Fabula Rasa: Crime
Fabula Rasa: Crime Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object of the Game
In turn, players tell a constantly changing story. For memorizing the parts of the tale, you depend on the other players' oral transmission. If you manage to retell the story without any mistakes (including the latest change), you'll be rewarded with a card. The first player to collect a certain number of cards wins the game.
Set-up of the Game
Shuffle the cards and keep them handy as a face-down draw pile. Determine a starting player; he will take on the role of the storyteller.
The first storyteller draws six cards and sorts them in his hand in an order of his choice, keeping them hidden from the other players. Now he comes up with a beginning to the story. This beginning needs to contain terms that fit the images of all six cards in the chosen order; the terms can also have a figurative meaning.
Each story starts with the words, "Commissioner, it's really true...". Then he begins telling the story, and every time he has used the term for a card, he reveals this card.
Example: "Last week, I got a mysterious invitation¹ to a house at the harbor. I peered through the keyhole² before knocking and entering. An illegal poker tournament³ took place in the building. I won a chest⁴ full of money. On my way home, a sailor⁵ was chasing me. Fortunately, he tripped over a shoe⁶ and fell."
(The numbers refer to the images on the six cards: 1 = invitation, 2 = keyhole, 3 = poker tournament, 4 = chest, 5 = sailor, 6 = shoe.)
Rules for Storytelling
- The revealed cards form the narration pile. They are put exactly on top of one another, so that only the image of the just-revealed card is visible.
- The story is always told at a leisurely pace, in order to give all listeners enough time to have a careful look at the image on each card.
- The current storyteller, i.e. the player who is revealing the cards, may freely choose what term to use for each card. There has to be a clearly recognizable link to the card, though.
Course of the Game
Play proceeds in clockwise order. The player to the left of the starting player will become the next storyteller. He takes the narration pile and turns it over. The images are now all facing down; consequently, the card that was used for the start of the story is now lying face down on top of the pile.
Determine a Reward
First, a reward for the telling of the story needs to be determined. To this end, the current storyteller throws the die card in the air. The number on the die card that is closest to pointing towards the storyteller indicates which card to remove from the narration pile. If he rolls a "2," he removes the second card from the pile, and so on. This card is placed as a reward in the middle of the table, face up. So players can see which card image is no longer part of the story.
Later on in the game, the reward can consist of more than one card.
Rules for Retelling the Story
Now the storyteller has to tell the story anew. That means, he tells a story for which he uses terms corresponding to the narration pile in the correct order. Every time he mentions the term for the next card of the face-down [the printed English text breaks off here; the German original reads "Erzählstapels gefallen ist, muss er die Karte aufdecken", i.e. "pile, he must reveal the card"]
The storyteller may not use the removed card in his story. This changes the story inevitably. The player is at liberty to choose new terms for each card, under the only condition that there is a clearly recognizable link to the card. This way, he can tell a very similar or a completely different story, just as he likes.
The revealed cards serve to check whether the player has observed the right order of cards. Therefore, it is important that the player reveals each card only after he has used the associated term in the story, but before he uses the term for the next card.
Example: Aaron becomes the new storyteller. He throws the die card in the air. Since it shows a "2," he removes the second image card from the face-down pile. He places the card showing the keyhole face up on the table. Then he begins to tell his story:
"Commissioner, it's really true – when I was looking through my mail¹, I found a lottery ticket in it. Although I'm usually against gambling², I checked to see whether it might have won. And indeed, it gave me a small fortune³! I bought a sailing yacht, hired a skipper⁴, and now I often dance on deck with my friend, Lala⁵."
End of a Story
If the storyteller tells a new story without any mistakes, he gets all image cards from the middle of the table as a reward – in the example above, this is the one card showing the keyhole. He places the card(s) face up in front of him, so that each card can be clearly seen during the further course of the game. Consequently, you know which cards are no longer part of the story.
After that, the player draws two new cards and uses these to continue the story. He puts the two cards in the order of his choice and spins the new story, incorporating terms for both cards. Every time the player has used the term for a card, he places it face up on top of the narration pile.
Example (continuation of the story): "...Yesterday, while dancing the tango, we were disturbed by a rat⁶. Lala screamed and climbed up the mast as deftly as a monkey⁷."
Tip: The last card from the taken-over narration pile that you discard doesn't have to constitute the end of the story. If you leave the end of your newly told story open, it is easier to continue it with the new cards.
After that, it is the next player's turn. He takes the narration pile, turns it over, and determines a new reward via die card.
A Mistake in the Story
If the storyteller makes a mistake while telling the new story, he may not complete the story. The storyteller gets no reward and may not add any new cards to the story either. So the narration pile can also decrease.
It is considered a mistake if the player:
- doesn't remember the next card,
- uses a wrong term for a card,
- uses a term for a card that was removed from the narration pile, or
- reveals the card for his chosen term too soon or too late.
The card with which the player has made the mistake is removed from the story and placed face up in the middle of the table. This mistake card increases the displayed reward. However, the next player does not determine any further reward via die card.
All already-revealed cards of the new narration pile are put back on the old narration pile in unchanged order. The player passes the narration pile face down to the next player.
Help with the Storytelling
If a storyteller is not able to remember the next card, he may ask the other players for help in order not to make a mistake. Any of these players may offer to help. If the storyteller chooses another player to help him, they will now continue and complete the story together. It is up to the two players how to do this. (For example, the storyteller can continue the story on his own, and the other player helps him only to remember the images of the next cards.) The first card for which the storyteller asked for help is put in the pile perpendicular for the remainder of the storytelling.
During his turn, the player may get help from one other player only.
If the two players tell the new story together without making any mistakes, the storyteller receives the reward card(s) from the middle of the table, as usual, and draws two new cards in order to continue the story. The player who helped him is rewarded with the first card from the narration pile for which he was asked for help.
Example: Aaron is the storyteller. He can't remember the card with the rat. He asks Silke for help, and she helps him out. Aaron is able to remember the card with the monkey, though. Thanks to Silke's help, he completes the story correctly; he may take the reward card of this round from the middle of the table and put it face up in front of him. Silke gets the card with the rat as a reward and also puts it face up in front of her. After that, Aaron draws two new cards from the pile and continues the story, before he passes the word – and the narration pile – to the player on his left.
If a player asks for help and there are several reward cards in the middle of the table, the other player may bargain for more cards as a reward; in any case, he gets the first card from the narration pile for which he was asked for help. Besides this, the storyteller himself gets at least one card in the end.
If the two players together make a mistake, the game goes on as if the storyteller alone had made a mistake.
End of the Game
As soon as one player has collected a certain number of reward cards, the game is over and that player wins.
- In the two-player game, the first player to collect 5 cards wins.
- In the three-player game, the first player to collect 4 cards wins.
- In the four-player game, the first player to collect 3 cards wins.