Lemming Mafia Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• How to Play
• Track Spaces
  • Cement Mixer
  • Sledgehammer
  • Car Theft
  • Bookmaker
  • Mafia Bosses
  • Blank Spaces
• End of Game
• Scoring the Bets
• Mission Card Clarifications
• Winning the Game

Components

• 1 game board
• 6 lemming figures
• 1 regular die
• 2 lemming dice
• 12 "concrete shoes"
• 36 bet cards (6 sets of 6 cards, one set per lemming color)
• 18 mission cards

Setup

• Lay out the board in the center of the table.
• Place the six mafia lemmings on the starting space. Regardless of the number of players, all six figures always take part in the race.
• Give every player a full set of six bet cards (one card per lemming). If there are fewer than six players, put the leftover sets back in the box.
• Shuffle the 18 mission cards and deal 3 to each player. Look at what you were dealt and place your cards face down in front of you: at the end of the race they will add or subtract points. Note that there are ways to get rid of missions during the course of the game. If there are fewer than six players, return the leftover cards to the box.
• Place the "concrete shoes" and the 3 dice next to the board.
• The player who is the worst swimmer goes first. They take the lemming dice and begin.

How to Play

• Your turn begins by rolling the two lemming dice. The colors that come up show which lemmings may move forward: choose one of them. If you roll a double, you have no choice — simply advance the lemming of the color rolled.
• The chosen lemming moves to the next section of the track. Sections are separated from one another by yellow barriers and each consists of two or three spaces — except for the start and finish sections, which form single unified areas.
• You decide which free space of the section the lemming occupies: two figures may never occupy the same space under any circumstances.
• Most spaces along the track hold surprises for the racers.

Example: on your turn with the green lemming, you may move it to either of the two free spaces of the next track section, whichever you prefer.

• If the nearest section has no free spaces, place the lemming on the following section instead! There too you are free to choose any space. It can even happen that a lemming leaps over two sections that are completely filled with rivals, landing on the third.
• When you finish your turn, pass the dice to the opponent to your left (clockwise). They roll the two dice, choose a color, and move that lemming to a free space of the nearest track section. Then it is the next player's turn, and so on.

Note: if the dice show the color of a lemming that has already dropped out of the race (see page 3, "Cement Mixer"), that result applies to the racer that is furthest behind. This way, as few as two animals may remain in the race, and then five faces of the die will point to the trailing racer. This rule keeps the tension alive right to the end, letting stragglers catch up quickly.

Example: the dice show pink and blue. The blue lemming has already dropped out of the race, so you may choose between the pink and the grey mafioso, since grey is bringing up the rear. If the pink one had also dropped out of the race by this point, you would have had to move the grey lemming with no other option.

Track Spaces

As the race unfolds, lemmings run into various kinds of trouble or find useful things on the spaces of the board.

Cement Mixer

Placing a lemming on a cement-mixer space fits it with "concrete shoes." Plug a token into its base.

Important: with two "concrete shoes" a lemming can still just about run, but with a third it drops out of the race. Remove its figure from the board. The first lemming eliminated is placed on cell "6," the next on "5," and so on.

Sledgehammer

On a sledgehammer space, you may remove one "concrete shoe" from the lemming (if it has any).

Car Theft

Placing a lemming on this space, immediately roll the regular die and move the animal forward that many spaces. A local event then occurs there. If the needed space is occupied, the mafioso stays put instead — they got spooked, the carjacking failed, and for the mishap they receive a "concrete shoe."

Bookmaker

When a lemming reaches the bookmaker space, every player may place one bet card on the table in front of them, face down. On each subsequent bet, the new card is placed on top of the ones already played. This way, a deck of bets builds up in front of you and your opponents. Do not mix these cards with your remaining bets and missions.

Note: betting is voluntary — cards are played as you wish. Even so, it doesn't pay to delay for too long, since without a totalizator win, victory will be difficult.

Mafia Bosses

If you bring a lemming to a boss space, every player may discard one of their missions without revealing the card to their opponents. A discarded card is guaranteed not to cost you points at the end of the game, but it also won't earn you bonus points, even if you could have completed it.

Blank Spaces

If a lemming lands on a space with no image, nothing happens. Pass.

End of Game

• The race and the game end when the first lemming reaches the water space beneath the pier, or when only one lemming remains on the track and all the others have dropped out. In both cases, that lemming wins.
• Discard all bet cards that were not played by the end of the race. Do not add them to the bet deck you built up during the race.
• Turn over your bet deck. The card played first ends up on top.

Scoring the Bets

• Count through the bets in your deck starting from the top, until you reach the card for the winning lemming, including the bet on the winner itself. You score one point per card.
• The totalizator can bring you a maximum of six points for one race — if you placed all six bets, and the last one was on the champion.

Example: you played your bet cards as shown in the illustration above. Your reckoning was nearly perfect — you placed your bet on the grey winner second-to-last. You are owed 5 points.

• If the animal whose card you played first wins the race, the totalizator brings you only one point — that bet will be the top card of your turned-over deck.

Example: if the violet lemming had won, you would get only one point, since the violet card lies first in your bet deck.

• If you never play the winner's card at all, you get no points — after all, there is no bet on the champion in your stack.

Example: you did not play the grey card during the race, and you get no points for it afterward.

• Note: you can only score points on the bet for the winner. The later you play this card, the more points you gain — since in the turned-over deck, that bet will lie further from the start. At the same time, the bookmaker spaces on the board are not unlimited, so you need to think about your bet deck from the very start of the game. Place your early bets on complete long shots — here you'll have to rely on instinct, there's nothing else for it. By the time your fourth bet comes around, pay closer attention to working out the odds, so as to get the greatest benefit from the totalizator.

• Once you've collected your winnings from the bookmakers, look over your mission cards. Depending on its difficulty, a completed mission is worth from 1 to 5 points.

• A failed mission costs you 2 points — this has nothing to do with the mission's difficulty. To avoid losing your chance at winning, it's worth using the mafia bosses to get rid of difficult or clearly unachievable missions during the race.

Mission Card Clarifications

• Score 1 point if the grey, the pink, or both lemmings dropped out of the race. If you left both of them still in the race, you lose 2 points.
• Score 2 points if the green lemming finished ahead of the red one. This mission is also completed if the red lemming dropped out while the green one remained in the race, or if both dropped out but the red one did so first. If the red lemming overtook the green one, you lose 2 points.
• Score 3 points if the blue lemming finished first, second, or third. If the blue lemming finished outside the top three, you lose 2 points.
• Score 4 points if no more than one lemming dropped out of the race. If you finished the race with four or more lemmings still in, you lose 2 points.
• Score 4 points if three or more lemmings dropped out of the race. If fewer than three lemmings had dropped out by the end of the game, you lose 2 points.
• Score 5 points if the winning lemming has no "concrete shoes" on it. This mission is also completed if the lemming remained alone on the track with no shoes. If the winner has even one "concrete shoe," you lose 2 points.

Winning the Game

The winner is whoever scores the most points from bets and completed missions. In case of a tie, whoever has more points from completed missions wins. If that is also tied, friendship wins.