Escape from Elba
Escape from Elba Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
The game comes with 64 Cards, this Rule Book, and 8 Board Sections.
What else you need:
- One distinct 6-sided Die for each player.
- Enough extra Dice to bring the total to 11.
- Two more 6-sided Dice for rolling.
- A Master Die to represent Niall Campbell.
- Optional: 7 Chips for tracking Action Points.
The numbers down the side of the board tell how many of each letter are in the deck.
About the Dice
All Guests of Elba are represented by 6-sided dice. This is just a convenient way to track their Strength, which starts at a value of 1 but which can go as high as 6. The term "Guests" refers to everyone on the Board, including players, non-players, and Niall Campbell.
Each player's die should be unique. Non-player dice can be the same, since the identity of these dice never matters. Niall Campbell should be represented by a "Master Die," one that's slightly larger or otherwise different from the rest, just to make him easy to find.
For the two "rolling" dice, we recommend a black and white die, to match those printed on the Board.
How to Begin
Step 1, Assemble the Board: If this is your first visit to Elba, you will need to assemble the board. If you need help putting it together, take a look at the snapshot on the back page of this rule book.
Step 2, Place the Guests: Every Guest except Niall Campbell starts in a different, random room. To place a Guest randomly, roll two dice (the black one and white one) and place the Guest in the corresponding room. For example, if you roll a black 1 and a white 4, that's the Coral Room. Campbell starts in the Safe Area.
If you roll an occupied room during setup, re-roll. Guests must start the game in different rooms. However, for the remainder of the game, dropping a Guest into an occupied room usually starts a Fight.
Step 3, Deal the Cards: Shuffle the deck and deal a starting hand of 3 cards to every player. Place the rest of the deck face down in a convenient spot, with space for a discard pile beside it. When the deck runs out of cards, reshuffle the discards and replace it.
Note: If you want to play with more than 6 players, we suggest using two decks.
Step 4, Last but not Least: Choose a random player to go first; play will proceed to the left. Now you're ready to begin!
The Basic Game Objective
You're trying to collect a set of cards that will let you escape, which you can do by drawing them from the deck, or stealing them from other players.
Each card represents one letter. For convenience, the cards list all the Escape Words which contain them.
Besides your hand, you can also keep a few cards face up on the table. These cards are in your "Bag," and they make up the words that help you escape, fight, and jump around.
Before you can escape, you must gain Strength by fighting. Your ability to escape is based on your Strength, which goes up each time you lose a fight. If that sounds strange, just remember that experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
The Steps of Each Turn
Step 1, Draw: Your turn begins with a Draw step, in which you fill your hand from the Deck, to a maximum hand size of seven cards. Be careful how many cards you draw, however, since your ability to take other actions will be limited by how many cards you are holding. Note: You can hold more than seven cards, that's just the maximum you can draw to.
Step 2, Take Actions: After drawing, count the cards in your hand. If you have seven or more cards, you get no Action Points, and you go straight to Step 3. If you have 6 cards or less, you get a number of Action Points equal to seven minus the number of cards in your hand. In other words, if you are holding 6 cards, you get 1 Action Point. If you are holding 5 cards, you get 2 Points. And so on.
Note: Cards in your Bag do not count as part of your Hand, and they don't count against you when adding up your Action Points.
You might find it useful to use chips to track your Action points, but it's usually pretty simple.
You can spend Action Points to do several things, including moving yourself, moving other Guests, jumping to specific rooms, and trying to escape.
Moving Yourself: You can move yourself to an adjacent room for one Action point. Moving into an occupied room will precipitate a Fight, described below. Fighting itself is automatic; it requires no Action Points. In fact, you will sometimes find yourself in a fight when it's not even your turn!
Moving Another Guest: You can spend one Action Point to move any Guest who is not a live player. This, too, may precipitate a Fight.
Jumping to a Room: If you can spell just one word in any room by using letters in your Bag, you can spend one Action Point to jump to that room. For example, if you have "APPEARS" in your Bag, you could spend an Action Point to jump to the Spa, or to the Safe Area. (All you need is "AREA.")
You will notice that you can spell every word in every room on the Board, except the four Towers. You only need to spell one word in the room you're jumping to, so the word "ROOM" can take you several places.
Trying to Escape: If you can spell an Escape word ("ESCAPE," "FROM," "ELBA," or "PEACE") with the letters in your Bag, you can spend one Action Point to try to escape.
To make an escape attempt in one of the towers, you must have the escape word for that tower. For example, if you have "PEACE" in your bag, you can make an escape attempt in the South Tower.
Two other Escape words, "EMPEROR" and "CAMPBELL" are very strong. With either of these words, you can make an escape attempt anywhere.
Each attempt costs one Action point. Show your Escape word (if it's not obvious), then roll one die. If you roll below your Strength, you escape. Note that this means it's impossible to escape with a strength of 1, and still not a sure thing even if you're a 6.
If your escape attempt fails, you are thrown into a random room, and lose the rest of your Action Points. Your rank goes up by one, and you must discard a card of your choice. You'll notice that this is the same result as losing a Fight. If you succeed, you win!
Fighting
When a Fight Happens: A Fight starts when one Guest moves into a room with another. Guests of Elba are always itching for a fight, so it's mandatory, and it doesn't cost any extra Action Points. In fact, you will sometimes fight when it's not even your turn.
Exceptions: If both the Guests are non-players (including Niall Campbell) then they do not fight. Also, absolutely no Fights are allowed in the Safe Area. In both these cases, the Guests peacefully coexist.
The Attacker: The Guest who has just entered the room, no matter how he got there, is considered the "Attacker." The Attacker wins all ties.
The Fight: Both Guests roll one die, and add the result to their Strength. Players may also have Weapons in their Bags, as described below. Use of Weapons is always optional, and if you don't know whether you have a Weapon, don't expect anyone to tell you.
The Basic Result: The winner gets a card, and the loser gets catapulted to a random room. The loser also gains a point of Strength, to a maximum Strength of 6. Turn the Guest's die to show the change in Strength.
What Else Happens: Depending on which combatants were live players, and which were non-players, the results of a Fight will vary.
Player beats Player: The winner takes a card of his choice from the loser's Bag, or a random card from the loser's Hand. This prize always goes into the winner's Hand. If the loser is the active player, he also loses the rest of his Action Points for this turn.
Player Beats Non-Player: The winner draws a card from the deck.
Player Beats Niall Campbell: The winner takes the top card of the discard pile, if there is one.
Non-Player Beats Player: The loser must discard a card of his choice from his Hand or his Bag.
Fighting Multiple Guests: If a player enters a room with multiple Guests, he fights all of them in any order. If one fight knocks him away, he doesn't fight the rest.
Fighting the Same Person Twice: It's completely possible to be randomly thrown back into the room you just came from. Yes, you do fight again. Again, no matter who is a live player, the loser goes up by one pip and jumps to a random room. If that Guest lands on another Guest, it will start another Fight. This can sometimes cause several Fights in a row.
When the string of Fights ends, be sure to remember whose turn it is, and how many Action Points (if any) the active player has. Remember, if he lost a Fight, the rest of his Action points are gone.
Hint: Make strong Guests attack other players!
Weapons
If you have a Weapon from the following list in your Bag, you can take an optional +1 bonus in any Fight. If you can spell two weapons independently, you can have the bonus for both of them. "APPEARS" contains "SPEAR" or "SAP" for example, but not both.
This isn't a complete list, but it's a handy guide. If you can spell something that's not on this list, and your friends agree it's a weapon, good hunting.
We've also included some "Fightin' Words" like SCRAP and FRACAS, because they seemed to belong.
AMMO, ARM, ARMOR, BAR, BARB, BEAM, BEES, BOLA, BOMB, BROOM, CRABS, CLAP, CLAMP, CORBEL, EBOLA, EPEE, FEAR, FLAME, FRACAS, LAMP, LASER, LASSO, MACE, MELEE, MOP, OAR, PLACEBO, PLASMA, POLE, POLEARM, PROBE, RAM, ROLLER, ROPE, SABER, SAP, SCRAP, SCRAPE, SPEAR
Step 3, Discard
After you use all your Action Points, you move to Step 3, Discard. If you have more than 7 cards in your hand at this point, you must discard. You can also discard below 7 if you wish, all the way down to zero cards. All these discards go into your Bag.
Next, you must clean up your Bag. At this point, your Bag is restricted to two letters, or one English word of 3 letters or more. Proper Nouns are not allowed, with the exception of ELBA and CAMPBELL. Arrange the letters in your Bag into the word you wish to hold, and put all the extra cards into the Discard Pile. (Note: The order of the discards is important if someone is about to go beat up Campbell.)
Of course, if you're not planning to keep a particular card, there's nothing to stop you from putting it directly into the discard pile instead of into your Bag. This process is just spelled out to make it clear that cards go from your Hand, to your Bag, to the discard pile, never the other way.
One More Note: The letters in your Bag only get cleaned up during your discard step. At any other time in the game, your Bag can contain any assortment of letters. So don't fret if someone beats you up and steals a crucial card.
Winning
As described already, to escape from Elba you must roll a number less than your Strength, while holding the right word in your Bag, and standing in the right room for that word (or anywhere with EMPEROR or CAMPBELL).
Each of the Escape Words represents some version of getting out of Elba, except for "PEACE," which represents that you have become satisfied with where you are. This is just as good as escaping, and may indeed be more reasonable, considering the dubious nature of your Napoleonhood.
If you win with "EMPEROR" you have convinced the staff at Elba that you are the righteous ruler of France. Those who succeed with "CAMPBELL" have escaped the island in disguise.
Now, go win at Warterloo!