Seat Wars
Seat Wars Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 7 Equipment cards
- 18 Item cards
- 15 Event cards
- 40 Character cards
- 1 Bus, contained on a double-sided board, one for 2 players and one for each of the other player configurations
Setting Up the Game
Pick the side of the bus that matches the amount of players.
Shuffle both decks and set the yellow deck aside, deal 5 cards from the blue deck to each player, the player that lives the farthest starts the game and continue clockwise.
How to Play
Each player has 3 actions per turn which are listed below:
Standard Actions
- Play character cards
- Play equipment or event cards
- Move a character to the scoring zone
Special Actions
- Play cards from the secondary deck (Yellow)
- These cards are played randomly and do not require to spend a standard action to use them. Some character cards will have an orange rectangle near their name; this means that you can draw one card from the secondary deck and place it on an adjacent seat. If there are no empty spaces, you do not get to draw a card from the yellow deck.
- Drawing cards from the main deck
- You can choose to end your turn without spending any or some of the three available actions; in exchange, you get to draw cards for every unspent action.
- I.E. Paul decided to only use one card from his hand and move one character from the board to his scoring zone, then he draws one card from the main deck.
- Drawing cards from the main deck using unspent actions will automatically end your turn (you can't draw one card and then use it).
Note: One player cannot end his turn with more than seven cards in his/her hand. In the event that this occurs, the player will need to discard any number of cards until the limit is reached.
Scoring Characters
- Characters cannot go from your hand to the scoring zone (unless specifically stated by an event card).
- You can't move one character from the board to the scoring zone in the same turn that it was played.
- A character must remain on the bus for an entire round before you can use an action to score it. It's not mandatory to score a character on the immediate round after you played it; actually, deciding when to score a character is vital to win, so make sure to plan ahead your moves!
End of the Game
The player that draws the last card from the main deck will initiate the last round. The game will end on this player's following turn.
- If one or more players were unable to score every character from the bus after the last turn is over, score them for the minimum value.
- In case of a tie, the player with more scored characters wins.
Card Anatomy
- Max Points (Maximum Victory Points): When you get to score a character, make sure to place it in your scoring zone with these points facing up in order to add this number to your total victory points.
- Attack: Every character has an attack value. This number is used to determine whether you can sit a character on an occupied space, or not.
- Minimum Value (Lesser Victory Points): You can only score a character for this value when instructed by another card. Whenever you score a character for this amount, make sure to place it upside down in order to keep track of the correct amount of victory points.
(Example card: Crazy Hobo — Max Points 7, Attack 9, Minimum Value 3. "Characters cannot be placed next to this card.")
Claiming Seats
Whether the bus is packed or you really need to have that spot, you can attempt to remove someone else's character from the bus: just compare the numbers on the crossed swords symbol and if the seated character's is lower it will be sent to the discard pile, leaving the seat free for the challenger.
The discarded character cannot be recovered from the discard pile and won't score any points.
(Example: seated character Seth Goodman vs. attacking character Big Bertha.)
Item Cards
Items are special "prize" cards that are automatically played from the secondary deck whenever a character with an orange rectangle is placed on the board. It won't consume a player's action, and any player can score them as long as they use a character in their turn to challenge the number on the shield symbol; items can't challenge characters, so they can only be placed on empty seats. If there are no empty seats adjacent to the character with the orange rectangle, this special action cannot be used. You don't get to score the item card even if you score the character that allowed you to place the card.
Equipment Cards
Equipment cards will increase a character's attack. Equipment cards are played simultaneously with a challenging character, but keep in mind that adding an equipment to your character will consume one of your three actions. You can't play these cards on another player's turn. You can use an equipment on a character from your hand and challenge an occupied seat. Equipment won't add any victory points.
(Example: seated character Big Bertha vs. an attacking character with the Broken Arm equipment.)
Card Clarifications
Seymour: Seymour gives you the option to either remove any character or item regardless of their total attack or defense value in exchange for scoring Seymour for the minimum value. You may only score Seymour for the max value if you place him on an empty seat.
Missed the Bus: This card will not make a player lose his/her turn; it only affects the player if he/she decides to use special actions to draw cards from the main deck. If a player targeted with this card has cards in his hand or characters on the bus, he/she can still use actions to manage those actions. Effects from cards that allow you to draw cards from the deck are not affected by this card.
Crazy Hobo: Only Nelson can sit next to the Crazy Hobo. Characters from the player that used the Crazy Hobo are also affected by this card's ability. If the Crazy Hobo is placed next to another character, it's not affected by the effect; however, that character can't be a target as long as he/she is sitting next to this card.
Move Over: This card only requires an action to use it since it's not attached to the character that must be scored for the minimum value in order to activate it.
Reached Your Destination: Unlike Move Over, you need to use two actions to use this card because it must be attached to the character that will be scored for the minimum value. It's similar to the equipment cards; however, this card increases the victory points instead of the attack value.
To score a card for the minimum value you must place the character card upside down in your scoring zone.
Example of Play
In this example, only the cards shown are the ones played on the table. This image shows a 4 player match in which you can observe the following:
- Player A: Scored two characters for a total of 9 Victory points. And is currently playing "Archie Castle"; you can tell that because the character is facing the player.
- Player B: Scored three cards on the scoring zone for a total of 15 victory points. Is not playing any card on the bus.
- Player C: Scored two characters, one of them has attached "reached destination card" which gives a +4 to the player's victory points for a total of 13 VP. The player has a Seymour with the item card symbol; this allowed him to place a card from the secondary deck to the board.
- Player D: Is currently losing with only 6 Victory points; this player has a character with an equipment card.
Note: Cards on the bus should face the owner so everyone will know who played which card.
Challenge Variant
If you like challenges, try removing seven cards from the main deck by placing on each seat of the bus with the back side of the card facing up; these cards cannot be revealed or considered at any moment during the game.