Game Rules

**Note:** The following rules are written based on the in-game rules reference. Images of some- but not all- of the respective rules reference pages will be included for the visual aid provided by the rules reference or to provide validity to the rules written here.

## Basic Overview

Danganronpa Next is a social deduction game in which each player uses a character card for its active and passive abilities and item cards to manipulate the game in their favor. There is also a game master who oversees the game to ensure players are following the rules, resolve character card and item effects, and act as an authority over the game for rule conflicts. Each class has two factions working against each other: hope and despair. Those on the side of hope want to survive and determine who's guilty of murder during trials. Those on the side of despair may work together to obscure information and get away with murder.

If the game is not a speed game, the game master will choose a puppet master, who acts as a leader for the despair faction for that game. Along other abilities, the puppet master decides who the blackened is for every trial. The blackened is given a couple of abilities not given to those on the side of hope and the task of eliminating at least 1 other student in no more than 3 days. Anybody who is not selected as the puppet master or the blackened is automatically on the side of hope. The last special role is the founder, who is on the side of hope and has abilities to help hope succeed in secret.

## Game Modes

**5-7 Players:** This is called a speed game. Because there are so few players, no puppet master nor founder are selected for this game mode. Instead of being selected by a puppet master, the blackened is chosen randomly. During draw phase, all players will draw 3 item cards on the first draw phase and 1 item card on all other draw phases. No Monokuma File is available and no more than one person may die. Limited characters are not permitted for a speed game.

**8-9 Players:** This bracket allows a normal game with some slight changes. A puppet master and founder are selected as normal, but there are only up to 2 trials and a puppet master trial. Only 1 Limited character is permitted.

**10-12 Players:** This is what most would consider to be a standard game. A puppet master and founder are selected as normal, up to 3 trials and a puppet master trial occur, and up to 2 Limited characters are permitted.

## Character Cards

Each character card can be quite different, but they all will have the same elements on the card:

* The name of the character appears on the top right and provides the name of the character in play. This is a way to identify a character card without having to point to the player using it or his/her dorm.
* The Ultimate talent is written on a colored banner on the center left of the card and provides the name of the character's ultimate talent. Each character has only one and very rarely are two characters' Ultimate talent the same.
* The card type(s) of the character card are written out on the top left of the card and even have standardized symbols for quick reference. These give an idea of what the character card does. For example, character cards with the Suppression card type have abilities that allow one to restrict the actions of another player.
* Character abilities are written on the bottom of the card with a pink background. All characters have at least two abilities which are exclusive to them and named. Character abilities are either active or passive:
	+ Active abilities require the player to lock it in as a night action to resolve the effect. Active abilities will appear alongside "talk/trade" and "use item" during the action 1 phase.
	+ Passive abilities will either resolve automatically or may resolve without locking it in as an action. Often, passive abilities are either protections that are active as long as the character is not dead/roleblocked or an action that is resolved during prenight phase.

## Game Phases

Once a game master starts the game, the game carries out through a number of phases. Most phases will occur every night, but some of them only occur under certain circumstances. The length of each phase is *normally* under a couple of minutes, but they may take longer if there are a lot of abilities/effects that take place during that phase or if one or more players are AFK or in need of help from the game master. The following descriptions should explain, in order, the phases you can expect to see during a typical game of Danganronpa Next.

### **Draw Phase**

At the beginning of the game and at the end of every day/night cycle, Mono machines will appear to allow players to draw item cards. If 8+ players are playing, the players draw only 1 item card from the Mono machine. If it's a speed game, the players draw 3 item cards on the first draw phase and 1 item card on following draw phases. Sometimes (a 20% chance per draw phase), a double draw day will be announced; when this occurs, all players may draw an additional item card. After drawing item cards, players are free to talk with other players and offer trades to each other.

### **Janitor 1 Phase**

Once the lights have turned off, it's time to go back to your respective dorms and wait for action. During the janitor phase(s), the janitor is randomly selected for the night- so, by default, the person who comes out for janitor 1 phase is the same person that comes out for janitor 2 phase. When the janitor comes out for janitor phase, all of the item cards that have been discarded by other players until then are laid face down in front of the janitor, the janitor chooses 1 to reveal, and the janitor may choose to take that card or leave it behind. After this, all cards that have not been taken are destroyed by the game master.

### **Blackening Phase**

For many abilities that use the phrase "at the start of the game", Danganronpa Next will encourage game masters to resolve those effects during the first blackening phase. This phase is when the founder, puppet master, and blackened are chosen (in that order). It would do a game master well to notify/remind each of these players of what abilities they gain by being granted that role. (For example, the puppet master and blackened have the ability to perform 1 despair trade each once per game.) Unless a player with the founder/puppet master/blackened role disconnects from the game, this phase should only happen after the first janitor 1 phase of the game and after each trial.

### **Prenight Phase**

During this phase, players with character cards that have prenight abilities are brought out to resolve the abilities as written on their character cards. For example, Kiyotaka Ishimaru may use his primary passive ability Coordinate to talk/trade with as many players as he wants. All of the actions during this step are verbal, so they do not need to be locked in as you would actions during the action phase.

### **Action Phase 1**

Action phase (technically) takes place in two parts. During the first part, a panel is provided on a wall in each player's dorm room to lock in night actions. All players have at least 3 options for actions they may lock in:

1. If the character card one is playing with has an active ability, he/she may lock in that active ability as a night action.
2. If the player possess an item that requires a night action to use, he/she may select that item as his/her night action.
3. Anyone may choose to talk/trade with 1 person as his/her night action, giving him/her 45 seconds to talk with another player during the night and discuss which items to exchange during the shuffle phase.

The blackened also has 1 additional action as an option: Eliminate. If this action is locked in, the blackened will attempt to kill another student (or himself/herself) after all other actions have been performed. There are item cards that also allow the blackened to kill somebody, but Eliminate is always an option in case the blackened is unable to find a weapon.

By default, all players may only lock in 1 night action and up to 4 free uses. Certain items and abilities allow a player to perform 2 night actions, but never more than that (with an exception for rules brought by Teruteru Hanamura). A free use is an item that does not require a night action to perform yet must be used during the night. Blue item cards and most purple item cards will have rules for using them as a free use item.

Not locking in a night action is not an option!

### **Blackout**

If any player who was not roleblocked/knocked out during action phase 1 locked in Short Circuit as an action, blackout occurs instead of action phase 2. Except for players with Night Vision Goggles, players who locked in EMP-Flash Grenade, players who locked in Glow Paint, and certain character cards with exceptions (such as K1-B0), all actions that were locked in are cancelled and items that were not used are not discarded. If blackout occurs, all phases before morning phase are skipped.

### **Action Phase 2**

After the 1 minute window has passed to lock in actions for the night, all players will perform their selected night actions. The game master can see all the actions and free uses being performed that night. The game master will bring out players one at a time to perform their night actions (if the player is required to be there). Normally, abilities and items that even have a chance to suppress players are performed first, then talk/trades, then investigation abilities and items.

### **Shuffle Phase**

If two players still have the item cards they agreed to trade, they may exchange them during the shuffle phase. Also, all items that were used in the previous phase or are being discarded by the player go into a green box for the game master to move to the discard pile when the player returns to his/her dorm.

### **Janitor 2 Phase**

Unless somebody has used Janitor Keys during the action phase (or some other special exception), the janitor who came out on janitor 1 phase comes out again for janitor 2 phase, this time to look at the item cards that were used/discarded during shuffle phase. Like before, the janitor may reveal 1 card and choose whether to keep it or leave it face up. Unlike janitor 1 phase, instead of destroying the cards after the janitor has made a selection, the game master leaves revealed cards faceup and all the other cards facedown for the class to notice during the morning phase.

### **Killing Phase**

If any player has locked in a lethal action during the action phase or if the conditions for an indirect elimination have been met, the killing phase occurs. If a direct elimination is occurring, the killer is brought out to go to the victim's dorm and kill him/her. If an indirect elimination is occurring, the game master will just go to the victim's dorm and explain that he/she has died. Of course, if the victim is protected from direct/indirect elimination (such as Sakura Ogami's Guard or Mikan Tsumiki's Nurse) and thus would not die from the attack, the killer shall stay in his/her dorm and a protection trial will spawn instead.

If a person *does* die during the killing phase, when 2+ people discover their body during the morning phase, the body discovery occurs and the trial can begin.

### **Morning Phase**

The lights come back on and everybody is free to discuss the cards that were left behind after janitor 2 phase. If anybody is found dead, a trial is called for. If anybody was attacked the previous night yet not killed (on nights 1-2), then a protection trial is in order. If neither of those occurred, the next draw phase may begin after a 1-minute reprieve.

## Trial Phases

### **Investigation**

The investigation step is quite simple. The remaining facedown cards in the discard pile are laid out and each living player may reveal 1 facedown card. This should give the hope faction a good idea of what items were used (or discarded) during the previous night, especially if there are enough living players- or few enough cards used/discarded- to reveal *all* of them.

### **Alibi**

The proper trial begins here. All players are asked to stand behind his/her respective podium and discuss what happened- or what *could've* happened- the previous night. For a start, the game master points to players one at a time and asks for his/her alibi. Each player may claim to have used any number of items or abilities, even taking item cards that were revealed during the investigation step and placing them in front of of his/her podium. For best results, however, one should limit how many actions he/she claims to have performed that night unless he/she can explain an ability or item that was used to give him/her more actions.

### **Truth Bullet**

If any player wishes to use a Truth Bullet he/she has in his/her inventory, this is the time to use it. The exact effects can be found on the page for the Truth Bullet item card, but, in summary, it allows one to test the alibi given by the target of Truth Bullet. Alibis are perhaps the most important part of a trial in Danganronpa Next, so Truth Bullets *may* be what saves hope from losing if no other trial abilities are enough.

### **Free Debate**

Much like the games Danganronpa Next is loosely based off of, all players get a chance to talk among each other freely without restriction. This time should be used to ask questions about the alibis provided and disclose information revealed by investigation abilities and items. Normally, free debate only extends to 3 minutes, so do your best to avoid small talk, jokes, and meaningless chatter if you really want to get down to the bottom of things.

### **Cross Swords**

Another takeaway from the original games, two players at a time are permitted to have discussions without any other players being allowed to say anything. The first person to buzz in gets to choose one other person to cross swords with. Those two step into the center of the ring of podiums and have 1 minute to argue with all other players being prohibited from speaking. Under most circumstances, only two pairs of people will get the opportunity to cross swords per game.

### **Prevote**

With almost all of the discussion being over with, all players get their chance to announce, in turn, who they plan on voting for. Strictly speaking, the person that one prevotes for does not have to be the same person as whom he votes for! Prevoting exists to give an idea of who's against whom and persuade others to come to a more unanimous vote.

### **Scrum Debate**

If and only if the prevotes are split (almost) perfectly in half between two suspects, a scrum debate occurs. The people who prevoted for one person stand on one half of the room and the people who prevoted for the other person stand on the other half of the room. One at a time, a person will step forward to explain why he/she believes he/she is correct in prevoting for their choice. (Game masters may use a prop to act as a "conch" and only the holder of the "conch" is permitted to speak.) After 2 minutes have passed, the players must move on to the real vote.

### **Voting Phase**

In exactly 30 seconds, all players are asked to use the panel behind their podiums to select 1 and only 1 person who they're voting for. If the person with the most votes is the blackened responsible for killing the victim, hope wins that trial, the killer is punished (as in executed), and the class is given a puppet master hint. (A puppet master hint is a person who the game master can verify is not the puppet master.) If the person with the most votes is anybody else, despair wins the trial, the killer graduates (as in spectates for the rest of the game), and the graduated killer agrees with the game master on a punishment to give to members of the class based on how well- or how poorly- the class performed during the trial.

After the winner of the trial is decided- if there are still 5 or more living players remaining, play continues from the morning phase and another blackening phase will occur after janitor 1 phase. If there aren't enough players for another round or if the players have exhausted all available trials for that game mode, the game ends in one of 3 ways. If all trials were a hope victory, then hope wins the game. If all trials were a despair victory, despair wins the game. Under any other circumstances, the players move on to a puppet master trial in which players discuss and vote on who they all believe to be the puppet master. If the puppet master is found, hope wins the game; if the puppet master did not receive the majority vote, despair wins the game.

## Miscellaneous Rules

**Note:** All of these additional rules are written in the rules reference in-game, but they have been rewritten here so one may copy and paste them wherever needed.

### **Founder**

* The founder, by default, wins with hope.
* The founder immediately loses his/her abilities if he/she kills, attempts to kill, or allows the puppet master to blacken him/her without using his/her ability to unblacken himself. Non-blackened hope-based kills like ones permitted by the abilities of Takumi Hijirihara and Kyosuke Munakata do not count.
* Using 2 charges to learn if a target is a puppet master cannot lower the people who may be the puppet master to less than 2 players.
* Your vote negation ability only works in puppet master trials, not blackened trials.
* The puppet master cannot be the founder.
* It is important to note that any redirect changes the target of the user, not the origin.

### **Puppet Master**

* For a puppet master trial to happen, you must have 3 kills in a 10-12 player game or 2 kills in an 8-9 player game. Kills cannot bring players to under 4 remaining players.
* After all trials, players above 6 players that are not the founder, puppet master, or puppet master hints are randomly removed down to 6 players for the puppet master trial. Removed players can still win if their faction wins the puppet master trial.
* If the puppet master would become the blackened, it redirects to another random player.
* If a new puppet master is chosen (such as after the blackened kills the previous puppet master), the NO U charge is restored.
* A puppet master's NO U is a reactive direct elimination, not an indirect elimination.
* If a puppet master kills an attacking blackened with NO U, the puppet master is the killer. If hope votes the puppet master as the killer, the game is over as a hope victory. Otherwise, despair wins a point but the puppet master is not revealed and the killer is announced as a "puppet master kill".
* If a blackened kills a puppet master, he/she becomes the new puppet master (unless he/she also died, in which Junko becomes the puppet master). If everybody in the despair faction dies, then hope automatically wins.
* The puppet master cannot commit suicide.

### **Blackened**

* The blackened cannot be unblackened if a lethal action is locked in and will result in a kill.
* The puppet master being voted when he/she is not the killer is an incorrect vote and hope loses that blackened trial.
* Despair trades ignore "trading restrictions" from items and passives.
* The class is always informed if only 1 player is responsible for 2 murders and a single trial is held. If there are 2 killers, back to back trials occur with the turncoat/Kitchen Knife kill going first.
* The normal blackened gets kill priority if more than 2 players "die" in a speed game.
* A blackened does not get more nights to kill when hope bulleted, a turncoat kills, or a blackened is murdered. (A new blackened is chosen by the puppet master if the current one dies to a non-hope ability.)
* During night 1-2, if a protection player protects another player that is being attacked, a trial ensues to find the attempted killer.
* A blackened who fails to kill in 3 days results in an automatic hope win of the trial but no puppet master hint is given.
* A blackened who suicides/puppet master kill cannot give a Monokuma punishment.

### **General Extra Rules**

1. As long as it is explained/announced ahead of time, a game master's ruling on the field stands above all written rules.
2. Players may destroy 2 cards during draw phase to draw a new card from the Mono machine. (This is called a mulligan.)
3. Players who have been killed or graduated have their fronthand items revealed.
4. Auto-use items and multi-target/action items do not count as self-visits. Self attacks do not trigger reactive attacks.
5. Players cannot use suppressions and protections on a target twice in a row unless stated otherwise.
6. Neutral limited cards that hard win with despair cannot win a trial when they kill if they give a nonsensical alibi (as in an alibi that cannot give a clear truth/lie to a Truth Bullet).
7. Active/Temporary/Non-charge protection abilities land/protect before passive/static abilities.
8. There's a limit of 1 intentional suicide per game, with unlimited unintentional suicides possible.
9. Monokuma punishments cannot affect votes or founder charges.
10. There's a maximum of 2 kills/deaths per night/trial (including Sacrifices). Deaths dependent on others dying are speed rolled with all other deaths.
11. If a blackened is killed/graduates, active Poisons, Bombs, etc. are removed (unless the blackened was a turncoat).
12. Items/Abilities that target a specific player (such as a lover) rather than "any target" are not redirected.
13. Blackeneds can't loot bodies during a Short Circuit, when using an indirect kill, or when using a Shotput.
14. If a puppet master/turncoat kills and the puppet master trial requirements are met, then the third blackened returns to hope.
15. Players can't talk privately in dorms during the day.
16. Protecting yourself from elimination, being protected from eliminating yourself, and NO U do not trigger protection trials.
17. Dead bodies are not targetable by anything other than an action that steals items, such as Pickpocket/Swap.

### **Game Master Extra Rules**

1. The game master deletes cards on the field after janitor 1 phase but not after janitor 2 phase.
2. If an action would "catch 22" cause the same action to not happen, it fizzles. The aggressing player targeting the second has their action fail.
3. Blue/White "free use" items are trackable and count as visits.
4. Protected targets are told when they're attacked, but not if he/she is protected by a reactive attack or is untargetable.
5. Both character and role active/passive abilities/items (even auto items) are temporarily disabled or discarded upon being roleblocked.
6. Targets of suppressions are told when they are hit by suppressions and what you're being forced to do. You have no targets/actions when roleblocked.
7. Items that have been locked in as an action and subsequently roleblocked do not trigger the effect of Bomb. Having to force discard an item does not count as "being in your inventory" when a Bomb explodes.
8. The game master may **not** reveal who the class specifically voted on (unless, of course, the *game* is *over*).
9. Redirects change a player's locked in targets, not the origin.
10. Items don't travel with you when you aren't home and Bombs/Ignite don't kill you unless you are at home.
11. Players cannot be affected with the exact same suppression ability/item twice in a row.
12. Intentionally not locking in an action will result in the player being killed off/removed from the game.
13. A player cheating/exploiting/intentionally throwing the game will get him/her banned from the world.
14. "untargetable" means actions that target him/her will fail. However, suppressions are speed rolled to see if the untargetable or roleblock activates first.