Doubt Is Our Product Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Company Rules
• Set-Up
• On Your Go
• Cards
• Spending Budget
• Standard Effects
  • Adding Victims
  • Adding Doubt
  • Print Trigger
  • Television Trigger
• Reserve Effects
• Buying Cards
• Reshuffle Sequence
  • A. Scoring Demographics
  • B. Seed Demographics
  • C. Resolve your Reserve
  • D. Reshuffle & Continue Drawing
• Interference
• Movement Rules
• Pacing
• Interference
• Messaging
• Agitation and Goals
• Buying a Card
• Spending Influence
• Playing a Card
• Cards
• On Your Go
• Set-Up

Company Rules

The goal of the Company is to earn profit. Victory is achieved in one of two ways:

• Having a total of 70 profit at the end of a Reshuffle.
• Scoring 12 profit in each of three Reshuffles.

The Company loses if they are:

• unable to achieve victory before their opponent (Social Defeat).
• unable to both Play and Buy a card on their turn (Economic Defeat).
• unable to reach their hand size after a triggered Reshuffle (Marginalization).

Set-Up

1. Form your Deck. Shuffle cards 1-12 together to form a face-down deck.

2. Form your Market. Begin by placing cards 13-32 into five piles by type:

   • Print Media (13-16)
   • Television (17-20)
   • The Culture (21-24)
   • Doubt (25-28)
   • Restrictions (29-32)

   Shuffle together the odd-numbered cards that remain, and deal out seven randomly. Find the even-numbered card for each, placing them on top of the corresponding card. Leave a space in the Market for a trash pile.

3. Prep your Display. Lay out your display sheet. Place Victims:

   • 1 in the Children (□) Zone
   • 2 in the Adults (Ⅰ) Zone
   • 3 in the Middle Age (Ⅱ) Zone

   Then, place 1 Doubt in each of the four topmost spaces.

4. Form your Supply. To the side of your display, form supplies for Profit, Victims, Doubt, and Star Tokens.

5. Draw your first hand. Draw five cards to form your first hand. Your opponent has the first turn.

On Your Go

Your turn consists of three phases: Play, Buy, and Draw.

During the Play Phase, you Play cards one at a time, resolving each completely before moving onto the next. Play of a card often requires you to discard one or more other cards to pay for the action.

During the Buy Phase, you Buy cards one at a time, placing them into your discard pile. You will almost always need to discard one or more cards to pay for the action.

Recall that you are required to Play at least one card, and Buy at least one card, each turn. If you are unable to do so, the game ends in your defeat.

During your Draw Phase, you discard any cards left in your hand, then draw up to five cards. If during this phase there are not enough cards left in your deck, a Reshuffle is triggered and resolved before finishing the draw. If after a Reshuffle there still aren't enough cards, you lose the game.

After your turn is completed, your opponent naturally takes their turn.

The Doubt spaces on the display sheet carry these numbers, read from top to bottom in each column (the same values are shown on the printed Messaging examples):

Panel	Left column (under Children (□) or Middle Age (Ⅱ))	Right column (under Adults (Ⅰ) or Elderly (Ⅲ))
Ⅰ panel (Children and Adults columns)	1, 2, 2	2, 3, 4
Ⅱ panel (Middle Age and Elderly columns)	3, 3, 4	3, 4, 4

(On the printed sheet the topmost number in each column is partly covered by the illustrated Doubt token; the values shown are the visible digits.)

Cards

Your cards exist in one of five places.

• Deck: Cards are drawn from a face-down Deck into your Hand.
• Hand: Cards are played from your hand, either for a standard effect (into your Discard Pile) or for a reserve effect (into your Reserve).
• Reserve: Cards in your Reserve are activated by the play of certain standard effects. When a Reshuffle is triggered, cards in your Reserve are removed to the Market's "trash" pile.
• Market: Cards in the Market are bought and then added to your Discard pile.
• Discard Pile: Cards played for their standard effect, bought from the market, or used to pay for Plays or Buys, are discarded. Discards are shuffled into your Deck when a Reshuffle is triggered.

Each card has the following parts:

• Budget: The amount of Budget you're authorized to spend this turn on Plays and Buys combined. Note that Budget is very different from Profit.
• Standard Cost: The cost in Budget to play this card for its standard effect.
• Reserve Cost: The cost in Budget to play this card into your Reserve.
• Standard Effect: What happens when you play the card. Sometimes this is described via text. Often, the Standard Effect will add Victims or Doubt, indicated by the large central icon. The specifics of the action are indicated by the small icons to the right. These might include Trigger Icons for Reserve Effects.
• Reserve Effects: What happens when the card is triggered. Sometimes this is described via text, and sometimes by icons.
• Card Number: Provided for inventory and set-up purposes.

Spending Budget

To Play or Buy most cards, you must spend Budget from your hand first by discarding one or more cards. Each Play or Buy is done as a discrete action, requiring a separate expenditure of Budget; it does not carry over.

Advertising's standard play has a cost of 2, and A Frank Statement a cost of 1. But you could not spend Television (4) to pay for both, because each card play must be paid for, and resolved, separately. You could spend Television (4) and Advertising (1) to pay for "Journalism" (cost of 5).

Standard Effects

A card played for its standard effect is discarded after it has been resolved. Many standard plays add Victims or Doubt to your display, as indicated by the large icon. The smaller icons on the right-side indicate specifics.

• Victim or Doubt icons: Children (□), Adults (Ⅰ), Middle Age (Ⅱ): Add one Victim or Doubt to this Demographic Zone for each small icon. There are two larger Zones for Doubt tokens; the Ⅰ Zone allows you to place Doubt in either the Children (□) or Adults (Ⅰ) columns, while the Ⅱ Zone allows placement in either the Middle Age (Ⅱ) or Elderly (Ⅲ) columns. Whichever column you choose, Doubt is added sequentially, to the next space for that column.
• Television/Print Trigger: Activate cards in your Reserve with this Trigger and action type.

A "$" symbol, either as a large icon or a small one, scores 1 Profit when played.

Adding Victims

Play of an action showing the Victim icon adds one Victim each to both the Ⅰ (Adults) and Ⅱ (Middle Age) Zones.

(Victim icon: a three-bar graph. The Ⅰ and Ⅱ Zone icons are shown next to it on the card.)

Adding Doubt

Play of the Doubt action (large striped circle with a Ⅱ icon) adds one Doubt to either the Ⅱ or Ⅲ column.

Print Trigger

(Printed icon: a striped circle with a small black rectangle.)

Television Trigger

(Printed icon: a three-bar graph with a small television icon.)

Reserve Effects

Cards played to your Reserve are placed face-up in a row in front of you. They generally do not do anything when played – only when their Reserve Effect is Triggered, either as indicated by the text, or by play of a standard effect with a matching Trigger symbol and action type.

The Trigger is provided to the left of the large icon, while the specific effects are provided to the right. Cards in your Reserve are activated from left to right in order when Triggered.

Play of The Culture will only activate the first card in this Reserve, because it shares both the trigger and the icon. The second only matches the trigger.

Whereas it would activate both of these cards in a player's Reserve, adding two victims to each Zone.

Buying Cards

Cards purchased from the Market are placed into your Discard pile. The cost to Buy a card is equal to its Budget.

The exception are cards that have been Removed to the Market (usually from your Reserve). These cards form a single face-up pile, the "trash" pile. These cards are placed there in the order they were Removed – the earliest Removed card at the bottom, the most recent at the top. To buy a card from the trash pile, you must pay its Budget plus one.

Certain cards may reduce the cost of cards, but never below zero.

Reshuffle Sequence

During your Draw Phase, you discard all cards from your hand and then draw five from your Deck. If there are fewer than five cards in your Deck, a Reshuffle is triggered. Perform the following steps in order:

• Score Demographics in order from right to left (start with Elderly (Ⅲ), then Middle Age (Ⅱ), then Adults (Ⅰ), then Children (□)).
• Seed Demographics.
• Resolve your Reserve.
• Reshuffle & Continue Drawing.

Note: You only check for this during your Draw Phase. If a card effect causes you to draw cards during your Play Phase and there are not cards remaining, reshuffle your deck without resolving the Reshuffling Sequence (do not score, do not seed demographics, do not resolve your Reserve, and your opponent does not resolve their portion of the Reshuffle Sequence).

A. Scoring Demographics

Earn Profit and shift Demographics in each Zone.

• Elderly (Ⅲ): Score 1 Profit per Victim. Remove all Victims back to your supply.
• Middle Age (Ⅱ): For every 3 Victims, remove 2 back to the supply. Score 1 Profit for each remaining Victim, then move them to Elderly (Ⅲ).
• Adults (Ⅰ): For every 2 Victims, remove one back to the supply. Score 1 Profit for each remaining Victim, then move them to Middle Age (Ⅱ).
• Children (□): Score 1 Profit for each Victim. Move these Victims to Adults (Ⅰ).

For example, if there are seven Victims in Middle Age (Ⅱ), you have two sets of three, and would remove two from each. This would leave you with three to score and then move to Elderly (Ⅲ).

Profit tokens are provided in increments of 1, 3, and 5, and you may "make change" at any time.

B. Seed Demographics

Determine the total Profit that was scored this Reshuffle Sequence, and compare it to the Social Acceptance Chart. Place the indicated number of Victims in the specified Zones.

Social Acceptance Chart

Total Profit Scored	Children (□)	Adults (Ⅰ)	Middle Age (Ⅱ)
0-1	0	1	0
2-4	0	2	1
5-8	1	2	1
9+	2	3	2

(The chart has no column for Elderly (Ⅲ).)

If you scored at least 12 Profit, take a star marker. On the turn that you have earned the third such marker, you win.

C. Resolve your Reserve

Working from right to left, move each card from your Reserve to the trash pile. There are some exceptions to this; as always, follow the instructions on your cards if there is any conflict. Some cards have effects that trigger during a Reshuffle: resolve those now, in order.

D. Reshuffle & Continue Drawing

Reshuffle your Discards to form a new Deck, then draw cards until you have five in hand. Remember, if you are unable to do so after a Reshuffle, the game ends in your defeat.

Interference

On your opponent's turn, they will be taking actions not only to pursue their own victory, but to hamper yours – adding bad cards to your deck, banning the play of certain cards, and removing your Victims before you can score them.

Banned cards cannot be played, but can be bought and spent as budget. If you have a Loopholes card in your Reserve, you can play a banned card from your hand, performing its Standard Action (but not its Reserve function). Banned cards already in your Reserve do not trigger and do not have any effect.

Likewise, there are things you can take to make their struggle more difficult. Two of the most important are Doubt and Lobbying.

Doubt prevents your opponent from interacting with your Victims in a given Zone, with each column protecting the Zone above it. They will need to remove it first, starting at the bottom and working upwards. The more Doubt you place in a Zone's column, the harder it is for them to remove – this is indicated by the number for that Doubt space.

You may also spend Profit (not Budget) to Lobby through play of the cards Corruption, Lobbyists, and Personal Responsibility, placing a Profit token on an unpurchased enemy card. This makes that card more expensive for them to purchase. You may place up to three Profit tokens on the same card, but each in subsequent actions. When they buy the card, the Profit is returned to the supply. (You may also voluntarily remove the Profit from a single card to the supply at the start of your turn.)

Movement Rules

The goal of the Movement is to enact social reforms to limit the spread of tobacco use. This is achieved in one of two ways:

• Scoring 10 points worth of Goals.
• Your opponent suffers one of their loss conditions. Typically, this will either be because they are unable to both Play and Buy a card during their turn, or are unable to refill their hand after a Reshuffle.

The Movement loses if they are:

• unable to achieve victory before their opponent (Social Defeat).

Icon note: the printed component illustration labels the Movement tokens Influence (raised-fist token), Messaging (circle-with-slash icon), Agitation (check-box icon), Bans (X token) and Flight Tokens (wings token). The Bonus and Action pictograms on the Movement cards and Market spaces have no written legend in the printed rulebook, so they are described as drawn rather than named.

Pacing

Your opponent will conduct a Reshuffle Sequence several times throughout the game. After they have done so, but before taking your turn, perform the following steps in order:

1. Passive Abilities. Gain any Influence, Messaging, or Agitation Tokens provided by the Passive Abilities of face-up cards in your Tableau or on achieved Goals. Count the number of Refresh Passive Abilities in your Tableau, then flip that many face-down cards face-up, working from left to right.
2. Shift cards in the Market. Move the leftmost card to the leftmost empty space, repeating until there are no "gaps". For this purpose, the rightmost space of the top row is considered to be to the left of the leftmost space of the bottom row. Draw cards from the deck to replace any remaining empty spaces.
3. Reclaim Flight Tokens (if you have earned them.)

Note that all this only happens during your opponent's Reshuffle Sequence – not if they reshuffle during their Play Phase.

Interference

On your opponent's turn, they will be taking actions not only to pursue their own victory, but to hamper yours – removing cards from your Market, and Lobbying to make it more difficult for you to purchase cards and Achieve Goals. Likewise, there are things you can do to reduce their reach and profits. Two of these, discussed earlier in these rules, are Messaging and banning cards.

When a card is Banned, place a Banned Token on that card's pile in your opponent's Market as a reminder that it cannot be played (though it can still be bought). You may also use Banned Tokens to indicate Banned cards that are already in your opponent's Reserve.

Messaging

Messaging targets one of the demographic Zones on your opponent's display. For each Messaging token and icon you have, you may remove one Victim from the opposing player's display – limiting the spread of tobacco use in the United States. Move these Victim tokens to your opponent's supply, and for each token moved, gain 1 Influence token from your supply.

However, you may only apply your Messaging to Victims once you have removed all Doubt tokens for that Zone. There may be up to three of these for each, in a column beneath that Zone. The cost in Messaging tokens/icons to remove a Doubt token is printed next to its space. Doubt tokens in a Zone must be removed in order, from the bottom to the top. You may remove as many Doubt tokens as you like and are able. Spent Messaging tokens are returned to the supply; unspent tokens remain in your possession.

Printed examples: "If we have only 3 Messaging, we'll only be able to remove one of these Doubt tokens, since we have to work from the bottom-up." "If we have 4 Messaging the next time we take this action we can either start hacking away at the I column, or we can remove all Doubt and one of the Victims in the Children Zone. The latter earns us 1 Influence token."

Agitation and Goals

Your nine Goals exist in an overlapping structure. Goal Cards are only available to Achieve when the entire card is unobstructed: therefore, at the start of the game, only two of your Goals are available. Achieving a Goal removes it from the structure, and opens up one or more Goals for you to pursue.

Goals have a cost in Agitation, and are Achieved using Agitation icons and tokens (the tokens are returned to the supply, with unspent tokens remaining in your possession). The cost of a Goal is increased by one for each Profit your opponent has placed on the card (when the Goal is achieved, return the Profits to your opponent's supply).

When you Achieve a Goal, remove it from the structure, placing it between yourself and your opponent. Your Goal has a value in points; scoring at least 10 points will win you the game. Goals also have certain game effects, including banning the play of certain cards by your opponent. Generally speaking, banned cards cannot be played by your opponent for any reason (but can be discarded as Budget).

Achieving a Goal often adds a Restriction card to your opponent's discard pile if there is one in that Market pile (not their trash pile).

Goals can also be achieved over the course of multiple turns. To do so, place some of your Agitation tokens on the card. Agitation provided by icons is converted to tokens for this purpose. On a future Agitation action, reduce the cost to Achieve the Goal by the number of tokens already present.

Printed example: "On a previous turn we put 3 Agitation tokens on this card. It would normally cost 3 more, but our opponent put 2 Profit on the card. We now need 5 more Agitation to claim the card."

Remember: you are limited to 8 cards in your Tableau. Before you play what would be the ninth card, you must remove one card of your choice from your Tableau, placing it in a discard pile.

Buying a Card

When you buy a card from the Market, you first must pay the cost printed on its space. If your opponent has placed one or more Profits on the card, you must pay one additional Influence for each Profit token, then return those Profit tokens to their supply.

Then, resolve the Action associated with that space. So, let's take a look at the Actions.

• Refresh. Flip the leftmost face-down card in your Tableau face-up.
• Research. Gain 2 Influence tokens for each Research icon on face-up cards in your Tableau (if any). FIX THE SIDEBAR MABEL!!! [The phrase is printed in the source rulebook as a production note; it is reproduced as printed.]
• Messaging. Interact with your opponent's display (see Messaging) using Messaging tokens and face-up Messaging icons in your Tableau (if any).
• Agitation. Complete a Goal (see Goals), using Agitation tokens and face-up Agitation icons in your Tableau (if any).
• Organize. Play a card from your Hand (if any) into your Tableau for free. Refill any empty spaces in your Market before you take the card from this space into your Hand.

Remember, the space's Action is completed in full before taking its card into your Hand.

Printed example (Research): "Running low on Influence, we take a Research action." "We pay for it by spending our single token, and flipping Waxman Hearings." "We have 3 face-up Research icons; we gain 6 Influence." "We then take the card into our possession. Playing it to the left on our next turn will earn us another Influence and a refresh due to Bonuses."

Spending Influence

Whenever you Buy or Play a card, you must spend Influence. This can come from two sources:

• Tokens. These are returned to your supply.
• Tableau. Flipping over a face-up card in your Tableau will spend Influence equal to its printed Influence value. Note that it is possible to "overspend"; you cannot "make change".

Playing a Card

When you play a card from your Hand, you first must pay its Influence cost. Then, place the card on either the leftmost or rightmost empty space in your Tableau. The unflipped card immediately to its right or left is adjacent to it. Check if any of the Bonuses for the two cards align. Receive each aligned Bonus.

• Influence. Receive an Influence token.
• Messaging. Receive a Messaging token.
• Agitation. Receive an Agitation token.
• Refresh: Refresh (unflip) the leftmost flipped card in your Tableau. This cannot trigger another Bonus.

Note that only unflipped cards are considered adjacent; flipped cards are skipped over when making this determination.

Printed example: "Play of this card requires 3 Influence. Using our sample tableau, we could (1) spend 2 tokens and flip Great American Smokeout, or (2) spend 1 token and flip Wynder & Graham, or (3) flip both cards. Let's use our second option. We place the card on the right. Both of its bonuses align with those on Great American Smokeout. This will refresh Wynder & Graham, and gain us an Influence. By using our second option, we have effectively played this card for free."

Cards

Your cards exist in one of four places.

• Tableau. A row of cards that are used to perform and augment Actions. Only face-up cards are able to do this. Cards are played to your Tableau from your Hand. You may only have eight cards in your Tableau; before playing what would be your ninth card, you must choose and remove a card (face-up or face-down) from your Tableau. You cannot remove a card that you use to pay for the playing of the new card.
• Hand. Cards in your Hand have no benefit until played into your Tableau. Cards are added to your Hand when purchased from the Market. You may only have three cards in Hand at a time; if you already have three cards, you cannot Buy. Two Goal cards increase this hand size by one each when completed.
• Market. Cards in the Market exist in spaces. Each space indicates the cost in Influence to purchase that card. It also indicates an Action. When you Buy a card from the Market, you take the Action on its associated space using cards in your Tableau.
• Discard. Cards removed from your Tableau are placed here. If the market deck runs out of cards, shuffle the discards to form a new deck.

Let's look at a card.

• Influence. This is the cost to play the card into your Tableau. It is not the cost to Buy the card from the Market! It is also the amount of Influence the card provides when flipped.
• Action Icons. These are used when taking the associated Action.
• Bonuses. When a new card is played into your Tableau, you will earn Bonuses that align with those of an adjacent card.
• Passive Abilities. These activate when your opponent performs a Reshuffle.
• Card Number. Provided for inventory and set-up purposes.

On Your Go

On your turn, you must choose one (and only one) of the following:

• Play. Choose a card in your Hand. Pay for it using Influence, then place it in your Tableau, collecting any triggered Bonuses.
• Buy. Choose a card in your Market. Pay for it using Influence, perform the space's action (if you can), and then take the card into your hand.
• Pass. Take one Influence from the supply. If you have no Influence at all, take two instead.

Then, your opponent takes their turn.

Set-Up

Do not begin your Set-Up until your opponent has formed their own Market.

1. Start your Tableau. Choose one of the three starting cards (numbered 1-3), placing it face-up in front of you.
2. Form your Goals. Set aside cards G7-G9 of the Goals Deck. Shuffle the remaining cards, split it in two, then shuffle G7-G9 into one of the stacks. Place this on top of the smaller stack, then deal out cards one at a time in an overlapping structure as shown – beginning with the topmost row of four cards, and working your way across and then down to a three card row followed by a two card row.
3. Form your Market. Shuffle the two starting cards you did not choose in with you remaining cards to form a deck. Draw cards one at a time to fill the Market spaces.
4. Form your Supply. Next to your display form supply piles for Influence, Messaging, Agitation, Bans, and Flight Tokens. Take 2 Influence into your possession. Note that these supplies are piece-limited; you cannot take more tokens than exist in the game.

Once your opponent has finished their set-up, take your first turn.