Saustall Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the Game
• Components
• Setup
  • First Suspicion
• The Investigation
  • 1. Playing an Investigation Card and Drawing a New Card
• Investigation Cards
  • Motive (8 cards)
  • Alibi (8 cards)
  • Witness / Action (16 cards)
  • Special Action (4 cards)
• Police Station
• Chapel
• Intervention
  • 2. End of the Round
• End of the Game
  • Arrest
  • Scoring Victory Points
• Kluftinger's Tips for a Successful Investigation
• Changes for a Two-Player Game
  • Setup
  • The Investigation

Object of the Game

The players take the role of Inspector Kluftinger and investigate the murder of Hermann Aigner. Each player has a set of 15 suspicion tokens, which include: the motive of the murder, the gender and the identity of the murderer. During the game each player discards 12 of these tokens, and when the game ends and the true murderer is revealed, each player checks whether the 3 tokens remaining with them are true. Players score points for correctly guessed gender, motive and identity, and whoever scores the most becomes the winner.

Components

1 game board (A), 1 car (B), 36 investigation cards (C), 60 suspicion tokens (D), 4 stands (E), 8 suspects (F), 19 double-sided intervention/penalty tokens (G), 8 motive tokens (H), 8 testimony tokens (I), 8 action tokens (J), 8 evidence tokens (K), special action tokens (L).

Setup

Additional conditions for a two-player game can be found at the end of these rules. Place the game board in the middle of the table. The game board is double-sided and which side is used depends on the number of participants (one side for 2 or 4 players, the other for 3 players).

Place the car on the first section of the road. Place the 8 suspects face up next to the game board. Shuffle the 8 evidence tokens and place them face down in a stack on the picture of the laboratory. Each player takes one evidence token and, without showing it to anyone, places it in front of themselves. A player may look at their own evidence token at any moment of the game.

Next to the game board, make separate piles of testimony, motive, action and special action tokens.

Shuffle the 36 investigation cards, deal 3 to each player, and place the deck face down next to the board.

The players take a set of 15 suspicion tokens and the stands for them. In addition, each receives 1 penalty token (because of the ruined orchestra rehearsal) and places it in front of themselves (picture side up).

If there are three players, each takes 2 intervention tokens and also places them in front of themselves (text side up). If there are four players, each takes 1 intervention token. The remaining intervention tokens are returned to the box; they are not needed in the current game.

First Suspicion

Players lay out 3 suspicion tokens face down in front of their stand. These 3 tokens are the player's theory about the gender of the murderer, his identity and the motive of the murder.

Note. The 3 set-aside tokens need not be of different types (gender, identity, motive); there are no restrictions on what they may be.

Tip. By the end of the game the investigation will be interested only in suspects with an unconfirmed alibi and with evidence against them in the laboratory. Consequently, suspects connected with the evidence tokens that players have received in hand can safely be considered innocent (see the chapter "Arrest").

Players place the remaining 12 suspicion tokens on the stands in front of them.

The player who speaks Bavarian best starts the game.

The Investigation

Depending on the number of participants the game lasts 9 (4 players) or 12 (3 players) rounds. Play passes from one player to the next clockwise. Each round consists of two phases.

1. Playing an investigation card and drawing a new card.
2. End of the round.

1. Playing an Investigation Card and Drawing a New Card

On their turn, a player plays one of the 3 investigation cards from their hand and carries out the corresponding action. The played card is discarded, and the player draws a new one from the deck in its place. Then play passes to the next participant.

If the investigation card deck runs out, players do not draw new cards but play out the ones they already have in hand.

Investigation cards may be played in any order. For example, a witness may give testimony even before a suspect has received an alibi.

Investigation Cards

Motive (8 cards)

The player places a motive token on any suspect of their choice. The colour of the token indicates the gender of the suspect: red is placed on a woman, blue on a man. Only one token may be placed on a suspect. Thus during the game each of the 8 suspects receives its motive token.

Alibi (8 cards)

The player chooses any suspect who has not yet received an alibi and connects him or her with the image of the witness indicated on the card being played. Unlike motive, the gender of the suspect does not matter for the alibi. During the game each suspect acquires an alibi.

Witness / Action (16 cards)

For each witness there are two versions of the card: with the word "man" ("Mann") and with the word "woman" ("Frau"). Depending on this keyword, the player places the corresponding testimony token in the witness's dialogue zone.

If at the moment of playing the card this witness has already given testimony, the player takes an action token, places it on any free green space of the police station or the chapel, and carries out the corresponding action (see the chapters "Police Station" and "Chapel").

The player cannot place an action token on the brown special action space. The second card of an already questioned witness is always played as the alternative action.

Special Action (4 cards)

The player takes a special action token, places it on any free brown space of the police station and carries out the corresponding action. The player cannot place a special action token on a green space of an ordinary action.

Police Station

By placing an action token or special action token in one of the rooms of the police station, the player carries out the corresponding action.

Visit to the Laboratory. The player secretly looks at the top token of the evidence stack and puts it at the bottom of the stack.

Gathering the Group. The player secretly looks at the evidence token of any other player.

Office Work. The player exchanges one of the 3 tokens of their murder theory for one of the suspicion tokens on their stand.

Chapel

By placing an action token in one of the free green spaces of the chapel, the player discards a penalty token. The discarded token is out of the game.

Intervention

Depending on the number of participants, once or twice per game each player can play an intervention token on the player taking a turn.

As soon as a player reveals their investigation card and says how they want to use it, the other players (in clockwise order) get the opportunity to play an intervention token on them in order to thwart their investigation. In this situation the player may either yield to the pressure from outside, or not.

• If they yield to the other player who played the intervention token on them, they simply pass their card to that player, who plays it at once. After this the intervention token is discarded, and the robbed player draws a new card into their hand and passes the turn to the next participant.
• If they refuse to give their card to the other player, they take the intervention token themselves and turn it over to the penalty side (picture side). After this they continue their turn.

! Only 1 intervention token may be played in the same turn.

2. End of the Round

The round ends after all participants have taken their turns. The car moves to the next section of the road, and players remove from their stands as many suspicion tokens as are shown on the new section of the road. Discarded suspicion tokens are placed behind the stand face down. They no longer take part in the game and cannot be used for the "Office Work" action.

(Illustrated: move the car to the next section of the road; remove the required number of suspicion tokens from the stand.)

End of the Game

When the car arrives at the parking lot, the final round is played. The last investigation cards are played at the same time. Before discarding the last suspicion tokens from the stand, players may:

1. replace one of the 3 tokens of their murder theory with one of the suspicion tokens from the stand (equivalent to the "Office Work" action)

or

2. discard a penalty token into the box (equivalent to the chapel effect).

Arrest

By the end of the game all the investigations have been carried out, and all suspects have received confirmed or unconfirmed alibis. But who is the murderer?

Suspects with a confirmed alibi (the identity of the suspect does not contradict his or her gender) cannot be guilty, so only suspects with an unconfirmed alibi are taken into account.

To find out who exactly committed the crime, the 4 top evidence tokens kept in the laboratory are laid out in a row (starting with the topmost) and turned over (numbered 1 to 4; the fifth is not turned over any more).

The first match between a revealed evidence token and an unconfirmed alibi indicates the identity of the true murderer, his or her gender and motive.

(The identity, motive and gender of the murderer are now determined.)

! If there are no matches between the evidence from the laboratory and the unconfirmed alibis, there was no murder at all: it was an accident (Unfall).

Scoring Victory Points

Having exposed the murderer, players reveal their suspicion tokens that lay face down in front of their stands and score points for each correct guess. Penalty tokens that remain with the players subtract victory points. In the case of an accident, points are awarded only for the corresponding token; the other 2 tokens are not counted.

• Murderer exposed / accident = 9 points
• Murder motive = 5 points
• Murderer's gender = 3 points
• Each penalty token = -2 points

The player with the most points is declared the winner. In case of a tie, several players with the maximum result win.

Kluftinger's Tips for a Successful Investigation

There is little information at the start of the game, but something can still be learned.

• Having chosen the suspicion tokens for their theories, players try to steer the investigation in the direction they want by playing investigation cards convenient for them. And this is noticeable.
• If during the game a player's theory changes, they have to play the "Office Work" action in order to swap the suspicion tokens.
• By taking actions in the police station, players receive important information:
  • evidence tokens in the laboratory expose the potential murderer;
  • evidence tokens in the players' hands contain information about innocent suspects.
• It makes sense not to play a witness testimony card until someone else plays its pair. This will allow an action in the police station.
• On the other hand, this is exactly the way players can either mark suspects as potential murderers or "clear" them forever.
• If no suspect is yet placed next to a witness, you can raise the probability of a man being accused and a woman being innocent by playing the "woman" testimony on the witness. And vice versa.
• It also means that most of the testimonies will refer to this particular gender, so a person of that gender is unlikely to turn out to be the murderer.
• By playing an intervention token on someone, players try to keep them from spoiling their own investigations.
• A player on whom an intervention token has been played must realise the importance of their choice: by receiving a penalty token, they will have to spend an extra action in the chapel or lose 2 points at the end of the game.
• A suspect with an unconfirmed alibi is the most obvious candidate for murderer, unless, of course, the evidence connected with him or her is in the hands of some player.

Changes for a Two-Player Game

In a game for 2 participants the rules described above apply, but with some changes.

Setup

Place 2 evidence tokens next to the game board. During the game they can be consulted as part of the "Gathering the Group" action, as if they belonged to other players. Each player receives 2 penalty tokens and 2 intervention tokens.

The Investigation

In each round the players take not one but two turns (alternately, one after another) before the car moves to the next section of the road.