Stop Requested: Portland Live — Rules (draft)
A real-world game inspired by Ticket to Ride, played by riding Portland's transit. Teams race around the city on MAX, Streetcar, WES, the Aerial Tram, TriMet buses and Biketown, claiming the segments they ride. Draft: every number is a starting point for the simulations to tune.
For 2–6 teams of 2–4 players · 5 hours · a fare pass for each player
The Idea
The board game's map becomes the real city. Instead of playing cards to claim a route, your team rides it. Your hand of Destination Tickets arrives a week before the game, so you can plan your day over the schedules, and on the day you set out from home and score from the first minute. Everyone travels for real, so your team can only be in one place at a time, and the timetable, the connections you make and the ones you miss are part of the game. Every team ends up at the party.
Components
- The network map: every hub (a station or stop where riders have choices) and every segment between them, each labeled with its line, mode and points. Shown in the game app.
- The game app on each team's phone: your team's page with its hand, check-ins, claims and the live scoreboard.
- A transit pass for each player (a Hop card or contactless card) and a Biketown account for each player who wants to ride.
Setting up the Game
- Form teams of 2–4 players. A team travels together for the whole game.
- RSVP in the app: your team's name, its players, and the starting hub you'll set out from, wherever you happen to be (near home, say). You get your team's own page; keep its link private.
- A week before the game, every team is dealt its hand of Destination Tickets from its starting hub. It appears on your team's page, with a suggested plan. Use the week to make a better one.
- The finish is where every team ends the game: the party at Mississippi & Beech (the Line 4 stops at N Mississippi Ave & Beech St, and at Failing St going south).
- The game runs 11:00 to 16:00 on a Saturday. You're scoring from 11:00: board your first trip from your starting hub then (check-ins open at 10:30).
Destination Tickets
Your hand has about 6 tickets. Each one names two hubs, A and B, about 15 to 40 minutes apart by riding, and is worth roughly 1 point for every 3 minutes of that ride.
To complete a ticket, join its two hubs with segments your team rode. Ride from A to B, or B to A, in one go or pieced together over the day: it's complete as soon as your rides make a connected path between them. Walking doesn't connect, so a walk between two hubs leaves a gap. One ride can complete more than one ticket. Do them in any order.
The tickets lie between your starting hub and the party, so they lead you there. Every team's hand is worth about the same (around 50 points) and takes about the same time to do (around 4 hours by the best plan), wherever it starts, leaving time for missed connections and for claiming segments along the way.
The Final Ticket is in every hand: be at the party by 16:00, worth 30 points. Check in at the finish when your other tickets are done (or you've given up on them): that completes it, and your team's game is over. You're at the party.
At the end of the game, every ticket you haven't completed, the Final Ticket included, costs you half its value. Hands are private: you only see your own.
Claiming Segments
The network is made of hubs joined by segments. A segment is one line's trip between two neighboring hubs: for example MAX Blue from Pioneer Square to Goose Hollow, or Line 15 from one hub to the next.
To claim a segment, ride it, and check in on your team's page as you go:
- Boarding: pick the hub you're at, then the departure you're getting on from the trips leaving around now (say "11:42 MAX Blue to Cleveland Ave").
- Getting off: tap the hub where you get off, from that trip's stops. You've ridden every segment in between.
Each segment is timed by the timetable: when your vehicle is due at its far end. The first team to ride a segment claims it and scores its points straight away; teams on the same vehicle claim it together. Segments are worth more the longer the scheduled ride:
| Scheduled ride | Points |
|---|---|
| up to 4 min | 1 |
| 5–8 min | 2 |
| 9–12 min | 4 |
| 13–17 min | 7 |
| 18–24 min | 10 |
| 25 min or more | 15 |
You can ride a segment another team has already claimed (no one can stop you from boarding a bus), and it still counts toward joining up your tickets. But it costs a toll: each time you ride it, your team pays 1 point to the team that claimed it. Ride your own segments, unclaimed ones, or a parallel line to stay out of their pockets. The app shows who owns what.
Riding through hubs: you don't have to get off at every hub. Staying on a line through several hubs claims each segment along the way.
Getting Around
- Transit: MAX, Streetcar, WES, the Aerial Tram, and every TriMet bus line on the map.
- Biketown: some hubs are joined by bike segments. Ride a Biketown bike from one hub to the other, checking in as you take the bike and again at the other hub, to claim it like a transit segment.
- Walking is always allowed, to make a connection or reach a hub, but it never claims a segment or scores.
Follow the law and the operators' rules, and pay your fare. A team that splits up, takes a car, taxi or rideshare, or uses any other vehicle can't claim anything on that leg.
End of the Game
The game ends at 16:00. Scoring stops: nothing ridden or reached after 16:00 counts. Teams that checked in at the finish are already at the party; everyone else heads there now, however they like.
Final Scoring
Add up:
- Segments: the points for every segment your team claimed.
- Tickets: the points for every ticket you completed, minus half the value of each one you didn't. The Final Ticket counts the same way.
- Solo MAX segments: +3 for each MAX segment your team rode that no other team rode.
- Most Modes: +10 to the team that rode the most different modes: MAX, Streetcar, WES, Aerial Tram, Frequent Service bus, other bus and Biketown. Tied teams all score it.
- Longest Continuous Path: +10 to the team with the longest continuous chain of claimed segments, counted in segments. A chain can pass through a hub more than once, but uses each segment only once. Tied teams all score it.
- Aerial Tram: +5 for the team that claims the Aerial Tram.
- Tolls: +1 for each time another team rode a segment you claimed, and −1 for each time you rode a segment another team had claimed.
The team with the most points wins. Tied: the team with the most tickets completed, then the most segments claimed.
Open Questions (for playtesting)
- The point table, ticket curve and bonus values will be tuned with simulations.
- How the app verifies a ride: today a check-in names the exact trip and is checked against the timetable (you can't get off before your vehicle is due). The phone's location could back it up.
- Starting hubs very far from the party (over 90 minutes): their hands are a little smaller.
An unofficial, fan-made game. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Days of Wonder, TriMet, Portland Streetcar, or Biketown.