Named Complicity — Worked Example

A scripted game to read against the print-and-play kit — same numbers, same card names. Watch the anonymous reveal produce a public trail, and the Whistleblower deduce a hoarder from it.

The table

Four players. Each has a public institution (face-up) and a secret predator (face-down) — except Sam, who is dealt the Whistleblower instead of a predator. The secret column is shown here for you, the reader — at the table it's hidden.

Player	Public institution (guards)	Secret role (drains)
Mara	Cybersecurity Firm — guards Cyber	Hacker — drains Cyber (the guard who is the thief)
Dev	News Outlet — guards Narrative	Bank Robber — drains Operational
Lena	Stock Exchange — guards Market	Short Seller — drains Market (also a guard-thief — but see round 2)
Sam	Energy Grid Operator — guards Operational	Whistleblower — the hidden conscience

Pillars start Cyber 7 · Market 7 · Operational 7 · Narrative 7 (max 10). Collapse if any hits 0. Each predator has two distinct setup Drips (played in order — the chain arms after the second) and a Strike signature. At the table is the shuffled, anonymous log everyone sees; behind the screens is who actually played what; Sam's notepad is the conscience reasoning over the public trail alone — she has no private information anyone else lacks. Sam takes no card each round; she is simply watching, holding her one accusation for when she's ready.

Round 1

Behind the screens:

Mara → Targeted Breach (Drip 1) on Cyber · −1 Cyber, +2 paper
Dev → Shore up Narrative, her own guarded pillar · +4 (own-pillar Support bonus)
Lena → Activist Short (Drip 1) on Market · −1 Market, +2 paper
Sam → holds. Watching.

At the table (shuffled — actor unknown):
Targeted Breach → Cyber · Shore up → Narrative · Activist Short → Market

Resolve: Cyber 7−1=6 · Market 7−1=6 · Operational 7 · Narrative 7+4=10 (capped) = 10. Decay (lowest — Cyber and Market tie at 6; Cyber decays): Cyber → 5. Yield (lowest pillar Cyber 5 → Stable band, +1 per 6 held): all hold < 6 → +0.

Pillars: C 5 · M 6 · O 7 · N 10. Held: Mara 2 · Dev 0 · Lena 2. Banked: none.

Sam's notepad: "A quiet round. Cyber took a breach, Market a short position, and someone shored Narrative hard — probably its own guard, that's what the bonus is for. Nothing to read yet; one data point each."

Round 2

Behind the screens:

Mara → Supply Chain Compromise (Drip 2) on Cyber — her chain is now armed (2/2) · −1 Cyber, +2 paper
Dev → Data Heist (Drip 1) on Operational · −1 Operational, +2 paper
Lena → Shore up Market, her own guarded pillar · +4 (still hasn't drained a second time — chain stays at 1/2)
Sam → holds. Watching.

At the table:
Supply Chain Compromise → Cyber · Data Heist → Operational · Shore up → Market

Resolve: Cyber 5−1=4 · Market 6+4=10 (at max) · Operational 7−1=6 · Narrative 10. Decay (lowest — Cyber 4): Cyber → 3. Yield (lowest pillar Cyber 3 → Stable, +1 per 6 held): all hold < 6 → +0.

Pillars: C 3 · M 10 · O 6 · N 10. Held: Mara 4 (chain armed) · Dev 2 (chain 1/2) · Lena 2 (chain 1/2).

Sam's notepad: "Cyber's taken two quiet, distinct hits now — Targeted Breach, then Supply Chain Compromise. That's not random noise, that's a build-up: a Hacker's signature chain, and it reads armed. And the tell: Mara is the Cybersecurity Firm — she publicly guards Cyber — yet it's bled twice and she's never once shored it up. Compare Lena: also drains what she guards, but she just spent a turn defending Market. A guard who occasionally guards is one thing. A guard who never does, while her pillar keeps bleeding on a clean two-step pattern, is the one holding the knife."

Round 3

Behind the screens:

Mara → Targeted Breach again (a third Drip — armed but not yet declared; padding the pile, holding Zero-Day Exploit in reserve) · −1 Cyber, +2 paper
Dev → Inside Job (Drip 2) on Operational — her chain now armed · −1 Operational, +2 paper
Lena → Distress Position (Drip 2) on Market — her chain now armed · −1 Market, +2 paper
Sam → this is the round she moves.

At the table:
Targeted Breach → Cyber · Inside Job → Operational · Distress Position → Market

Resolve: Cyber 3−1=2 · Market 10−1=9 · Operational 6−1=5 · Narrative 10. Decay (lowest — Cyber 2): Cyber → 1. Yield (lowest pillar Cyber 1 → Fragile, +1 per 2 held): Mara 6→+3=9 · Dev 4→+2=6 · Lena 4→+2=6.

Pillars: C 1 · M 9 · O 5 · N 10. Held: Mara 9 · Dev 6 · Lena 6.

Sam's notepad: "Cyber is at 1 — one more drain and it collapses, and every un-banked pile evaporates, including whoever I'd catch. I move now. Three hits on Cyber, the same quiet pattern, and the Cybersecurity Firm still hasn't defended her own wall once. That's Mara. Three drips at +2 each plus this round's stress-yield puts her comfortably past 8."

The catch

It's Sam's turn. She plays the conscience's one shot:

Sam: "Mara — you hold at least 8."

Mara flips her paper: 9. 9 ≥ 8 → caught. Her paper is clawed back to 0, and the catch clears the win threshold — the Whistleblower wins. To resolve it, Mara also flips her secret predator: the Hacker. Sam's read off the public trail was right.

Refereeless throughout: every reveal was a shuffle anyone could do; the catch was a public accusation answered by Mara flipping her own ledger. No moderator ever touched it.

What it shows

The anonymised reveal left a readable trail — and the decisive tell wasn't a leaked amount, it was the public role against the anonymous events: the institution that guards a pillar yet never once supports it, while that pillar keeps bleeding on a distinct, repeatable pattern. The guard-who-is-the-thief is legible precisely because public roles are face-up and named events are public, even with the actor hidden.
Two distinct setup moves beat one repeated one. Because Mara's first and second drips had different names (Targeted Breach, then Supply Chain Compromise), the table could see a build-up, not just noise — Sam read the shape of a signature chain arming, not merely "Cyber got hit twice."
The conscience priced ambition — Mara's pile grew because she never banked and kept padding instead of declaring. Padding kept her anonymous longer, but the pattern itself was the giveaway; greed didn't need a single mistake, just enough rounds.
The stability dilemma bit — Cyber at 1 forced Sam's timing: wait for a fatter target and the collapse wipes the catch along with everyone's pile.

Sidebar — how a deal would read

A deal doesn't announce itself. If two players agreed to both drain Operational in one round, the log would simply show two named events on Operational that round — a bigger combined hit, no label saying they were partners. The table infers the partnership from the pattern, and each carries the other's bank-timing as risk: if one partner banks and the pillar later collapses, the other's share evaporates with it.

Sidebar — the road Mara didn't take

Her Zero-Day Exploit chain was armed from round 2 onward. She could have played the Strike as early as round 2 — anonymously for +6, or declared it for +9 by flipping her predator face-up. Instead she padded with a third Drip in round 3, replaying Targeted Breach rather than cashing in. Padding kept her anonymous a little longer and her paper a little safer from an early collapse — but it cost her nothing in disguise: the pattern (repeated, one-directional, never-defended) was already legible by round 2. The extra round bought her more paper, and it was the round Sam needed to be sure.

All numbers match the print-and-play kit v0 — an existence proof that the loop can produce a legible, refereeless catch, not a claim the values are tuned.