A printable Decrypto score sheet lives or dies on a conversion nobody can reconstruct from the tokens on the table. Every other game in this series ends with a score you can recount from what is on the table, and the recount settles it. Decrypto ends with two piles of tokens that say nothing about the order they were earned in — and the winner can be decided entirely by that order, because a team that reaches two interception tokens in the same round as its opponent does not simply win, and a team that reaches two miscommunication tokens in that same round does not simply lose. Both thresholds were crossed in one round, so the tokens stop being a race and become points: each interception token is worth plus one, each miscommunication token is worth minus one, and the higher point total wins. Nothing was miscounted. The sheet just never recorded the one thing that mattered: every code, round by round, with who intercepted it and who miscommunicated it, because a pile of tokens cannot say which round put the second token down.
That is the product. Not a prettier note sheet. A record that survives the three arguments every Decrypto table has: the interception token claimed for a round when interceptions were not allowed, the miscommunication token blamed on the wrong team, and the tiebreak decided by counting tokens instead of converting them. A sheet that stores only the final token piles loses all three. A sheet that stores every round in order, the interception and miscommunication columns apart, and the tiebreak conversion in its own box settles all three in thirty seconds, and that is what a buyer reorders.
What a printable Decrypto set actually contains (and why the round log is the product)
A Decrypto set that sells is four pages, and every page earns its place by answering one question the table will ask at the end of the game. The first page is the round log: one row per round, with columns for the encryptor's team, the three-digit code, the intercepting team's guess, the encryptor's own team's guess, and two token boxes, one for an interception token and one for a miscommunication token, written at the moment each code is revealed, because a token pile alone cannot say which code earned it. The second page is the clue ledger: one column per keyword number, one to four, with every clue ever given for that number written underneath it in round order, because the opposing team reads its own clues back to crack the code, and a clue written on a loose scrap is a clue the sheet cannot help you reuse. The third page is the token tracker: two rows, one per team, with two interception spaces and two miscommunication spaces each, filled in round order, because the game ends the moment a team holds two of either kind, and a tracker that lets a third token be added has already lost the ending. The fourth page is the tiebreak ledger: interception tokens times plus one, miscommunication tokens times minus one, and a total per team in its own box, with a space beside it for the eight-round fallback, the count of the opposing team's four keywords correctly guessed, because if neither team has won after eight rounds, the team that guesses more of the other team's words wins.
The rules every buyer assumes (and the checks that enforce them)
The first rule every buyer assumes is that each team holds four secret keywords, numbered one to four, for the whole game, and each round each team's encryptor draws a three-digit code of three different numbers from one to four and gives one clue per number, in code order, and both teams write the clues down before anyone guesses. The second rule is that in the first round neither team attempts an interception, because there are no earlier clues to intercept from, and from the second round on, the opposing team guesses first and the encryptor's own team guesses second, and a correct interception earns the intercepting team one interception token, while a wrong guess by the encryptor's own team earns that team one miscommunication token, and a correct own-team guess earns nothing at all. The third rule is that the game ends at the end of a round in which a team holds two interception tokens, which wins, or two miscommunication tokens, which loses, and if both teams cross a threshold in the same round, the tokens convert to points, interceptions worth plus one and miscommunications worth minus one, and the higher point total wins, and if neither team has won after eight rounds, each team guesses the other team's four words and the team with more correct guesses wins.
The checks that enforce all three are mechanical, not moral. The round log makes a first-round interception impossible to claim, because its interception column is marked not allowed for round one, so a token claimed there is settled by the row, not by whoever shouts first. The token tracker makes a miscommunication token visible on the team that failed its own code, not on the team that gave the clues, so a token blamed on the wrong side is settled by the row, not by memory. The tiebreak ledger forces the conversion instead of a token count, so a team with two interceptions and two miscommunications cannot be declared the winner on tokens alone, because its converted total is zero, and the sheet shows the subtraction in its own box.
A worked game, and the arithmetic, checked the hard way
Two teams, four rounds, and every token accounted for. Round one allows no interceptions: the White team's own guess is correct and the Black team's own guess is correct, so no tokens are handed out at all. Round two: the White team's code is intercepted by the Black team, giving Black one interception token, while the White team's own guess is correct; then the Black team's code is intercepted by the White team, giving White one interception token, while the Black team's own guess is correct. Round three: the White team's code is not intercepted, but the White team's own guess is wrong, giving White one miscommunication token; then the Black team's code is neither intercepted nor miscommunicated. Round four: the White team's code is intercepted by the Black team, giving Black its second interception token, and the White team's own guess is wrong, giving White its second miscommunication token; then the Black team's code is intercepted by the White team, giving White its second interception token, while the Black team's own guess is correct. Final token piles: White two interceptions and two miscommunications, Black two interceptions and no miscommunications. Converted to points, White scores two times plus one plus two times minus one, which is zero, and Black scores two times plus one plus zero times minus one, which is two. Black wins by two points, on the tiebreak, despite White also holding two interception tokens, and the sheet proves it because the conversion is written down in its own box instead of folded into a token count nobody can recount.
The change-one-line box writes the counterfactual the buyer needs. Change one line and the margin moves: if the White team's own guess in round four had been correct, White would hold two interceptions and one miscommunication for a converted total of one, and Black would still win, but only by one point instead of two. If the Black team had failed to intercept the White team's code in round four, Black would hold one interception and no miscommunications for a converted total of one, and Black would still win, but only by one point over White's zero. If the White team had failed to intercept the Black team's code in round four, White would hold one interception and two miscommunications for a converted total of minus one, and Black would win by three points instead of two. A sheet that cannot show those three sentences cannot explain why the team with two interception tokens lost, and a buyer who cannot explain a tiebreak loss does not reorder.
The endings your log must also handle
There are three ways for a Decrypto game to produce a log that looks wrong, and the sheet must handle all three without a footnote. First, a first-round interception claimed: interceptions are not attempted in round one, so the round log must mark that column not allowed, and a token claimed there has invented a round the game never played. Second, a miscommunication token blamed on the clue giver's opponents: the token belongs to the team that failed its own code, so the token tracker must give each team its own miscommunication spaces, and a count that moves it to the other row has reversed the ending. Third, a tiebreak decided by counting tokens: two interceptions against two miscommunications is not a win on tokens, it is zero points after conversion, so the tiebreak ledger must show the plus-one and minus-one conversion, and a sheet that totals tokens has invented a lead for the team that merely tied on interceptions. And when eight rounds pass with no winner, the tiebreak ledger must record the keyword-guess count beside the total, because the fallback winner is the team that guesses more of the other team's four words, not the team with more tokens.
If you sell printable score sheets, this is the sheet your Decrypto buyer actually needs: a round log in round order, a clue ledger grouped by keyword number, a token tracker with two spaces of each kind per team, and a tiebreak ledger that converts tokens to points instead of counting them. Sell the record, not the note sheet. The note sheet is already in the box. The record is what settles the argument.
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