Les caprices du roi Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal of the Game
• Components
• Setup
• Playing the Game
  • 1 - Draw a Card
  • 2 - Discard a Card
  • End of the Round
• End of the Game
  • Scoring
  • Caste Abilities
  • Ministers (value-replacement ability)
• Variant: Joust
• Scoring Example

Goal of the Game

Your objective is to build the best assembly (your hand of cards) to present to the King, in order to score as many victory points as possible.

Each round, the King decrees new constraints (sometimes contradictory!) to which you try to adapt by drawing and discarding your subjects. Each caste of subjects has its own abilities and its own influence...

After four rounds, the person who has recruited the most powerful assembly wins the King's support and a potential place at his side.

Note: the goal text as printed says "after four rounds", while the End of the Game section says a game lasts 6 rounds. Both are transcribed as printed; the game's round count is 6 (see End of the Game).

Components

• A 64 Subject cards
• B 21 large Caprice cards (including 2 blue Caprice cards common to all games)
• C 4 Victory point bonus tokens (+30, +20, +15, +10)
• D 5 large player aid cards
• E 1 Royal Favour token (to be assembled)
• F 1 score pad

Setup

1. Shuffle the Subject cards and deal 7 to each player, face down. The remaining cards form the draw pile.
2. From the draw pile, make a row of 6 Subject cards face down. They will be revealed one by one at the start of each round.
3. Place the 2 common Caprice cards (blue), face up, below the row of Subject cards. Then randomly draw 4 Caprice cards and place them face down. Return the remaining cards to the box without looking at them.
4. Place the Victory point bonus tokens under each Caprice card face down, in decreasing order from left to right (+30, +20, +15, +10).
5. Give each player a player aid at random, making sure to distribute at least the one with the King. Whoever obtains that card takes the Royal Favour token and starts the game.
6. In the centre of the table is the Recruitment Zone (where Subject cards will be recruited from and discarded to).

Playing the Game

The player holding the Royal Favour token prepares the round as follows:

• Reveal the leftmost face-down Subject card and add it to the centre of the table, in the Recruitment Zone.
• Reveal the leftmost face-down Caprice card (if any remain).

Note: The 2 blue Caprices are common to all games.

Then, starting with the player holding the Royal Favour token, each player takes a turn in clockwise order, performing two actions:

1 - Draw a Card

You may recruit or rally an available card:

Recruit a Subject. Recruit a face-up Subject card from the Recruitment Zone, or the top card of the draw pile.

Rally a Peasant or an Artisan. If a Peasant or an Artisan is in the Recruitment Zone, you may either:

• take it into your hand, as for an ordinary recruitment,

or

• rally it: instead of taking the card into your hand, place it face up in front of you. It will count at the end of the game as part of your hand. (To rally an Artisan, you must have one in your hand that you reveal. You may rally only one Artisan in your game; see page 6.)

When you rally, do not perform the action 2 - Discard.

Your Peasant and Artisan cards placed face up in front of you cannot be discarded during your later turns. Once in front of you, they stay there and belong to you until the end of the game.

Note: Peasants/Artisans that begin the game in your hand (or that you draw) may be placed in front of you only if you first discard them to the Recruitment Zone and then rally them on a later turn.

2 - Discard a Card

Unless you rallied a Peasant or an Artisan by placing it in front of you this turn, you MUST discard a card from your hand to the Recruitment Zone.

Note: You may discard the card you have just drawn (except if you have just taken it from the Recruitment Zone).

End of the Round

When each player has played once, the round ends. If there are still face-down Subject cards in the row, pass the Royal Favour token to your left-hand neighbour and begin a new round.

End of the Game

You play a total of 6 rounds per game.

At the end of the 6th round, each player reveals their hand and calculates their score.

Scoring

• Add together the values of the Subject cards in your hand AND those rallied in front of you.
• Add the points of the two common Caprices:

"De l'ordre !" (Order!): Have a run of at least 6 consecutive values, regardless of Castes. Sort your cards in ascending order to make this count easier.

Example: if you have a run of 7 cards from 4 to 10, you score 30 points.

Note: for this Caprice, the Ministers "1" may take the value (even/odd) of your choice (see p. 7).

Do not forget to add the points from your Merchants, if any (see p. 6).

"L'union fait la force !" (Unity is strength!): Have a family of at least 3 cards of the same Caste. The limit is set at 75 points maximum, even if you have more than 7 cards of the same Caste. Sort your cards by Caste to make this count easier.

Example: if you have 4 Nobles and 3 Knights, you obtain 15 points for the Nobles and 5 points for the Knights.

Note: for this Caprice, 1 Clerk counts as 2, only once (see p. 6).

• Add the Bonus points of the Caprices whose conditions you have met (the same Subject card may be used to meet the conditions of several Caprices).

Whoever has the highest total score wins the game!

In case of a tie, the tied player with the lowest total value of Subject cards wins.

Caste Abilities

Peasant: can be rallied (see p. 4).

Artisan: can be rallied if you reveal an Artisan from your hand (see p. 4). You may only have one Artisan rallied in front of you per game.

Bourgeoise: replaces your normal turn. Discard 2 Bourgeoises to take 2 cards of your choice from the draw pile and/or the Recruitment Zone, and place them in your hand. You may not rally a Peasant or an Artisan in front of you in this way.

Knight: at the end of the game, whether you have one or more Knight cards, you may transform only one Subject card from your hand. Choose one of your Peasants, Artisans, Bourgeoises or Merchants. The transformed card then becomes a Knight in all circumstances.

Noble: replaces your normal turn. Discard 1 Noble and any other Subject card to take 2 cards from the Recruitment Zone only and place them in your hand. You may not rally a Peasant or an Artisan in front of you in this way.

Minister: each Minister has its own ability, explained in detail below.

Can transform into another Caste: once you have made your choice, the Minister is then considered to belong to that Caste in all circumstances. You may also decide that the card simply remains a Minister.

• Transforms into an Artisan, a Merchant or a Bourgeoise.
• Transforms into a Clerk, a Knight or a Noble.

Clerk: to obtain the points of the common Caprice "L'union fait la force !" with a Clerk, count that you have one additional Clerk.

Example: you have 2 Clerks at the end of the game. You score 5 points, as if you had 3.

Note that this ability does not apply to the other Caprices.

Merchant: each Merchant that is an integral part of a valid run for the common Caprice "De l'ordre !" earns you +5 points.

Example: you have a run of cards from 1 to 6, including two valid Merchants (1 and 4). Your run of six cards is worth 30 points instead of 20, because two of the three Merchants bring you 5 points each. The third Merchant, an 8, is not part of the run, so it adds no extra points.

Jester: Jesters are a promotional Caste. Refer to the rules card to learn the abilities of the Jesters. (Collectible!)

Note: A "replacing your normal turn" ability may only be used once per turn. For example, if you have a Bourgeoise and a Noble in hand, you may activate only one of the two to replace your action for the turn.

Ministers (value-replacement ability)

The printed icons on the Minister's card state the following:

• "Can replace any ODD value for the Caprice 'De l'ordre !'." (Peut remplacer n'importe quelle valeur IMPAIRE pour le Caprice « De l'ordre ! ».)
• "Can replace any EVEN value for the Caprice 'De l'ordre !'." (Peut remplacer n'importe quelle valeur PAIRE pour le Caprice « De l'ordre ! ».)

Can replace any even/odd value: you may change the "1" of these Ministers into any number (even or odd, depending on the card) for the Caprice "De l'ordre !". However, the value of the Minister always remains 1 point.

Variant: Joust

For a slightly longer and more strategic experience, we recommend playing 4 games in a row and totalling the scores to determine the winner.

If you do not reuse the Caprices from one game to the next, this will let you see 16 different cards!

Scoring Example

Example of scoring: Cunégonde first counts the value of the seven cards in her hand and of the three cards in front of her: 24 points. Then, with her run of cards from 0 to 6, she scores +30 points for "De l'ordre !". She accumulates 4 Peasants for "L'union fait la force !", which therefore adds +15 points.

For the other Caprices, she meets the conditions of "Mon peuple m'adore !" (My people adore me!), because she has 3 Peasants but no Noble. She also meets the conditions of "Pas de ramasse-miettes à ma table !" (No crumb-catchers at my table!) by transforming her Minister into a Clerk. These two Caprices bring her a total of 30 points.

Her final score is therefore 24+30+15+30 = 99 points!

Corrected example (from the Origames companion scoring example sheet, which supersedes the printed example above): Cunégonde's run of cards from 0 to 6 includes a Merchant worth +5 points. She still scores +30 for "De l'ordre !", plus +5 for the Merchant in that run, +15 for "L'union fait la force !", and 30 for the two other Caprices, giving 24+30+5+15+30 = 104 points.