The Gothic Game
The Gothic Game Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1. Preparation
The cards are shuffled carefully and laid to rest, face down, in the room where they belong.
Dracula (the black pawn) is returned to his coffin in the vault.
The players choose a pawn each and assemble outside the West Gate. Trembling, they throw the die to decide who enters first.
2. Play
The object of the game is to kill every other player on the board. Weapons for this purpose are available in the Torture Chamber and the Trophy Room, and one is hidden in the Kitchen. When you have collected a weapon, you must land next to another player to use it, but approaching them may be dangerous, especially if they are armed. The only survivor is the winner of the game.
3. Stamina
Players may also die from natural causes. At the beginning of the game each player has 100 stamina points, and they may lose or gain stamina as the game progresses. A player is appointed to keep tally. When you have no stamina left, you are dead. This is a game of elimination.
4. Moves
Players proceed in turn, creeping along corridors and battlements by throw of die.
Two players may never occupy the same square. If your throw would land you on a square occupied by another player, you must move in another direction or miss your turn.
An optional second throw is granted if you throw a six. This throw is taken only after you have moved six squares and obeyed the laws applying to the square on which you landed, but you may then move in any direction.
5. Rooms
It is not necessary to throw the exact number to enter a room, but once you are inside you may go no further even if you threw a six.
You must then pick up the top card from the pile, and obey it. You are not obliged to declare this card, but you must inform the scorer if you have lost or gained any stamina.
You hold on to the card you picked up until it is no longer relevant, or you wish to trade it in.
Cards with numbers in the top left-hand corner, e.g. [a circled number in the photo, probably 6], may be traded in for stamina at any stage of the game, thus allowing the player to evade death for a little while longer.
When a card is no longer needed it must be shown to all the other players, then returned to the bottom of the pile in the room from which it came. This avoids cheating.
You may not linger in a room unless you are forcibly detained.
Experience will teach you which rooms you prefer. Bedrooms are the most comfortable. The Den, the Kitchen and the Great Hall are more dubious, and the Trophy Room and Torture Chamber, if you fail to get a weapon, can be downright nasty.
There is only one completely deadly card. That is the Iron Maiden in the Torture Chamber, but that room also houses the best selection of weapons.
6. Adjacency
If you land on the square next to another player, you gain power over them. This is known as the "Power of Adjacency", and comes about because the corridors are dark, and you have your opponent by the throat before they have a chance to move. This power can take three forms:
Either
- You may use your weapon, and if they do not possess a card which protects them, you kill them. All weapons may be used once only and must be returned to their rooms after a murder attempt, but if you do succeed in killing someone with a weapon, you may search their body and take any weapons they possess, plus any other cards which are of use to you.
Or
- You may control their next move. They throw the die, but you tell them which way to go. The directions you give them must obey the rules, and you do not control their second move if they throw a six.
Or
- If you possess the relevant card, you may give them something unpleasant, such as an asp or a wet rat down the back. This could cause them to lose stamina.
You may only choose one option. For instance, if you fail to kill them with one weapon, you may not then immediately attack them with another, or attempt to control their next move.
Whichever option you choose, you have the advantage, and they may not attack you.
If you land next to two players at once, you may only attack one of them, and you may not attack a player who is already in someone else's control.
7. Squares
The green squares are entrances to a network of secret passages. If you land on one, you have the option to travel immediately to any other green square, and continue playing from there.
Yellow arrows are traps. If you land on one you must travel immediately to the place indicated by the arrow.
The black square is an Oubliette. A player who falls into the Oubliette is out of the game.
The red squares denote places where the masonry of the battlements is unsafe. If you land on a red square you fall in the moat.
8. The Moat
When you fall in the moat you lose 10 stamina points. In order to climb out of the moat and re-enter the castle it is necessary to throw a 4, 5 or 6. Otherwise you remain floundering in its putrid waters and lose a further 5 stamina points each go.
If you throw a 6 you return to where the game began, outside the West Gate, and enter with your second throw.
If you throw a 5 you must wait outside the South Gate until your next go.
If you throw a 4 you re-enter the castle by a rusty grating which unfortunately leads you straight into the Vault.
9. The Vault
A player who enters the vault falls prey to Dracula, losing 20 stamina points and several pints of blood. No immunity card can protect you from this. The black pawn is placed over your own, and for the next 6 goes, of which everyone must take careful count, you become a Vampire.
Vampires may only leave the Vault by the west steps, and you must wander the corridors for five goes. On your sixth go you may return, by either steps, but you must then throw sufficient to reach the Vault. If not, the sun rises and you wither away and die.
While you are a Vampire you are given two throws of the die for each go, and you may kill any other player simply by passing them in the corridor. A draught of your victim's blood gives you 20 stamina points and two extra goes, if you need them, in which to reach the Vault.
However, players may sneak past you unscathed when it is their go, and if they possess a stake, they may drive it through your heart. In this case you die, and the Dracula pawn returns to the Vault. Vampires may not be killed in any other way.
Vampires are not affected by adjacency power, nor by yellow arrows, red squares, green squares, or the Oubliette, but they may not enter any room except the Vault.
They may not occupy the same square as another player, but they may double back if their way is blocked.
While the black pawn is out of the Vault, players may enter the vault unharmed, unless Dracula returns while they are still there.
When a vampire returns to the Vault, the black Dracula pawn is replaced in his coffin. You may now continue as if nothing had happened.
10. The Great Spiral Staircase
Once you enter the Great Spiral Staircase you must continue down it, unless you throw a six, in which case both the six and its second throw may be counted in an upwards direction. Any other throw just takes you further down. [Legibility: the final sentence is partly obscured in the photo; it reads as "No one ever returns from the bottom of the Great Spiral Staircase", which is the best reading available.]
11. The Tower
The Tower is a vantage point. It houses a cauldron of oil, permanently on the boil, ready to be poured over the battlements as soon as you arrive, to kill any one player on the squares below or unluckily enough to be caught in the lavatory. You may not use the oil again or leave. [Legibility: "any one player" and "unluckily enough" are read from a small, soft-focus print.]
A player who possesses the Congolese Blow pipe may use it from the Tower to kill any player not in a room. Other players should take note of this. [Legibility: "Congolese Blow pipe" is the printed phrase as read from the photo; the weapon name is hard to confirm.]
12. The Lavatory
This little room is self-explanatory. It may not be occupied by two players at the same time.
13. Good Luck
[The booklet ends with this heading. No body text follows it in the photographed pages.]