"Avis is an expert chainsaw dueler and ice sculptor, and she likes to beat people up."
So begins the fable of Button Men, a mean little dice game for two players. It's a strategic little pickup game, featuring awesome art and snappy quips. Players take turns rolling dice and capturing each other's dice, in the game that was named the Best Abstract Board Game of 1999. And it doesn't even have a board!
Originally, Button Men was sold as two-packs of 2.25" pin-back buttons. There were several expansions from Cheapass Games, as well as licensed expansions based on Lunch Money, Legend of the Five Rings, Girl Genius, Sailor Moon, Dork Tower, and many more. There were hundreds of characters in all. And you can even buy a version for your iPhone.
Now Cheapass Games is pleased to bring you the full rules, and some printable Button Men trading cards, to help you re-start your Button Men collection. You can also buy the individual buttons from our Cafe Press store, and a few remaining packs from the good people at Paizo.com. Keep watching this page for updates and new sets, whenever we have spare time or a healthy donation from our Button Men fans.
Here are the basics: First, download and print the rules.
- Button Men Rule Book (981K)
Next, print your favorite artwork from the trading cards below. These have a 1/8" bleed to make it extra-easy.
Button Men: Soldiers (original set)
Button Men: Vampyres (First expansion)
Button Men: BROM (By James Ernest and Nick Sauer, artwork by Brom)
Button Men: Fightball (Released in 2003 as "Take Five")
Button Men: Samurai
In the Samurai set, the dark blue dice are Focus Dice. For the rules for Button Men: Samurai (Focus Dice and V Swing ) check out the more-complete online rules at www.beatpeopleup.com.
We've also created a mini-rulebook that fits on the back of those cards. It doesn't have the complete rules, but it's enough to get started.
- Button Men Mini-Rulebook (58K)
If you'd like buttons of your own, check out these resources:
- Individual Buttons for $3.50 each, at our Cafe Press store
- Original sets (not many left!) from Paizo.com
Unexploded Cow Button Men!
Our friends at Impact Miniatures now produce 14- and 18-sided dice, meaning that you can now have any even size between2 and 20. To help them launch these new dice, we created a special set of Unexploded Cow Button Men. The preview cows (Thaddeus and Buckley) are available as JPGs below. And we're working on a new set of six more characters for release with Unexploded Cow, in February 2013. The beta test for these characters runs during the second week of January.
Button Men on iOS:
Consider loading Button Men onto your iOS device. Thrust Interactive's Button Men contains 18 characters, all-new artwork, 1- and 2-player modes, and the convenience of fitting on your iPhone, all for 99 cents.
