Oz (2021) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • 1. Reveal Cards
  • 2. Perform Mandatory and Optional Actions
    • Defeat an enemy
    • Special skill
  • 3. End of Turn
• End of the Game
• Enemies
• Special Cards
• Wicked Witch and Good Witch Cards
• Final Scoring
• Solo Mode
• Reference Card

Components

96 Travel cards, divided into 4 colored decks, which match the 4 cardinal points: 24 yellow cards, 24 blue cards, 24 red cards and 24 purple cards.

Each deck includes:

• Road cards
• Character cards
• Enemy cards
• Special cards
• Witch cards
• Good Witch cards

Road cards represent the sections of the road each character travels along. Road cards show the silhouette of the character they belong to. When a player chooses a Road card from one of the decks, they have to place it on their Yellow Brick Road display.

Character cards represent the 4 main characters of the tale, who players travel with along the journey to the magnificent Emerald City. Character cards feature: the name and art of the character, the skill that resolves when a player places the card on their Yellow Brick Road, the enemy they can defeat, and the victory points gained at the end of game.

Enemy cards represent the evil minions of the witches. There are 3 types of enemies: winged monkeys, crows, and Winkies. Each one has orders to capture a specific character. You have to watch out or they will slow you down significantly.

Special cards represent significant parts of the story. These are: the Ruby Shoes, Dorothy's beloved dog Toto, the wonderful Wizard of Oz, and the terrible Cyclone. The cards will appear during the game and players will gain them. They will move from one player's display to another and the player who has them at the end of the game will get special bonuses.

Witch cards are awaiting our friends in the East and West Travel decks. If you choose the direction where there is a witch, you will have to suffer the witch's curse. But do not worry: remember that, with courage and a little luck, they can be defeated!

Good Witch cards that will help you, in the North and South Travel decks. Traveling in their direction after they show up provides small benefits.

The back of the cards is specially designed to make the setup easier. Additionally, they are helpful to count some of the points you will gain during the game.

Setup

Divide the cards according to the colour of the back to create 4 decks. Shuffle each deck separately and place them face down on the table representing the 4 cardinal points.

The player who is closer to home will be the starting player and play will proceed in clockwise order.

Each player should leave an area on the table in front of them to play their cards. This area is their personal display, which we will refer to as the Yellow Brick Road. Players can place their Score pile to the left of their Yellow Brick Road.

Gameplay

Each turn of the game is divided into 3 steps:

1. Reveal cards
2. Perform mandatory and optional actions
3. End turn

1. Reveal Cards

At the beginning of each player's turn, they must reveal the top card of each deck that does not have a faceup card on top already. To do so, flip the first card of the corresponding deck and leave it on top of the deck.

During the first turn of the game, the starting player will have to reveal the top card of all 4 Travel decks.

• If the card revealed is a Character or Road card, leave it on top of the corresponding deck, face up.
• If you reveal an Enemy card, place the card next to the Travel deck, on the side indicated by the arrow on the card, and reveal another card. If the card is a new enemy, place it next to the previous enemy, forming a line with the enemies of the same deck. Continue revealing cards until you reveal a Road or Character card.
• If you reveal a Witch or a Good Witch card, place it next to the corresponding deck, according to the arrow on the card (see below).
• If you reveal a Special card, place it in the central play area between the 4 decks.

When all the decks have a face-up Road or Character card on top, proceed with step 2.

Card placement: Each card can show symbols on the sides or at the bottom.

• When you reveal the card, place it next to the deck according to those symbols.
• When you reveal the card, place it next to the deck in a row, on the side indicated by the arrow.
• When you reveal the card, place it in the central play area between the 4 decks.

Revealed Road cards and Character cards are always left on top of the corresponding deck.

Example: Mabel is revealing cards from the North Travel deck.

1. First she reveals an Enemy card (a Winged Monkey) and places it next to the North deck.
2. Next she reveals another Enemy card and places it next to the Winged Monkey, laying out a row of Enemy cards. Then she reveals the Good Witch Locasta and places her on the other side of the North deck. Next a new Enemy card is added to the line of enemies. Finally, she reveals a Character card. Now she can proceed to step 2 (actions).

2. Perform Mandatory and Optional Actions

In your turn, you may perform the following actions in any order:

MANDATORY ACTION: Take 1 card from one of the Travel decks.

You can only take revealed cards from the top of a Travel deck: either Road cards or Character cards.

• If you take a Road card, place it immediately in front of you, in your Yellow Brick Road.
• If you take a Character card, add it to your hand.

After taking a card, do not reveal the next card of that deck.

You MUST perform this action TWICE, taking cards from different Travel decks. However, you can perform other actions after and before you take 1 card or after you take 2 cards.

Remember: When you take cards from Travel decks, place the Road cards in your Yellow Brick Road, in front of you, as indicated by the symbol at the bottom of the card. Character cards are added to your hand.

There is no limit to the number of cards you can have in your Yellow Brick Road or hand during the game.

OPTIONAL ACTION: Play Characters from your hand (as many as you want).

During your turn (before or after taking cards from the Travel decks), you can play characters from your hand. With this action, you help the character move forward along the road. To play a Character card you need to have a Road card matching the character in your Yellow Brick Road.

Place the Character in your Yellow Brick Road and immediately take a Road card matching the character. Flip the card, and place it face down to the left of your Yellow Brick Road to create your Score pile.

When a Character card is played (placed for the first time in a player's Yellow Brick Road), two effects of the card resolve immediately:

• Defeat an enemy
• Special skill

Defeat an enemy

Each character can defeat 1 specific type of enemy (except the Tin Woodman). When you play a Character card, if there is an enemy the character can defeat next to a Travel deck, you may defeat that enemy. To do so, take the Enemy card and place it face down on top of your Score pile.

If there are several Enemy cards of the same type, you can choose which one to defeat. Defeating enemies makes travelling in that direction safer, but you do not have to defeat an enemy if you don't want to, even if you can.

Special skill

Each character has a skill that is resolved as soon as the character is played. You can choose not to resolve your character's special skill.

• Dorothy: Take 1 revealed Character card from any Travel deck and place it in your Yellow Brick Road. When you add this new Character card to your Yellow Brick Road, resolve both effects of the Character card (Defeat an enemy and Special skill).
• Cowardly Lion: Take 1 revealed Road card from any Travel deck and place it in your Yellow Brick Road.
• Scarecrow: Take 1 Road card from your Score pile and return it to your Yellow Brick Road.
• Tin Woodman: Defeat any non-witch enemy. Take the defeated Enemy card and place it face down on top of your Score pile.

The special skills of the Cowardly Lion and Dorothy allow you to take cards from the Travel decks. When you resolve their skills, immediately reveal cards from the corresponding Travel deck as usual, until there is a face-up Road or Character card on top of the deck.

If you have 2 or more copies of the same character in your Yellow Brick Road, you have to stack them in a pile, so that the number of cards is visible to all players. This will allow every player to know how many copies of each character you have at any given moment.

Example: Following the previous example, Mabel wants to play 1 Dorothy card from her hand.

1. As her first action, she takes the Dorothy Road card from the West Travel deck and places it in her Yellow Brick Road. Then, she shows the rest of the players the Dorothy Character card from her hand, discards the Road card, placing it face down on top of her Score pile, and places her Dorothy Character card on top of another Dorothy card in her Yellow Brick Road.
2. As soon as she places the card in her Yellow Brick Road, she defeats a Winged Monkey. She takes the Enemy card from the line of enemies next to the North Travel deck and places it face down in her Score pile.
3. Now she uses Dorothy's skill (take 1 Character card from the Travel deck and place it in your Yellow Brick Road). She takes the Scarecrow and immediately resolves both effects (defeat an enemy and special skill).

3. End of Turn

When you cannot or do not want to perform more actions, check if you can take any of the Special cards (see below). Then, your turn ends and it is the next player's turn.

End of the Game

The end of the game triggers when 1 or 2 of the Travel decks (depending on the number of players) run out and there are no more cards to reveal. Then, the round has to be completed, until the last player in turn order has played their turn, so all players play the same number of turns.

• In 2-player games, the end of the game triggers when 2 Travel decks run out.
• In 3 and 4-player games, the end of the game triggers when 1 Travel deck runs out.

When the round is over, proceed to the Final Score (see below).

For example, if 1 deck runs out when the second player in turn order is playing, the third and fourth players have to play their turns before the game ends.

Enemies

If you decide to take a card from a Travel deck with Enemy cards next to it, they attack the character which is their target.

• The enemy performs the attack before you take the card. If you have a Character card in your Yellow Brick Road matching the target of any enemy next to the deck, you must discard that character. Return the Character card to the box, since it won't be used during the rest of the game.
• If you do not have any Character cards in your Yellow Brick Road matching the target of an enemy card next to the deck, the enemies ignore you.
• If there is more than 1 enemy, all of them attack your Yellow Brick Road, each targeting a different Character card.

Once all the enemies of that Travel deck have attacked, you may take the revealed card on top of the deck.

Enemies do not attack if you take a card from the top of a deck as the result of a character's special skill.

Example: If Mabel wants to take the Cowardly Lion Character card from the West Travel deck, first she has to discard the Scarecrow from her Yellow Brick Road, because there is a Winged Monkey next to the West Travel deck which would defeat the Scarecrow. However, if she wants to take a card from the North Travel deck, she doesn't have to discard any characters, since the enemies next to that deck only defeat the Tin Woodman.

Special Cards

When you reveal a Special card (the Wizard of Oz, Toto, the Ruby Shoes, or the Cyclone), place it in the centre of the table. At the end of your turn, check whether you meet the conditions to gain any or all of the Special cards in play. If you do, take those cards and place them in your Yellow Brick Road, regardless of whether that card is in the centre of the table or in another player's Yellow Brick Road.

The conditions are the following:

• The Wizard of Oz: The player with the most cards in their Score pile. At the end of the game, the Wizard of Oz counts as the character of your choice.
• The Ruby Shoes: The player with the most Character cards in their Yellow Brick Road.
• Toto: The player with the most Dorothy cards in their Yellow Brick Road.
• The Cyclone: The player with the most Road cards in their Yellow Brick Road.

Wicked Witch and Good Witch Cards

There are 2 Wicked Witches and 2 Good Witches.

When the Wicked Witches are revealed, place them in the same row as the rest of the enemies, next to the Travel deck. While they are there, their curses slow down your journey in those directions. However, they can be defeated. When you defeat a Wicked Witch, place it in your Score pile face up (showing the victory points value of the defeated Wicked Witch).

To defeat a Wicked Witch, you must discard 3 Character cards or 3 Road cards of the same kind from your hand and/or Yellow Brick Road.

The curses of the Wicked Witches are:

• Nessarose (East): If you want to take a card from the East Travel deck while Nessarose is in play, you must discard 1 Road or Character card from your Yellow Brick Road matching the revealed card on top of the deck. If you don't have any cards matching the card on top of the deck, ignore the evil spell.
• Elphaba (West): If you want to take a card from the West Travel deck while Elphaba is in play, you must discard 1 card of your choice from your hand or your Yellow Brick Road.

The Good Witches, when revealed, are placed next to their deck, where they will stay for the rest of the game helping travellers heading North and South. The blessings of the Good Witches are:

• Locasta (North): If you are going to take a card from the North Travel deck and Locasta has been revealed, take also the next card of the deck. Choose which one to keep and place the other card at the bottom of the North Travel deck. No card is revealed.
• Glinda (South): If you defeat one of the enemies from the South Travel deck, you can immediately take the face-up card from the top of the North deck, if there is one. No card is revealed.

Final Scoring

When the game ends, the players tally their final score by adding the victory points of their Score piles, defeated witches, Special cards, and characters in their Yellow Brick Road.

• The Road cards in the Score pile score 1 victory point each.
• Defeated witches score 9 victory points each.
• The Special cards (Toto, the Ruby Shoes, and the Cyclone) have their own scoring values.
• The Wizard of Oz will help one of the characters as indicated in the Special Cards section of the rulebook.

The player with the most victory points is the winner.

Mabel has 1 Dorothy, which scores 1 victory point. If she had 2, she would get 2 points, if she had 3, she would get 4 points, and if she had 4 or more, she would get 5 points.

Final scoring example: Mabel has 1 Dorothy, 3 Tin Woodmen, 2 Cowardly Lions, and 3 Scarecrows. Additionally, she has 7 points in her Score pile and defeated Nessarose.

During her last turn, she got the Wizard of Oz, because she was the player with the most cards in her Score pile. The Wizard of Oz can turn into any character, so that character scores more points. Mabel decides to use the Wizard of Oz as a Cowardly Lion. Therefore, Mabel scores 1 point for her Dorothy, 5 points for her Tin Woodmen, 7 points for her Cowardly Lions (including the Wizard), 7 points for the Scarecrows, 7 points for the cards in her Score pile, and 9 points for defeating Nessarose.

Mabel gets a total score of 36 victory points. Will she be the player who helped the characters the most in their journey to Emerald City?

Solo Mode

The rules of the solo variant are the same as the regular game, with the following changes:

• During setup, remove the Special card from each Travel deck. You will not need them.
• During your turn, proceed as usual, taking 2 cards from the Travel decks as your mandatory actions and playing Character cards as an option. At the end of your turn, discard the face-up Character cards that are available on top of each Travel deck. When you start a new turn, you will have to reveal the top card of each Travel deck.
• The rest of the game is played as usual.
• The game ends when 1 Travel deck runs out of cards. Finish your turn and then tally your score and compare it to the table below.

If you want to make your solo game more challenging, add the following rule:

At the end of your turn, after discarding all the revealed cards that you did not take, discard 1 extra card from the top of each Travel deck for each Enemy card next to that deck.

Character	Normal	Hard
Yellow Brick Road	0–40	0–34
Cowardly Lion	41–49	35–40
Mindless Scarecrow	50–55	41–45
Tin Woodman	56–68	46–50
Dorothy, the heroine	69–80	51–60
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz	81–94	61–79
Judy Garland	95+	80+

Reference Card

Characters

• Dorothy: Take 1 revealed Character card and place it in your Yellow Brick Road (without discarding any Road cards).
• Cowardly Lion: Take 1 revealed Road card from any Travel deck and place it in your Yellow Brick Road.
• Scarecrow: Take 1 Road card from your Score pile and return it to your Yellow Brick Road.
• Tin Woodman: Defeat any non-witch enemy. Take the defeated Enemy card and place it face down on top of your Score pile.
• The Wizard of Oz: At the end of your turn, if you are the player with the most cards in their Score pile, take the Wizard of Oz and place it in your Yellow Brick Road.

Special Cards

• The Ruby Shoes: At the end of your turn, if you are the player with the most Character cards in their Yellow Brick Road, take the Ruby Shoes and place them in your Yellow Brick Road.
• Toto: At the end of your turn, if you are the player with the most Dorothy cards in their Yellow Brick Road, take Toto and place him in your Yellow Brick Road.
• The Cyclone: At the end of your turn, if you are the player with the most Road cards in their Yellow Brick Road, take the Cyclone and place it in your Yellow Brick Road.

Good and Wicked Witches

• Elphaba: If you want to take a card from the West Travel deck while Elphaba is in play, you must discard 1 card of your choice from your hand or your Yellow Brick Road.
• Nessarose: If you want to take a card from the East Travel deck while Nessarose is in play, you must discard 1 Road or Character card from your Yellow Brick Road matching the revealed card on top of the deck.
• Locasta: If you take a card from the North Travel deck while Locasta is in play, take also the next card. Choose one of them and place the other at the bottom of the deck. No card is revealed.
• Glinda: If you defeat one of the enemies from the South Travel deck, you can immediately take the face-up card from the top of the North deck, if there is one. No card is revealed.