Gangsta (Editorial Dos Pasos)
Gangsta (Editorial Dos Pasos) Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 64 cards divided in 4 mafias: the Japanese Yakuza, the Irish mafia, la Cosa Nostra and the Russian Bratva. Each Mafia is divided in Weak and Strong.
- 20 police ambush cards
- 10 zone cards (1-5 x 2)
You will need paper and a pen to write down your scores.
Set Up
Separate the zone cards, the police ambush cards and the mafia cards.
Place the zone cards with the numbers and the letters forming a grid of 5 x 5, as shown in the picture.
The Gangsters are divided in 4 mafias: Yakuza (Japan, with a Japanese character on a red dot), Irish (with a green leaf), Russian (with a Cyrillic symbol), and La Cosa Nostra (with Italy on a dot).
However, each mafia is divided in two groups (powers): the ones who gives the orders (Strong mafia) and the ones who follow orders (Weak mafia). The Strong mafias have a circle surrounding the number.
After that, shuffle thoroughly the police ambush deck and place it facedown behind the grid. Finally open the first card of the mafia deck; this card will be the mafia boss (trump). Leave a place for a discard pile.
Preparation
Deal 12 mafia cards to each player (if there are 5 players deal only 10 cards to each one). If some player doesn't have at least two cards over the number 7, he can discard its three lowest cards and try to better his hand by drawing three more from the deck, but running the risk of getting worst cards or to loose trumps. The discarded cards are reshuffled with the rest of the mafia cards.
Place a card in the C3 intersection and then leave the rest of the cards aside in the table.
The Game
Gangsta is a trick-taking game. Pick one player to be the first to play a card. The other players must follow the mafia (suit), and if they can't, they can play any other card. The player who wins the last trick will be the first to play next.
Once a card is played, the next player has four options:
- To play a card of the same mafia and the same power (Strong or Weak), or
- To play a card of the same mafia but with different power, or
- To play two cards of the same mafia, but both cards must be of the same power. Necessarily these cards have to be of a value higher than the cards played before.
- To play a card of a different mafia if you don't have a card of the leading mafia.
The player who played the highest card (or cards) of the mafia boss (highest trump), will win the trick.
If no one played a card of the mafia boss, the player who played the highest card (or cards) of the leading card (the first card played in that trick) will win the trick.
If cards of the same value were played but with different power (e.g. a Russian 9 Strong and a Russian 9 Weak), the winner of the trick will be the one who played the Strong card.
In the next few examples, the Mafia Boss will be the Yakuza.
Example 1: Peter played a Russian 5 Weak, so, all other players must play, if they can, Russian cards. John plays a Russian 3 Strong, Andrea plays a Russian 5 Strong and Angelica, who didn't have Russian cards, played a Cosa Nostra 6 Weak. Although the highest card in value played was the Cosa Nostra 6 Weak, the trick is won by Andrea, who played the highest card of the leading Mafia.
Example 2: Andrea starts now (she won the last trick). She plays an Irish 4 Weak, Angelica plays an Irish 5 Strong. Peter, who doesn't have any Irish cards, plays a mafia boss card, a 2 Yakuza Weak. Finally, John plays an Irish 8 Strong. In this example, the winner of the trick is Peter, because he played the highest mafia boss in this trick.
Example 3: Peter starts again and plays Cosa Nostra 4 Weak. John plays a Cosa Nostra 8 Strong, Andrea, who doesn't have any Cosa Nostra cards, plays a Russian 2 Weak. Finally, Angelica, who had a lot of low cards in her hand, combines a 4 and a 5 Cosa Nostra Weak cards (adding 9), taking the trick. From now on, Angelica will have to play with one card less in her hand.
Scoring
Each time a player wins a trick he must place the cards been won on the 5x5 grid, to send the gangster to commit crimes. One by one, each card is scored (if they can), following the table below. Write each one of the points scored on a sheet of paper.
You can place the cards in any order, remembering to score each time. If a player forgets to score some points when playing a card, he just simply looses his chance.
It doesn't matter the color of the cards at the time of the scoring.
Remember: the order in which you place the cards is very important. You are going to score each time you place a card (if you can), and not after placing all cards of the trick.
Scoring table
- 1 pair: 1 point
- 2 pairs: 3 points
- 1 trio: 5 points
- Quartet: 7 points
- Quintet: 10 points
Note: You will store for combinations made in straight lines (one row or column), however you can't combine two lines for making a scoring of one line.
Example 4: In this example, if a player places a 5 on the C2 intersection, will first score 1 pair for the card on B2 and another pair for the one on C1, so at the moment of writing the score he will write 3 points, that's because two pairs were formed at once. However, he will not score for a trio because it wasn't formed in the same row or column (straight line).
In the case that on A2 there had also been a 5, he would have received points for a trio plus a pair after placing his card on C2.
Arrival of the Police
When a row or column is completely filled with cards on the 5 x 5 grid, the police arrives. Open the first card of the police ambush deck and remove from the grid all the cards that are shown on the ambush card (indicated with two arrows). These cards are removed to the box. If you ran out of ambush cards, reshuffle them.
Last Rounds
If someone at any time of the game played two combined cards, for the last rounds he will not have cards. In this case, the other players will continue playing without him and the winner of the tricks will take the cards played by the other players plus as many cards as players are out of the game without cards.
Example 5: Angelica ran out of cards after having played two combined cards. She will not play the last round. Peter wins the trick, but he took one card less because Angelica didn't play the last round. He will take all the cards played by his opponents and he will draw one card from the deck, to later place the cards onto the grid. If two players would have been out, he would draw two cards, and so on.
It's very possible that a player needs to play a round absolutely alone!
If the deck is depleted, bad luck for the last player!
End of the Game
The game ends when all the players ran out of cards. The winner is the player with more points. In case of a tie, the winner is the player with the highest score in one round.
Variant 1
For the rounds where there are players without cards, you can open one card per player out of the game before the round commences. This will help you to plan your move.
Variant 2
For the rounds where there are players without cards, you can open two cards instead of one card per player out. This will help to better the chance of getting a better score. You can only pick one of each two cards opened.