shitstirrer
Official Variants
Recommended ways to play.
Half Deck
The official introduction to Shitstirrer, and the way you'll first play when you open a deck.
Half Deck uses half of the Shitstirrer deck – just the Action and Interrupt Shitstirrers – and integrates right into whatever variant of Shithead you already know and love.
A fully-fleshed game in its own right, players could safely play Half Deck without ever moving onto Full Deck. But if you're hankering for the full rulebending Shitstirrer experience... go for it.
Full Deck
Once you've got a bunch of Half Deck games under your belt, and you're comfortable with the low-level chaos of Action and Interrupt Shitstirrers... it's time to throw Persistents into the mix.
Persistent Shitstirrers are designed to redefine what you're playing under your feet. You might be used to sevens meaning that the next player has to play even or less, but – what if sevens were high? Or threes meant that the next player had to play an odd number? Or that suddenly they didn't?
If you fancy rewriting the rules of Shithead whilst you're actually playing Shithead, then Full Deck is for you.
In Rotation
These variants shooould work, but they've not had quite enough testing to promote to official variants yet. If you're a Deckhead, then give them a go and let us know what you think!
Cold Start
Full Deck, but without any Persistents in play at the start of the game. This is the way we played the game back on its very first prototype. It can take a while to get going, and sometimes the Persistents that make an appearance early on don't create a compelling version of Shithead, but... some reckon it's the pure way to play.
Half Deck, and the pre-seeding step of the Full Deck rules, came from our experience of Cold Start not being a great way to have a strong Shitstirrer experience quickly. So perhaps a variant that's only appropriate for those that know what they're getting themselves into.
Double Deck
Shuffle your Standard Cards and your Shitstirrers together in one bug überdeck. Play the entire thing through, just like a game of Shithead.
It'll be intense, and all Actions and Interrupts are guaranteed to wind up in players' hands somewhere along the line, so... plan accrordingly.
Housebound
No Actions, no Interrupts, no dynamic Persistents. Just define a ruleset ahead of time using Persistents that you choose, and then see how it plays out. A way of exploring the possibility space of Shithead itself.
We reckon there are something like 896 billion different variants you could have a crack at... although a good number of them will be no fun at all 😂🤷♀️
Rulebenders
The other half of Half Deck. Play with just Persistents, no Actions or Interrupts. Clean and predictable... kinda.