Gangster
Gangster Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Concept and Objective
All players take on the role of gangster bosses and try to win the greatest influence in each of Chicago's districts. This happens by players driving their cars from district to district across the city and dropping off their own gangsters there. Through these gangsters, players gain influence — in the form of points — on the three Days of Reckoning. The majority standings in each district decide how much influence each player receives. Each player tries to prevail against the competition, because whoever has the greatest influence at the end of the game is the winner and may call themselves "King of Chicago" until the next game.
Game Material
- 1 game board
- 5 cars (in 5 colors)
- 100 gangsters (20 each in 5 colors)
- 15 movement cards (in 5 colors)
- 15 scoring tiles
- 5 gangster tableaus
- 5 influence markers
- 30 special equipment tiles
- 8 doubler tokens
- 3 overview tableaus
- 6 casino cards
- 13 district cards (including 3 police cards)
Setup
Each player chooses a color and receives the matching gangster tableau along with 9 gangsters, which they place on this tableau (the rest go into the box for now). Each player also gets their 3 movement cards (which they lay face up in front of themselves) and their influence marker (which they place on the 0 space of the influence track). The game board is laid out where all players can reach it comfortably.
The special equipment tiles are shuffled face down and placed next to the game board. Then 3 special equipment tiles are drawn and placed face up on the three spaces of the Gold Coast (the harbor). Afterward, each player also draws one special equipment tile from the supply and places it face up on the left of the two free spaces on their gangster tableau.
Now the 15 scoring tiles are shuffled face down and 10 of them are placed face up on the light spaces of the game board. The remaining 5 scoring tiles are not needed for this game and are put back in the box.
The casino cards and the district cards (without the police cards for now) are shuffled separately and placed as two face-down decks next to the game board. The player who has seen "The Godfather" the most times is the starting player.
Note: with 3 players, the scoring tile in the Cicero district is placed face down; this district is not used in the game — the Cicero district card is removed from the district card deck.
Starting Setup
The starting player draws the top 2 district cards and places one of their own gangsters in the pictured district on the arrow space of the scoring tile for each. The car is additionally placed in the district of the first card drawn. Both cards are then placed on the discard pile. Then the next player clockwise takes their turn. They too draw two district cards, place 2 gangsters, and place their car...
Afterward, the district card deck is reshuffled (without the police cards). The top district card is drawn, placed on the discard pile, and a doubler token is placed on the symbol in that district. Then the police cards are shuffled into the remaining district cards (2 of them with 3 or 4 players, 3 of them with 5 players). Now every player has two gangsters and one car on the game board, and 7 gangsters on their gangster tableau.
Course of Play
The game runs over three rounds, each of which ends with a Day of Reckoning. Play proceeds clockwise, beginning with the starting player. On their turn, a player must carry out one of two possible actions:
Drive, or Unload / Load.
Drive
A player who decides to drive turns exactly one of their face-up movement cards face down and moves their car on the game board forward as many districts as the number shown on the card indicates.
The car may only move along the connections from district to district. It is not allowed to stop early or to drive back and forth. Multiple cars may always be in the same district at once.
After a player has used their first movement card, only two movement options remain available to them. Once they have eventually used and turned over all three of their movement cards, all three are turned face up again at the end of their turn and are available once more.
Example: Blue is in Greek Town and uses the 3 movement card. They can therefore drive to the following districts: The Loop, Little Africa, West Side, and Little Italy.
Every time a player turns their three movement cards face up again at the end of their turn, the top district card is drawn from the deck and placed on the discard pile. If it is a police card, nothing happens. If the card shows a district, a doubler token is placed on that district's symbol.
Unload / Load
If a player chooses this action, they must either unload or load a gangster in the district where their car is standing. Only their own gangsters may be loaded out of or into the car; other players' gangsters are always carried in the trunk instead.
- Unloading: the player may unload one of their own gangsters or one belonging to another player, and must place it on the frontmost free space (in reading order) of the district's scoring tile.
- Loading: the player may load any of their own gangsters, or any other player's gangster, from the district's scoring tile. Any number of the player's own colored gangsters may ride in the car at once. However, only one space in the trunk is ever free for another player's gangster (exception: the Trunk special equipment). As long as that space is occupied, the player may not load another player's gangster.
Important: each player must always choose one alternative or the other — either Drive, or Unload / Load.
Unloading gangsters follows these placement rules:
- The first gangster is always placed on the arrow space at the very top left of the scoring tile. The next gangsters are placed to the right of it, in reading order, following the numbering shown in the diagram below. Once a row is full, placement begins again at the far left of the row below.
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16
The higher the number of the space a gangster occupies, the higher their "rank." For example, a gangster on the arrow space has rank 1, and a gangster on the far-right space of the bottom row would have rank 16 on the scoring tile shown. (Note: the term "rank" matters for the tie-breaking rule during scoring. The rank numbers in the diagram are for illustration only and are not printed on the actual scoring tiles — they are worked out as needed during scoring.)
- Over the course of the game, gaps appear on a scoring tile as gangsters are loaded away. These gaps remain and are not immediately refilled. Removing the last-placed gangster from a scoring tile does not create a gap. Gangsters may only be placed into a gap again once a gangster already occupies the last space of the scoring tile. Gaps are then filled from top to bottom, in reading order. If the gangster on the last space is removed again, that space must be filled again before any further gaps can be filled.
Once a player has carried out their action, the next player takes their turn. Play continues until all 8 doubler tokens have been placed in districts (two districts always remain without a doubler token). Then the round ends immediately, and the Day of Reckoning follows.
Day of Reckoning
Each district has a different number of influence points to be won. Sometimes a "?" is printed on a scoring tile instead of a number. So first it is determined how many influence points all the "?" spaces on the scoring tiles are worth for this Day of Reckoning. To do this, the player who triggered the Day of Reckoning draws a casino card. The number shown replaces every "?" on every scoring tile for this reckoning. For example, if a "4" is drawn, every space showing a "?" is worth 4 points for this reckoning. The drawn casino card is then removed from the game.
Scoring the Districts
The districts are scored one after another, completely. The player with the most gangsters in a district receives the first point value (the leftmost value on the scoring tile: the first scoring placement) and advances their influence marker on the influence track accordingly.
The player with the next-lower number of gangsters receives the second value from the left in points, and so on. (Note: the first value is not always the highest point value!)
In districts with a doubler token, the point values are doubled.
It can also happen that a player receives nothing at scoring — namely when all the point values on the scoring tile have already been assigned to other players (for example, on a scoring tile with three values but four players represented in the district).
Ties
If several players have the same number of gangsters in a district, the scoring placements are assigned to those players in descending order of their respective highest-ranked gangster: the player who holds the highest-ranked gangster receives the first scoring placement still to be assigned. The player with the next-highest-ranked gangster receives the next scoring placement, and so on. No player can receive more than one scoring placement in a single district.
Example: Day of Reckoning in North Side. A "5" was drawn for the "?", and there is a doubler token in the district. This results in the following point distribution. Yellow gets 2 x 5 = 10 points, since they have the majority in the district with 3 gangsters. Gray gets 2 x 4 = 8 points, having the next-lower number of gangsters. Gray has exactly as many gangsters as Brown, but Gray's last piece is further "down and to the right" in reading order and therefore has a higher rank. Brown gets 2 x 2 = 4 points for third place, and Blue gets 2 x 5 = 10 points for fourth place. Green gets nothing, since they have a lower rank than Blue.
Gold Coast (or the "Sicilian Breakfast")
Whenever a player stops their car at the Gold Coast (the harbor), they may immediately unload all the gangsters from their trunk into the harbor (to the "Sicilian Breakfast"). These gangsters are placed within the dashed border and no longer matter for the rest of the game (since they spend the rest of it "standing around at the buffet"). In addition, the player must take one of the three special equipment tiles laid out there (see Special Equipment).
Special Equipment
Whenever a player stops their car at the Gold Coast, they must take one of the three special equipment tiles laid out there. The vacated space in the harbor is then refilled from the supply. The player slides the special equipment tile onto their gangster tableau from the left, following the arrows. The newly arrived special equipment tile then pushes the older special equipment tiles to the right. If a special equipment tile gets pushed out this way, it is put back in the box.
Each player can therefore hold at most two special equipment tiles at the same time, and these must also be different from each other. Should three identical special equipment tiles ever end up at the Gold Coast, they are removed from the game and three new special equipment tiles are drawn to refill it. If there are no more special equipment tiles left to refill with, the refill is skipped. If no special equipment tile remains in the harbor when a car stops there, any special equipment the player already holds remains unchanged — likewise if only special equipment tiles the player already owns are laid out there.
Preparing for the Next Round
Before the next round, all doubler tokens are first removed from the districts and set aside next to the game board. As in the first round, the district cards are reshuffled and the first doubler token is drawn. The gangsters all remain on the scoring tiles. Before the second round, each player receives 6 new gangsters from the supply, which they place on their gangster tableau. Before the third round, each player receives 5 new gangsters.
Gangsters that were not used in the previous round remain on the gangster tableau, including other players' gangsters in the trunk. It can therefore happen that some players start the new round with more gangsters than their fellow players.
The next two rounds proceed like the first, beginning with the player to the left of the player who triggered the last Day of Reckoning.
Special Equipment Overview
Bodyguard: If a player has the Bodyguard, other players may not load any of their gangsters out of the district where that player's car is standing. The player themselves may of course still load other players' gangsters, as well as their own, in that district.
Trunk: The trunk on the gangster tableau now has room for up to two gangsters of any kind. Per turn, the player may still only load or unload one gangster into or out of the trunk. At the Gold Coast, however, the player may unload both gangsters at once.
Motor: The player may add one movement point to their movement card. With the 3, for example, they could — if they wanted — drive 4 spaces, and in most cases still land back on the space they started from without breaking the rules.
Bumper: A player who holds the Bumper may, when they move their car into a district using a movement card, also move another car into any connected neighboring district, even if there are already cars standing in that district.
Tommy Gun: A player who holds the Tommy Gun may also load other players' gangsters into their trunk from a connected neighboring district (unloading into a neighboring district is not allowed). A player at the Gold Coast may not use the Tommy Gun.
Door: The player may unload two of their own gangsters per turn. This applies only to unloading. They may still only load or unload one other player's gangster per turn.
Special Rule for 2 Players
Each player plays with two colors. Setup proceeds exactly as with four players. So each player also receives the movement cards for both colors and may only move the matching car with the movement card of the same color. Players always take turns alternately, but a player may decide at any time with which of their two colors they make their move. So it is entirely allowed, for example, to move the green car four times in a row, then unload from the yellow car, and then continue playing with green again.
At scoring, each player has only one influence marker. However, it is moved forward by the points of both colors combined. A player therefore receives all the points for both colors added together.
Example: Day of Reckoning. Kai plays Gray and Yellow. Carsten plays Blue and Brown. At the scoring in North Side, the following influence points are awarded: Gray gets 2 x 5 = 10 points, Blue gets 2 x 2 = 4 points, Brown gets 2 x 5 = 10 points, and Yellow gets nothing. This means Kai gets a total of 10 points, and Carsten gets 14 points.
End of the Game
The game ends after the third Day of Reckoning. Whoever then has their influence marker furthest ahead on the influence track can boast of being the "King of Chicago" and has won the game. In case of a tie, there are multiple winners.