Dojo
Dojo Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Set-up
Shuffle the 60 TATAMI cards and the 12 trophy tokens face down to form separate draw piles for each and place them in front of a randomly selected start player.
Gameplay
The game is played over 12 rounds. Each round is comprised of 5 phases:
1. Reveal Trophy
The player with the TATAMI cards in front of him (the "dealer" for this turn) flips over the first trophy token in the pile (unless one from a prior round is still face up) so that everyone can see it. See "Trophies" below for descriptions of each type.
2. Recruitment
The dealer secretly looks at the first TATAMI card of the pile (without showing it to the other players). He must then give it to a player of his choice, or keep it for himself. When a player gets a TATAMI card, that player can look at it but keeps it hidden, face down in front of them. The dealer then draws a new card and proceeds the same way again, until all players, including the dealer himself, has received a single card this round.
TATAMI Cards: Each TATAMI card shows a disciple type (Monkey, Fox, Tigress, Crane, Bear or Raccoon) and a belt level (white (1), yellow (2), green (3), blue (4) or black (5)). During scoring, Raccoons are considered to be "wild" cards for disciple type.
3. Challenge
One opponent, beginning with the one to the left of the dealer and going clockwise, can challenge the dealer (and only the dealer) this round. When asked if the player wants to challenge the dealer, they can either (a) pass clockwise to the next player (keeping their card face down) or (b) challenge. If they challenge, that player and the dealer each flip over the card they just received. The card with the highest belt level, regardless of the type of disciple, wins the challenge. In case of a tie, the attacker beats the dealer. Important: there can only be one challenge each round. If a player challenges the dealer, no other player will be able to challenge the dealer this turn.
a. If there is a challenge: The winner (i) takes the face up trophy token and (ii) may choose to exchange TATAMI card played in the challenge with that of the loser.
b. If there is no challenge, the trophy token remains available for the next round and the next phase starts.
4. Training
The players simultaneously add their TATAMI card obtained this turn to their Dojo (face up) complying with the following placement rules:
a. At the end of the game, each Dojo will consist of exactly 12 TATAMIS cards arranged in a rectangle of 3 rows by 4 columns.
b. The first TATAMI card in the dojo can be placed anywhere within the rectangle.
c. Subsequent TATAMI cards must be placed orthogonally adjacent to at least one side of another TATAMI card. Diagonal alone is not permitted.
5. Trophy Placement
The player who has won the challenge, if any, places the newly won trophy token in his dojo complying with the following placement rules:
a. Trophies of black color are placed at the beginning of a row (to the left of the first TATAMI card of that row).
b. Trophies of orange color are placed on the top of a column (above the first TATAMI card of that column).
c. Each row and each column can have a maximum of one trophy token assigned to it.
d. Trophies can only be placed in front of a row or column that has at least one TATAMI card in it.
e. Once placed, a trophy cannot be moved to a new location in a later round.
f. If a trophy cannot be placed according to these rules, then it is discarded and returned to the game box.
End of Round
At the end of each round, the dealer hands the draw pile to the player to his left and a new game round begins.
End of Game
The game ends at the end of the 12th game round – when each player has 12 TATAMI cards in his dojo. Each player then calculates his score as follows:
- Rows: for each row, the player identifies the disciple most often represented and scores points according to the # of cards of that disciple: 1 card = 1 point; 2 cards = 3 points; 3 cards = 6 points; 4 cards = 10 points. Each Raccoon in the row is considered to be the disciple type of the player's choice. If multiple disciples are represented by the same # of cards, the player only scores points for one disciple type.
- Columns: for each column in which a player has 3 belts of the same color (regardless of disciple), that player scores as many points as the value of the belt shown (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 points).
The player with the most points wins. If multiple players end with the same score, the winner is the tied player who has the most trophy tokens. If still tied, the victory is shared.
Trophies
Orange Trophies (Columns)
- This column benefits from the belt bonus (1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 points) even if it contains only 2 belts (instead of 3) of the same color.
- If this column contains three identically-colored belts, the number of points for this column is doubled.
- Before the score calculation, the player can rearrange the cards in this column as they like.
Black Trophies (Rows)
- During scoring, one card in this row can be considered to be a disciple of that player's choice.
- The player can choose to score 1 point for each different disciple type present in this row instead of the disciple most present.
- Before scoring, the player can rearrange the cards in this row as they like.
5 Player Game
In a 5 player game, the 1st and last (12th) TATAMI cards are dealt randomly to the players. There are never any challenges for these two game rounds. As a result, each player will be the dealer twice during the game. The rest of the game remains unchanged.
Variants
"White Belt" Variant: to simplify the game, ignore the effects and placement of the Trophies and simply consider them as being worth 3 points each at the end of the game.
"Black Belt" Variant: modify challenges as follows: When the two opponents have revealed their cards, they have 3 rounds of Rock-Scissors-Paper. Each victory during this trial increases the value of their belt by one point. Ties during the Rock-Scissors-Paper have no effect. If, at the end of the 3 rounds, the players are tied in value, the attacker wins as in the normal game.