What you Need to Play A pile of 50 tokens, beads or coins. 1 twenty-sided die for each player. Paper and pencils.   Budgeting Distribute 20 points between the following four areas. Write down these point distributions as bonus modifers (example: Actors +8). You may choose to gain additional points by taking up to -10 points worth of negative modifiers (example: Actors -8, Locations -2).   Budgeting Areas Actors Locations Props Special Effects You do not have to spend all of your points. Place leftover points into the Payoff Pool. These can later be used for Script Re-Writes and MPAA Ratings (described later).   Quirks Many directors and producers have quirks where they re-use images, characters or devices in their films. One example would be Alfred Hitchcock casting blonde women as the victims in his movies. Another would be (producer) Jerry Bruckheimer's fetish for loud explosions or nearly all of David Cronenberg's films being set in the Toronto area. As a movie-maker, choose a Quirk for each of the four Budgeting Areas. Actors can either be a specific actor or a re-curring character (the "innocent man accused of a crime" or the "plucky kid"). Locations can either be geographical places (San Francisco) or exterior/interior sets (a seedy bar, a Maine prison in the '950's). Props can be any item used in a movie (guns, video-cameras, birds). Special Effects is a catch-all category dealing with actual SFX (explosions, gore, wire-fighting) or film techniques (black & white photography, rotoscoped animation, non-linear storytelling). At the end of the movie, you'll receive five bonus points for each Quirk that makes it into the final film (even if it's someone else's Quirk that just matches your own).   How to Play Place all fifty tokens in the center of the play area. Each token represents 1 point. Roll a d20 to see who gets to start off the film. Then, that player gets to pitch a movie to the other players. Any time a new story element is introduced (an Actor, Location, Prop or Special Effect), the other players may opt to change that element before it becomes "part" of the finished film. To do this, each person who wants to make a change draws a token from the pile. Then, each player who drew a token rolls their d20 and adds/subtracts the appropiate modifier. The person with the highest roll wins all the beads and may opt to change the story element to one of his/her choosing (in which case the tokens are kept) or may place the tokens back into the pile and continue the pitch. When the tokens are all gone, each player counts their tokens, adds any points for Quirks that made it into the final film, and totals their score. High score wins.   Payoffs Points from your Payoff Pool can be used for any roll to increase that roll's score. Once spent, the points are not replaced.   Script Re-Writes Once per game, each player may call for a Script Re-Write. The players who wish to participate wager some or all of their Payoff Points, then each player rolls a d20 and adds their wager to the roll. All wagered points are lost and the high roll wins the challenge. The winner may then change any element of the pitch, including choice of Actors, Locations, Props, Special Effects or any other element (such as part of the plot or the theme of the film). Play then continues with those changes in place.   MPAA Rating At the end of the game, the pitch is given a rating by the MPAA. Players should secretly write down their suggested rating for the movie (G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17) and then reveal their ratings to one another. The same rating voted for by the most players is given to the film and those players each receive 5 additional points. To stuff the ballot box, players may secretly wager Payoff Points to gain additional votes. Every three Payoff Points nets that player an extra vote. So if one player is the only vote for a PG-13 rating and spends 6 Payoff Points, then there are actually 3 total votes for a PG-13 rating.