Guilty: Monaco 1955
Guilty: Monaco 1955 Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Components and Setup
Remove the following items from the box, one by one, without flipping them over or peeking at them:
- Investigation Area supplement: Place it in the middle of the table, "Monaco" side up. This supplement lets you organize cards in designated spaces, letting you retrieve information quickly and easily.
- Story card deck (82 large cards): Place this deck on one side of the play area, near the Investigation Area. These cards (each numbered in a box) represent actions that you can perform during the game (such as questioning suspects or searching locations), and the consequences of those actions. Note that some card numbers are missing.
- Time card deck (59 small cards): Place this deck "clock" side up on its designated space, to the left of the Investigation Area. Make sure the cards are sorted in ascending order of the numbers in the bottom-left corner of each card. This deck represents the relentless passing of time. A number of locked Events likely to throw your investigation into disarray await you at the end of this deck!
- Additional material (in a red case file): Leave this near the Story card deck. This case file contains clues that may come to light during the investigation.
The Investigation Area has spaces for the Time card deck, the Time card discard pile, and the following places: Radio Monte-Carlo, Police Station, Hermitage Hotel, Hospital, Exotic Garden, Characters, Casino, Fort Antoine, Port Hercules - Paddock, Prince's Palace, Oceanographic Museum, Conversations, Roadblocks, and Inaccessible Items. (The printed area notes: "For now, leave all cards in the deck. Organize unlocked cards by arranging them around the Investigation Area. When searching for a card in this deck, look only at its number in the top-left corner of the card. Note that some numbers are missing.")
2. Conduct the Investigation
In Guilty, players collectively take on the role of a single character trying to solve a case. Each scenario unfolds as follows:
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Read the introduction (on the back of this sheet). The game will then prompt you to collect specific numbered Story cards and add them to the Investigation Area.
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Investigate... All Story cards in the Investigation Area are available. They represent suspects available for questioning, locations to search, evidence to analyze, etc. Simply pick a card and flip it over to reveal its contents. The back of a Story card can contain several types of information. There is always text or an illustration with information to guide your reasoning. After reading a card, leave it face-up in the Investigation Area (unless otherwise instructed). Then pick another card in the Investigation Area, flip it over, read it and put it back on the table, and so on.
Important: In many cases, flipping a Story card over requires you to spend time, represented by drawing cards from the Time deck! Items left outside the play area are considered inaccessible.
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Solve the case. The final Time card will inform you that it is time to report your findings, and explain how to do so. Simply flip the supplement over and follow the instructions.
Important: You won't have enough time during the game to read all the Story cards. You will then have to make choices and answer questions. Each outcome is different and written into the narrative arc.
3. The Game Is Your Guide...
Guilty uses simple rules: Just follow the instructions on the cards and focus on your investigation. All you need to know is summarized below. Always resolve any actions shown in a yellow banner immediately (do what the yellow banner asks, immediately after reading it). For example, a card might instruct you to collect a Story card from the deck and place it face-down in the Investigation Area.
Many cards also require you to draw Time cards or insert an event into the Time deck. This is a key concept in Guilty: Time passes and your choices have consequences.
Symbols
- Collect symbol (with a number): Collect the numbered card from the corresponding deck and add it to your Investigation Area, face-down. IMPORTANT! Newly acquired cards always enter play face-down. You are not required to reveal them immediately unless they have the reveal symbol (see below).
- Insert symbol (with a number): Insert the numbered card into the corresponding deck.
- Reveal symbol: If you see this symbol on the front of a card in the Investigation Area, or on the top card of the Time deck, flip the card over and read it immediately. Discard Time cards after reading them.
- Time symbol (reveal): Reveal the top Time card of the Time deck. Read it. Then discard it.
- Time symbol (discard): Discard the top Time card of the draw pile without revealing it.
- Do not touch any Time cards without these symbols unless expressly instructed to do so.
Tips
- Guilty is packed with details: Cards are full of clues and information that will let you deduce valuable insights. Initially, you will have little information to work with. If you get stuck, trust your hunches. Sooner or later, you will find a useful lead to follow up on.
- You will gradually be inundated with information, making it important to keep your Investigation Area organized. Feel free to use a pen and paper to note your ideas. Similarly, re-reading existing cards might cause them to appear in a new light.
- At the end of the game, many things will be revealed, not all of which will be obvious, and you will score points according to what you found out. Take your time to understand as much as you can!
- Guilty is highly documented: The game will let you know whether you can use the Internet to search for information. Make the most of this possibility if your scenario allows it.
- Guilty is dense: Keep discussing and developing new theories as the game progresses. One of them may lead you to the truth!
Now read the introduction to the scenario on the back.
Introduction: Monaco, May 22, 1955
Reveal and read the top card of the Time deck, then discard it immediately. A card should now be visible on top of the Time deck. Reveal it immediately.
The radio chatter falls silent as you turn off the ignition on your motorcycle. You collect your trusty beret from the floor of the sidecar and look up at Port Hercules.
Monaco. Sunday, May 22, 1955.
The paddock on this Formula 1 Grand Prix morning is busier than an anthill before a storm. Mechanics are revving engines and, with notebook in hand and cameras around their necks, journalists throng around any celebrities that dare show their faces. You somehow push your way through the crowd to the kiosk for a Monaco-Matin and some cigarettes. You raise your eyebrows at the little card package now being held out to you:
"It's the latest invention, Monsieur Gailleton. Your filter tips now come in a rigid flip-top pack. No more crumpled or broken ciggies!"
A few minutes later, you walk back along the quayside against the flow of the crowd, toying with the lid of your cigarette pack. Your watch shows 9:20 AM. Perfect. The Prince is a stickler for punctuality, and you are right on time.
Do the same as before.
The tightly-policed City-State of Monaco is a square-mile playground for the jet set. Sandwiched between a steep mountainside and the glinting Mediterranean Sea, the city is an impregnable vault where nothing untoward ever happens. As a cop, you - Joseph Gailleton, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Monaco Carabiniers - could almost get bored. The pompous title cannot conceal the fact that you are essentially a bodyguard who spends his days keeping an eye on classic cars in the world's safest city.
You miss Paris, with its drizzle, grime, and criminal underworld. Especially today, when everyone is raving about cars that cost far more than your annual salary.
After 8 years with the vice squad and 20 in Homicide, you were offered this job, which was pitched as a well-deserved lead-in to retirement. Or maybe you had simply fallen out of favor back at HQ on the Quai des Orfevres, where your wild character had earned you a very apt nickname: The Bear.
"All teams in position, Lieutenant-Colonel. Any instructions?"
"Nah. Just do what we do every year... By the way, do you know where the Prince is? We were supposed to meet here. I hope he's not been trying to call me: I forgot my walkie-talkie at the station."
"No idea. I'll find out."
Sat in your favorite bar, you light up a cigarette and struggle to unfold your newspaper, which flaps around in the mistral wind.
Do the same, once again. This symbol appears very often. Get into the habit of revealing, reading and discarding the top card of the Time deck whenever you see it. Also, watch out for symbols.
It's 10 AM. You've been waiting in vain for the prince - Son Altesse Serenissime - for 40 minutes. Observing the passers-by, you spot one of his close acquaintances: Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate who runs the Societe des Bains de Mer. You stand up, leaving a handful of coins on the table, and approach him:
"Sorry, no idea..." he says. "We were supposed to have breakfast together at the port this morning, but he didn't show up there either..."
You try in vain to suppress a sneaking feeling that something bad has happened. You walk back to your motorcycle, annoyed at the idea of having to randomly ride around town like a dog looking for its master. Not knowing where to start, you scan the crowd. Maybe someone here has seen him?
Take card 1 and read it.
Take cards 2 and 3 and place them face-down in the Investigation Area, in the spaces matching the symbol on each card.
Your investigation starts here! Pick a Story card in the Investigation Area. Flip it over and read it.