Silver Bullet
Silver Bullet Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 2 Hunters (card 0)
- 4 Lycans (card +1)
- 4 Priests (card 2)
- 4 Goth Girls (card 3)
- 4 Morticians (card 4)
- 4 Cows (card 5)
- 4 Instigators (card 6)
- 4 Insomniacs (card 7)
- 4 Things (card 8)
- 4 Marksmen (card 9)
- 4 Counts (card 10)
- 4 Troublemakers (card 11)
- 4 Gremlins (card 12)
- 2 Copycats (card 13*)
- 4 Reference Cards
- 1 Scorepad
- 1 Silver Bullet of Destruction
- 1 Play Mat (Deck / Discard Pile)
Setup
- Shuffle the deck, and deal five cards facedown in a horizontal row (the village) to four players (if there are fewer than four players put the extra sets of cards in the box).
- Give each player a reference card.
- Place the card mat and deck facedown in the center of the table, and create a discard pile with one faceup card from the deck.
- Choose a start player at random, and place the silver bullet on the side of the deck/discard pile nearest to them.
- Each player secretly views two of the five cards in their village.
Goal
Remove werewolves (numbers on cards) from your village (your cards). After four rounds, the player with the fewest werewolves wins.
Cards
Cards in Silver Bullet have two functions:
First, the numbers represent how many werewolves have followed this resident to your village. The more powerful the resident, the more werewolves they attract!
Second, each card displays a person with an ability. If a card is in your village, that person is a resident. Some residents help you when they live publicly in your village (low-numbered faceup cards). Some are in hiding (facedown cards). Other times, people help out as they wander by (when you draw their card from the deck). Use all of your resources to figure out who is in your village and remove residents who attract the most werewolves.
Your Village is made up of:
- Public Residents (Faceup cards) — display the werewolves attracted by this resident (the number in the corner) openly.
- Hidden Residents (Facedown cards) — unknown to other players.
Cards may show one of two special-ability icons:
- A card-into-discard-pile icon: special ability (activate when drawn from deck)
- A row of squares icon: special ability (available when faceup in your village)
Gameplay
Beginning with the start player, take turns clockwise. On your turn, do 1 of the following 3 actions:
- Draw a card from the deck
- Take a card from the discard pile
- Call for a vote
Draw a Card from the Deck
If you draw the top card from the deck, do one of the following:
1) Place the card into the discard pile. If the card has a (special ability) icon on it, you may use the card's ability.
or
2) Exchange one or more of your cards with the card you drew. Discard exchanged cards faceup into the discard pile, and put the new card facedown in front of you, in an exchanged card's place. See "Exchange Multiple Cards" below for more details on how to exchange multiple matching cards.
Take a Card from the Discard Pile
If you take the top card from the discard pile:
Exchange one or more of your cards with the card you drew. Discard exchanged cards faceup into the discard pile, and put the new card faceup in front of you, in an exchanged card's place.
Call for a Vote
If you have four or fewer cards, you may call for a vote (say "Call" on your turn instead of drawing a card). At this time your turn ends. Each other player gets one more turn (they may not call on their turn), and then the round ends.
You may not do anything else on your turn (i.e., no faceup abilities or placing the silver bullet) when you call for a vote.
Exchange Multiple Cards
To exchange multiple cards from your village, all exchanged cards must have the same value (e.g., all 6s). Before exchanging them, slide them all forward, and turn any that are unrevealed faceup. Place the card drawn in an exchanged card's place—you cannot discard the drawn card as part of a set of matching cards until your next turn.
If any slid cards do not match, return all of them to the village, turning them all facedown (even if they were faceup before). Add the card drawn at either end of the village in the orientation it was when you drew it. If three or more cards don't match, take an additional card from the deck without flipping it over and place it at either end of the village (do not look at it if it is facedown).
Abilities
All cards have abilities. You may activate these abilities when the card is faceup in your village (faceup ability icon), when the card is placed faceup onto the discard pile immediately after drawing it (draw-and-discard icon), or at end of round scoring (scoring icon). Most card abilities are optional.
- Cards 0–4 (faceup icon): use these abilities when these cards are faceup in a village.
- Cards 5–12 (draw-and-discard icon): use these abilities when you draw these cards from the deck, and then place them on the discard pile.
- Card 13 (scoring icon): use this ability during end of round scoring.
You may not use the ability on a draw-and-discard card taken from the discard pile.
For abilities that allow you to view facedown cards, view cards secretly so that no other players can see them. If you exchange or otherwise move a card that is faceup, it remains faceup after it is moved.
You may not use any card's ability on the turn that you call for a vote.
Keep the Reference Guide handy for players to look up abilities of their cards, as they won't be able to pick up a facedown card to check how it works unless they use an ability that allows them to view that card.
Card Spots
When you view a card, return it to the same spot that you took it from. When a single card replaces another card, the new card must go in the same spot as the old card.
When one card replaces multiple cards, the new card may go in any of the spots that the old cards were in. Then collapse empty spots by sliding cards together.
Round End & Scoring
The round ends when one player has called for a vote and each other player takes one more turn, or the deck is depleted.
Your score for the round is the sum of your remaining cards.
However, if you called for a vote and have the lowest sum (or are tied for it), you score 0 points. If you called for a vote and do not have the lowest sum, you score the sum of your cards plus 10 more points.
Write down each player's score for that round, and add it to the sum of the previous rounds.
Place the silver bullet in the middle of the table on the side of the deck nearest to the player who scored the fewest points in the current round. If that player successfully called for a vote, they take the silver bullet and pull it back toward themselves to their edge of the table. This indicates that the player may use the silver bullet in the next round. (See "Silver Bullet" below.)
If the call was unsuccessful and there is a tie for the lowest score in the current round, the tied player who had the silver bullet during this round keeps it. If the player with the silver bullet did not score the fewest points in the current round, the tied player who is closest to the start player's left places the silver bullet in front of them.
Subsequent Rounds
After the first, second, and third rounds, you'll play another round.
Shuffle all the cards in the deck and deal four sets of 5 cards. Each player chooses a set. Remove unused sets from the game.
Place the deck facedown on the "DECK" side of play mat in the middle of the table and turn one card faceup next to it on the "DISCARD PILE" side of the play mat.
Each player secretly views two of the cards in their village.
The player with the silver bullet in front of them goes first.
Silver Bullet
If you have the silver bullet as a result of successfully calling for a vote, you may, as part of your turn, place the silver bullet on one of the cards in your village. That card may not be viewed or moved by any player (including you), until the end of the round, when it is not scored. If the card with the bullet on it is faceup and has a faceup ability, that ability is no longer active after the silver bullet is placed on the card. The card with the bullet on it does not count toward your card total when determining if you can call for a vote.
If the silver bullet is on your last card, on your turn you may take a card from the deck and either use its ability or discard it, or you may call for a vote. You may not take a card from the deck or discard pile or use any ability that requires you to interact with cards in your village if you do not have any other cards in your village.
You may not call for a vote on the same turn that you place the silver bullet.
Reference Guide — Card Abilities
The following ability text is transcribed from the Silver Bullet Cards Reference Guide, the companion reference booklet published by Bézier Games alongside the rulebook.
0 — Hunter
For each Hunter that is faceup in your village at scoring, you may remove 1 other card from any village. Removed cards do not count in scoring for that round.
If there is more than one Hunter, the start player from the current round uses their Hunter's ability first. They may remove a Hunter from another player's village, so that player may not remove a card on their turn.
The Hunter ability takes place before end of round scoring.
+1 — Lycan
If you have a Lycan faceup in your village, you may add 1 to the value of any card you discard as part of a set of matching cards. For instance, a faceup Lycan would allow you to discard a 6 and a 7 from your village on your turn (the +1 is added to the 6, making both cards 7s). The Lycan(s) are not removed from your village unless they are part of the matching discarded set. The Lycan ability is also active if it is being placed into your village while you are discarding matching cards.
If you have multiple Lycans faceup in your village, you may add them together to a single card, or split them across multiple cards. It is always optional to use the Lycan ability when discarding cards.
When discarding cards that have different values, they are always discarded with the lowest original value cards on the top and the highest original value cards on the bottom.
The Lycan is worth 1 point at end of round scoring.
2 — Priest
For each faceup Priest in your village, you may flip over one of the cards in your village at any time during your turn (even during the turn in which you acquire a faceup Priest or flip a Priest faceup).
When using this ability, cards may be flipped from faceup to facedown, or from facedown to faceup.
3 — Goth Girl
For each faceup Goth Girl in your village, you may place one of your discards at the bottom of the deck instead of the discard pile, keeping it faceup or facedown (do not flip it over from its current orientation, even to view a facedown discard). You can do this for any card you discard, including a card you discard from your village, a card you drew from the deck that you discard (only if you do not use the card's ability), or a card that is discarded from your village as the result of another card (e.g., If the Witch from Silver (Amulet) is used by another player to give you a card from the deck, you may decide to place your card on the bottom of the deck instead of discarding it onto the discard pile).
The Goth Girl ability is also active if it is being placed into your village while you are discarding, and a faceup Goth Girl may always be discarded to the bottom of the deck.
If you have multiple Goth Girls, you may place up to that many discards on the bottom of the deck (but only if you were going to discard at least that many cards). Goth Girl's ability may result in some cards being faceup and others facedown in the deck.
4 — Mortician
For each Mortician that is faceup in your village, you may activate the ability on a card you discard from your village that has the draw-and-discard symbol on it.
If you have multiple Morticians and discard multiple cards with the draw-and-discard ability and want to activate more than one of them, place the discards on the discard pile one at a time, activating the ability of each card as you discard it and resolving any issues with that card, and then place and activate the next discarded card's ability.
If you discard a card that results in discarding another card, you may use the new discarded card's ability only if you have an additional Mortician. You may only use each Mortician's ability once per turn.
Any draw-and-discard card you discard as a result of placing the Mortician into your village can be activated at that time.
5 — Cow
Pick up the deck and flip it over. Once you see the new top (now faceup) card, you may not decide to not do this.
When players draw a card from the faceup deck, it remains faceup in their village if they choose to keep it.
Be careful not to reveal other cards below the one currently on the top of the deck as you take cards from the top of the deck.
Always use the included game mat when playing with the Cow; it helps players differentiate between the deck and the discard pile.
6 — Instigator
Turn 1 card over, from facedown to faceup, or from faceup to facedown, in any village or on the top of the deck or discard pile.
7 — Insomniac
View all of the cards in your village.
8 — Thing
Pick up all the facedown cards in any village, shuffle them, and then place them back in the village you took them from, still facedown. You may shuffle the facedown cards in your own village.
9 — Marksman
Use the ability of any draw-and-discard card that is faceup in any village.
10 — The Count
One at a time, take 10 cards from the deck and place them faceup on the discard pile.
If there are 10 or fewer cards in the deck when this ability is activated, the game ends immediately when the last card from the deck is placed in the discard pile.
You may count the number of cards remaining in the deck before activating this ability.
11 — Troublemaker
Take a card from any village (including your own) and swap it with a card from any other village. Keep facedown cards facedown and faceup cards faceup. Do not look at any facedown cards.
12 — Gremlin
Add the Gremlin faceup to the end of any player's village (including your own). The player that receives this card does not discard a card in return for receiving it; this adds a card to their village. There is no limit to the number of cards that may be in a player's village.
13 — Copycat
At scoring, the Copycat is worth the value of the lowest card in your village. If this is your only card at scoring, you score 13 points.
Combining Decks
You can combine Silver decks to customize your games. Replace all of the cards of one number from one deck with all of the cards of that same number from another deck. You can combine any combination of numbers, and any number of decks this way!
Just make sure you always have two 0s, two 13s, and four each of cards 1–12.
A fun way to combine decks is to let the losers of the last game each replace a number of their choice before the next game.
Other Silver Games
Silver and Silver Coin are also published by Bézier Games.
Game End
The game ends after four rounds.
The player with the fewest points wins.
In case of a tie, the tied player who has the silver bullet wins. If the player with the silver bullet is not tied to win, the tied player closest to the left of the bullet player wins.
Tips & Reminders
Abilities on cards are activated when the card is faceup:
- 0 in your village at scoring,
- 1–4 in your village,
- 5–12 on the discard pile immediately after drawing it from the deck,
- 13 when scoring your cards at the end of the round (it does not need to be faceup before the round ends).
You may only activate a card's ability when discarding it from your village if you have a Mortician faceup in your village.
The card you draw this turn cannot be exchanged in a matching set until your next turn.
When a card is turned faceup so that everyone can see it, it will only be turned over facedown again if the Priest or Instigator uses their ability on that card (or if it was part of a failed multi-card exchange).
The player with the lowest score for the previous round receives the silver bullet (not necessarily the lowest total score), and is the start player for the next round.
It is often a valid strategic choice to take a higher card that matches one of your existing cards so you can discard a pair (or larger set) on a future round.
Remembering Cards
There is a bit of a memory element to Silver Bullet, in that you'll need to remember the facedown cards that you've seen. One of the best ways to remember your cards is to silently repeat the ones you know from left to right. So if you have seen the first three cards, and they are 1, 8, and 1, repeat "one eight one" to yourself a few times.
It's easy to temporarily forget cards you've seen if you or other players are talking about different things while playing. It is considered bad form to try to distract other players who are focusing on remembering cards they have viewed by saying random numbers out loud.
Credits
Designer: Ted Alspach, who has designed many games, including One Night Ultimate Werewolf, Suburbia, Werewords, and Castles of Mad King Ludwig.
Artist: Andrey Gordeev, who has drawn artwork for a number of big-name clients, including McDonalds and Lipton, and has illustrated children's books and videogames. He's also the artist of Silver and Silver Coin.
Publisher: Bézier Games