Yukon Salon Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
• Cards
  • Client Cards
  • Style Cards
• Taking Turns
  • Your Turn: Taking Actions
  • Seating a Client
  • Drawing a Style Card
  • Styling a Seated Client
  • Happy Clients
• Game End
• Scoring

Setup

1. Shuffle the Client cards and Style cards to form two separate decks. Keep them both face-down on the table.
2. Return a number of random Clients to the box, making the deck a little smaller and less predictable:
   • Two Players: Return 9 Clients, leaving a deck of 9.
   • Three Players: Return 6 Clients, leaving a deck of 12.
   • Four Players: Return 2 Clients, leaving a deck of 16.
3. Deal four Clients to a face-up row called the Lobby in the center of the table.
4. The winner of the last game goes first. If this is the first game, the player who most recently styled, cut, or colored their hair goes first.
5. Deal a hand of Style cards to each player based on the number of players and each player's position (with play passing clockwise from the first player):

Players	Player Position	Style Cards
2	First Player	3
2	Second Player	5
3	First Player	3
3	Second Player	4
3	Third Player	5
4	First Player	3
4	Second Player	4
4	Third Player	4
4	Fourth Player

That's it! Now the first player takes the first turn.

Cards

Yukon Salon has two kinds of cards, Clients and Styles.

Client Cards

Clients come in two types, Bears and Lumberjacks.

Both kinds of Client cards have a name, value, and ability. Bears also have corsages, and Lumberjacks also have toques. Each corsage and toque is red, yellow, or blue. (A toque is a hat. It's pronounced "took.")

Style Cards

Style cards have a name, beard value, hairdo value, beard bonus, and hairdo bonus.

Why so many stats? Because every Style can be played on either a Bear's head (as a hairdo) or a Lumberjack's chin (as a beard). That's just how it's done in the Yukon. You'll learn more in "Styling a Seated Client," just you wait.

Taking Turns

Players take turns in order, going clockwise around the table.

Turns go until the last Client is seated and the rest of the players each take one more turn (see "Game End").

Your Turn: Taking Actions

You take two Actions on your turn, unless a card gives you more.

When you take an Action, you choose one of these options:

• Seat a Client
• Draw a Style Card
• Style a Seated Client

The options are described below.

You are free to choose the same option more than once per turn. You could use two Actions to draw two Style cards, for example.

Once your Actions are used up, the next player's turn begins.

Seating a Client

To seat a Client, choose a face-up Client from the Lobby and move it in front of you.

You can only have one seated Client, unless an ability increases your seat capacity. If you seat a Client but were already at your max, return one of your previously seated Clients to the Lobby.

If there are fewer than four Clients in the Lobby after you seat a Client, draw from the deck until the Lobby has four Clients again, unless the deck is empty, in which case no new cards are added.

If you seat the last Client in the Lobby and the deck is empty, the game will end soon. See "Game End."

Drawing a Style Card

To draw a Style card, take the top one from the Style deck and add into your hand. That's it!

There's no limit to your hand size.

If the Style deck runs out, reshuffle the discards. If there are no discards you may not draw a Style card, and must choose a different Action.

Styling a Seated Client

To style a seated Client, play a Style card from your hand on one of your seated Clients. If it's a Bear, the Style is placed above the Client as a hairdo. If it's a Lumberjack, it's placed below as a beard.

Find the matching pair of values on your Client and Style. For Bears they'll be pink neon. For Lumberjacks, engraved wood. Add the matching pair.

Mabel wears The Jupiter as a hairdo.

Cordwood Johnson sports The Jupiter as a beard.

Placing the Style is just the first step of the endeavor — to succeed at your feat of fashion you must also make your Client happy.

Next, roll both dice and total the results. If your total meets or beats the total from the cards, it works! Your Client is happy, and you are rewarded (see Happy Clients).

Cordwood Johnson and The Jupiter add up to 9.

The bear face replaces the one on the die. These dice add up to seven.

When a Style's value says "X," its value is the same as the Client's value.

Doris's value is 3, so X is 3, and the total to roll is 6.

But if your dice total is less than the total from the cards, you must either discard Styles to increase your total, make Claims to re-roll your dice, or accept shameful failure.

• Discarding Styles: For each Style card you discard from your hand after a failed roll, add +1 to your dice total. If you discard enough Styles to match the total from the cards, you've put in the extra effort needed to make your Client happy.
• Making Claims: If you make enough Claims, you get to re-roll your dice.

To make Claims, you provide reasons and reassurance to your Client that the Style you've given them is beautiful, practical, or otherwise in their best interest. The Client's value tells you the number of Claims you must offer.

Talk to the card on the table, calling your Client by name while the other players count your reasons. Your Claims don't have to make rigorous sense, but they do have to be at least somewhat relevant to the Style and/or Client, must be generally coherent — garbled raving while you brandish cutting shears won't do — and you can't copy a Claim made earlier in the game.

Once you've made the required number of Claims you re-roll your dice, giving you a second chance to exceed the total of your Client and Style values.

You can make Claims only once per attempt to style a Client. If you make Claims and your re-roll also fails, you're stuck discarding Styles or accepting failure.

After making Claims and re-rolling, you can still discard Styles to increase your total. Of course, you can only use Styles to increase the re-roll's total. You can't go back after re-rolling and discard Styles to increase your first roll. There are no time machines in the Yukon, friend.

• Shameful Failure: If you fail to style your Client, whether because you gave up or failed even after re-rolling, you must discard the Style you attempted to play. Your unhappy Client remains seated in front of you.

Example: You try to Style Pancake Billy with The Ultimate Form, which together total 8, but you roll bear eyes (2). You don't have six Styles you can discard and you don't want to fail, so you begin making Claims.

"Billy," you say, "the Ultimate Form is extremely popular in the Prairie Provinces this year (first Claim). This look is sure to make you a hit with whatever kind of romantic partner flaps your flannel (second Claim). I've also gotten a sneak peek at the revenue service's Spring guidelines, and The Ultimate Form is going to be a tax write-off next year (third Claim). And for Pete's sake, Pancake Billy, with a style like this, you can't help but be offered free bacon everywhere you go (fourth Claim)!"

Since Billy's value is 4 and you've made four distinct Claims, you're entitled to a re-roll. This time the dice come up 4 and 5, totaling 9, which exceeds the 8 that you need. Success! Pancake Billy is happy with his Style.

Happy Clients

When you style a Client and make them happy they join your Gallery, opening up your seat for the next Client. When a Client joins your Gallery you get a one-time bonus, and for the rest of the game they also give you an ongoing ability.

• Bonuses are on the Style you used. The applicable bonus is the one that's right-side up and matches the kind of Client it's on. It happens once when the Client is successfully styled.
• Abilities are on the Client you styled. The abilities marked with the infinity symbol (∞) apply to you for the rest of the game. Others affect end-game scoring.

Game End

When the last Client from the Lobby is seated, the game is about to end.

The player who seated that Client finishes their turn, then each other player takes one last turn, then the game ends and everyone scores their Galleries.

The game still ends even if a Client is returned to the Lobby during the last round.

Scoring

Each player adds up the relevant values of the Clients in their Gallery. ("Relevant" just means that you add the Style value that you actually used. You don't add the hairdo value of a Style you applied to a Lumberjack as a beard, for example.)

Some abilities give bonuses. For example, Hazel gives +1 for each yellow corsage in their player's Gallery (including the beautiful yellow corsage on Hazel).

The player with the highest score wins.

If there's a tie, the tied player with the most Clients in their Gallery wins. After that, the highest combined value of a single styled pair wins. After that, tied players are equally awesome and must learn to share — congratulations!