Middle Marathon

"I think moderation is important. Do just enough…" -Kim Gura

Setup

This game will be played on a track that is 15 tiles long. Each player has 4 pieces of their color (red or blue): Force, Gravity, Reflect, and Swap. There is also a neutral piece (colored purple) labeled Movement. Each player also begins with a deck of 5 movement cards: 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. When a player uses up all 5 of their movement cards, their deck is instantly replenished.

The DMO, MarcerMercer, will choose which player goes first.

Gameplay

The pieces will be racing on a track that is 15 spaces long. Each piece starts on space 1; when a piece moves past space 15, it finishes the race and is removed from the game. If a piece would move behind space 1, it moves to space 1 instead. If two or more pieces finish at the same time, the piece that goes the furthest past the finish line finishes first, the piece that goes the second furthest past the finish line finishes second, etc. If this is still a tie, then the pieces that belong to the player whose turn it currently is finish first, followed by the neutral piece, followed by the other player's pieces.

On your turn, you will play a movement card either on one of your pieces or the neutral piece. When a movement card is played on a piece, that piece will move forward a number of spaces equal to the number on the movement card. Additionally, each piece has an ability that may be triggered depending on the circumstances.

Pieces

Note that "you" refers to the player whose piece it is, not the player whose turn it is. You may only target pieces that are on the board. You may not use a piece's ability if it is off the board. I will use the symbols ✕, ↔, and ⇎ to indicate that a piece cannot move, has its movement reversed, and cannot move and has its movement reversed, respectively.

Force: Whenever you move this piece with a movement card, you must choose another piece to move the same distance in the same direction, which moves at the same time as this piece. If you use a 0 movement card on this piece, you must select a piece to be unable to move until the end of your next turn. Note that locked pieces may still have movement cards and movement applied to them; they just won’t move.

Gravity: Whenever this piece is moved, you must choose (after this piece is moved) one piece ahead of it, if one exists, and one piece behind it, if one exists. Both move 1 space towards this piece. If you use a 0 movement card on this piece then you must instead choose one piece ahead of it, if one exists, and one piece behind it, if one exists, to be moved 1 space away from this piece.

Reflect: Whenever this piece is moved by any means other than a movement card, you must choose (after this piece is moved) another piece, if a valid one exists. If this piece was moved forwards, you must choose a piece ahead of it; if this piece was moved backwards, you must choose a piece behind it. Said piece will move the same distance as this piece, but in the opposite direction. If you use a 0 movement card on this piece, you must select a piece to have its movement reversed until the end of your next turn.

Swap: If you use a 0 movement card on this piece, you must select another piece of your own color to swap positions with this one.

Movement: Whenever an odd movement card is used on this piece, it goes backwards instead of forwards. If you use a 0 movement card on this piece, you may discard up to 2 movement cards from your hand.

When you resolve a piece’s ability, if there are multiple parts to process (e.g. Gravity moving two different pieces), you process each part individually before proceeding to the next.

Winning

Each piece scores a certain number of points depending on when it finishes, shown below:

1st: 0 2nd: 2 3rd: 3 4th: 4 5th: 6 6th: 4 7th: 3 8th: 2 9th: 0

Note that placements are unique and cannot be shared.

When there are only pieces of one color, the game ends, with the remaining placements going to the pieces left on the board. Each player’s final score is the sum of the scores of the pieces of their color. Whoever has the most points wins. If this is a tie, then the player whose piece finished 5th wins. If this piece is the neutral piece, then the player whose pieces finished both 4th and 6th wins. If this player does not exist, then the player whose pieces finished both 3rd and 7th wins. If this player does not exist, then the player whose pieces finished both 2nd and 8th wins. If this player does not exist, then the DMO, MarcerMercer, wins.

Timing

Players have 1 minute per turn, with an extra 30 seconds given for each additional interaction during that turn. If an interaction happens that a player must resolve but it is not that player's turn, they will be given an extra minute instead. If a specific interaction resolution is forced, it will be resolved immediately, without addition time given. Each player also has 10 minutes of reserve time, which is automatically used in increments of 30 seconds when the normal turn timer runs out. Running out of reserve time is an instant loss.

Restrictions

You may take notes during the DM; however, the use of external tools such as calculators, programs, or spreadsheet formulas is prohibited.

Clarification: For piece abilities, you refers to the owner of the piece whose ability is being used.

Clarification: When a piece refers to moving, it means that the piece's final location is different than its initial location. In other words, a moving 0 spaces is not considered movement.

Addendum: @Marcer has chosen to go first and will be Blue.

Clarification: Distance moved for a piece is considered to be the absolute value of the difference between its starting location and its ending location. Note that ending locations may be beyond 15.

Clarification: When discarding pieces from the 0 ability of Movement, the cards are discarded at the same time. That is, you may only discard cards you currently have in your hand. However, if 0 is the final movement card in your deck and you use it on the Movement piece, you will be able to discard from a hand of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Clarification: When a piece is swapped, it is not considered to have moved.

Addendum: When targeting/moving pieces, please specify both the name of the piece (first letter is fine) and the color of it (first letter is fine).

Clarification: Pieces locked by Force’s ability can still be swapped.

Clarification: You are allowed to bring in pre-written notes into the game, though I would prefer if you tell me what they are so you don't try and sneak in like a 1000 page document or something.

Clarification: With Gravity, when you declare targets to pull, the second target may only be declared and resolved after the full resolution of the first target.

Clarification: With regards to the previous clarification, when declaring targets, restrictions on the targets being ahead/behind the piece are determined when the target is being selected, at the current location of the piece.