A Gritty Game of Hue-and-Cry.
Stop, thief! — or are they?
Posse Comitatus is a small-box bluffing card game themed on the historical hue and cry of pre-police London.
The Mechanic
On your turn you slide a card face-down across the table to any opponent and declare a suspect type ("This is a Smuggler"). The receiver picks one of three responses:
- - Call TRUTH — flip the card. If you're right, the sender pays a coin and adds the card to their rap sheet. If you're wrong, you do.
- - Call LIE — same logic, opposite direction.
- - Pass it on — pick the card up secretly, then slide it face-down to a different player (anyone who hasn't already touched it during this cascade) with your own fresh declaration.
The cascade continues until somebody calls TRUTH or LIE. Only the FINAL claim — the one made just before the reveal — is tested. If you bluffed and the next player passed it on, you got away with it.
Three of any one suspect type on your rap sheet and you're DISGRACED — out of the game. Last citizen standing wins.
The Two Specials
Magistrate (3 in deck) — When revealed, the receiver dodges entirely. No rap sheet penalty, no coin paid. The receiver also clears one card from their existing rap sheet.
Wanted Felon (6 in deck) — When revealed, all stakes triple. Three Wanted Felons on a rap sheet is a disgrace, just like any other type.
Optional Variants
- Hue and Cry! — Bystanders can side-bet on the reveal.
- The Bribe — Sender openly offers coins to influence the call.
- The Long Chase — Cards passed by 3+ players pay double when called.
BackgroundThe mechanic is a refined cousin of
Cockroach Poker (Jacques Zeimet, 2004): pass the card, claim, counter-claim, the wrong person ends up holding the bag. Two design refinements:
A 60-card deck with eight distinct suspect types at calibrated frequencies — Magistrate count was reduced from 6 to 3 and three suspect types bumped from 8 to 9 each, after a 300-game Monte Carlo simulation showed the original mix made empty-hand the dominant disgrace mode instead of the intended rap-sheet-3.
Two special cards that change the consequence of a reveal — Magistrate as a relief valve, Wanted Felon as a stakes amplifier.
The History Is Real
Every card type, every flavor line, and every variant is rooted in 18th-century London street history. The hue and cry was the actual law from the Statute of Winchester (1285) until the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829 — refusal to join a chase was a criminal offense.
The Magistrate's effect echoes R v Pinney (1832), which established that a magistrate who acted in good faith escaped prosecution even when the riot still happened. The £40 Wanted Felon is the actual bounty under the Highwayman Act of 1697 — the trade Jonathan Wild built his criminal empire on before being hanged at Tyburn in 1725.
