Board Proxy is an individual-scoring hidden-allegiance deduction game for 5–9 directors. Secret Backers may align, so cooperation can move the Company where both of you want it—but there is no team victory. Your own authorship and Dossier decide your final score.

1. Objective and setup

Each track begins at 0 and is bounded from −6 to +6. The market contains five copies of every Backer. One Backer card is discarded unseen, then one is dealt privately to every director; the deal is retried until it contains at least three distinct Backers and at least one pair. Everyone begins with five influence cards and 2 Favor.

Exact Backer conditions

Before Motion 1, every human receives a private Briefing with the exact two conditions and acknowledges Ready. Your Backer, goals, and authorship progress remain visible privately during every discussion.

2. What is public—and what stays private

Discussion matters because promises can be tested against the named ballot, while card ownership stays laundered. Watch who argues for a baseline, who votes for it, and whether the anonymous result supports the story they told. The server preserves ownership only for authorship and explicit rule events; it never publishes a hand or Backer before results.

3. The eight Motions

Each Motion publishes a baseline in track order [VAL, CTRL, TRUST, LEV] and marks two focus tracks.

4. Each Motion: discuss, commit, resolve

1. Discuss. The Motion, baseline, focus tracks, and current board are public. Negotiate, bluff, accuse, and use the table chat or voice.
2. Commit secretly. Choose a named ballot—Yes, No, or Abstain—and zero, one, or two influence cards. A card changes one track by ±1 or ±2. Your ballot and cards lock together; other directors see only that you committed.
3. Resolve. More Yes than No passes; a tie fails. Abstain has no voting effect and grants nothing. If passed, apply the Motion baseline once and multiply anonymous influence on both focus tracks by ×2. If failed, apply no baseline and all anonymous influence at ×1. There is no random drift.
4. Publish minutes. Reveal named ballots and shuffle all effective anonymous card faces. Show the baseline separately, the raw pot, multiplier/result, and final applied vector. Refill hands to five, then continue.

Enforcer-voided cards do not appear among effective card faces and do not count for authorship; the minutes report only how many were voided. A Double Agent’s effective doubled influence does count. Cover-Up hides the next Motion’s card faces and pot breakdown, but the final public board still moves and remains visible.

5. Favor and information

• Commit zero cards: gain +1 Favor after resolution, up to the cap of 6. This reward is independent of your ballot.
• Draw · 1 Favor: add one influence card to your hand before committing.
• Read · 2 Favor: select a rival and receive a private directional read of their effective play history. The Read uses a contribution snapshot captured before the current commit phase, so acting earlier or later cannot reveal anyone’s current secret commit.

Favor cannot be transferred. Table promises are social claims only; there is no deal, bribe, or Favor-transfer action.

6. Escalations

Each escalation fires only the first time its threshold is reached.

• Kompromat · LEVERAGE ≥ +4: the largest positive LEVERAGE contributor in that triggering Motion privately learns one random rival’s exact Backer.
• Cover-Up · TRUST ≤ −4: hide the next Motion’s anonymous card faces and pot delta breakdown. The final board remains public.
• Boardroom Purge · CONTROL ≥ +4: the largest positive CONTROL contributor in that triggering Motion causes a random rival to discard their hand and redraw.
• Audit · absolute player-pot VAL movement ≥ 6: reveal every director’s current-Motion VAL sign as +, −, or 0. The Motion baseline does not count toward this trigger.

7. Final scoring

After the last Motion, every director names each rival’s Backer in a private Dossier. Then all Backers and scores are revealed.

• Score the Backer’s two conditions independently.
• Each condition scores 10 points only if (a) its exact board threshold is met and (b) your net effective, non-nullified contribution on that same track in the required direction is at least 2. Otherwise that condition scores 0.
• Your two condition scores form your Agenda: 0, 10, or 20 points.
• Your Dossier scores 1 point per correctly named rival.
• Total = Agenda + Dossier. Highest individual total wins, even when aligned Backers helped one another.

8. Optional modules

Operatives are Off by default. When enabled, every director gets one secret, once-per-game ability: Insider learns one rival’s exact Backer; Broker draws two cards free; Kingpin gains 3 Favor (still capped at 6); Enforcer voids a rival’s influence for that Motion; Double Agent doubles your influence for that Motion; Saboteur makes that Motion fail.

Fluid Loyalty is Off by default. When enabled, from Motion 3 onward you may once pay 4 Favor to secretly switch to a different Backer. Your original and final Backers are revealed at results; scoring uses your final Backer.

1. You secretly serve a Backer. It wants the company’s four tracks to end in certain spots. You know yours — you don’t know who else shares it.
2. Each round is one vote. Talk it out, then everyone secretly votes Yes/No/Abstain and plays 0–2 cards that nudge the tracks.
3. Votes are public; cards are anonymous. The board moves, but no one sees who played what — so read who benefits.
4. You score by hitting your targets and being a hidden mover (2+ of a track’s swing must be yours), plus guessing rivals’ Backers. Highest personal total wins.