Picture Perfect: The Sherlock Expansion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Playing the Game
• Context
• Alibis
• The Culprit
• Watson & Holmes
• Questions
• Final Scoring
• Alternative Alibi Sheets
• Variants
  • Irène Adler
  • Detectives as Guests
  • More Suspects
  • More Variants
• Exchange Cards
  • Start of the Investigation and Inductive/Deductive Reasoning
• Preference Cards
  • Next to the Victim
  • I do not want to be seen at all
  • I want to be photographed with "this investigator"

Components

• 1 pad of Alibi sheets
• 4 sets of 3 guest figures with stands
• 3 envelopes
• 12 preference cards
• 7 exchange cards
• 6 reference cards
• 15 Alibi cards
• 1 Preference card - Culprit

Additional components for use with the other available expansions:

• Group Photo: 2 sets of 3 guest figures, 2 reference cards
• Preview and Pickpockets: 6 Alibi cards

The illustrations on the first page show sample cards with the captions "I attest this guest's alibi:", "I don't want to be next to Watson or Holmes." and "I want to be in the front rows."

Setup

• Return the Alibi cards of guests from the other expansions to the box.
• Set aside the "I saw nothing" Alibi cards and shuffle the remaining Alibi cards (showing the base game guests). Draw 1 of these cards and place it face down in the middle of the table. This is the culprit!
• Draw 1 more Alibi card and place it face up in the middle of the table. This is the victim!
• Each player takes an Alibi sheet from the pad and checks the box for the victim. Note that the children are already checked. At the time of the murder they were playing outside. They are therefore not guilty and saw nothing.
• Place the Preference card - Culprit on top of the face-down Alibi card of the culprit. They want to avoid the investigators!
• Shuffle all the preference cards.
• Place 1 preference card showing positions in the room face up next to the Preference card - Culprit. They will try to escape this way!
• Set up the game with the following changes: return the envelopes of Sherlock, Watson, Irène and the victim to the box. Each player turns their table over and places the victim's figure inside it (it is now a coffin). Place the 2 children's envelopes in the middle of the table. Deal 2 envelopes to each player (only 1 with 5 or 6 players) and place the remaining envelopes in the middle of the table. Each player adds the Sherlock and Watson figures to their guests. Prepare the exchange deck using only the new exchange cards, sorted in order (no. 1 on top).
• Choose whether you play with Irène (if so, each player takes 1 Irène figure). Irène likes to show off (see p. 3).
• Place 1 "I saw nothing" Alibi card in the children's envelopes.
• Shuffle the remaining Alibi cards, then, without looking at them, place 1 Alibi card in each of the 11 remaining guest envelopes.

Playing the Game

The following rules apply in addition to those of the base game.

VIP cards: each guest envelope may contain no more than one VIP card. You may no longer put your VIP card in an envelope that already contains one.

Context

One of the guests is the culprit. Try to discover their identity, either to help Sherlock and Watson arrest them, or to help them escape! By looking in the guest envelopes, you can discover their alibi. The only guest without an alibi is the culprit (Alibi card face down in the middle of the table). You will not necessarily be 100% sure of their identity at the end of the game, but that is not a problem: it is not a condition for winning. Position your guests in the photo so as to obtain the maximum number of points based on the information you have.

The culprit, Sherlock and Watson also score you points according to their preferences. If the culprit's preferences suit you, you may want to lead Sherlock and Watson down a false trail!

Alibis

Each envelope contains 1 Alibi card. If the card shows a guest, that guest has an alibi. (The guest whose envelope contains the card confirms the alibi.)

When you see such a card, check the line of the cleared guest on your Alibi sheet. This means the guest's alibi is confirmed and they cannot be the culprit. You may sometimes confirm an alibi without seeing the card: you may learn that another player has confirmed a guest's alibi, which lets you remove that guest from the list of suspects.

You are not allowed to lie about the alibis you have confirmed or not. You are not allowed to write anything down about guests' preferences. You may, however, note that a player has NOT yet confirmed a guest's alibi. This is important information!

The Culprit

The culprit has 5 preference cards in total: the 3 usual preference cards in their envelope, plus 2 additional preference cards placed with their face-down Alibi card in the middle of the table.

The table on the new reference cards shows the number of points scored according to the number of preferences satisfied.

Watson & Holmes

You must place Watson AND Holmes. You may place them at any time (like any other guest), but both of them must appear in your photo. You will therefore have to leave at least 1 guest aside, as there is not enough room to place everyone.

Regarding preference cards, Watson and Holmes are perceived as men. They have no preference cards: they seek to arrest the culprit. During final scoring, each of them scores 12 points if they are next to the culprit.

Questions

Some exchange cards invite players to ask questions. These questions must be closed, meaning the answer must be "yes" or "no". Several players may ask the same question, and the same question may be asked several times to the same player.

Once you have asked your question (and given the questioned player a moment), all other players must close their eyes so that the player who asked the question is the only one to see the answer. The questioned player must answer honestly by giving a thumbs up ("yes"), a thumbs down ("no") or keeping a closed fist ("I don't know").

The other players then open their eyes again, and the player who asked the question may record the information on their Alibi sheet.

Final Scoring

Before taking the photos, make sure everyone has placed Watson and Holmes! Once the photos are taken, players may debate the culprit's name and compare their reasoning before turning over the face-down Alibi card in the middle of the table to reveal their identity. Set the culprit's envelope aside for now.

Score all the other guests first, then Watson and Holmes (12 points each if they are next to the culprit), and finally the culprit.

Alternative Alibi Sheets

A QR code printed in the rulebook, labelled "Alternative Alibi Sheets", gives access to alternative Alibi sheets.

Variants

Irène Adler

Decide at the start of the game whether you play with Irène. Irène can be integrated into the base game (without a culprit) and combined with the other expansions. You place Irène like any other guest, at any time or not at all.

Regarding preference cards, Irène is perceived as a woman. Do not use Irène's guest envelope and do not assign her any preference cards. She only seeks to be as close as possible to the VIPs: at the end of the game, she scores you 5 points for each VIP (guest whose envelope contains at least 1 VIP card) next to her. In addition, no VIP next to Irène makes you lose points if you satisfy none of their preferences.

Detectives as Guests

You may play with Watson, Holmes and Irène as simple guests:

• Shuffle all the guest envelopes and remove 3 of them to keep 14 in total.
• Remove from the game all preference cards referring to the 3 removed guests. (Watson, Irène and the 3 base game guests shown opposite appear on 2 preference cards, Holmes on 3, and the other guests on only 1.)
• Return the removed cards and envelopes, as well as the corresponding figures, to the box. They will not be used in this game.

More Suspects

By including guests from other expansions, you can play Sherlock mode with 14 suspects. Use the Alibi sheet accessible through the QR code above.

Select 14 guests at random, using the method described in "Detectives as Guests" but setting aside Watson and Holmes. On your Alibi sheet, check the box of the unused guests. Draw 2 guests at random (from those present), slip 1 "I saw nothing" Alibi card into their envelopes, and place them in the middle of the table.

More Variants

Using the QR code, you can also access other variants to combine the expansions with each other. For example: "Deadly Jewels" ("Bijoux Mortels"), "A Few More Guests" ("Pour Quelques Invités de Plus"), "Even More Guests" ("Encore Plus d'Invités") and "The Wild Horde" ("La Horde Sauvage").

Exchange Cards

Start of the Investigation and Inductive/Deductive Reasoning

Players are not allowed to lie about the alibis they have confirmed or not. Other players are allowed to note the choices of questions asked.

You may take any envelope EXCEPT those already collected during this round.

Exception with 5 or 6 players: the first 3 active players open their envelopes and look at them directly after collecting them. The other players may collect these envelopes during the same round.

Preference Cards

Next to the Victim

All spaces sharing a side with the coffin are considered to be next to the victim. The victim counts neither as a woman nor as a man.

I do not want to be seen at all

This preference is satisfied if the guest has been placed within the photo's frame but their illustration is NOT AT ALL visible in the photo.

I want to be photographed with "this investigator"

The preference is satisfied if both of these conditions are met:

• The faces (eyes, nose, mouth) of the guest AND of the investigator illustrated on the preference card must be fully visible in the photo. If the guest is illustrated so that their face is not visible on their silhouette, the preference is satisfied if any part of their head is visible.
• The guest's face must be closer to the investigator's face than that of any other guest in your photo. The distance is measured in the photo and not on your table, so players may use the camera angle and perspective to make the guest appear as close as possible to the investigator. If another guest's face is hidden, even partially, in the photo, it is not taken into account and cannot be considered "closer". If two faces are equally close to the investigator's face, the preference is not satisfied.

If the guest is the investigator illustrated on the preference card, the preference is satisfied.

Special case: if any part of the plant is the closest to the investigator's face, the preference is satisfied (it has no face).