Tavern Trouble
Tavern Trouble Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Elements of the game
A deck includes 27 characters cards with power from 1 to 9.
To keep the scores, each player has a card squared from 0 to 25 (these go by the original name of "life points"). At the beginning of the game, each player put his life token on the 20 square (during the game it is not possible to go with a score higher than 25 life points).
Win the game
There is only one way to win the game. When a player loses all his life points, he is eliminated. The game ends when there is only one player with life points.
Walkthrough
The game is played in a succession of turns, where the players will try to reduce the life points of their opponents. A turn includes 4 phases:
A. deal B. draw C. play an ability D. reveal & score
Deal
The funniest player starts dealing, then the player at his left takes over for the next turn, and so on to the end of humanity (or until the end of the game). Although only a few cards may be used in a deal, all the cards are shuffled before each deal. Two cards are dealt to each player.
Draw
Each player looks at his two cards but don't show them to the other players. Depending on the total of the first two cards, the player at the left of the dealer may ask for a third card, also face down. Then it turns clockwise. After adding a third card, a player may get a final fourth card, again face down.
Players try to get as close to a clash count of 9 as possible. If they go above 9 they are not eliminated; instead only the final digit counts.
Maja first two cards are an orc (8) and Gunthur the barbarian (5), totaling a clash count of 13, but counting as 3. Maja takes a third card which is Peewa the Pub Pixie (1). Her clash count is now 4. The fourth card is Petyr the vampire (4), her clash count is finally 8, close to the desired 9.
Clash
When the drawing phase is over, the abilities phase begins. If a player has two cards of the same kind in his hand, he can activate the special ability of this kind.
The player has to show to the other players his 2 cards of the same kind.
The player at the left of the dealer starts to activate his abilities if he wants/can. Then it turn clockwise until all players have played their abilities.
If you have 3 cards of the same kind, you can activate the ability, plus you gain 10 points of life.
Reveal
After the abilities phase, the cards of all players are exposed and the battle counts announced. The player (or maybe several players) with the battle count closer to 9 is the winner.
Each other player lose life points. The amount of losses is the difference between the player battle count and the winner battle count.
Three players end up with the following battle counts: Midhat 2, Arthur 8 and Karine 6. Midhat loses 6 life points (8-2=6); Arthur doesn't lose any life points as he's the winner of this deal; Karine loses 2 life points of life (8-6=2).
Character abilities
Heading added by the transcriber: the source's final page lists the abilities with no heading. The list is transcribed as printed on that page.
- Fairies: change your hand with another player.
- Elves: gain 5 points of life.
- Undeads: choose a player and withdraw one random card from his/her hand.
- Vampires: deal 3 damages to one player of your choice and gain 3 points of life.
- Barbarians: your final score is 8.
- Dwarves: deal 5 damages to one player of your choice.
- Goblins: draw a card and deal x damage to one player of your choice where x is the number indicated on the card.
- Orcs: draw a card and gain x points of life where x is the number indicated on the card.
- Trolls: deal 3 damages to each other players.