MARAUDING LEFTOVERS!

(a sadistic little exercise in waste-not, want-not fun
by Meera Barry)

Is your refrigerator running?
Better go catch it!
No, seriously...

      Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed have just moved in together, wherein the contents of their refrigerators have also merged. Unbeknownst to the Newlyweds, the remnants of their refrigerator come from decaying factions in the world of processed foods. While the Newlyweds live an idyllic life, their refrigerator has become a battleground...

      Your mission is to create the most toxic leftover army and take over the sharply contested lands of the refrigerator. You start with 100 points worth of the toughest, meanest, greenest leftovers, a home shelf in the refrigerator, and plenty of naive dinners-to-be ready for your corruption.

Marauding Leftovers is meant for (and thus requires) two to four players, one virtual refrigerator, two six-sided dice, some pencils and paper, and a strong stomach. None of these items are included. There will be a math quiz at the end.

The Refrigerator: (Set-Up)

The 'fridge contains 2 shelves, a crisper, a butter bin, and a meat drawer. If playing the three or four-person version, add one more shelf per player. Lowest roll on both dice translates to highest shelf. Re-roll any ties.

Roll d6+2 for the amount of food on each shelf. Roll one die for the food in the crisper with a minimum of 3, count only one small package of butter in the bin, and roll one die for the meat drawer.

The three types: Scrapables, Gapables, and totally Inedibles

Scrapables

Scrapables are foods that are in the first stages of decay. They have congealed fat, or a bit of green or white, but if you were hungry (or lazy) enough they'd probably be mostly okay if you cut the bad parts out. If you've ever looked at a leftover and said, "Um, it'll be okay after I microwave it," you've probably encountered a scrapable.

Quote: "Hey, see?" [sounds of chainsaw] "I just scraped that part right off, and the rest -- it's still chewy, even!"

Scrapables are the most common leftovers in the Refrigerator. They remain in this state for quite a while, while the chances of their being eaten grow narrower and narrower until the change happens, and the Scrapables turn...

Scrapables are generally cheap in price, and good for defense. Their overall point total is from 0 to 15.

Gapables

Gapables are leftovers that have passed the scrapable stage, and have moved into the, "Oh, my. I had meant to eat that," stage. This is where your average person just tosses the food away.

Quote: "Erm. Well. Honey, when it says best used by August of last year, and it's July now, do you think we can throw it out? The container, too?"

Gapables are the workhorses of the Marauding Leftover Armies. They generally have a foulness that works offensively, turning innocent treats into dark and disturbing remains...

Gapables can be of any point total from 20 up to 55.

Inedibles

Inedibles are the baddest of the bad. An inedible is a fruitcake your Aunt Edna sent you that you thought would last forever.. but has gone horribly wrong. (What can be worse than fruitcake? That's just it! IMAGINE THE HORROR!) They're the things wrapped up in aluminum foil on the bottom shelf in the back, behind the jar of pickles. They're the ones that got away...the ones that have an expiration date marked B.C...

Quote:"Dear? This crawling thing in the plastic container... it was dead the first time we ate it, right?"

Inedibles are the demon princes of the leftover world. They are the forces of evil that lurk deep in the depths of the Refrigerator. When good food goes bad... it becomes...INEDIBLE.

Inedibles can be of any point total from 60 on up.

CREATING YOUR ARMY

If you were paying attention, you know how many points you were given to create your minions of malicious mouldering. If you weren't paying attention, we'll give it to you again: 100 points.

These one-hundred points go into various noxious qualities of the leftovers you control in the beginning, as well as the basic food type.

ADD DESCRIPTORS

The "VERY" quality is important; it can only be added in-game, and does not count towards the total number of qualities, but it costs twice the amount of the original descriptor. (So, to be VERY Gelatinous, I need 30 points (Gelatinous at 10, plus VERY, at 2 times 10, or 20).)

HOW TO TAKE OVER THE 'FRIDGE

Sequence of Turn Events

• Explore
• Attack or Shuffle
• Determine Splash Factor (if any)
• Spend Points (if any)
• Repeat as necessary.

You have one action for every four pieces of food you control.

EXPLORATION

Remember those dice I had you roll earlier when setting up our virtual refrigerator? This is where those numbers come into play. Say you rolled an eight for your beginning shelf...well, actually, you rolled a six on one die, and added two, but it comes out to the same number. It ought to, at any rate, unless you were one of those clever people who marked your dice way back when to read a nine instead of a six on those old plastic polyhedrons that came with the Basic set. You know of what I speak. Feel guilty? Well, there's a maximum of 12 pieces of food on any shelf, anyway. So no matter how many five point biscuits you created, only the first four count. Back to the game.

You do, of course, know about your food. You don't need to explore those out...what you need to know is what kinds of other foods there are waiting for your corrupting touch. This is called your exploration move. Since we don't allow blind attacks (it'd be silly to try to corrupt the little snorting light-sensitive pig the dieting Mrs. Newlywed keeps on the second shelf) you need to explore before you can attack. On a UNCORRUPTED FOOD, this is an automatic success. You simply roll a d6 to find out what type. (From A-F, is 1-6.) For example:

Devilsfood of the Devilsfood Cake Armies makes his first exploratory venture to the uncorrupted food on his shelf. He rolls a three, which translates to a C, or a milk product. He writes it down as "cottage cheese" and marks it as having one defensive die for being UNCORRUPTED and one offensive die, as per all milk products being patently offensive to the lactose-intolerant author of the game.

Done. It was that easy. You may proceed up to the end of your actions, with each exploration counting as one action.

Exploring the foods of other players is half-automatic. Uncorrupted food always gets explored first. Then, when you are finished with the uncorrupted, you can explore corrupted food of other players.

Note: The reason you know how many items are on each shelf is because you're assumed to have been looking when the refrigerator was opened and the light turned on.

Exploring corrupted food of other players means you roll an exploration die. If the amount is under the item's defense score, then they can tell you it's whatever type of food they want. It doesn't really matter until you go protuberance to protuberance against them.

Oh, by the way -- you're allowed to name the uncorrupted food whatever you want, as long as it relates to the food group. The dairy group, for example, when explored can be cheeses, milk variants, melted ice cream... be creative!

ATTACK!

So, you want to attack, do you? You want to start off this war, like the oozing slime (or sticky or crusted or palpitating) thing you are? Good. We like foods gone bad to BE bad...to be...offensive.

Attacking and defending from attacks are all done in the same sort of way. What you want to do is roll higher than the other guy. Especially since the defender wins any ties. It's tough being moldy these days.

But, here are where some of the points you spent come into play. Let's make some hasty translations since we really don't know where to put these kinds of things:

Every time you have five points in one quality (Offense or Defense) you gain a die roll instead, UP to 2 dice and four points.

We'll explain that "UP to" business in a bit.

So, you've gone and made your translations on the inventory control sheet, and now we'll work it out.

Say you're a gritty, white, limp, gelatinous, palpitating fruit salad that's gone horribly wrong. That gives you 4 points in defense, plus three points in offense. No translation needed. Because you're a piece of fruit, you get one offensive die to begin with...which means your roll will be an automatic +3 (for your offensive points.)

The defending item is an UNCORRUPTED bowl of cottage cheese we just described in the last example. Which gives it one defending die for being uncorrupted. Not for long...

Roll your die. In the case of this example, we rolled a five. That gives us 7, total. The defender (we also roll) rolls a 3. No go.

Uncorrupted Food rerolls sixes.

Sorry, folks, but life in the 'fridge just ain't fair.

Now, pretend we lost. Just for a moment -- I know, it's not very fun being a COMPLETE AND TOTAL LOSER, but hey, think of it this way -- the guy you hated in high school will probably spend his whole life that way. If you're not out of actions, you can try attacking again...but there's a catch:

Attacking foods require one turn to rest, or all further attacks will be made at half strength.

We like to call that Xeno's Rule.

Now, defending.

Defending is pretty easy. Defending basically has you roll whatever defending dice you have against the offender. The only question you might have on this is:

"What if I don't HAVE any defending dice?"

Well, it's dumb, but it's been known to happen.

Let's say some fiendish `fridge foe has targeted your fruit salad from the above example. You have four points total in defense. And, well, that's what you have. You hope that the intruder doesn't roll over a four, 'cause if he does, your fruit salad has bit the squishy one.

That's life as a leftover. Or unlife, as the case may be.

SHUFFLING FOOD

You can use an action to move an item of food around in the refrigerator. This is of dubious strategy, requiring you to renumber the rest of your food on that shelf, but hey -- it's your action.

The other way you can shuffle food is when you want to venture off of your own shelf and onto someone else's... or into the butter bin, crisper, or meat drawer.

The trick here is that you cannot take a piece of food with you...you have to explore (1 action) and attack (2nd action) with the defending food getting a bonus because of the different location.

If you succeed, you may go about your actions normally. Note, you may attack as many times from the top shelf as you have actions for...

Oh, did I mention a catch?

Yeah, it had to be in there, somewhere...

DETERMINING SPLASH FACTOR

The Splash Factor is a purely-defensive option. If you have this in your food, and someone attacks that food, you have an opportunity to get them back, regardless if they succeed in turning you to their side.

Each point in splash factor (SpF) is worth one die roll. You roll once for each point, trying to get a six. Count how many sixes you get, because each of those count for one offensive point. Now roll as if you had made an offensive attack against your attacker at HALF STRENGTH, *plus* the number of sixes you got in SpF.

If you succeed, you have overwhelmed your attacker and their food is now yours to control.

SPENDING POINTS

Here's a little chart for you.

The catch! (Yes, there's ALWAYS a catch...)

You have to spend at least five points in each newly conquered food item.

This represents your own taint of corruption on the food...but even worse, there's a second catch! (You'd think we were trying to come up with twenty-two...)

After each quality, roll a die.
If you do not roll OVER the number of qualities in that food, that item is THROWN OUT and is OUT OF THE GAME.

Which means you cannot have more than 5 qualities in a food. The EXCEPTIONS to this rule are when you create an Inedible in the beginning of the game; the only time you have to worry about that is if you add more than one quality... and with the VERY modifier (as described way above, under the descriptors.)

Some things just don't last...if the Newlyweds have to wear biohazard suits, they'll throw things out. On the other hand, there's a defensive tactic here; four qualities, and watch the new recruit get tossed away!

YES, if your food is captured by another player...you have to describe it to them. In gruesome detail. Those points go to the conquering player.

WINNING THE GAME

You are the winner if any of the following become true:

• You are the sole survivor, all remaining leftovers are either uncorrupted or yours.
• You are the first to reach 250 active points of leftovers at any time.
  (Active meaning not ones that were tossed out, or controlled by other players.)
• You are the undisputed controller of any three places in the 'fridge.

ONE LAST THING

We recommend you set up your inventory control sheet like this:

That's how we do it, anyway.

j n m ( m n j )
"Dear, are you going to eat this knuckle sandwich,
or should I put it in the fridge?"
-- LintKing, looking at _Feng Shui_ book left on the plate.