That's Fake News

That's Fake News is a multiplayer card game that has players trying to identify fake news. Challenge your friends by trying to convince them your headline is truthworthy.

Rule Set

Setup

Players can roll a dice and whoever gets the highest gets to play the media first. This is optional and players are free to decide who can play media first.  Each player must take 4 of the double-sided brain cell tokens and put 4 tokens in the brain drain for each player. The player who is the media must take the Media Token as this represents being the media. If the game is played with an odd number of players above 4, two players that are next to each other can share being media each turn. For instance, if player 1 is media, they will share this role with player 2. Then on the next turn players 2 and 3 will share being media, then 3 and 4 and so on.  News Article Cards are placed in the New Cards field with any previously played cards going to the bottom of the deck.

Players that have been knocked out of the game by losing all Brain Cells will still play in each round as this with preserve the voting mechanic.

 

Gameplay

There are seven key phases of That’s Fake News! All players will continue to play until there is one player left with brain cell tokens.

• Reading the News - Each round has a new player be the media. They must first draw a card from the new cards deck and hide it from other players. The player must must then say the headline out loud in a convincing way.  
• CRAP test – After the headline has been read, any player may ask to play the CRAP test. Firstly, the player must roll a four-sided dice, and the result of this roll will allow the player to ask the media one of the following, 1 – Currency, 2 – Reliability, 3 – Authority. 4 – Purpose. The player also must stack an additional token on top of the token they are playing with during the voting phase. The media will then read out the corresponding information from “The Source” section on the article card.
• Voting - After the media has read out the headline, each other player must take one (two if CRAP test taken, but only that player) of their brain cell tokens, hide it in their hands and then hide it on the play area either facing true or false. Voting must be done in secret. When placing the Brain Cell token on the playing field it must be hidden until the revealing results phase. This is done in Tabletop Simulator by created a hidden zone prior to starting the game.
• Revealing Results - When each player has done this the media must announce that all players must reveal their votes by showing their brain cell token.
• Truth - The media then reveals if the article is true or false.
• Scoring - As mentioned, each player starts with 4 brain cells and acts as a “health remaining”. When the player runs out of these points, they are unable to win the game. Points are calculated in the following way based on vote results and truth result and all players in that round will have the same score change regardless of wither they were correct personally or not. However, the player who played a CRAP test will have their results changed individually. For instance, if the player was correct but the majority was incorrect, the player is still rewarded with double points and is the player was incorrect they lose double points. All other players are still scored by the scoring guide
• Discussion – The media player is encouraged to read out the additional information on the card about the headline and this reinforces the serious purpose.
• Passing – The next player is chosen to be the media and will be the player next in a clockwise direction.