Mü & more: Revised Edition
Mü & more: Revised Edition Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 60 playing cards in 5 colors, numbered 0-9 (two of 1s and two of 7s)
- 1 Crown Indicator
- 27 Crown Bid Tokens (double-sided): pink for 3 players, turquoise for 4 players, olive for 5 players, brown for 6 players
- 1 Shield Indicator
- 8 Shield Bid Tokens (double-sided)
- 1 Trump Indicator
- 17 Trump Tokens (color, number, no-trump)
Introduction
Your goal is to score points by winning tricks and earning bonuses. First, an auction determines who takes on the opposing roles of Crown and Shield. These players select the trumps, which beat all other cards. Then the Crown player picks a Partner for the hand.
With preparations complete, trick-taking begins! The Crown team works to score points based on the Crown's bid in the auction. Once all tricks are taken, players collect personal points and the winning team earns bonuses. Try to score the most over multiple hands!
Setup
Playing Cards
Randomly choose a first dealer. Shuffle the deck of playing cards. Deal all 60 cards equally to all players.
For 3-players: Remove all cards of one color from the deck before shuffling. Deal 15 cards to each player and place the last 3 cards facedown in a stack. Once the Auction is complete, the Crown player takes these 3 cards into their hand, and then chooses any 3 of their cards in hand to put face-down on their points pile.
Tokens
Lay out the three Indicator tokens, all Trump tokens, and all Shield Bid tokens. Take the Crown Bid tokens you need for your player count — as shown on the back of the Crown Indicator — and lay them out as well, in numerical order.
Prepare a device for online scoring (or print out a scoring sheet — links on page 8). Let's play!
Auction
Determine Crown and Shield roles: Starting with the dealer and continuing clockwise, players may reveal any number of cards from their hand, placing those cards face up in front of them to form a display. Instead of revealing cards, you may pass. Passing does not prevent you from playing in the future — you may choose to reveal cards on a later turn.
Receive Crown or Shield: Display the most cards to get the Crown Indicator, or the second most to get the Shield Indicator.
As play progresses, both Indicators move around the table like this:
- First Crown: The first player to display cards takes the Crown Indicator.
- First Shield: The first player to display fewer or the same amount of cards as the Crown takes the Shield Indicator.
- New Crown: Any player who displays more cards than the current Crown takes over the Crown. Its previous owner immediately takes over the Shield.
- New Shield: Any player who displays more than the current Shield (but fewer or the same as the current Crown) takes over the Shield.
- If a player displays no more than either Shield or Crown, nothing happens.
Example: 1. Frank displays 2 cards and takes the Crown. 2. Roland displays 1 card and takes the Shield. 3. Doris displays 3 cards and takes over the Crown. Frank loses the Crown and takes over the Shield.
End of Auction: The auction ends once all players pass in succession.
Rare cases: If only one player displayed cards, there is no Shield team; no Shield trump; and no Shield team win bonus. If no players display cards at all, reshuffle and deal again.
Pick Trumps
Fill the Indicators: The players with the Crown and Shield Indicator tokens count their displayed cards, find the Bid token matching that number, and slot it into their Indicator token.
The number of displayed cards determines:
- The Team Goal: The Crown team needs to make this many points (out of 60 total, or 48 in a 3-player game) to win.
- The Bid Bonus: All members of your team gain this if you win.
The Crown and Shield players pick the trumps, which beat all other cards. Either a color or a number can be selected as trump. However, you can only select colors or numbers that you have placed in your display! (E.g. Blue 7 allows a player to choose blue or 7 as trump.)
- The Shield chooses a color or number first. This becomes the minor trump.
- The Crown then chooses a color or number to be the major trump, which outranks the minor.
- Either player can also choose no-trump, meaning there will be one or no trumps in play.
If a color and a number are chosen, their combination is the super trump — the highest trump in play.
Slot the chosen Trump tokens in the Crown or Shield space in the Trump Indicator.
Form Teams
After the trumps have been selected, the Crown player picks a partner. They can choose anyone except the Shield player. They should look at all revealed cards from all players to help them make their choice!
- The Crown and their Partner are now on the Crown team.
- All other players are on the Shield team.
For 3-players: The Crown player receives no partner, always playing alone.
Play Tricks
Displayed Cards: All cards revealed during the Auction stay on display until they are played. We recommend sorting and separating the trump cards from your other cards on display to help all players keep your trumps in mind.
Lead the Trick: The Crown player begins by playing one of their cards to the middle of the table. For tricks after the first, the winner of the last trick always leads the next. Players may always play from their hand or from their cards on display.
Follow Suit: The other players each add a card to the trick in clockwise order. To do so you must follow suit, meaning if a color was led as the first card, you must play a color; and if a trump was led, you must play any trump. If you cannot follow play any card.
Important: The chosen trumps are no longer part of their original color suits. If a trump is led, only any trump (minor, major, or super) can be played to follow.
Win the Trick: The player who played the highest card of the color that was led wins the trick, unless a trump was played. If so, the highest trump wins. If multiple players play the same highest card (including same highest trumps), the first player to play it will win. The winner places all won cards in a personal, facedown points stack nearby.
Example — Trick 1 (yellow and 1s are trump): Red is led with a red 5, which is beaten by a red 9, which is beaten by a minor trump, all beaten by the major trump 0. To play trump, players must not have any red cards left!
Example — Trick 2 (yellow and 1s are trump): Trump is led with the major trump 3, followed by a minor trump, then a green 4, all beaten by the super trump. To play a non-trump card, this player must not have any trump cards left!
End of a Hand
When all players have played all their cards (in hand and on display), the trick-taking is over and scoring begins.
Follow the QR link in the rulebook to calculate your scores, or use a printout (see the link under "Mü & More Online!" below). Scoring works as follows:
- Personal Score: Every player scores the sum of the points on their cards.
- Bid Bonus: The winning team multiplies the number shown on their team's Bid token by the number below it on the Indicator (x10 for the Crown team, or x5 for Shield). Score the product.
- Trump Bonus: The winning team scores the points shown on the Trump token that their team leader (Crown or Shield) chose.
Check Who Won! The Crown team members add their points together to see if they reached their team goal (shown in the circle on the Crown Bid token). If they did, they are the winning team for this hand! If not, the Shield team is the winning team.
Play the Next Hand: Choose another player to become the dealer. They shuffle the deck and deal a new hand to each player.
End of Game
We recommend you play 3-4 hands, but you can play any number of hands agreed to by all players. Once all hands are played, add up your overall scores. The player with the most points wins!
Mü & More Online!
This is a revised edition of the highly awarded Mü & more that made the Spiel des Jahres recommendation list in 1996. The cards in this edition are the same, so you can still play the classic Mü rules with this new edition. Find the original rules, scoring sheets and tables at heidelbaer.de/en/classic-mu/.
In addition to Mü, you can play even MORE games that use the same deck of cards: fishing, set collection, trick-avoiding, push-your-luck... You can find these games, along with a new 2 player variant, the Scoring Sheet (printable & online), the Tutorial Video and more at heidelbaer.de/en/more-of-mu/.
Credits
- Designer: Frank Nestel
- Artwork: Doris Matthäus
- Development: Roland Goslar
- Graphic Design: Marina Fahrenbach, Sofia Reibel
- Editing: Don Eskridge, Sabine Machaczek
- Publisher: Heiko Eller-Bilz
© 2024 HeidelBÄR Games GmbH. MÜ and more, the HeidelBÄR Games logo and HeidelBÄR Games are TMs of HeidelBÄR Games GmbH. Producer: HeidelBÄR Games GmbH, Hauptstr. 107, 63897 Miltenberg, GERMANY. Made in Czech Republic. Actual components may vary from those shown. NOT INTENDED FOR USE BY PERSONS AGE 9 OR YOUNGER. Retain this information for your records.