with the lowest value in each of the Keptin's chains. In column A this is 8 and in column B this is K. The card values always belong to the King of that suit, thus the 7 ♥ in A is considered to be 7 ♠ instead because the K is ♠. A K by itself is always its own suit.
It is very important to keep this in mind:
- The K's suit rules the chain.
Track the cards in The Keptin's chains by suit, thus:
| Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keptin: | K | 7 |
- Keptins get an automatic 10 in any suit that is not represented in the Keptin's hand.
- Keptins must keep the lower value if it is already in their hand.
Thus the 8 doesn't change, but two new 10s are added:
| Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keptin: | 10 | 10 | K | 7 |
This is the Keptin's hand.
- The Mutineer's hand always contains the highest value cards from the tops of their chains.
The Mutineer's chains are E, F, and G because they are multiple cards without any Kings. Also belonging to the Mutineer are the contents of the foundation piles. These are all considered when finding the tops of the chains.
First, find the top of the chains in the field. The highest value card of chain E's is 10♠; chain F's is 4♦, and chain G's is 6♥. Track by suit as before:
| Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutineer: | 4 | 6 | 10 |
Next, consider the foundation piles. If foundation piles have cards of any suit not already represented in the hand, add them in.
| Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutineer: | A | 4 | 6 | 10 |
Don't forget the Benefactor card! (You did remember to pull one upon receiving your commission, didn't you?)
In this example case: Let's say this Mutineer pulled J♦.
| Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | Benefactor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mutineer: | A | 4 | 6 | 10 | J of diamonds |
Note that the Benefactor goes into their own column and keeps the suit of the card. This helps when fleshing out the details of the plot, as below.
You must now put your hand together into a workable Plot. Refer to What the Cards Mean above and work out the details in your Mutineer's Log.
The example hand involves:
- A♣: Your bare hands.
- 4♦: A promise not to whisper in the wrong ear.
- 6♥: A crewmate who was passed up for promotion.
- 10♠: The Keptin’s secure quarters.
- J♦: A Lord or Lady of a major house regarding a business deal that went sour
How could all these elements be brought together to kill The Keptin? Perhaps you could blackmail that crewmate with details that would otherwise show up on their next performance review: details the house noble will share with you. Maybe the crewmate can distract the Keptin's guard at a critical moment, allowing you to sneak into The Keptin's quarters? Then you just pummel away? Not the craziest plan ever...
Be as brief or verbose as it takes. Draw schematics. Cross out bits that don't work or need improving, within the constraints of the cards in your hand. Doodle. Map the ship's deck to plan your ambush. Indulge yourself.
But keep in mind: you haven't won yet.
Up until now, your treacherous scheming has all been safely tucked away in your imagination. Now you have to decide whether it's safe to act.
And that means rolling the dice. Risky, to say the least. If The Keptin survives, you will definitely be found out, tortured, killed, and thrown off the ship... possibly even in that order. Are the odds really in your favor?
Let's find out.
- Benefactor cards can replace lower value cards of the same suit.
- Benefactor cards add 1 to equal or higher valued cards of the same suit.
The 4♦ is less than the Benefactor's J♦, so replacing is allowed.
| Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | Benefactor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keptin: | 10 | 10 | 11 | 7 | (none) |
| Mutineer: | 1 | J | 6 | 10 | (replaced the 4♦) |
Convert any face cards to their value as indicated earlier: J and Q are worth 10, K is worth 11, Aces are worth 1.
From our examples above, we get:
| Clubs | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | Benefactor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keptin: | 10 | 10 | 11 | 7 | (none) |
| Mutineer: | 1 | 10 | 6 | 10 |
Now total them up.
| Total | |
|---|---|
| Keptin: | 10 + 10 + 11 + 7 = 38 |
| Mutineer: | 1 + 10 + 6+ 10 = 27 |
One more thing to consider: Luck. If you commit to this plan, you'll roll a 2d6 and add the result to the lowest total so far. Usually this is the Mutineer. But if the pre-roll totals are tied, apply the roll to The Keptin's total.
Whoever has the highest total after the roll will win. And if the result after the roll is a tie, The Keptin wins.
- If you roll the dice, you are committed to the outcome.
- If you don't roll, you can start over with a new plan.
- When you roll, add the result to whoever's total is lowest.
- The Keptin always wins ties, pre- or post-roll.
- If you don't go through with it, you live to fight another day. Re-shuffle the deck and start a new plot.
So make the choice: take the risk, or go back to the drawing board?
The Mutineer above has 27 vs. The Keptin's 38. That means the Mutineer would have to roll greater than a 11 on the dice to win. After all, less than 11 would make an obvious failure. 11 exactly would set the totals to 38 vs. 38, and The Keptin always wins ties. Only a 12 on the dice would give the Mutineer greater than The Keptin's 39.
The Mutineer would probably do well not to roll, head back into the shadows, and try another plan.
The only victory better than winning by luck is to win by turning The Keptin's own plans overwhelmingly against them.
If every card on the field has ended up in your foundation piles and the field is clear, including all the Kings, then you have truly undone The Keptin's private little empire! Don't it feel good? Word of your remarkable ascension may even reach the ears of the Imperial Court. (Is that a good thing...?)
So! Not only do you get your promotion as expected, but when you Sweep the Field you may also draw a one-time-only extra Visible card when choosing your next Benefactor. (See Promotion below.) More choices, more power. Just this once.
(Psst! If you're The Keptin and you Sweep the Field, refer to the special Keptin's rules below to get a Benefactor!)
Upon promotion from Ensign through Executive Officer, your Benefactors will come and go. Their motivations were against The Keptin whom you just dispatched. But new Keptins offer new grievances.
- Discard your current Benefactor. They got what they wanted.
As you rise in rank, more Benefactors come to you looking for favors. However, Benefactors expect fast replies and don't like to hang around waiting for you to make up your mind.
The process is simple. Draw as many cards as are Visible according to your new rank. Each is a potential Benefactor. You may only see as many Benefactor cards at once as your rank can have Visible in the chart. If a Benefactor is not for you, discard it and draw again, limiting your Visibility and drawing only as many cards in total as befits your rank.
- Once a potential Benefactor is discarded from Visibility, they are gone.
- You may only choose one Benefactor per rank.
- Sweeping the Field temporarily grants you +1 to Visibility.
| Rank | Visibility | Total Draws |
|---|---|---|
| Ensign | 1 card | 1 |
| Lieutenant | 1 | 2 |
| Lt. Commander | 2 | 2 |
| Commander | 2 | 3 |
| Executive Officer | 3 | 3 |
| Keptin | * | * |
The Keptin has special rules for Benefactors and promotion. See The Keptin's section below.
For extra fun, write up some backstory about your Benefactor in your log. How and where did you meet? Why do they want The Keptin dead? How do they fit in with your plans?
A newly-minted Lieutenant can pick from 2 potential Benefactors, but can only have one visible at a time. She draws her first card: 5♠. Thinking she can do better, and knowing she has 2 draws in total, she takes the risk and discards the 5♠. She makes her second, final draw. This time she gets a 7♦. Better!
Our Lieutenant is won again and is now Lt. Commander. She can now have two potential Benefactors visible at a time, though she is still limited to two total draws. She pulls twice and puts them side-by-side: 4♥ and 9♠. The choice is obvious.
Special rules apply to being The Keptin. That's why you want to be The Keptin, of course!
- Every conspiracy against you must be dealt with.
The opposing Mutineer does not choose whether to go against you or not; they commit no matter the risk. Every Solitaire game represents a mutiny you must meet head on. But you can assume that you know the details of each one as they come out.
- The Keptin's rules in the Solitaire game apply to you now instead of the Mutineer's. (See rules above: The Keptin's Defense.) Hey, it's good to be The Keptin!
- When a mutiny begins, the opposing Ensign draws a Benefactor card as usual, and its value applies to their final score accordingly.
- You do not draw a Benefactor upon assuming the Captain's rank...
- ... unless you just Swept the Field (see rules above). If so, you can draw 4 potential Benefactors for Visibility and pick the one you want.
Use that Benefactor on your behalf as if they were supporting you as a Mutineer yourself. Keep the them as long as you keep winning games. Think of them less as Benefactors and more as Loyal Minions. Or someone who owes you big time. Or someone trying to keep you where they can see you.
- Of course, Sweeping the Field as Keptin means the Mutineer just beat you handily. Oops.
- When you win, you remain The Keptin and do not promote in rank. As Keptin, your goal is to fend off ambitious Mutineers for as long as you can while pursuing the fruits of power.
- When you lose, you are executed and lose everything. Just like you forced onto The Keptin when they lost.
- Your Mutineer's Log is now the Keptin's Log. Describe your underlings' pathetic schemes to overthrow you and how you easily crushed them. Punish any of their allies if you feel like it will make an impression. The crew must be kept in line.
As you maintain your Keptin's log, disturbing conspiracies will certainly emerge. Can you really trust that Transporter Chief who came over to your side at the last minute? Did your personal food taster really just "happen" to come down with the Altairian flu before lunch? And the Navigator is looking awfully smug lately...
Write it all down. Keep track. No detail is too small to crack a plot against you (you!) wide open. Perhaps the former Keptin wasn't so paranoid after all...