Welcome to La Petite Mort
Welcome to La Petite Mort Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Welcome To... Rules
Gameplay
In each house there is one soul to reap. Each of these souls has a specific colour that corresponds to the cause of death of its owner.
- Construction site accident: orange soul
- Car accident: green soul
- Drowning: blue soul
- Stock market suicide: violet soul
- Homicide during a neighbourhood dispute: white soul
- Bomb in a letterbox (BIS): red soul
You can no longer use the actions of the base game, because you must now treat them as "causes of death". Note that this means you no longer have access to the BIS and temp workers to act on the numbers. Take this into account!
Each turn, you must therefore choose a combination of 2 cards: one with a number and one "cause of death".
Reaping a Soul
Write the number of your combination on a house to reap a soul.
Follow the usual rules of the base game by placing your numbers in strictly increasing order in each of the 5 streets.
- Perfect reaping: if the cause of death of your combination matches the colour of the soul in the house, then you have accomplished a perfect reaping and you may tick the soul box next to the house.
- Basic reaping: if the cause of death of your combination does not match, then you have accomplished a basic reaping. You may not tick the soul box next to the house and nothing else happens. It is not a disaster, but the Great Whole will not be satisfied and you will score fewer points.
If you cannot reap a soul by writing one of the 3 available numbers, it means you are too sensitive. You must then reap Sephi's soul by ticking a Sephi box. Tick the Sephi boxes from top to bottom.
Streets and Columns
The houses of the neighbourhood form horizontal streets and vertical columns.
To complete a street or a column, you must reap all the souls by numbering all the houses of that street or column. It does not matter whether the reapings are perfect or not.
The Great Whole rewards the fastest players for each completed street and column.
- Street bonus: the first petites morts who complete a street in the same turn circle the 10-point bonus at the end of the street. The others must cross out the bonus and can no longer obtain it.
- Column bonus: the first petites morts who complete a column in the same turn circle the x2 bonus at the bottom of the column. The others must cross out the bonus and can no longer obtain it.
As soon as you complete a column, you immediately mark 1 point per basic reaping and 3 points per perfect reaping in that column.
You double your points if you have circled the x2 bonus of the column.
Warning! At the end of the game, incomplete columns score no points!
End of Game
The game ends at the end of the turn if one of these 3 conditions is met:
- You have ticked the 3 Sephi boxes;
- You have achieved the 3 objectives;
- You have reaped all the souls in all the houses.
Add up the points from the objectives, the columns and the streets, and subtract the points from Sephi.
The petite mort with the highest score wins the right to continue reaping souls. The others go into early retirement...
The Great Whole's Objectives
The Great Whole, through its tele-fish, has given you objectives. Instead of the plan cards of the base game, take one Great Whole objective card No. 1, one No. 2 and one No. 3.
Each objective card prints two values: a dark circle and a green circle. The sheet does not say which value is which, so both are given below as printed.
- No. 1: Make perfect reapings of all the red souls. (Values: 10 and 5.)
- No. 1: Make perfect reapings of all the green souls. (Values: 12 and 6.)
- No. 2: Complete 4 columns. (Values: 9 and 3.)
- No. 2: Complete two columns using only perfect reapings. (Values: 10 and 5.)
- No. 3: Complete 2 streets. (Values: 9 and 3.)
- No. 3: Complete 1 street using only perfect reapings. (Values: 12 and 6.)
Classic Solo Mode
- When you draw the Solo card, flip the 3 Plan cards to their "approved" side, then cross out 2 street bonuses of your choice and 4 column bonuses of your choice.
- When the deck runs out, the game is not over. Shuffle the cards together with the Solo card. When you draw the Solo card again, cross out all the remaining bonuses.
New Solo Mode
Note: the "New Solo Mode" expansion (sold separately) is required to play against the AAA. Buy it soon! Otherwise you will have a year of bad luck!
The AAA has a subsidiary among the damned souls of the architects. Will you succeed in defeating this reaping multinational? Everything proceeds normally, until the moment when...
When you draw an AAA validation card, as usual at the end of the turn you must check whether the AAA validates or does not validate a Great Whole objective.
Whether the AAA validates an objective or not, you must also cross out bonuses that you can therefore no longer obtain. Among the available bonuses, you must cross out:
- 1 street bonus of your choice;
- and 2 column bonuses of your choice.
At the end of the game, count the AAA's points.
Objectives: add up the points of the Great Whole objectives that the AAA achieved during the game.
Columns: during the game you have given cards to the AAA. At the end, each of these cards scores points for it. You must count the AAA's points for each card type. The value for each card type is shown by the AAA architect you chose to face.
For example, for the level 1 AAA architect: each accident card, drowning card, fall card and murder card = 1 point, and each bomb card and suicide card = 2 points.
Translator's note: the printed example says "chute" (fall) for the orange scaffolding icon, which is the construction-site accident icon listed in the Gameplay section above.
Streets: the AAA always scores 50 points for streets.
Sephi: the AAA has no penalty for Sephi.
La Petite Mort - le Jeu Rules
Setup
Use the base game box, applying the usual rules, but instead of a diploma, use a "Welcome to" extension sheet, and grab a pen.
In this version the players use only 3 Petite Mort Meeples (the others stay in the box): 2 to reap in the usual play area, and the 3rd, which will move around the residence (the game sheet).
The players place one of their Meeples near the first house at the top left of the sheet. This is the residence's entry space.
The oldest player around the table places their Meeple first, then each player does the same in clockwise order.
Purpose of the Game
Travel through the retirement residence by following the route, and visit as many apartments as possible to reap the souls of their occupants and free them from that dreadful burden that is old age.
As soon as a petite mort leaves the residence (passes the last space at the bottom right), the game ends at the end of the turn.
Principle of Play
As soon as a player reaps or recovers cards as a reaped character, they must move on the board using all or part of the cards in their graveyard.
You must always play at least one card, and you may use as many as your graveyard allows. The more cards a graveyard contains, the more movement options you have. Several players may therefore move as a result of a single reaping (the reaper and the reaped).
The number of soul points of the card(s) selected to move represents the number of movement spaces. The route is shown by the path of the road, and each house is a space on the route.
The player discards the chosen cards, moves their Meeple the corresponding number of spaces (total soul points), ticks their arrival space (writing the initial of their Meeple's colour) and places their Meeple.
Two petites mortes can never occupy the same space (except the start space). When a petite mort arrives on an occupied space, it must advance one space at a time until it reaches a free space.
When a petite mort arrives on a free space that has already been visited, it is too late: the resident has already gone to the morgue, an initial has already been written, and nothing more can be written on that space.
It is possible to play a card with zero soul points to choose not to move during a forced movement.
Resolution Order of Reapings
When several characters are reaped in the same turn (a character dying in their deathbed counts as a reaping), resolve first the reaping of the player whose petite mort Meeple is closest to the entrance of the residence on the residence sheet (that is, the player furthest behind), and so on.
The reaper moves their Meeple first, then the reaped.
If a player has initiated two reapings, they choose which one is resolved first. The player may even decide to resolve, before anything else, the death of a character in their deathbed, in order to have more latitude in movement.
A player may resolve two reapings in a row if, after their movement, they are still in last position.
In a collaborative reaping, the reaper whose Meeple is closest to the entrance of the residence moves first, and so on.
Scoring
Each apartment visited brings 1 point to the corresponding player.
There are 3 types of special residents, which give bonuses or maluses:
- Centenarians (white soul)
- Veterans (green soul)
- New residents in full health (violet soul)
The other soul colours (blue, red and orange) give no particular bonus.
When a petite mort visits the apartment of a centenarian or a veteran, they gain bonus points that are added to their score, depending on the number of residents of the same type reaped during the game:
- 1 centenarian = 1 point
- 2 centenarians = 3 points
- 3 centenarians = 6 points
- 4 centenarians = 10 points (maximum)
The same applies to veterans.
On the other hand, visiting a new resident represents a fault in the course of the internship (an error in the protocol), and the petite mort must apply a negative score to its overall score in the same way: -1 / -3 / -6 / -10.
The final score represents the grade obtained for the end-of-year internship.
If during a turn a deck of cards runs out, create a new draw pile from the discard pile.