Cranky Chinchillas Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Roles & Objectives
• Setup
  • 1. Assign Secret Teams
  • 2. Separate & Shuffle Remaining Decks
  • 3. Gather Your Party of Heroes
  • 4. Bestow Relics [Relics Expansion Required]
  • 5. Deal Starting Hands
  • 6. For Games with 7 or More Players [Expansion Required]
  • 7. Start!
• How to Play
  • Taking Your Turn
  • Card Types
  • Dead Players
  • Ending the Game
• Special Rules
  • Deceiver Role
  • Uppercase Terms
  • Other Card Terms
• Tips

Roles & Objectives

Each role has their own unique objective:

• Chin Empire: All Sleepy Town players are dead.
• Sleepy Town: All Chin Empire players are dead.
• Deceiver: Be the last player alive. If you died, your objective changes to: all other players having 1 or less Heroes, each.
• Forest Spirit: Have more Heroes in your Eliminated Hero Pile than there are players (e.g., you need to eliminate 6 Heroes if there are 5 players). The number of Heroes needed to win is capped at 6.

The game ends when a player achieves their role's objective. All players who have met their role's objectives at this time win the game. See "Ending the Game" for more details.

NOTE: The Deceiver is a special role with unique powers and rules – see the "Special Rules" section for more details.

Setup

1. Assign Secret Teams

Use the chart below to determine the number of players for each role:

Players	4	5	6	7*	8*
Chin Empire	1	2	2	2	3
Sleepy Town	1	2	2	2	3
Deceiver	1	1	1	1	1
Forest Spirit	1	-	1	2	1

*Expansions (except for the Relics Expansion) increase the maximum number of players.

Take the appropriate number of Role Cards, shuffle them, and deal 1 card to each player facedown. Put away any unused cards.

All players can look at their role but should never reveal their Role Card until they lose their last Hero (except for the Deceiver – see "Special Rules"). Players may, however, say anything they want – it is up to your friends to decide whether to believe you or not!

2. Separate & Shuffle Remaining Decks

Separate the remaining cards by type to form the Action Deck, Hero Deck, and Question Deck. Shuffle each deck and place them facedown in the middle of the playing area.

Using Promo Cards [From Kickstarter]

Promo Cards have a golden border and are marked with a "PROMO" icon in the right-center side of the card.

Feel free to swap out a regular version of a card for the promo version (e.g., regular/promo Revive, regular/promo Berserker). However, DO NOT add a Promo Card to a deck without removing a corresponding regular card, as it will disrupt the balance of the game.

3. Gather Your Party of Heroes

Each player starts the game with 4 Hero Cards.

Players get to pick half their party while the other half will be dealt at random, as follows:

I. Lay out, faceup, twice as many Hero Cards as there are players.

II. Pick a player to go first. Starting with that player and going clockwise, each player takes a Hero.

III. Then, starting with the player that picked last and going in reverse order, each player takes their second Hero.

IV. After all players have finished, deal 2 more random Heroes to each player.

All players place their Heroes faceup in a row in front of themselves.

4. Bestow Relics [Relics Expansion Required]

Shuffle the Relic Cards then deal 1 random card to each player faceup. Put away any unused cards.

5. Deal Starting Hands

Deal 5 Action Cards facedown to each player to create their starting hands.

Players can look at their hands but should keep them a secret from other players.

6. For Games with 7 or More Players [Expansion Required]

Starting with the player that chose the first Hero and continuing clockwise, each player asks another player a ? ROLE QUESTION (see "Special Rules") before the game begins.

7. Start!

The player that chose the first Hero goes first.

How to Play

Taking Your Turn

1. Play

You can only play cards during your turn, unless a card states otherwise.

During your turn, you may do the following in any order:

• Play as many Action Cards as you wish, except: Cards with a red "1" icon in the top-left corner can only be played once per turn, even if they have different card names (e.g., you cannot play an Attack! and Accuse! on the same turn).
• Play 1 Hero Card per turn. Note: Heroes played when it is not your turn do not count towards this limit.
• Use your Relic Card [Relics Expansion Required].

Play continues clockwise around the table.

2. End Turn

End your turn by drawing 2 Action Cards from the top of the deck.

Then discard any Action Cards above the hand limit. The hand limit is 6 for living players and 2 for dead players. Because you only check the hand limit at the end of your turn, you can sometimes be temporarily over the limit.

If the deck is exhausted, shuffle the Discard Pile to create a fresh deck.

Card Types

Action Cards

Action Cards allow you to attack, deny, cause general mayhem, and more! Some also hurt yourself (e.g., What's Mine is Yours), so watch out!

To play an Action Card, place it faceup on the table and follow its instructions. Then send it to the top of the Discard Pile after use, unless stated otherwise.

Hero Cards

Heroes are cards with special powers and represent your life points. Protect them at all costs, because if you lose them all, you become a dead player (see next section)!

Whenever you draw a new Hero, place it faceup in front of yourself. The maximum number of Heroes you can have in your party is 4.

To play a Hero, follow its instructions then flip it facedown. It cannot be played again until it is returned faceup by a card effect. Flipped Heroes still count towards your life points.

Heroes remain with you until they are eliminated by a card (e.g., Attack!). Give the Hero to the player that eliminated it. Each player keeps track of Heroes they eliminate by adding them to a pile by their side ("Eliminated Hero Piles").

Relic Cards [Relics Expansion Required]

Relics are artifacts that grant a unique and powerful effect!

Some Relic effects are permanently active throughout the game (e.g., increasing your maximum hand size), while others are activated whenever a precondition is met (e.g., each time one of your Heroes is eliminated, draw 2 cards) or manually activated by yourself (e.g., you can play 1 Attack! as a Kak! and vice versa).

Relics remain faceup with you and are reusable throughout the game, unless their effect states otherwise.

Dead Players

When a player loses their last Hero, they join the Spirit Realm as dead players. These players cannot come back to life but can still influence the game to help their teammates or themselves achieve victory.

Dead players continue to play the game normally, with the only changes being:

• Hand limit is reduced to 2.
• Cannot regain any Heroes.
• Role Card is permanently revealed.

Ending the Game

The game ends when a player achieves their role's objective. This happens even if:

• it is not the player's turn,
• the player is dead, or
• it is due to another player's action (so be careful who you eliminate!).

All players, living or dead, who have met their objectives at this time win the game. As such, there may be situations where different roles end up as winners together.

For Example

A dead Deceiver player eliminates the last Chin Empire player. The other players each have 1 Hero remaining. The Deceiver and the Sleepy Town players will be the winners.

Special Rules

Deceiver Role

The Deceiver is a special role with the following unique powers and rules:

1. You may lie when asked a ? ROLE QUESTION.
2. When you are a living player and during your turn, you may reveal yourself (flip your Role Card faceup) to gain the following abilities:
   • While your Role Card is faceup and you are still alive, no other player can declare victory.
   • Only on the turn you revealed yourself, any Attack! you play will damage all other players. This is treated as if you played a copy of an Attack! against each player.

For Example

There are 6 players. The Deceiver reveals oneself and plays an Attack! card. This counts as having an Attack! played against each of the other 5 players.

A player responds by playing 2 Kak! cards against the copies targeting them and their teammate, leaving 3 more Attack! cards targeting the other 3 players.

Uppercase Terms

Certain cards have uppercase words in their instructions. This indicates special rules that are explained here:

ROLE QUESTION

These cards help you gather information about other players' roles. To ask a Role Question:

I. Choose a player to be the target of your Role Question.

II. Draw a card from the Question Deck.

III. Secretly look at the card, pick one of the options ("1" or "2"), then give the card to the chosen player without showing it to anyone else.

IV. Ask that player out loud whether they are that option without revealing what is on the card (e.g., "Are you 2"). Players must answer truthfully unless they are the Deceiver.

V. Place the Question Card back into the Question Deck and shuffle the deck.

REUSABLE EFFECT

Heroes with this text are kept faceup after they have been played. These Heroes can therefore be played each turn while they remain faceup (but still limited to 1 Hero played per turn).

VOTE

These cards allow you to unleash powerful effects if you manage to win the Vote. To proceed with a Vote:

I. All players must first secretly decide which side they wish to support (the person who played the card or the card target) and how many votes they wish to cast. Abstaining is also an option.

II. Once everyone has decided, players vote by discarding cards from their hands. Each discarded card counts as 1 vote. The card that started the Vote counts as 1 vote. Players must simultaneously throw down all their voting cards into one of two piles representing each side.

III. The side with the highest score wins the Vote. If both sides have the same score, the Vote fails and nothing happens.

IV. Place all the used cards in the Discard Pile in no particular order.

Note: Each player's hand count remains public information.

TEST YOUR FATE [Expansion Required]

These cards allow you to unleash powerful effects if you manage to pass a "luck test". To test your luck:

I. Place 2 Question Cards faceup on the table. If you get a matching role in the same position (e.g. two Sleepy Towns in Position 2), you pass the test.

II. Shuffle the Question Cards back into the deck.

Other Card Terms

"Discard"

This means to send an Action Card from your hand straight to the Discard Pile without playing it.

"Any" vs "Another" Player

Cards may use these terms when referring to players.

• "Any player" means any player including yourself.
• "Another player" means any player but not yourself.

Tips

For your first game, we suggest you play without expansions to simplify matters and become familiar with the rules.

Try to figure out the roles of other players before attacking them, so you don't accidentally help an opposing team. Use Question Cards or some good old-fashioned deduction based on how everyone's behaving!

Playing as the Deceiver can be tricky, but very rewarding. Your special abilities can be game-changing if played at the right time – temporarily preventing other teams who are close to their goals from winning, and bursting down your (hopefully weakened) enemies. Reveal yourself too early, however, and you become a target for the entire table…