For20 Cards is a turn-based card game for 2 to 5 players, the first player that reaches 20 or more stoner points wins the game.

To gain stoner points a player has to “smoke” material cards with tool cards.

Action and out-of-turn cards can be used to mess around with the normal flow of the game and with other players.

Watch the “how to play” video here.

Cards

There are two separate decks: 

• Material deck: which contains 60 material cards
• Playing deck: which contains 26 actions, 26 tools, and 8 out-of-turn cards, collectively known as playing cards (60 in total)

All the cards with their detailed descriptions are listed in the cards page.

Materials

Get stoned by smoking material cards and gain the number stoner points carried with the card.

Or temporarily rotate a material card to earn action coins ( see Gaining action coins)

Weed materials can only be smoked with weed or combo tools.

Hash materials can only be smoked with hash or combo tools.

Special materials can be used with any tool.

Some materials have an ability described in the card, that is activeted on specific condition.

Tools

Cards that are needed to smoke materials.

There are two kinds of tools:

• Papers : can be used just once and then dumped, e.g paper or blunt.
• Legendary : after the first use they stay on the player area and each has a different ability that can be exploited by the player who owns it.

Material type allowed: Weed , hash , or combo .

Min Max: Each tool has a minimum and a maximum allowed stoner points range that can be smoked each time.

Recycle: dump a tool from your hand to earn action coins .

The material type shall be compatible with the tool type to be smoked (see Smoking).

Actions

The actions are used during a turn and they affect you or other players (see Playing Actions).

Cost: how much to pay to play the action, action coins needed to pay

Recycle: dump an action card from your hand to earn action coins.

Out-of-turn

The out-of-turn cards can only be used when it’s not your turn.

Discard cost: the number of cards to be dumped in order to pay for the out-of-turn effect, they must be taken from your hand.

There are three kinds of out-of-turn cards:

• Short memory: block any action and make it useless. This is effective only against actions, it cannot stop smoking or special abilities.
• Nice tool!: steal a tool while another player is smoking it, and put it on your area. It also stops any abilities of the tool and material being smoked.
• Pass it!: smoke a material that was being smoked by another player, and put the material in your smoked stack. It also stops any abilities of the tool and material being smoked.
• Drug test!: smoking is forbidden for the current player until the end of its turn. You Can play this as soon as a player declares a smoking move.

Recycle: dump an out-of-turn from your hand to earn action coins .

Game mechanics

Preparation

The playing field: here’s an example for 3 players:

1. Shuffle the two decks, materials and playing cards.
2. The decks are placed face-down in reach of all players.
3. Deal 5 playing cards per player. Each player has now a hand with 5 cards each.
4. Select the first player by rolling a dice or any other desired method (e.g the most stoned), each player plays his turn and then passes the game to the left, i.e. in a clockwise fashion.

Turn

At the beginning of the turn:

• Draw one material from the material deck and put it on your reserve face up, all the other players must be able to see your reserve.
• Draw one playing card from the playing cards deck and keep it in your hand (it should be known only to you).

Then you can perform every one of the following moves as long as your cards allow you to do so:

• Smoke material card(s) with tool card(s), given that you have the right materials and tools (see Smoking).
• Accumulate action coins to pay for actions  (see Gaining action coins).
• Play action cards, given that you have gained the necessary amount of action coins in the current turn (see Playing actions).

It’s a good practice to declare what you are doing so other players can check if you are not breaking any rules, and they can use an Out-Of-Turn to counter your move.

Smoking

Use materials and tools to smoke. Each smoked material card goes on top of the smoked stack, which serves also as a scorekeeper. 

The smoked stack shall be kept ordered with the last smoked material card on top. 

If a combination of material cards is smoked the one with more stoner points is placed on top of the smoked stack.

In order to smoke: 

• If you don’t have the right tool on your area: place a tool from your hand to your area to smoke. If it’s a paper tool dump it after smoking, else keep it on your area.
• If you already have a suitable tool: you can use it to smoke.

Just ONE new tool per turn can be put down from your hand (but you can gain more tools per turn with the action cards!).

The tool(s) should be compatible with the material(s) type. Special materials can be smoked with every tool.

The total  stoner points sum of the material(s) smoked should be in the tool(s) allowed  min-max range. 

Paper tools can be used together to smoke materials with a bigger stoner points value. When two or more papers are combined the MIN (MAX) values are summed up; in other words, the MIN (MAX) of the combined tool is the sum of the MINs (MAXes) of the papers used together.

Here are some permitted smoking moves:

And here are some examples of forbidden smoking moves with related violation:

Legendary tools have an ability described on the card; usually, the ability trigger is described on the card.

When using a legendary tool remember to check for his ability! And also the ability of the material

A material card that has been rotated to gain action coins can’t be smoked in that turn (unless you have a tool with a ability that explicitly allows that).

A player can put down only one new legendary tool from his hand in a turn.

A tool can be used only once per turn for smoking unless you have a tool with a ability that explicitly allows that. After use, rotate the tool card to signal that has been used.

Other players can interfere with your smoking move with an out-of-turn card.

Gaining action coins

Action coins can be gained by either by

• Rotating a material card by 90 degrees to accumulate action coins , the material card is locked for the current turn and cannot be smoked!

• Dumping a playing card from the hand, see the “coins” value on the bottom-right of the playing card.

You can use more material cards to pay for a single action.

You can pay for an action with a material card with more action coins , the remaining action coins can be used to pay for other actions. 

You can accumulate as many action coins as you want in the current turn as long as you have a suitable material or playing card in hand.

Action coins not used are lost at the end of the turn.

Playing actions

To play action the player must have the necessary action coins , when the action is played the cost is deducted from his currently available action coins count.

If an action destroys (dumps) a material card, the material card goes to the material cards dump. It can eventually be restored by another action (e.g. Dealer’s Cove)

This happens also when an action destroys a material from a player’s smoked stack, the material goes in the material cards dump.

If an action destroys (dump) a tool card, the tool card goes to the playing cards dump. It can eventually be restored by another action (e.g. Scavenger)

After being played, the action card goes into the playing cards dump.

An action can be stopped by another player using the out-of-turn card: Short memory.

Legalize and Police

When Legalize action takes effect it must be removed from the game (i.e. it can be used only once in the whole game), and after that the Police can’t be used as action but only dumped to gain action coin or to pay for an out-of-turn.

End of the turn

The current player can end his turn whenever he wants even if there are still some available moves to perform.

If there are no more allowed moves, the player is forced to end the turn.

At the end of the turn, the player declares his current stoner points score and rotates back any material card used to earn action coins and tools used that turn.

Any remaining action coin is lost at the end of the turn.

End of the game

If the current player is the last of the round (i.e. before the starting player) and one of the players has 20 or more stoner points , at the end of his turn proceed with the following rules.

The player that reaches 20 or more stoner points in his smoked stack at the end of one complete round wins the game (i.e. all the players must play the same amount of turns before declaring a winner).
If two or more players have 20 or the same amount of stoner points the game continues until at the end of a round there is only one player with the highest count of stoner points .