A Duel Betwixt Us Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• The Kinds of Cards in A Duel Betwixt Us
  • Anatomy of a Card
• Item Categories
• Setting Up
  • Your Starting Cards
• Your First Turn
• The Steps of a Turn
• Combat
  • Sample Combat Scenario
• Winning a Duel
• Winning the Game
• An Example of a Game in Progress
• In-Game Quick Reference Guide
  • The Game Layout
  • Managing Miners & Mining Ingots
  • The Steps of a Turn (Including All Possible Actions)
  • Spending Ingots
  • Adding Ingots to Items
• The Rules of Duelling
• Item F.A.Q.
• Card-Specific F.A.Q.

The Kinds of Cards in A Duel Betwixt Us

Quick Reference: A learning aid to assist you as you play. Steps of a turn on one side, duel rules on the other.

Duellist Persona: If you wish, you may roleplay as one of the duellist persona cards. Pick one before you start.

Miner: These are your loyal minions, brought under your thrall by your impressive feats of combat!

Ingot: Your miners will produce ingots of copper, silver, or gold for you to spend on events, items, & tricks!

Item: Your combat equipment! After purchasing these, you put them on the table and build them up with ingots!

Event: With these pale blue cards, you can stage events or incidents such as "free beer" which will change the balance of power outside combat.

Trick: Tricks are played during combat to give you an edge when duelling your rival! Coloured pale orange for your convenience.

Duel: Each duel has a unique set of rules which define the method of combat, usually by allowing only certain kinds of items.

Favour: A token from the object of the duellists' affection, these are the score-keeping cards of the game. Whoever has the most at the end wins.

Anatomy of a Card

Cost: Indicated in the top right corner, this is how much it will cost you to play the card from your hand. Cards in coloured circles need to be paid for with a single ingot of equal or greater value. Black circles can be paid for with multiple ingots.

Ingot Slots: On item cards, these little rectangles show you how many ingots you need to add to an item before it's complete and combat-ready. You can add any kind of ingot to any ingot slot -- the more valuable the ingot you put in the slot, the more powerful the item.

Description: What the card is or what it does.

Item Categories

Armour & Shields: These items protect you from damage in combat.

• Armour such as helmets and codpieces are hands-free and allowed in almost any duel, but can't be built as strong as shields.
• Shields get you more ingot slots for what you pay, which means better defense for less expense.

Weapons: There are three types of weapon: concealed, crushing, and swords. It's important to remember that duels often require a specfic type of weapon, and each weapon type also has its own unique properties.

• Concealed: Some trick and event cards (such as "Miner Murder") require that you own a completed concealed weapon to use them.
• Crushing: Crushing weapons allow you to destroy your opponent's armour and shields in combat.
• Swords: Swords offer the highest number of ingot slots for what you pay, which means more attack for less expense.

Setting Up

FIRST, each player may select a Duellist Persona Card to roleplay as. They may also choose to take a quick-reference card to refer to during the course of play.

Next, separate the duel, ingot, & draw cards (draw cards are all events, tricks & items) into separate stacks. For a full-length game, play with all of the duel cards. For a short game, randomly select 9 duel cards and play with those. Separately shuffle the duel pile and the draw pile for a random order.

Lay all cards in piles on the table between the players. The first duel is flipped into play from the top of the duel pile and placed beside it.

• Duel Pile: After shuffling the duel cards, flip the top card over to be face-up on the table. This will be the first duel in play.
• Draw Pile: All of the items, tricks, and events shuffled together.
• The Mines: All copper, silver, and gold ingots in the game are stacked in their separate piles. These are the copper, silver, and gold mines. Both players share the same mines.

Player 1 sits on one side of the piles and Player 2 sits on the opposite side.

Your Starting Cards

Before the game begins, each player takes 5 miners and 4 favours and sets them face-up on their side of the game in clear sight of their opponent.

• Each player gets 4 favours.
• Each player gets 5 miners.
• First player draws 5 cards from the draw pile. Second player draws 6.

Hold these cards in your hand and look them over. Don't show them to your opponent!

If either of you don't have any weapons in your hand costing either a silver (2) or copper (1), you're allowed to reveal your hand to your opponent, then shuffle it back into the draw pile and draw a new hand. If one player chooses to do this, their opponent may also take a new hand if they so wish. You can do this multiple times if needed.

Your First Turn

1) Draw Two Cards: Keep One, Trash the Other. Take two cards from the draw pile in the centre of the table. Pick your favourite -- that card goes into your hand for future use (you don't own it yet - if you want to use it, you can buy it later). The other card is thrown away, and placed face-up into a pile to the side of the game. This will be the discard pile, where all used or unwanted cards throughout the course of the game will go.

2) Assign a Miner to Your Copper Mine. All of your miners started the game in a lazy, idle state, in a pile beside the game. Assign one of your idle miners to the copper mine by placing him beneath it.

3) Gather Ingots. Your miner immediately earns you one copper ingot, which you collect from the mine and place on top of him. With your economy in motion, you can now buy something from your hand (and it's still only your first turn!)

4) Purchase Events or Items. If you have any Event or Item cards in your hand costing 1 or less (the price of a card is noted in its top right corner), you may spend your new copper ingot to buy it & bring that card into play. Trick cards can not be played this turn - they can only be played in combat. Ingots that are spent on playing cards are returned to the mines. Once played, events are immediately discarded, whereas items remain in front of you on the table.

5) Your Turn Ends Here... This Time. You can't engage in combat because your items aren't useable yet. You must fill in the open "slots" (small rectangles on the card) with ingots in later turns to make them combat-ready.

Player 2 has the same first turn instructions as Player 1.

The Steps of a Turn

Now that you've played your first turn, here's how every subsequent turn should be played:

1) Draw Two Cards: Keep One, Trash the Other. Take two cards from the draw pile. Add your favourite of the two to your hand. Discard the other.

Note: the maximum hand size is 7 cards. If you ever exceed 7, discard down to 7 at the end of your turn.

2) Assign a Miner & Move a Miner. In your first turn, you set one of your idle miners to work in the copper mine. In every subsequent turn, you assign one idle miner to a mine of your choice (unless you've run out of idle miners), AND you may also reassign a single miner you've already placed below a mine to a different one. Keep in mind that:

• Copper is easy to mine. Every 1 miner below the copper mine yields 1 copper per turn.
• Silver is harder to mine. Every complete set of 2 miners below the silver mine yields 1 silver per turn.
• Gold is hardest to mine. Every complete set of 3 miners below the gold mine yields 1 gold per turn.

To keep track of them, arrange your miner cards into sets of 1 under the copper mine, 2 under the silver mine, and 3 under the gold mine. Multiple complete sets of miners below a mine will yield multiple ingots of that kind per turn.

Spend-per-turn examples:

• Scenario 1: 1 miner under copper = 1 copper ingot.
• Scenario 2: 2 miners under copper = 2 copper ingots.
• Scenario 1: 2 miners under silver (in a set) = 1 silver ingot.
• Scenario 2: 4 miners under silver (in 2 sets of 2) = 2 silver ingots.
• Scenario 1: 3 miners under gold (in a set) = 1 gold ingot.
• Scenario 2: 2 miners under gold (in an incomplete set) = 0 gold ingots.

3) Gather Ingots. At each turn, you collect the ingots produced by your working miners. "Fill up" each complete miner set by placing an ingot from their mine on top of it. If you don't have enough miners in a set to complete it (e.g. if you only have 2 miners below gold), that set does not yield an ingot.

You can't hoard ingots from one turn to the next. Each set may only have 1 ingot on top of it at any time, so if you didn't spend last turn's ingot, it remains on the miner set and no new ingot is produced this turn.

4) Buy Items & Events. You may now spend your ingots on any affordable item or event cards in your hand!

Cards with a cost in a black circle may be paid for using any combination of ingots which add up to at least that amount (so the card pictured with a black circle cost of 2 could be paid for with either 2 copper, 1 silver, or 1 gold).

However, cards with a coloured circle cost must be paid for with a single ingot of that same colour (copper, silver or gold), or overpaid for with another single ingot of greater value.

Once played, events are immediately discarded, whereas items remain in front of you on the table. Only 4 items per player are allowed on the table at any time. If you play a 5th, you must first discard one of your existing items to make room for it. Ingots spent on cards from your hand are returned to the mines.

5) Add Ingots to Items. Instead of spending your ingots to play new cards, you may alternately use them to fill empty "slots" on the incomplete items you have in play. The number of ingots needed to complete each item are shown as small rectangles on the card -- these are your ingot slots. When you first bring an item onto the table, all slots are empty. Fill the slots with ingots to complete the item.

Only complete items can be used in combat.

You can fill the slots with any kind of ingot. Once complete, add up the ingots' values to get the item's attack or defence strength in combat (for example, the dagger made of a silver and copper ingot has 2+1=3 attack).

The ingot slots (small rectangles) on item cards will show you how many ingots you must add to that item, and how to shape your item on the table as ingots are added to it. If you don't have a big enough table, just arrange the cards in a pile so that all ingot colours are visible.

6) Declare a Duel (& then back down or enter combat). As long as you own at least one completed item, you may end your turn by declaring a duel. To do so, flip a single card from the duel pile over so that it is face-up alongside the duel pile. (If there are already three duels face-up, do NOT flip a new duel into play.)

You may pick any of the face-up duels on the table to challenge your opponent to as long as you have a completed item allowed by that duel card (Note: any items you bought this turn aren't allowed). If your foe has no valid weapon for the duel, you may still challenge him with it.

If you do pick a duel, put that duel card into the discard pile. It's time to enter combat (see the Combat section below)!

Alternatively, you may decline to choose any of the face-up duel cards, backing out of the duel and thus ending your turn.

Combat

1) The Attacker Selects Their Equipment. Upon choosing a duel, the aggressor immediately announces which items they will take into combat. You can't take any item into combat on the same turn you bought it from your hand.

Armour (helmets & codpieces) are always allowed in combat and always worn unless the duel card's rules explicitly forbid it. You can't wear multiple helmets on your head, nor can you gird your nether-regions with multiple codpieces. If you have more than one of either, select which to wear.

Unless the duel card's rules say otherwise, players can bring as many items as can be carried with their two hands. For example, they could bring:

• a single weapon which fills 2 hands (e.g. a claymore sword)
• two weapons which fill 1 hand each (e.g. a tak hammer and a dagger)
• a single weapon which fills 1 hand plus a shield which fills 1 hand

2) The Defender Selects Their Equipment. The defender then selects what equipment they will take into combat. If the defender has no valid items for that duel, they take no items at all.

3) Play Tricks. Combat has begun! If they have ingots left to pay for them, players may now choose to play tricks (pale orange cards) to alter the course of combat.

4) Tally Damage, Destroy Ingots with Crushing & Declare a Victor. Once neither player wishes to play any more tricks, total damage is calculated as: the attack value of a player's weapon(s) minus the defense of the opponent, taking any tricks into account.

The player who inflicts the most damage to his opponent wins, as long as it's more than zero. If the duel is a draw, neither player takes a prize (prizes are explained in Winning a Duel below).

If a 'crushing' weapon was brought to combat, its owner may select an ingot from an armour or shield his opponent brought to combat to be "destroyed" after total damage is calculated. That ingot cannot be replaced. If no ingots remain on the item, it is discarded. The destroyed ingot is returned to the mine from whence it came.

Sample Combat Scenario

Jim brings a crushing weapon with a gold ingot. Attack value = 3.

Paulina brings a sword with a silver & a copper ingot. Combined attack = 3. She also brings a codpiece with a copper ingot. Defense = 1.

How it plays out: Both players have weapons which attack for 3, but Paulina has brought a codpiece which defends for 1. Thus, Jim only does 2 damage, and Paulina does 3. Paulina is the victor.

However, after damage is tallied, Jim's crushing weapon destroys the ingot in Paulina's codpiece. The codpiece, having no ingots left on it, is discarded.

Winning a Duel

To the Victor Goes a Prize. The winner of a duel chooses one of two prizes: EITHER to gain 2 new idle miners, OR to take a favour card from his opponent (each player started with 4).

Consider carefully which of these prizes you will take. The player with the most favours at the end of the game will be declared the winner, but a stronger economy will make you a more formidable opponent as the game progresses! (Hint: it's helpful to focus on miners in the earliest stages of the game.)

Winning the Game

1. If a player gets all the favour cards, they win.
2. If players have fought through all of the duel cards, or run out of cards from the draw pile, the game ends after that turn and the player with the most favours wins.
3. If any game concludes with both players having the same number of favours, the player who went second wins.

An Example of a Game in Progress

In the game pictured in the playguide, both players have 3 working miners.

Player 1 (on the top) has spread his 3 miners across the silver & copper mine, so he'll have 1 silver and 1 copper to spend each turn.

Player 2 (on the bottom) has put all 3 miners on to the gold mine, giving him 1 golden ingot to spend per turn. Player 2 (bottom) has a weapon out: a golden tack-hammer. Since gold has a value of 3, this weapon, though small, would pack a hefty punch at 3 attack! However, player 1 (top) also has a 3 defense shield (1 silver, 1 copper), to protect them...

If everything was brought to combat, player 1 would be able to block all of his opponent's damage with his shield, but the shield would then be damaged by the crushing blow of his enemy's tack-hammer.

In-Game Quick Reference Guide

The Game Layout

In the arrangement shown in the playguide, the game is laid out with the mines (piles of ingots), the draw pile (all events, tricks, and items), and the duel pile betwixt the two players. Both players share the same mines and draw from the same draw pile. To the far left are the discard pile and each player's idle miners and favours.

• Duel Pile, Draw Pile, Copper Mine, Silver Mine, Gold Mine -- the shared piles described in Setting Up.

To the side of the game you put:

1. A shared discard pile, where ALL used, trashed, or discarded cards except ingots will go face-up. Ingots are returned to the mines when done with.
2. Each player's idle miners (face up and visible to their opponent).
3. Each player's favours (face up and visible to their opponent).

Managing Miners & Mining Ingots

After drawing two cards, trashing one, and adding the other to your hand, place one of your idle miners below a mine to put him to work. You may also reassign a working miner from one mine to another. Organise your copper, silver and gold miners into sets of 1, 2 and 3 respectively.

After moving your miners, "fill up" each complete set by placing an ingot from the mine on top of it. Incomplete sets don't yield an ingot. Each set may only have one ingot on top of it, so you can't accumulate them over multiple turns.

The Steps of a Turn (Including All Possible Actions)

Economy

1. Draw 2 cards: trash 1, add 1 to your hand.
2. Place & move a miner.
3. Collect ingots produced by your miners.

Strategy

4. Use ingots to buy items & events.
5. Add ingots to incomplete items.

Duel (if you don't want to duel you may skip to step 13)

6. Flip a duel into play.
7. Pick a duel OR back out of the duel & skip to step 13.
8. Pick weapons.
9. Play tricks.
10. Tally damage and declare victor.
11. Remove crushed shield & armour ingots.
12. Victor chooses prize.

Turn End

13. Discard down to 7 cards in hand if you have 8 or more.

Spending Ingots

Cards with a cost in a black circle may be paid for using any combination of ingots which add up to at least that amount.

However, cards with a coloured cost must be paid for with a single ingot of that same colour (copper, silver or gold), or another single ingot of greater value.

Event & Item cards are played after you gather ingots. Trick cards can only be played in combat.

Adding Ingots to Items

The ingot slot rectangles on item cards will show you how many ingots you can add to that item, and how to shape your item on the table. If you don't have a big enough table, just arrange them in a pile so that all ingot colours are visible.

The Rules of Duelling

1. The duel's initiator may only pick a duel card if they have a completed item allowed by the rules of that duel.
2. The initiator of the duel may not use any item the same turn they bought it from their hand (except to enable a trick card played in combat).
3. If the defender has no relevant items for a selected duel, they enter the duel unarmed.
4. Armour is always worn (unless a duel card explicitly forbids it).
5. Unless the duel says otherwise, players can bring as many items as they can fit in their 2 hands. Helmets and codpieces are hands-free.

Item F.A.Q.

I paid the cost to play my item from my hand. Now what? Your new item is put on the table in front of you with NO ingots on it. Check how many slots the item has. You need to fill those slots with ingots (you can use any kind of ingots on any item). When all slots are filled, the item is complete & combat-ready! You can't bring it to combat until then.

Can I rebuild a damaged item? Can I use one? Once an item has been fully built, you can't add new ingots to it, even if it has lost ingots to crushing, tricks or events. Damaged items CAN still be used at their weaker strength.

May I attack with a weapon as soon as I've built it? Even if you've completed it, you can't bring an item to combat the same turn it was bought from your hand. You can use it next turn, or if attacked by your foe during their turn. It can be used to enable tricks & events though.

May I build an item up with ingots over several turns? Absolutely. You can spend as many or as few turns building up an item as you like. However, you can't use it in combat or to enable certain tricks & events (such as "Treachery" or "Miner Murder") until it has been completed.

Card-Specific F.A.Q.

Tricks -- Cheat: Play 'Cheat' at the very start of a duel when declaring which items you will bring to combat.

Tricks -- Throwing Knife & Treachery: The concealed weapon must be completed, but doesn't have to have been brought into combat already. If you did bring it into combat, it does its initial combat damage, plus the damage activated by the trick.

Events -- Fancy Ball: Once you play this card, you can't declare a duel at the end of your turn. When your turn ends, your foe can't declare a duel on that turn. After that, things go back to normal.

Events -- Free Beer: Miners inebriated by Free Beer can be used in a Miner War.

Events -- Good Enough: Must be played on an item with at least 1 ingot already on it.

Duels -- Bicep Measuring Contest & Miner Wars: You do not need a completed relevant item to challenge your opponent to these duels.

Duels -- Throw Everything: The duel's aggressor throws first. An item's strength is how much it'd attack or defend for.

Duels -- Throw Everything, Face Smash & Phantom Limbs: You can use multiple helmets or codpieces in these duels.

Other -- Blank Cards: Are for you to make your own contributions to the narrative of the game.

Other -- Zombie Miners: Are functionally the same as living ones. They can be killed just as easily and work just as hard for you in the mines.

Other -- Ingots: Are never put into the discard pile. Once finished with them, return them to the mines.