Scum: The Masquerade

Scum: The Masquerade, or more simply called Masquerade, is a game that was devised to get around the ban of roleplaying games at CTY: Lancaster. The basic rules are those of Scum, also sometimes called Asshole or Capitalism, or one of many other titles. However, in 1996 some enterprising LLRTers, including Dennis Clark, Christine Lee, Noah Lesgold, Tom Lotze, and Ariel Segall, decided a simple card game wasn't good enough, and that they wanted to break a rule, namely that there are no roleplaying games (D&D, etc.) allowed at CTY. So, they stole the concept of disciplines and powers from the game Vampire: The Masquerade, incorporated them into Scum, and thus Scum: The Masquerade was born.

Rules

The the basic rules of Scum form a framework for this game. Each player (with the usual exception of the mortal scum) chooses a clan. Each clan comes with three powers or "disciplines," each of which may be used once during the game.

Clans:

• Brujah (Disciplines: Celerity, Potence, Presence)
• Gangrel (Disciplines: Animalism, Fortitude, Protean)
• Malkavian (Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Obfuscate)
• Nosferatu (Disciplines: Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence)
• Toreador (Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Presence)
• Tremere (Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Thaumaturgy)
• Ventrue (Disciplines: Dominate, Fortitude, Presence)

Disciplines:

• Animalism: Allows player to "summon" one card of value 10 or lower from the pile into their hand (or "crypt").
• Auspex: Allows player to look at another player's hand.
• Celerity: Allows a player to play one card and then immediately play another card. That player must then pass their next turn.
• Dominate: Allows a player to force another player to play a card, if possible according to the basic rules. If the "victim" is of a lower rank, the player may may force them to use it with the highest possible card, or the lowest possible card, using both basic rules and the victim's own disciplines.
• Fortitude: Allows a player to take a card back into their hand, if another card has just been placed on top of it.
• Obfuscate: Allows a player to ignore the of the card currently on top, and play a card underneath it, as long as it could have been placed on top of the preceding card. Essentially, the player may play as if the top card had not been played. This may not be used if there is only one card in the stack.
• Potence: Allows a player to increase the value of their card by 1. Note that when used on a 2, the card does not become a 3 but rather gains the ability to beat a 2.
• Presence: Allows a player to prevent one person from playing a card. The victim must pass. This cannot be used after the victim has already played a card.
• Protean: Allows a player to increase or decrease the value of a card by 1, in order to play it. Thus, a King and Queen may be played as if they were a pair the same value.
• Thaumaturgy: Allows a player to apply any of the other standard disciplines, but only to hearts. For instance, the player may use Presence if all the cards the "victim" was going to play are hearts.

A more thorough set of the rules, as written by the original creators of the game, can be found here.