A friend got an invitation to a house party

Another message beeps into your phone. It's Ben, your buddy. "Hey, have your parents gone?"

Mom and dad were going out on a weekend together. However, you and your two sisters were left to keep the house in order in a Mexican standoff. Anyone abusing the trust will be tattled on by the two others.

"An hour ago, but my sisters are entrenched. Emily's watching a show with a friend downstairs and Lexa is occupying the upstairs bathroom."

"Oof," Ben wrote. "I know of a good plan B though."

"Oh?" you say back, pondering what your extroverted friend has figured out now.

"There's a party over at Jason Smooth's place," Ben wrote and you groaned. That alpha chud was such an insecure bully, you just kept out of his way most of the time.

"Jason's got his house for himself... and rumor has it he just lost a round of New Role," he wrote and added a laughing sweat tear emoji. You laughed out loud. Holy shit, Jason, no! You tab over to social media and check out his page.

Sure as sure, all images of Jason now had a Asian girl's face with black hair in twin tails and Hime bangs curtaining a very round face. "Holy shit, he got Asian maid or something!" you write as you see his social media. "How many do you think know?"

"Just you, me and Carl. One of Jason's friends called Carl in a panic for tips on how to play as he was about to lose, said the magic words and who was playing."

"Who else was playing?" you asked Ben. If nobody admitted to playing the game, nobody would be any wiser and shit would go down without anyone but the targets remembering what happened. Now that you were aware however, you would notice the change without the victims.

"Johnny and Mark," Ben typed. You knew of Mark, one of Jason's mediocre bros, but not Johnny. "Johnny knew Carl and called him when he had three fail cards and one win card, with one of the Loss cards being Party Time!"

The basic game of New Role was a die and two decks of cards. A Loss deck and a Win deck. You roll the die and try to get a high number, usually a four on a six sided die. Winning numbers gets you a Win card and losing numbers a Loss card. When you have gained three Win cards, you get the abilities or bonuses described there.

The catch? All acquired loss cards are also applied at the acquirement of three Win cards and ending your turn. There are ways to adjust this. Some Win cards can be sacrificed to remove a Loss card. Some Loss cards could also be sacrificed, but usually they brought bad effects like the need to roll higher to succeed, more win cards required to win.

You can't play the game alone, you need at least two people to play. The first player to gain three cards would win and the game would end when he ended his turn.

How do you know this? Well there were digital versions for people to play. You can even put up a picture of yourself and they use modern AI tech to visualize your new fate.

And you knew what a Party Time card meant. A pretty nasty loss card because it worked on every player. It would make the players lose inhibition and "live life to its fullest" a day a week. And it multiplies the duration of the game to make sure it lasts at least a week. Combining with other nasty loss cards, it could even last for months!

"I'm going over to crash their party, want to come?" Ben asked. You sat up and blinked, pondering if it was a good idea.

On the positive side, your sisters were going to call your parents if you did anything fun around here, which would be bad. But they wouldn't bother calling your parents if you snuck out without them noticing.

"I'll be at the Old Oak gas station in fifteen minutes," you typed and started looking around your room for clothes to wear.