Optional: You provide a White Elephant gift

WE Gift Exchange starts ~6, 6:30pm .. basically after Trivia

The White Elephant (WE) is the main event of the Solstice Party.  You must bring a WE gift to participate, but everyone's invited to watch, because it's quite fun!  If you do bring a gift, you accept these rules as written.  Please don't be a kranky kobold (never been a problem before, but just in case).

How it works

You bring a gift, wrapped or otherwise concealed, and you put it in the pile of other WE gifts.  When the game starts, I'll call out names of WE participants at random, one at a time.  When your name is called you get to open a wrapped gift of your choosing from the pile, or steal an open gift from another participant.  

Rules

1. Gifts can only be stolen 3 times and then become Frozen.  Frozen gifts cannot be stolen anymore (but see superpowers)

2. You can't steal from the person who just stole from you (aka, "No steal-backs").

3. Once you start to open a gift, even if it's only just a teensy bit, that becomes your gift.  Corollary: please wrap your gifts well enough that they don't accidentally get opened just by handling them.

4. First is Last -- if you are the first name called, and the gift you unwrapped was never stolen, that's terrible luck.  If this happens to you, then after all turns have completed, at your option, you may trade your gift with any other participant for their gift, as long as their gift is not Frozen.  Even if they don't want to!  This is similar to a steal, except it's a trade: they get your gift, you get their gift, and the game ends (but see Monty Hall).

Your host reserves the right to change these rules at any time without notice.  In the event of a disputed ruling, your host's interpretation is final.

This year, a handful of superpowers will be available to party achievers!

Earn a superpower through Achievements

Achievement #1: Best Dragon -- First Dibs -- Anyone who comes dressed in-theme (video game character, arcade themed things, etc) will be a candidate for Best Dragon, judged by the crowd.  If you win, then you get first dibs on choosing a super power from the list below.  Your Host will be excluded from this achievement.  In the event of an inconclusive crowd judgement, your Host will decide.  If he is also indecisive, Launch Pad will decide!

Achievement #2: Farthest -- Second Dibs -- many people come from far away.  If you think you're farthest, plug my address and your address into this distance calculator ("as the crow flies", not driving distance), and compare your results to the other long distance travelers.  Whosoever traveled the farthest to get to the party gets 2nd dibs on choosing a power from the list below.  For most of you, that's measured to your home address, or to wherever you slept the night of the 19th, whichever is farther.

Achievement #3+: Volunteer -- Third Dibs -- 2 max -- because your Host is often running around the party Hosting and can't do all these jobs at once, the Host has several roles available for people to volunteer for.  If you volunteer for one of these listed roles, and you perform in this role between 3:00pm and WE time, you earn this achievement.  This achievement is available to the first two volunteers only (but I may have a little something extra for volunteers 3 and 4, when they step up).  If there's a semi-close tie among 3+ volunteers as to who's the first 2, I'll choose the 2 achievement winners randomly.

• Game Wrangler - arrive by 2pm!  (managing the arcade / video games, working with Launch Pad's A/V guy to manage the TV connections, etc)

• Welcomer - arrive by 2:30pm! (intercepting people at the private entrance, giving them a nametag, and directing them the Gift Tracker)

• Gift Tracker - arrive by 3:00pm! (recording names of White Elephant participants on blank cards)

Achievement #4: Rando -- Fourth Dibs -- before the game begins, a name from the WE participants will be chosen at random.  If that's you, and you do not already have one of the above Achievements, you get dibs on whatever super power(s) remains(^H), if any.

The superpower choices:

There are more super powers than achievements by design, so choose wisely.

1. The Last Ice Breaker -- This means you go last.  Like, last-last.  Like even laster than "First is Last"  (but before Monty Hall).  You can open or steal any gift, even if it's frozen, and whatever you steal becomes fossilized (cannot be unfrozen by unfreeze powers).  This is the ultimate superpower.  Whether you steal a frozen thing or a warm thing, or even if you just open a gift, this power is consumed, and this final turn completes normally.  You also receive the bag of left behind gifts from 2024, and you must take them home.  Sorry, it's tradition. ;)

2. Interrupt -- your name is removed from the random draw, but you can go whenever you want, but before First is Last.  This requires you to pay attention to every turn, every steal, until you go.  When you interrupt, it's as though your name just got called, even if it's in the middle of someone else's turn -- you open your gift, or you steal a gift, the steals are resolved to completion, and then the person you interrupted resumes their turn.  Maybe there's a gift you really want, and it just got stolen for the 2nd time: you can go right then and there, stealing it for the 3rd time and making it "frozen" (except for The Last Ice Breaker).  The timing of the Interrupt is not critical, within reason.  This is to avoid people racing across the room to try to beat the Interrupter, or doing some sort of crafty coordinated hyper fast chain-steal to defeat the Interrupter.  The power cannot be "gamed" that way, but we also don't want to "roll back turns" beyond reason.  This power is consumed on use.

3. 2 turns -- Your name will be put into the random shuffle pile of turns ... twice!  They might be back-to-back, they might be spread apart, who knows, but you'll be in twice, even though you only brought one WE gift (don't worry, I'm putting in extra gifts just for this situation).  Reminder, you can't steal from yourself.

4. Steal-backs -- You ignore rule #2, the steal-back rule.  All the other rules apply to you still.  If you're not sure what this means, go read rules 1-4 and skip over rule #2 (the steal-back rule).  If you're STILL not sure what that means, here's a summary:  You still cannot steal from yourself.  You still cannot steal frozen things.  You simply ignore rule #2.  If you're STILL STILL not sure what this means, ask your Host - listen to him carefully, his ruling is final.  BTW, this power is not consumed on use.

5. Frosty Fingers -- gifts you steal become instantly frozen, even if this isn't the 3rd steal of that gift.  This only works on gifts you steal, not gifts you open.  This power is not consumed on use (but the only thing that can unfreeze your gift is The Last Ice Breaker)

6. You Snooze, You Lose -- When another player has taken too long (TBD), you can use this power to force them to take a gift of your choosing from the pile of wrapped WE gifts.  You cannot force them to steal a gift.  This power is not consumed on use.

Monty Hall - there is a pile of some number of ancillary gifts set aside before the White Elephant game, called the Monty Hall pile.  After all the White Elephant gifts are exchanged, inevitably someone (or multiple someones) have a gift they're not satisfied with.  You have one last chance to exchange it for something that might be better.  Or it might suck more.  Who knows.  But you will turn in your crappy gift for a wrapped mystery, and you are stuck with that mystery gift.  No more steals, no more go-backs, no more super-powers, nothin'.  This is like the old "Let's Make a Deal" gameshow from before you were born, hosted by a guy named Monty Hall.  "You can have what's behind curtain number 1, number 2, or number 3", except it's worse: you don't get to change your mind.  You're stuck with what you get.  If there are multiple people who want to play Monty Hall, we will choose the order randomly, limited by the number of gifts in the Monty Hall pile. 
Side note: if you have an ancillary gift to contribute to the Monty Hall pile, please feel free to bring it.  Make sure it's wrapped / bagged / otherwise obscured.

Gift trades - after the game is done (and only after the game is done), players are free to swap gifts as they see fit.  Please don't leave your unwanted or forgotten gifts at the brewery: I clearly have enough crap!  Take your crap home.  Christmas is in 5 days, give it to someone at work or something.  Or regift it for next year.  Just don't leave it with me, dangnabit.  Also, get off my lawn. ;)