Motto Tanto Cuore Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• 1. Components
  • Terminology note
• 2. The cards
  • Maid cards (blue frame)
  • Love cards (pink frame)
  • High class maids (black/red frame)
  • Preparation cards (purple frame)
  • First master card
• 3. Game setup
  • For 3 players
  • For 2 players
  • Recommended general maids for first game
• 4. Flow of the game
  • Round summary
• 5. Round details
  • 1. High class maid selection
  • 2. Players take their turns
    • i. High class maid effect happens
    • ii. Serving step
    • iii. Maids get to work
    • iv. Employ step
    • v. Return high class maids to the Park
    • vi. Cleanup
• 6. Chambermaids
• 7. Game end and winning
• 8. Additional rules
  • Using cards from other Tanto Cuore sets
  • Adjusting difficulty
  • About number of players
  • About promo cards
• 9. Example of play

1. Components

The game box should contain this rule book and the following 224 cards:

• 9 high class maids
• 136 maids
  • 12 maid chiefs
  • 124 general maids
• 26 preparations cards
• 48 love cards
• 1 First Master card
• 4 turn summary cards

"More Tanto Cuore" is a new series of deck building/role selection card games for 2–4 players. The gameplay differs quite a bit from the old series "Tanto Cuore"; however cards from all three boxes of the older series can be used in this game.

Terminology note

In this game, you do not "play cards" – you are "served by your staff". You do not "buy" cards – you "employ staff". To draw cards is to "call on staff". The cards in your hand is "the staff by your side". Your draw pile is your "waiting room" and each player's discard pile is their "kitchen entrance". To send staff to the kitchen entrance is to "dismiss staff". Your playing area is your "house" and the central playing area is "the park".

Please note that when the rules refer to a "maid", love cards (and high class maids) are not included. Love cards are, however, part of your staff.

2. The cards

This game consists of roughly 4 different categories of cards: High class maids, Maids, Preparation cards and Love cards. Explaining these cards also provides a rough introduction of the game.

Maid cards (blue frame)

These, together with the Love cards, are the cards that the players will have in their hands and play during the game. Players start the game with 3 specified maid cards and 7 love cards – see "Game setup".

The card anatomy is labelled as follows:

1. Title

2. Name

3. Cost

4. VP value

5. Servings

6. Callings

7. Love

8. Imagination

9. Concentration

10. Effort

11. Category

12. Effect

13. Title: Mostly for game flavour.

14. Name: The maid's name.

15. Cost: The amount of Love required to employ (buy) this maid from the central area.

16. VP value: The amount of Victory Points this maid is worth once the game ends. In this case, it's an 'X' as it may vary.

Love cards (pink frame)

These, together with the maid cards, are the cards that the players will have in their hands and play during the game. Unlike maids, Love cards do not require any "servings" to be played (see later in the rules). Also, everything they do is generate love. Love is used to employ more staff, i.e. take cards from the central supply (see later in the rules).

The card anatomy is labelled as follows:

1. Name / amount of Love

2. Cost

3. Name: The card's name. For Love cards, this also doubles as the amount of Love you get from playing this card… I mean, being served by this staff.

4. Cost: The amount of Love required to employ this staff member.

High class maids (black/red frame)

These are unique maids placed in the central area. They are never part of a player's staff, and can never be in any waiting room or kitchen entrance. At the beginning of each round, players take turns picking one of the available high class maids; the player that picks last will thus have a quite more limited selection that the player who goes first. What high class maid a player chooses influences what he can do this round. Once a player is finished with this turn, he returns his high class maid to the Park.

The card anatomy is labelled as follows (the card diagram labels the name as "3" and the category as "3", as printed):

• Title (1)
• Name (3 on the diagram)
• Category (3 on the diagram)
• Effect (4)

1. Title: Mostly for flavour
2. Name: The maid's name.
3. Category: For rules purposes
4. Effect: The effect that you gain from choosing this high class maid.

Preparation cards (purple frame)

These cards' sole purpose is that they are worth points. They are never part of a player's staff (waiting room or kitchen entrance). Players merely keep them in front of them as a measure of how much they've accomplished (via their maids). These cards are gained by playing maids with enough skill points to match the requirements of the preparations card. Also, the player must have chosen the equivalent high class maid at the beginning of the round in order to be able to gain a Preparation card.

The card anatomy is labelled as follows:

1. Name

2. VP value

3. Category

4. Requirements

5. Name: The name of the preparation errand.

6. VP value: How much VP this card is worth once the game ends.

7. Category: For rules purposes.

8. Requirements: The type and amount of skill points that the player must have generated this turn in order to gain this card.

First master card

This is simply a card that signifies who will be the first player for the next round. Being first player in a round means that you are the first to choose high class maid, which obviously is a great advantage.

This card is not transferred to anyone (i.e. the same player keeps sitting on it) unless it's explicitly taken, for example by the player who picks Marianne Soleil during the high class maid selection process.

3. Game setup

• Sort out the three different types of Preparation cards (Food, Decoration and Cleaning) and place them in one faceup pile each in the middle of the table ("The park"). Each of these three piles should have its '1's on top, the '2's in the middle and the '3's on the bottom of the pile.
• Sort out the three types of Love cards (1 Love, 2 Love, 3 Love) and place them in one faceup pile each, beside the Preparation cards in the Park.
• Deal 3 "Colette Framboise" (maid card) to each player and put any remaining Colettes back into the box – they are not used in the game.
• Each player also takes 7 "1 Love" cards.
• Select 10 of the remaining 13 general maids to be used in the game (for the first game, see recommendation below). Place them in one face-up pile each (total of ten piles) by the Preparation cards and Love cards in the Park.
• Put the high class maids in a row in the Park, in good view and reach for all. Before starting the game, see to that all players know what the different high class maids allow you to do.
• Randomly decide who is the "First Master" the first round. That player takes the "First Master" card.
• All players shuffle the 10 cards they have received (3 Colettes and 7 "1 Love") and place in a face-down pile before them. This draw pile is their respective "waiting room". Each player should have substantial room before him to play his cards – this area is his "house". All player now calls 5 staff members (draws 5 cards from his draw pile) and keeps in his hand.
• Setup is now complete.

The setup example diagram for 4 players (showing the Park, the high class maid row, the Preparation and Love piles, the ten maid piles and each player's house and deck) is not reproduced in this transcription; see page 3 of the official rulebook.

For 3 players

• Remove one '1' and one '3' from each Preparation pile and return to the game box.
• Remove one random high class maid, excluding the vital four: Noemi, Sarina, Arisa and Marianne. Return to the game box.

Note: the printed 3-player text names "Sarina" in the vital four, while the rest of the rulebook names "Celina" (see "About promo cards" and "High class maid selection"). Transcribed as printed.

For 2 players

• Remove all "Cleaning" Preparation cards and the equivalent high class maid Arisa.
• Remove one '1' and one '3' from the remaining two Preparation piles.
• Finally, remove 3 cards from each general maid pile.
• Return all removed cards to the game box.

Recommended general maids for first game

• Anise Greenaway
• Edith Shirling
• Tomo Watagaya
• Moinne de Lefèbre
• Elaine Fontenille
• Ophelia Grail
• Lenor Abrille
• Cecilia Saint-Claire
• Chiffon Loudenne
• Dawn Stride

4. Flow of the game

The game is divided into "rounds". At the start of each round, all players, starting with the First Master and continuing clockwise, pick one high class maid and place in their house.

When all players have picked a high class maid, the round proceeds with players taking their turns, starting with the First Master and then continuing clockwise. A player turn consists of several steps.

When all players have taken their turn, the round has ended. All high class maids have been returned to the Park and a new round begins with the First Master picking a high class maid. (Please note that the First Master doesn't change unless a card effect says so.)

This goes on until either 2 maid piles or 1 Preparation pile is depleted. When so happens, the game ends when the current round is finished. Whatever happens, the current round is always finished.

Once the game ends, players tally their Victory Points. The player with the most points is declared the King of All Maids.

Round summary

1. In turn order, players select a high class maid.

2. In turn order, players take their turn:

   A player turn:

   • i: High class maid takes effect
   • ii: Serving step (player plays cards)
   • iii: Work step (gaining Preparation cards)
   • iv: Employ step (buying new cards)
   • v: Return high class maid to the Park
   • vi: Cleanup

5. Round details

1. High class maid selection

In turn order, starting with the First Master and continuing clockwise, all players pick one high class maid from the Park and place in their house. It's not allowed to pick a high class maid that a previous player picked.

Four of the high class maids are especially significant: Noëmi who allows the player to gain Food cards, Celina who allows the player to gain Decoration cards, Arisa who allows the player to gain Cleaning cards and Marianne who allows the player to nick the First Master card from the current owner. Without the equivalent high class maid, the player cannot gain the valuable Preparation cards (the general maids need instructions from the high class maids in order to know what to do!)

When all players have picked one high class maid each, the round proceeds to the next part:

2. Players take their turns

In turn order, starting with the First Master and continuing clockwise, all players take their turns. When one player has finished his turn, the person to his left takes his turn. When all players have taken their turn, the round ends.

A player turn consists of the following six steps:

i. High class maid effect happens

The player may activate his current high class maid's effect if he wishes to. (This does not count as "playing" the card, and thus does not cost any "servings".)

ii. Serving step

The "main" step of each player turn. In this step, the player may play maid cards from his hand to gain their effects (text effects, skill points etc). Playing a card (being served by a staff member) means to put the card down from your hand into your house. In order to play a maid card, the player must have 1 "serving point". Each player recieves 1 "Serving" at the start of his Serving steps each turn, so a player can always be served by at least one maid each turn. To be served by more than one maid, the player must play cards that give him additional Servings. Note that being served by Love staff (playing love cards) requires no Servings.

Maid cards generate Callings, Servings, Love, Skill points and any additional text effects – all this is collectively called the maid's "effect".

A few select maids can become chambermaids instead of serve. See "6. Chambermaids".

If the maid generated Callings, the player must immediately call as many new staff (draw new cards from his draw deck). They cannot be "saved for later" in the serving step, and calling staff is not optional – the maid who served you simply brings more staff with her, and that's that.

Servings and/or Love, on the other hand, do not have to be used right away – instead they are added to any previous unused amount the player had gained from earlier maids. Servings are consumed by being served by maids, and Love is (mostly) used in the employ step, to employ more staff. It's not mandatory to use all Servings and Love, but any leftover Servings and Love is lost when the player's turn ends – they cannot be saved for the next turn.

Any Skill points (Imagination, Concentration and Effort) the maid generates is also stockpiled. If the maids the player played this turn generate enough skill points of the correct type, the player may gain a Preparation card later during the turn, provided he picked the equivalent high class maid. However, like Servings and Love, Skill points do not carry over to the next turn. Unless the player uses them to gain a Preparation card, they are lost.

The text effects of the maid happen after the player has recieved the Callings, Servings, Love and Skill Points (with the exception of the Chambermaid effect). Text effects with an implication arrow (⇨) in the sentence are optional. Read them as "You may […] If you do, […]".

All cards the player played are to stay face up in his house for the time being, unless stated otherwise. They are not dismissed (put into the discard pile) until the player's turn ends.

The Serving step ends when the player has no more Servings or no more maids to play, or no wish to further play cards. Once the Serving step ends, the player immediately loses any surplus Serving points.

iii. Maids get to work

This step can only be done by the players who picked a high class maid with the "work chief" mark – Noëmi, Celina or Arisa.

If the players picked one of these, he can gain the top card from the corresponding Preparation pile (Food pile if he picked Noëmi, Decoration pile if he picked Celina, and Cleaning if he picked Arisa), provided that the generated enough Skill points during this turn. Meaning: The high class maid instructs the player's maids as to what needed be done, and they deliver. Without a high class maid to instruct them, the maids don't know what to do. So there!

The player may gain several Preparation cards, as long as he has enough Skill points to pay for them all, but they are gained one at a time – and only the current top card can be gained.

Preparation cards never enter a player's deck or hand of cards. When they are gained, they are simply placed in the player's house as points.

iv. Employ step

The player may now use any Love he has generated to employ new staff. The player may play further Love cards to add to any Love his maids generated, but no more maid cards can be played.

To employ new staff, he must have enough Love to "pay" for the new maid. Note that the Love cards are not consumed in this process. It's merely the virtual currency that is paid. Not the cards. The player takes the staff from the Park and puts it on his kitchen entrance (takes from the central area and places on his discard pile).

The player is only allowed to employ 1 (one) staff member per turn, however, maid effects may increase this number. If he employs more than one staff member, he must be able to pay for all of them.

Employing new staff is not mandatory. The employ step ends when the player can't or doesn't want to employ more staff.

v. Return high class maids to the Park

The player now returns the high class maid he picked to the Park.

vi. Cleanup

The player dismisses all the staff that served him (puts all the cards he played this turn on his discard pile) with the exception of any chambermaids.

He then dismisses all the staff left by his side (all cards left in hand are also discarded).

Lastly, he calls 5 more staff from his waiting room (draws 5 cards from his draw deck). If the waiting room is empty when staff is to be called, all staff by the kitchen entrance (discard pile) rush in chaos to the waiting room (shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw deck).

Once he has drawn cards, it's the next player's turn, who starts with activating his high class maid.

6. Chambermaids

A few select maids can become chambermaids instead of serving the player. This is done in the serving step: Quite simply instead of playing the card and gain its effects, the player puts the card aside – this card will not be discarded during cleanup and is thus (temporarily, at least) out of the player's deck. Please note that none of the maids effects take place.

Chambermaiding a maid usually costs a certain number of Servings (1 or 2), noted on the card.

Once a maid has become a chambermaid, she stays put until a card effect or some other rule causes her to move. All her effects (except any chambermaid effects) are inactive and don't happen.

Some chambermaids have a chambermaid effect or bonus. These effects and bonuses (normally Victory Point bonus) are naturally only valid if the maid is chambermaided. The chambermaid effect of a chambermaid can be used at any time during the serving step. Using the effect is not mandatory. Effects with an implication arrow (⇨) are read as "You may […]. If you do, […]". For example, Colettes chambermaid effect allows you to dismiss her (put her on your discard pile). If you do, you gain a Serving.

7. Game end and winning

The game end triggers when a) 2 maid piles are exhausted or b) 1 Preparation pile is exhausted. Once this happens, the current round is to be finished, and then the game ends.

Once the game has ended, all players count their Victory Points. Victory points are counted for all cards in a player's house: deck, discard pile, cards in hand and any other cards in the house like Preparation cards and Chambermaids. Recommended is to first count points from your Preparation cards, after that count the VP of your Chambermaids, including chambermaid bonuses, and lastly, count any remaining VP in your hand, deck and discard pile (and this time, excluding any Chambermaid bonuses).

The player with the most Victory Points is declared to be the best of all Maid Masters. In case of a tie, the player with the most Chambermaid among the tied players wins. If it's still a tie, it remains a tie.

8. Additional rules

Using cards from other Tanto Cuore sets

You can use cards from previous Tanto Cuore sets to spice this game up:

• Select any 10 general maids from any Tanto Cuore set. Take 1 of each maid, shuffle and place face up with the other 10 maid piles during setup, as an 11th pile of maids. This pile also counts towards the game end trigger.
• And/or select any 10 private maids from the two first Tanto Cuore sets, shuffle them and place them in a face up pile with the other maid piles. (Note that "during the Starting phase" will here mean "During the high class maid effect step".)
• And/or add the Illness cards to the fray. They work just like in Tanto Cuore.

Adjusting difficulty

Ignis is the most powerful of all high class maids. Removing her from the game will affect the difficulty. Also, when randomly selecting maids, you should have at least 2 from the following group: Edith, Lenor and Julia. If not, generating Imagination will prove to be rather cumbersome.

About number of players

The full game works best with 4 players, as the fight for the high class maids is most interesting with 4. When playing with fewer, especially on 2, the game changes into a more rapid fight for the points. Please observe that you remove some cards from play when playing with fewer than 4 players (see setup).

About promo cards

You can vary the setup by not simply adding the new high class maids to the game, but randomly selecting an appropriate number. However, always use the vital four: Noëmi, Celina, Arisa and Marianne.

9. Example of play

Raoul, Baron and Claris are playing a 3 player game. Raoul is the First Master. The five cards he drew were [Colette], [Colette], [1 love], [1 love] and [Tomo].

It's the high class maid selection. Raoul could take Ignis and return one of his [1 love] cards and get +2 love, but he wants to chambermaid one of his Colettes, so he picks Yukina and places in his house.

Baron also had 2 [Colette]s in hand and wanted to pick Yukina, but as Raoul took her, Baron grits his teeth and chooses Ellis that allows him to call more staff.

However, Claris has two [Chiffon]s in her hand. Playing 3 [Chiffon] will gain her +2 Effort, and Claris knows that she has another 2 [Chiffon]s in her deck, so she chances it and grabs Arisa, which allows her to gain Cleaning cards.

High class maid selection is finished and it's Raoul's turn. He uses Yukina's power to dismiss one [Colette] and thus gains one Serving. As he has one free Serving each round, he now amounts to 2 Servings. He uses both of these Servings to chambermaid his other [Colette]. With no Servings left, his Serving phase ends.

As Raoul didn't pick a Work chief high class maid, his work step is skipped.

It's the employ step. Raoul could play his two [1 love] cards and employ a maid for a max cost of 2, but he doesn't want to, so he skips it.

He returns Yukina to the Park. It's the Cleanup step, so he dismisses the three cards he has left in his hand: 2 [1 love] and 1 [Tomo]. The [Colette] that he has chambermaided stays put. He then draws 5 new cards from his deck, and ends his turn.

It's Baron's turn. His high class maid effect happens which is "call one staff member and then dismiss one from your side". He gets a [1 love] so he keeps it and dismisses a [Colette]. He now has 1 [Colette] and 4 [1 love].

He has no general maids that are interesting to play, so he skips the Serving phase, and the work step is auto-skipped. Time for the employ step. Baron plays his four [1 love] and employs a [Cecilia] – he takes a Cecilia card from the Park and places on his discard pile.

He then returns high class maid Ellis to the Park, dismisses the four [1 love] that he played, and the [Colette] he has left in his hand, and draws 5 new cards. He has only 2 cards left in his deck, so he draws those 2, shuffles his discard pile to form a new draw deck, and draws the remaining three.

It's Claris' turn. Her high class maid Arisa doesn't have any immediate effect, so she goes straight to the Serving phase. She plays a [Chiffon] that calls another staff member and gives an extra Serving. She draws a card – it's a [1 love]. Chiffon gave her another Serving, so Claris can play another card: She plays her second [Chiffon] and draws a card – it's a [Chiffon]! She still has a Serving left, so she plays her third [Chiffon] and thus generates 2 Effort, and also draws a card – it's a [1 love]. Claris still has a Serving left, but no maids to play, so she skips.

It's the work step, and since Claris picked Arisa, she can attempt to gain a Cleaning card. The top Cleaning card requires 2 Effort to gain, which is precisely what Claris' three Chiffons generated, so she takes the top Cleaning card and places in her house, beside her draw deck.

In the employ step, she plays all her [love] to employ a [Cecilia]. She then returns Arisa to the Park, dismisses all the three [Chiffon]s and all four [1 love] and calls 5 new staff members.

The round is now finished, and since no one nicked the First Master from Raoul, he will be first in selecting high class maid for the next round too.