Home A game by Bruno Faidutti, for 3 to 6 players, ages 8 and up
Background of the game
Each player controls a team of dragon hunters (two knights, a thief, and a wizard). Like
all dragon hunters, they only have one goal: the gold, silver, the jewels, and the magic
objects. Actually killing a dragon? It is a piece of cake. But the most difficult part
comes after the dragon is dead: the adventuring party has to figure out how to share the
spoils!
Comments in Italics cover advanced rules that you might wish to ignore when playing your first game, to allow you to learn the basic rules. You can add these rules in once you are comfortable with the basic game to add more strategy.
Components:
• 18 Dragon cards, and one Market card
• 24 Adventurer cards (4 each in 6 colours)
• 17 Magic Object cards
• A cloth bag for holding the Treasure tokens
• 6 screens *
• A Sand Timer (length is 60 seconds)
• 126 wooden Treasure tokens
• 35 silver tokens (representing coins)
• 20 gold tokens (gold pieces)
• 16 red tokens (magic objects)
• 4x12 gem tokens (12 blue = sapphire, 12
green = emerald, 12 purple = amethyst, 12 yellow = amber)
• 6 white tokens (diamonds)
• 1 black token (black
diamond)
Setting up the game
1. Each player takes:
• a set of 4 Adventurer cards of the same colour (2 knights, a thief, and a wizard)
which is placed in a row face up in front of the player.
• a screen for hiding acquired treasures from the other players.
2. The Dragon cards are shuffled and placed facedown in the centre of the table. This will
form a draw pile for the Dragon cards.
3. The top four Dragon cards are turned up and laid in a row in the centre of the table.
These are the first Dragons that may be attacked by the players.
4. The Treasure tokens are all placed in the cloth bag. For each dragon card, pull random
tokens from the bag equal to the number on the bottom left number on the Dragon card.
5. The Market card is placed in the exact middle of the remaining cards of the Dragon Draw
Pile. This means that it is placed between the 7th and 8th dragons remaining in the deck.
5a. Advanced Rule: The Magic Object cards are
shuffled. Each player receives one Magic Object card face down (and may look at it), next
to his Adventurer cards. The remaining cards are placed in a pile next to the stack of
Dragon cards.
6. The starting player begins the first turn.
Dragon Cards
At all times (until the Dragon draw pile runs out), there must
be four dragons face-up in the centre of the table. These are the dragons that may be
attacked by players. A killed dragon is discarded from the game, and replaced with a
fresh, healthy dragon from the top of the draw pile.
In he upper left of each Dragon card, there is a number, which indicates the dragon's strength.
The numbers on the bottom of each card tell you
how much treasure the dragon possesses. This is broken down into two parts:
• A known part, which are the number of random tokens drawn from the treasure bag as
soon as the dragon is placed in the centre of the table. The number of tokens to be placed
is on the lower left of the card.
• A hidden part, which is not known until the dragon is killed. The indicated number
of tokens on the lower right part of the card is drawn from the treasure bag after the
dragon has been killed, but before treasure shares are negotiated.
All of the treasure tokens placed on the card are drawn at random from the treasure bag.
Adventurer Cards
Each player has 4 Adventurers, who each have an attack value printed on
the upper left of the card. Thieves and Wizards also have special powers. (The
descriptions of the powers are described along with the rules for sharing treasure).
Each player places his four adventurer cards face-up at the start of the game. These active adventurers are used to attack dragons. When a dragon is killed, the Adventurer comes back* to the owning player, but must be placed face down. At the beginning of a turn in which a player has no face-up adventurers to send out to battle a dragon, all of the player's Adventurers are turned face-up, and all are again available for battle.
*The Adventurer Cards may also be sent back to a player due to the effect of various Magic Objects.
Playing the Game
The first player is chosen at random. Players will take turns in a
clockwise order.
Each turn, players will be trying to kill off the vulnerable dragons. As soon as a dragon is killed, its treasure is completed by adding tokens equal to the dragon's hidden treasure value. If solely the adventurers of one player killed the dragon, that player takes the entirety of the treasure. If several players helped to kill the dragon, the treasure must be divided to the agreement of all of the players --in a limited amount of time.
Attacking Dragons
Each turn, the player launches an attack against one of the four
vulnerable dragons. The player may attack any dragon even if there is already an
adventurer of the same colour (or even a different colour) attacking the dragon.
To note the attack, place the desired adventurer face-up under the dragon card. Overlap the adventurer cards attacking the dragon so that all of the attack values are visible.
Once the Adventurer card is placed on a dragon,
sum the attack values of all of the Adventurers currently attacking that dragon, and
compare the result to the strength (the top left number) of the dragon.
• If the sum of the attack values is less than the Dragon's strength, nothing
happens. The dragon remains alive, and the adventurers keep fighting the dragon. The next
player then takes a turn.
• If the sum of the attack values is equal to or greater than the Dragon's strength,
it is killed. The player proceeds to complete and divide the treasure.
Sharing the Treasure of a dead dragon
The treasure for the recently deceased dragon is completed by drawing
the correct number of tokens in the dragon's hidden treasure (bottom right number on the
dragon card).
• If the dragon was killed by adventurers owned by one player, that player takes the
entire treasure and hides it behind their screen.
• If the dragon was killed by adventurers owned by several players, the sand timer is
turned over. As soon as the sand timer is turned, the involved immediately negotiate how
to split the treasure between themselves.
• If the players who killed the dragon all agree within 60 seconds the exact
distribution of the treasure, then they divide the treasure as agreed.
Treasure agreements must
heed the following rules:
• They must be exact and not rely on any
sort of luck. Players may not throw a die, or flip a coin to decide who receives any part
of the treasure.
• The players must divide all of the
treasure. None of the treasure may be discarded.
• The players may not agree on anything
other than the split of the treasure. In particular, players may not agree on how to share
future treasures.
• If the sand timer runs out before the players agree on how to split the treasure, then the treasure is removed from the game. (It is not placed back into the bag, but into the lid of the box.)
Special cases for sharing treasure
If one or more wizards were
present at the slaying of a dragon:
The wizards have a priority to seize red tokens, representing magic objects. Therefore, if
there is only a single wizard in the group, the owning player immediately takes any red
tokens before negotiation begins on how to split the rest of the treasure. Even if the
negotiation fails, this lone wizard gets to keep his magic objects. If there is more than
one wizard attacking the dragon, then the red tokens are divided along with the rest of
the treasure in the negotiation as usual.
Advanced Rule: The red tokens are included in the negotiations for all of the treasure (ignoring the previous rule). When a player controlling a wizard ends up with a red token in their share of the spoils, the player also takes the top magic object card form the deck. If a player who does not have a wizard involved in the killing of the dragon receives a red token as part of his treasure share, he does not get to draw a magic object card. Each magic object card may be used once during the game and then is discarded. If the magic objects drawing deck is exhausted, the discard is shuffled to make a new drawing deck.
If one or
more thieves are present at the slaying of a dragon:
When a thief helps kill a dragon, his owner takes a token, at random, from behind the
screen of one of the other players involved in the same fight. If there are several
thieves, the thefts occur in the same order in which the thief cards were played to attack
the dragon. The thefts occur regardless of whether or not players managed to agree on how
to share the treasure.
Advanced rule: A Thief who steals a red magic object token does NOT get a magic object card.
If one
player has both a thief and a wizard attacking the same dragon:
When a thief and a magician from the same player are involved in the killing of a dragon,
the wizard helps the thief. The player may look behind the screen and choose the token to
steal instead of drawing it randomly.
After the treasure shares are negotiated:
• The players take back their adventurer cards who killed this
dragon and place them facedown before themselves.
• The dragon card is removed from the game.
• A new dragon is drawn from the top of the draw pile and its known treasure (bottom
left number) number of tokens is drawn from the bag and placed on the card.
• The next player in turns ends out an adventurer to attack a dragon.
Market
When the seventh Dragon is drawn from the dragon card draw pile, the
Market card appears.
The players have one minute (turn over the hourglass to mark the time) to freely trade any treasure tokens they wish. Only the tokens may be exchanged. Players are not required to reveal what sort of loot is hiding behind their screens.
The game continues normally after the Market is completed.
End of the Game
When the last treasure token is taken from the bag, the game is close
to ending.
From that point on, killed dragons are not replaced. Also, when a dragon is killed, no tokens are drawn from the bag to complete its treasure. The players must divide only the treasure that was placed when the dragon card was drawn.
The game ends when the last dragon is vanquished, and all of the treasure has been split.
Each player reveals the contents of his treasure stash, and points are counted. The player with the most points wins.
a) Silver pieces are worth 1 point each.
b) Gold pieces are worth 3 points each.
c) Magic objects (red tokens) are worth 1 point each.
d) The Black Diamond is worth 7 points.
e) For each of the five other colours (the gemstones in green, blue, purple, yellow, and
the white diamonds), the player with the most tokens in that colour scores 15 points (with
3 players), 12 points (with 4 or 5 players), 10 points(with 6 players). If players are
tied for the highest total in a colour, they each score the full bonus points.
Advanced Rules:
a) Silver pieces are worth 1 point each.
b) Gold pieces are worth 3 points each.
c) Magic Objects (red tokens) are worth 1 point each.
d) The Black Diamond is worth 15 points. The black diamond is cursed and the player who
owns it does not score for the e) and f) paragraphs below. If the player owning the black
diamond solely has the most of one colour of gems, then no player scores for that colour
gemstone.
e) For each of the five other colours (the gemstones in green, blue, purple, yellow, and
the white diamonds), the player with the most tokens in that colour scores 12points (with
3 players), 10 points (with 4 or 5 players), 8 points (with 6 players). If two players are
tied for the highest total in a colour, they score half of the bonus points (6,5, or 4),
If 3 or more players are tied, they all score nothing.
f) If a player has at least one token of each of the 5 gem colours, they score 5 bonus
points.
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