The previous 3 post in this series cover the concept of the Doomtown Cube and designers notes on the structure of the cube and the composition of the outfit starter packs . This post simply documents the latest version of the rules I arrived at in those 3 posts.
The current version is version 1.0. This is an untested ruleset, but has had fairly significant thought put into it.
Doomtown Cube Rules – Version 1.0
A limited format for Doomtown using a combination of pre-defined starter packs and drafting from a curated “cube”. Note that the version of Doomtown I designed for is the original release in 1998. I believe most if not all of these rules could also apply if you have a later version of the game, but of course exercise whatever discretion you need to to adapt it.
What You’ll Need
For four players, you will need a cube of 300 cards divided evenly between the four suits. This size cube can technically handle a fifth player, but for each additional player after the fourt I recommend adding an additional 72 cards (again, split evenly between the suits).
You will also need at least four (and ideally more) outfit starter packs. Each outfit starter pack should consist of 1 or more outfit home, 13 dudes from the outfit, 4 basic non-unique deeds and 3 other cards that are thematic or key cards for the outfits strategy.
Choosing Outfits
To begin the draft, use one of the following methods to assign an outfit starter pack to each player (or make up your own method).
- Assign outfit starter packs randomly, without revealing who has what outfit.
- Take it in turns to review the available outfit starter packs. Then, once all players have reviewed all starter packs, determine a player order by pulling cards from a poker deck or rolling dice. In player order, each player picks the outfit of their choice without revealing what they’ve chosen. Note, this method will significantly increase play time if players are not already very familiar with Doomtown outfits and cards, and you may wish to share the outfit card lists in advance. With this method, each subsequent player has less choice, but more information about what the other players have chosen.
Drafting
There are multiple methods for drafting but the commonest is known as Booster Draft. Shuffle the cube. Sit in a circle around a table and repeat the following steps 4 times.
- Deal 13 cards face down to each player. These are the “booster packs” of cards you will draft from.
- All players now look at the packs they have been dealt, review them and draft (select) a card to add to their card pool.
- After drafting a card, pass the pack to the next player. Pass left in packs 1 and 3, and right in packs 2 and 4.
- When all packs are empty, begin a new pack or end the draft if 4 packs have been drafted.
Optional rules: It’s up to you if you want to allow players to review their outfit starter packs and drafted cards at any time, or allow this only during fixed windows (e.g. after each pack has been drafted), and if you want to impose time limits on drafting and reviewing.
Alternative draft formats: There are many variant draft formats that can easily be used for Doomtown Cube. In Rochester Draft, packs are laid out face up in front of all players, with players taking turns to choose a card (use a dealer chip to indicate who picks first, with the chip moving around the table after each pack). Grid Draft is particularly useful for two or three player drafting. Because of the higher deck size in Doomtown, adapt these rules so that twenty 9-card grids are drafted instead of eighteen.
Deck Building & Gaming
Once drafting is complete, players separately build a 52-card Doomtown deck from the pool of cards they drafted and their outfit starter pack. It’s up to you if you want to impose a time limit on deck building.
Now arrange a series of knockout, round robin or multiplayer games to decide who wins.
Doomtown Cube Card Lists
No doubt most players will prefer to build their own cube and outfit starter packs – but if not, the lists I settle on will appear here as and when I design and test them. In the meantime, you can read my early thoughts on the design of the cube and the outfit starter packs.
My cube and outfit starter lists can be found at the following Google Sheet.