Contraband Insider Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Phases of Each Round
• Game Setup
  • Centre of the Table
  • For Each Player
• Gameplay - Contraband Goods Phase
• Gameplay - Police Raid Phase
  • Raid Public Location
  • Raid Home Base
  • Play Assistance Card
  • Police Raid Phase (End)
• Gameplay - Scoring Phase
• Round Ends and Starting Next Round
• End Game and Victory Conditions
• Game Variant - Double Agent
  • 1. Setup
  • 2. Card Description
  • Reveal Roles
• Assistance Card Description
  • Corruption Trade
  • Discredit
  • Hindrance
  • Informant
  • Injustice
  • Model Citizen
  • Redistribute
  • Restricted Area
  • Snitch
  • Underhand Deal

Components

• x1 Main Board
• x5 Player Cards
• x15 Contraband Cards
• x30 Unfound Cards
• x5 Meeples
• x10 Assistance Cards
• x8 Public Location Cards
• x5 Double Agent Variant Cards
• x3 Police Tokens
• x3 Police Penalty Tokens
• x1 Model Citizen Token
• x1 Player Turn Marker
• x10 Wooden Discs

Each player's colour set consists of: x1 Player Card, x3 Contraband Cards, x6 Unfound Cards, x1 Meeple, x2 Wooden Discs.

Phases of Each Round

Each round consists of a game setup and 3 gameplay phases:

1. Game Setup
2. Contraband Goods Phase
3. Police Raid Phase
4. Scoring Phase

Game Setup

Centre of the Table

1. Place the Main Board and Assistance Cards at the centre accessible to all players.
   • Shuffle all the Assistance Cards, then form an Assistance Deck to be placed facedown at the left of the Main Board.
   • Draw 3 Assistance Cards from the top of the Assistance Deck, and place them face-up on the middle of the Main Board. These are the Assistance Card Selections.
   • Leave some space at the right of the Main Board for Discarded Assistance Cards.
2. Place the Police Tokens, Police Penalty Tokens, and a Model Citizen Token near the Main Board based on the number of players.
   • 3 Players: 2 Tokens each
   • 4-5 Players: 3 Tokens each
3. Place the Public Location Cards at the centre accessible to all players.
   • There is no fixed way to place the Public Location Cards, therefore players are flexible to place them in any form like a circle or straight line. The 4x2 formation will be used as an example.
   • Leave some space anywhere near the Public Location Cards for Confiscated Contraband Cards.

For Each Player

Each player will take the following items of their player colour:

• x1 Player Card
• x3 Contraband Cards
• x6 Unfound Cards
• x1 Meeple
• x2 Wooden Discs

Determine and pass the Player Turn Marker to the starting player.

The "Cash" icon represents points to be earned that contributes to the round's score.

Gameplay - Contraband Goods Phase

In this phase after the game setup, players are to hide 3 Contraband Cards faced-down among 8 Public Locations and 1 Home Base.

The card type that consists of Contraband Cards and Unfound Cards will be known as Goods Card.

1. Players shall start by placing a Goods Card simultaneously faced-down at their Home Base.
   • Place a Contraband Card if you want to hide it in a location.
   • Place an Unfound Card if you don't want to hide a Contraband Card.
2. Players will then take turns to place a Goods Card faced-down per Public Location.

Players are not allowed to retrieve or look at the Goods Cards after placing them.

Fortunately, players are allowed to take notes with a piece of paper or smartphone.

Gameplay - Police Raid Phase

After the Contraband Goods Phase, the Police Raid Phase allows players to take turns to play 1 out of 3 actions:

• Raid Public Location
• Raid Home Base
• Play Assistance Card

Pass the Player Turn Marker to the next player in a clockwise direction after the end of each turn.

Raid Public Location

This action allows one of the Public Locations with Goods Cards Faced-Down (Unraided Public Location) to be revealed.

However, the player-in-turn will not directly get to choose the Public Location.

1. All other players will place their Meeples on their selected Public Locations to provide as options.
   • In the example, the player-in-turn can choose to reveal between the Bar or Gas Station (doesn't have to choose the majority).
   • The Pawn shop cannot be chosen by players as there are no Goods Cards. This Location Card can also be flipped face-down.
2. Open to reveal all Goods Cards from the selected Public Location and Player Tokens returned.
   • Revealed Contraband Cards will be discarded faced-up as Confiscated Contraband Cards.
   • Revealed Unfound Cards will be kept faced-up by the player-in-turn.

Raid Home Base

This action allows the player-in-turn to open a Goods Card from one of the Other Player's Home Base.

1. Upon declaring this action, the player-in-turn chooses one of the other players with a Goods Card Faced-Down on the Home Base at their Player Board.
2. That player must open to reveal that Goods Card.
   • If a Contraband Card is revealed, that card will be discarded faced-up as a Confiscated Contraband Card. The Player-in-Turn will also be awarded a Police Token (2 Points).
   • If an Unfound Card is revealed, the Player-in-Turn will receive a Police Penalty Token (-1 point). That Other Player will receive a Police Token, and the Unfound Card will be kept faced-up by that other player.

Players can receive more than one Police Token and Police Penalty Token.

Note: This action cannot be played after all the Police Tokens are awarded.

Play Assistance Card

This action allows the player-in-turn to play 1 of the 3 Assistance Cards from the Assistance Card Selection.

Draw an Assistance Card from the Assistance Deck to replenish the empty Assistance Card Selection area. Discarded Assistance Cards goes to the discard pile.

Discarded Assistance Cards will Not be Reshuffled Back when the Assistance Deck is empty. Therefore, this action cannot be played when there are No Cards in the Assistance Deck.

There are 3 types of Assistance Card each represented by an icon shown on the right side of the card:

• Discard the card after playing.
• Discard the card after conditions are met.
• The card stays for the entire round.

Refer to pages 17-19 for further descriptions of each Assistance Card ability.

Police Raid Phase (End)

The Police Raid Phase ends immediately when there is One Unraided Public Location left.

All the cards in that Unraided Public Location will be opened and revealed.

Players will then proceed to the Scoring Phase.

Gameplay - Scoring Phase

Calculate the round's score during the Scoring Phase:

1. All the cards in the sole Unraided Public Location will be opened and revealed.
   • Respective players will earn the number of points based on the number of "Cash" Icons in their Contraband Card(s).
   • For example, the blue player earns 3 points and the green player earns 2 points.
2. Players are to reveal the unopened Goods Card on the Home Base. Earn the number of points if it is a Contraband Card.
3. Add the points from the Police Token(s) and Police Penalty Token(s).
4. Additional points may be earned/deducted from Assistance Cards.
5. After players have calculated their round's score, Player Scores (represented by "stars") will be awarded by placing their Wooden Disc on the scoring section of the Main Board (for rounds 1 and 2).
   • The number of stars will contribute to the Final Score at the end of the game.
   • Example: Blue Player: 7 Points (Blue Player - Gold, 3 stars); Green Player: 5 Points (Green Player - Silver, 2 stars); Red Player: 2 Points (Red Player - Bronze, 1 star); Purple Player: 1 Point.
6. In a case of a tie for any score, the Least Number of Unfound Cards kept by competing players will be the tiebreaker.
   • If the number of Unfound Cards remains the same, both players will share the same score.
7. Pass the Player Turn Marker to the player that scored the Least Points for the Round.
   • That player will be the starting player for the next round.
   • If there is a tie, the competing player with the Most Number of Unfound Cards breaks that tie.
   • If the number of Unfound Cards remains the same, the competing player nearest to the previous starting player clockwise will take the Player Turn Marker.

Round's Score (Example): 7 Points — 3 Points (Public Location), 2 Points (Home Base), 2 Points, -1 Point, 1 Point.

Round Ends and Starting Next Round

The round ends after the Scoring Phase, then proceed setup for the next round (refer to page 4-5 for game setup references):

• All the 3 Contraband Cards and 6 Unfound Cards will be returned to each player.
• All Police Tokens, Police Penalty Tokens, and Model Citizen Token will be placed back near to the Main Board.
• All Assistance Cards will be returned and shuffled to the Assistance Deck, and draw 3 cards to be placed at the Assistance Card Selections.
• Leave the Wooden Discs placed at the Main Board as they are indicators of the current player score.

End Game and Victory Conditions

The game ends at the end of Round 3.

Players will calculate their final score based on the total Player Scores (number of stars) from Round 1 and 2, then add with the Round's Score earned from Round 3.

The player that Scores the Most in the final score wins.

In case of a tie, the least number of Unfound Cards kept by competing players during Round 3 will be the winner. Both competing players win the game if their number of Unfound Cards are the same.

Example for Blue Player: 3 Stars (Round 1) + 1 Star (Round 2) + 5 Points (Round 3) = 9 Points. Round 3 Points: 5 Points.

Game Variant - Double Agent

The Double Agent Variant is optional gameplay that could allow one of the players to earn 3 points if All of his/her Contraband Cards Got Confiscated.

New phases will be added to the original gameplay:

1. Game Setup
2. Distribute Double Agent Variant Cards
3. Contraband Goods Phase
4. Police Raid Phase
5. Reveal Roles
6. Scoring Phase

1. Setup

Each player will receive a Double Agent Variant Card Faced-Down as a secret role from the setup as follows:

• 3 Players: x1 Double Agent and x2 Criminals
• 4 Players: x1 Double Agent, x1 Rat, x1 Criminal and x1 Criminal / Doggy
• 5 Players: x1 Double Agent, x1 Rat, x2 Criminal and x1 Doggy

2. Card Description

There are 4 types of cards:

• Double Agent: All of his/her Contraband Cards are worth 1 point for the round. Earn 3 points if all of his/her Contraband Cards are confiscated at the end of the round.
  • Double Agent will be unaffected by Redistribute (Assistance card).
• Rat: Before the Double Agent is revealed, the Rat may choose to guess which player is the Double Agent.
  • If Correct: Earn 2 points for the round.
  • If Wrong: The Rat deducts 1 point for the round.
• Criminal: The Criminal will play as per normal.
• Doggy: Earn 2 points for the round if the Rat guessed Doggy as the Double Agent.

Reveal Roles

As the Police Raid Phase ends and before the Scoring Phase begins:

1. The Rat will be the first to reveal.
2. The Rat will have a choice to guess which player is the Double Agent.
3. All other players will reveal their secret roles.
4. Points based on the outcome of each role will be added together with the points during the Scoring Phase.

Assistance Card Description

Each Assistance Card's ability is described below.

Corruption Trade

This card can only be played after all of a player's Contraband Cards are discarded. When played, that player will shuffle all of his/her Confiscated Contraband Cards and take one when faced down. Keep that card to earn its points for the round.

• It is recommended to allow another player to shuffle instead to avoid cheating.
• If one of the Contraband Cards was kept by the other player due to Snitch, this Assistance Card can be played for the rest of the 2 Confiscated Contraband Cards.
• The Contraband Card taken away by the effects from Snitch will not be given back.

Discredit

Pass this card to a target player which will be kept for the entire round. One of the target player's Police Penalty Tokens will deduct 2 points for the round.

• This card can also be played on the target player before he/she takes a Police Penalty Token.

Hindrance

Play this card by covering one of the available Assistance Cards with this card faced-down. This card will stay until a player plays an Assistance Card action. During that next Assistance Card action, the covered Assistance Card will not be allowed to be used. Discard this card after that action.

Informant

This card allows the player to look at all the Goods Cards within any Unraided Public Locations for him or herself.

Player-in-turn can choose to flip up to 2 Unfound Cards faced-up and place the Goods Cards back after viewing.

Injustice

Pass this card to a target player which will be kept for the entire round. One of the target player's Police Tokens will be reduced to 1 point for the round.

• This card can also be played on the target player before he/she takes a Police Token.

Model Citizen

Pass this card to the other player who has not revealed the Goods Card in Home Base, and keep the Model Citizen Token for yourself.

• If that player hid an Unfound Card in his/her Home Base faced-down to be revealed later, player-in-turn earns 1 point for the round (flip the Model Citizen Token showing 1 point).

Redistribute

Pass this card to a target player which will be kept for the entire round. All of the target player's Contraband Cards are worth 2 points for the round.

• This Assistance Card can be played on yourself.
• If the affected player's Contraband Card is taken away and kept by another player due to Snitch, that card will be worth 2 points no matter the number of "Cash" icons.

Restricted Area

Play this card by covering one of the selections of an Unraided Public Location. Players are not allowed to pick that covered location during the next Raid Public Location action.

Discard this card after that action.

Snitch

Play this Assistance Card as a Raid Public Location action.

Guess a Contraband Type (not the number of points) from other players within the selected location before revealing.

If your guess is correct, take and keep that Contraband Card to earn its points for the round.

• If the owner of the kept Contraband Card kept the Redistribute card, that Contraband Card will be worth 2 points no matter the number of "Cash" icons.
• The kept Contraband Card will not stop the owner from playing Corruption Trade.
• The effects of Corruption Trade will not have the kept Contraband Card taken back to its owner.

Underhand Deal

This card allows the player to look at all the Goods Cards within any 2 of the Unraided Public Locations for him or herself, then exchange 1 Goods Card between both Public Locations.

Place the revised stacks back to their locations.