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Adventurous

Adventurous Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

  • Components
    • 1 Ship Card
    • 17 Map Cards
  • Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Taking a Turn
  • Journey Effects
  • End of Game
    • Encounter Thresholds
  • Scoring
  • Placement Rules
    • General Placement Rules
    • Map Card Placement Rules
    • Marvel Placement Rules

Components

1 Ship Card

  • Starting waypoint
  • Encounter thresholds
  • Journey effects

17 Map Cards

Marvel side:

  • Difficulty marker
  • Placement cost
  • Placement restriction

Map side:

  • Path segment
  • Waypoint
  • Encounters: whirlpool, fin, serpent, trident

Setup

  1. Choose whether to play with journey effects (see Journey Effects), and place the Ship Card on the table with the chosen side up. Reserve space around the ship to create your map.
  2. Choose a difficulty level, and build a 5-card marvel deck for that difficulty. You may choose your marvels or use random ones, as long as the difficulty markers match the numbers below.
IIIIII
Novice311
Seasoned221
Veteran122
Legend113
  1. Shuffle the marvel deck, and place it marvel-side up. Take the top Marvel Card and place it near the ship as the active marvel.
  2. Shuffle the remaining 12 cards into a map deck, map-side up.

Example: Completed Setup. Note that the decks and active marvel can be moved during the game to make space to build the map.

  1. The first player is the player who most recently went on an adventure. They place the map deck in front of them.

Gameplay

Players work together to embark on a successful journey by mapping a path, discovering marvels, and carefully managing encounters. Starting with the first player, players take turns clockwise around the table.

Taking a Turn

Each turn the active player either Explores or Discovers:

  • Explore: One at a time, draw 2 cards from the map deck. Before drawing each card, first look at the top card, then choose to either draw that card or draw the unknown card on the bottom of the deck. After drawing both cards, place them following the Placement Rules. If the map deck is empty, players may not Explore.
  • Discover: Choose either the active marvel or the top card of the marvel deck, and place it following the Placement Rules. If you place the active marvel, immediately replace it with the top of the marvel deck (if possible).

Note: When playing without journey effects, the active marvel is simply one of two options when a player Discovers, and has no additional purpose.

After their turn, the active player passes the map deck (if it's not empty) to the next player, and the game continues.

Journey Effects

One side of the ship has 3 journey effects which increase the difficulty of the game. When playing with journey effects, the active marvel's difficulty marker (I / II / III) indicates which effect is active. The active effect may change over the course of the game as the active marvel changes. After every marvel has been placed, all journey effects deactivate for the rest of the game.

End of Game

The game ends when all map cards and marvels have been placed, or when no additional cards can be placed.

Encounter Thresholds

Before scoring, count the numbers of visible encounters by type on the map. If the count for any encounter type exceeds its threshold, you do not score points for that type. Your map may have any number of visible whirlpool encounters.

Example: If you finish the game with 5 fins visible on the map, you do not score any points for fins.

The Encounter Thresholds are: fin 4, serpent 3, trident 2.

Scoring

Tally your score as follows:

  • +1 point for each visible path segment (do not include waypoints).
  • +2 points for each visible fin / serpent / trident (as long as you didn't exceed the threshold for that type).
  • +5 points if all marvels were placed.
  • -5 points for each unplaced marvel.
  • -3 points for each visible whirlpool.

Use this scoring table to see how you fared:

ScoreResult
50+Marvelous Adventure!
40-49Successful Voyage
39 or lessLost at Sea (you lose)

Placement Rules

Cards have specific requirements that must be followed in order to place them.

General Placement Rules

The following rules apply to all cards:

  • A card may cover any of the top three spaces on the ship card, but no other part of it.
  • A card may not cover any part of a marvel.
  • Each card must align to the grid and cover at least 1 grid space on an already placed map card.

Map Card Placement Rules

  • Each map card may be placed in either landscape or portrait orientation.
  • The first map card must cover the ship's starting waypoint with one of its own waypoints.
  • Each subsequent map card must extend the path by connecting one of its waypoints anywhere along the previous card's path, covering the last waypoint and any number of path segments (shortening the path).
  • A map card may not completely cover another map card.
  • All waypoints and path segments must form a single, continuous path from the ship through every map card. The path may not branch or become disconnected.

Marvel Placement Rules

Each marvel must be placed in landscape orientation only. Marvels must never cover waypoints or path segments. Marvels must cover at least the encounters shown in their placement cost. Marvels may cover extra encounters unless a placement restriction states otherwise. Any placement restrictions apply only during placement and can be ignored afterward.

Example: "3 + fin serpent" means you must cover 5 encounters: fin, serpent, and 3 more of any type(s).