Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition Rules

2-6 players, 10-120 minutes, ages 10+

Go to bigtreefight.weebly.com for printable cards, updates, and a Big Tree Fight Calculator.
We recommend you carefully read all the rules before you start, but that’s obviously not going to
happen.

Story:
We (Michael and Josh) were walking in the forest, when we heard a mighty fine racket. We walked a
little farther. The Arkhon was fighting Trevenant was fighting Treebeard was fighting the Walking Trees.
When they finished, we tried to figure out why they were fighting. We couldn’t risk talking to the
Arkhon, the Walking Trees spoke to no one except Eva 9, and Trevenant could only tell us his name. We
asked Treebeard what was happening, and he is still telling us.

In the meantime, we thought, “We can market this!” We built a stadium, founded a bank, and sold
concessions (“Get yer Battle Axe! Get yer Wings! Throw ‘em to yer favorite tree!”) for people who are
now coming to watch the Big Tree Fight. Place your bets and get ready for the best game you’ll ever
play!

Note: None of the trees are harmed in the Big Tree Fight. (Trevenant—along with every other
Pokémon—can’t die. Nor can the Mother of Faces, who is a spirit. A Hamadryad can’t die unless her tree
is destroyed. We have a Vitae Virus Generator on hand for the Walking Trees. The Tree House Robots
aren’t alive and Phineas’s and Ferb’s stuff always disappears at the end of an episode anyway. The
Whomping Willow is strong enough to be undamaged after a collision with a flying car…) We’re actually
kind of hoping that the Arkhon gets destroyed anyway.

Object
To have the most money after the final round of the Big Tree Fight.

Setup
1. Each player needs a pen and paper.
2. Create 3 separate decks: Concessions, Contestants, and Bets.
3. Shuffle the decks.
4. Reveal 4 tree Contestant cards and place them around the Concessions deck.
o Make spaces for a discard pile and a pile of Concessions that affect all trees.
o You will not need the Contestant deck for the rest of the round.
5. Deal each player Ŧ700 (Arboles, the currency of the Big Tree Fight).
6. Deal each player 5 Concession cards.
7. Deal each player 2 bet cards.
Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

o Warning: bets with a red-tinged back refer to other players. If two players use
one of these bets to bet on each other, neither bet can be resolved, resulting in
both players losing their bets.
8. Each player may look at his or her cards.
9. Each player chooses 1 of his or her bet cards and puts the other one back in the bet
deck. (Then place this deck aside—it won’t be needed until the next round.)
10. Each player places the amount of money they wish to bet underneath their chosen bet
card (the bet card should be face down).
o You must bet at least Ŧ5.
o Players may want to keep their other money covered as well.
11. Each player writes down any necessary details related to the bet (name of a tree or
player or Concession card) on his or her paper.
o Example: If you have the bet card: “[Tree] will win the Big Tree Fight,” write
down the name of the tree you think will win.
o Players should keep their paper covered.
12. If a player wants to go first, that player may go first. If more than one player wants to
go first, the player with the least money (including his or her bet money) of those
players goes first. If those players have the same amount of money, the youngest of
those players goes first. If those players are the same age, congratulations, you broke
the game.
13. If no player wants to go first, the player with the most money (including his or her bet
money) must go first. If players are tied for the most money, the oldest of those
players goes first.
14. After the first turn, play continues to the left.

Before the Big Tree Fight

On each player’s turn, the player draws a Concession card and then does any or all of the
following things in any order:
1. Attaches up to 2 Concession cards to any tree(s)
a. Create 3 piles of Concession cards next to each tree: Strength, Agility, and Magic.
i. Note that Strength, Agility, and Magic are sometimes collectively
abbreviated as “SAM”.
b. Place each new attachment on top of the previous attachment of that type.
c. Always place SAM reducers at the very bottom of the appropriate pile.
i. This includes Concessions that affect all trees.
2. Plays any number of other Concession cards.
a. (Bet Cheaties, cards that affect all trees, Tool Removers, etc.)
b. When playing one of these cards, put it into the discard pile.
i. Exception: DO NOT place the Concessions that affect all trees with the
attached concessions or in the discard pile; these will come later. Place
them in the pile of Concessions that affect all trees.
3. Pays Ŧ50 to buy another Concession card
a. Players may repeat this step as often as they wish.
4. Attaches any Concession cards bought this turn
a. These do not count towards your 2 attachments.
Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

The Big Tree Fight

At the end of any player’s turn, that player may chant “Big Tree Fight!” Once this happens, all
other players have one more turn before the Big Tree Fight starts. You may not chant “Big Tree
Fight” on your first turn.
1. If no player chants “Big Tree Fight,” the Big Tree Fight starts immediately when
the last Concession card is drawn (you don’t get to play it.)

How the Big Tree Fight Works

1. Players calculate the Strength, Agility, and Magic of each tree based on the
Concession cards attached to that tree.
a. Calculate that altered SAM by applying each attached Concession card
to the original value of the tree, one at a time, starting at the top.
b. After all the attached Concessions have been applied, calculate any
modifications caused by Concessions that affect all trees, one at a
time, from top to bottom.
c. Do not round until you have calculated all the alterations. Round to the
nearest whole number if necessary.
d. If any of the SAM values are negative when you finish calculating it,
that value is 0.

e.
2. Create three lists: Strength, Agility, and Magic. In each list, order the trees by
the list’s respective values from greatest to least.

a.

3. Calculate the losses taken by each tree on each list.

Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

a. In the Big Tree Fight, each SAM value acts as defense against that
SAM value from the other trees. For example, if Treebeard has a
strength of 10 and Whispy Woods has a strength of 8, Treebeard takes
no losses (his strength cancelled all of Whispy Woods’s strength) and
Whispy Woods’s loss is two (10-8=2).
b. Calculate the losses taken by each tree by summing the differences of
the SAM values of the trees above it on the list and its SAM value.
i. For example, if the top tree is 10, the next is 8, the next is 7,
and the last is 2, the first tree takes 0, the second takes 2 (10-
8=2), the third takes 4 ([10-7]+[8-7]=4), and the fourth takes
19 ([10-2]+[8-2]+[7-2]=19).
ii. The top tree should always take 0 losses, the bottom tree
always takes the most losses (except in a tie).
c.
Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

4. Total the Losses Taken

a.

5. Total the Losses Taken by each tree

a.
6. List the trees in order of Losses Taken from least to greatest.
7. The top tree is the winner, the bottom is the loser.
a. A tie doesn’t count as a win or loss. (If there are trees tied for winner,
neither won. The same goes for trees tied for losing.)

b.
Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

After the Big Tree Fight

1. Players reveal their bets.
a. You may want to do this before calculating the Big Tree Fight, as it may reveal
that you don’t need to do the calculations (for example, if all players were betting
on certain cards being attached and the number of cards attached).
2. Any player whose bet failed gives the money that they bet to the bank.
a. If a player had a red bet and is unable to resolve it, that player loses his bet.
b. For example: If I bet on Caleb winning and Caleb bets on my losing, we both lose
our bets.
3. Any player whose bet succeeded receives money from the bank equal to the money they
bet times the return value listed on their bet card.
a. Round to the nearest Ŧ5 if necessary.
b. Note that this is not how betting usually works.
i. For example, a return value of 0.25 means the bank pays you 25% of what
you bet, and you keep what you bet. If you bet Ŧ100, the bank pays you
Ŧ25, and you now have Ŧ125, in addition to any money that was outside
your bet.
4. All players announce how much money they have.
5. The player(s) with the least money is/are eliminated, and the remaining players shuffle all
the cards and play another round.
a. If you all have the same amount of money, y’all lost! Deal with it!
b. Ŧ700 are only dealt to the players at the beginning of the first round. Any money
that a player has at the end of a round carries over to the next round.
c. In each round, buying a Concession costs 50 more arboles. For example, in the
second round each Concession costs Ŧ100, and in the third round each
Concession costs Ŧ 150.
6. The winner of the game is the player with the most money after the round where only two
players were competing.

Other Rules
It is extremely difficult to cheat at Big Tree Fight. If you can see the cards in the hands of
the people sitting next to you, fine. If you saw how much money someone put under their bet or
what they wrote, fine. If you want to bribe/blackmail someone with money or Concessions, fine.
If you want to trade cards for cards or money, fine.
Here are the exceptions: You can’t touch anyone else’s cards or person. (No, you can’t
blow on their cards or push the table or use a pen to move the cards or anything like that either.)
You can’t show or tell anyone your bet and you can’t announce what you see in other peoples’
hands or what or how much their bets are. You can’t get up from your seat to peek at someone’s
cards. You can’t trade bets.
We recommend that each player come to the Big Tree Fight equipped with a TI 30X IIS.
This is the finest calculator in all the land.
Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Based on how much I bet and the return value, the bank should pay me Ŧ101.35. What
should I do?
a. When dealing with arboles, always round to the nearest Ŧ5; the bank pays you
Ŧ100.
2. I calculated that Trevenant has 3.77 strength. Do I have to do all that subtraction with
decimals?
a. No. After you have applied all SAM modifiers, including the Undertree Bonus (if
applicable), round all SAM values to the nearest whole. Trevenant in this case has
a strength of 4.
3. The Treehouse Robot has -5 magic. Does that mean I add 5 to everything instead of
subtracting when I calculate its magic losses?
a. No. After applying all SAM modifiers, including the Undertree Bonus (if
applicable), all negative SAM values go to 0.
4. What’s with “losses”? What does that even mean?
a. Losses refer to how much a given tree is affected by the other trees’ attacks. If
Treebeard takes 30 losses, that means he was successful in defending himself
from all but 30 units of attack from the other trees. For a tree to take no losses, it
would be at the top (or tied for the top) of each list.
5. How does the bet: “The number of Strength losses will be greater than the number of
Agility losses and the number of Magic losses” work?
a. Instead of referring to losses of individual trees or even the winner of the Fight,
this bet refers to the total losses of each type. If the Mother of Faces took 0
Strength losses, the Hamadryad took 10, the Warrior Tree took 15, and The
Arkhon took 40, the total Strength losses were 65. To determine if the person with
this bet is successful, add up the Agility losses and the Magic losses (separately).
If, for example, the total Agility losses were 60 and the total Magic losses were
15, the player with this bet would be successful, because 65 > 60 and 65 > 15.
6. Why would I ever use a bet with a return value less than 1?
a. The betting in Big Tree Fight is unlike betting in real life. In real life, you pay the
bookie before and he pays you back later if you win. In Big Tree Fight, you don’t
pay unless you lose, so regardless of the return value, unless you lose your bet,
you keep the money you bet. Return value refers to how much the bank pays you,
adding to the money you already have, including the money you bet. A return
value of .75 means the bank pays you 75% of what you bet.
7. The Walking Tree and the Fighting Tree both took 200 losses. Which one wins?
a. Neither. Ties do not count as wins or losses. Players that bet that the Walking
Tree would win fail in their bets. So do the players that bet the Fighting Tree
would win.

Big thanks to Tate for his amazing illustrations and to all the people who helped us playtest.
Dedicated to Steve-o Burrito, who said, “Poison oak sounds fighty,” but also all those great
book, movie, show, and video game producers who felt obligated to include a big, fighting tree in
their work.
Big Tree Fight 2nd Edition By Michael and Josh Illustrated by Tate

We acknowledge and apologize to all the other fine trees that regretfully could not be included in
this expansion, including Grandmother Willow, the trees of the Old Forest, the Great Deku Tree,
the giving tree, the hanging tree, the midsummer’s tree, the May tree, the tree of Odin, the
Narnian tree spirits, Bowtruckles, the stingbulb tree, and Sudowudo.