Grunt

Grunt is a corporate climb of President / Scum. Shed your hand first, tax the losers next round, and finish the session with the lowest leftover-card score.

Setup

• 3–8 players. 60-card deck: 15 ranks × 4 departments.
• Cards deal as evenly as possible; leftovers stay undealt.
• Play a set number of rounds (default 5). Host can change it.

Your turn

• Lead: play 1–4 cards of the same rank (any set size).
• Follow: play the same number at equal or higher rank, or any number (1–4) of a strictly higher rank — e.g. one higher card can beat a pair. Or pass.
• Departments (Ops / Product / Finance / Legal) are flavor only — they do not change strength.
• When everyone else passes, the last player to play wins the trick and leads again.

Clears

• Playing Head Honcho (any count) clears the pile — that player leads again.
• Playing four of a kind also clears — same player leads again.

Going out & titles

• Empty your hand to go out. First out is Head Honcho for next round.
• Last remaining player is the Grunt. Middles get mid titles.
• Before round 2+ starts, there is a short promotion tax (not a play): Grunt must give their 2 highest cards to Head Honcho, who returns any 2. With 4+ players, Cog gives their highest 1 to Big Cheese too. After tax, the leader may play any 1–4 of a kind.
• Head Honcho leads the next round after tax.

Scoring

• Default: going out order — 1st scores 0, 2nd scores 5, 3rd scores 10, and so on (+5 each place).
• Alternate (Settings): leftover card values — empty hand is 0; held cards add rank points (Grunt = 1 … Head Honcho = 15).
• Totals carry across rounds. Lowest total after the last round wins.

Rank ladder (low → high)

Grunt → Code Monkey → Pencil Pusher → Pixel Pusher → Cog → Herder → Fire Chief → Paper Pusher → Bean Counter → Empire Builder → Headhunter → Suit → Big Cheese → Chief Everything Officer → Head Honcho