A Game of Corruption Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Beginner's Game
  • Game Components
  • Game Setup
  • Gameplay
    • Phase 1: The Battle of the Parliament
    • Phase 2: The Presidential Elections
• The Advanced Game
  • Advanced Game Components
  • Some New Rules
  • Quick Summary for Game Setup
  • C. A New Character: The Judge
  • D. A New Action: Unmask the Judge

Beginner's Game

It is recommended that you learn and play the Beginner's Game a few times to get a grasp of the game's depth before venturing into the Advanced Game with more components, dimensions and variability.

Game Components

Prepare all the below components (from 1 to 11) for the Beginner's Game.

1. Game Board. The map is divided into 5 Governorates each divided into Districts:

   • North Lebanon, in green
   • Bekaa, in purple
   • Mount Lebanon, in orange
   • Beirut, in yellow
   • South Lebanon, in blue

   Borders are important on the map. They define which Districts are adjacent. For magnified territory such as Beirut, follow the lines to check frontiers. Here, Beirut I has frontiers with both Metn and Baabda for example.

   (The board's labelled areas are the Parliamentary Blocs Track, the Round Tracker & Vote/No Vote Track and the Active Newsflash space.)

   Fact check: Lebanon is actually divided into 9 governorates as of 2022 (Akkar, North Lebanon, Baalbek-Hermel, Bekaa, Keserwan-Jbeil, Mount Lebanon, Beirut, Nabatieh and South Lebanon) but for the sake of this game, we are only considering 5. Also election Districts change depending on the latest electoral law amendment.

2. The Parliament. The Parliament is divided into District Groups. Each group has a number of seats. A District Group is controlled by the player who has the highest sum of IPs in this particular group. And so this player gets the number of seats of that District Group.

   The numbers on the Districts are called Influence Points or IPs. Every Group of Districts has Parliamentary Seats on the Parliament. Some Groups have only 1 District, for example Baabda is alone in its District Group and has 6 Seats. In this case, whoever has these Districts will put one of their Pawns on the equivalent Parliament Group.

   A District Group with more than one District in it will go to the player with the highest IPs in this group of Districts.

   Example: Fouad has Batroun and Koura (8 and 4 IPs respectively) and Leila has Bcharre and Zgharta (7 IPs each). Fouad has a total of 12 IPs while Leila has a total of 14 IPs. Leila claims the Parliamentary Seats of this group (in this case 10 Seats) and puts her Pawn there on the Parliament board.

Game Setup

1. District Cards. Divide the District Cards in different piles. The unused District Cards are to be placed at the right side of the board face up and are called Swing Districts. These belong to no one and can swing to any player throughout the game.

   For 4 players:

   • Pile 1: Sour, Jezzine, Baalbek, Aley, Metn, Bint Jbeil
   • Pile 2: Baabda, Zahrani, Beirut II, Miniyeh, Tripoli, Nabatieh
   • Pile 3: West Bekaa, Zahle, Akkar, Keserwan, Hermel, Zgharta
   • Pile 4: Bcharre, Chouf, Saida, Marjayoun, Hasbaya, Jbeil

   For 5 players:

   • Pile 1: Sour, Baalbek, Aley, Metn, Bint Jbeil
   • Pile 2: Baabda, Beirut II, Miniyeh, Tripoli, Nabatieh
   • Pile 3: West Bekaa, Zahle, Akkar, Keserwan, Zgharta
   • Pile 4: Bcharre, Chouf, Jezzine, Marjayoun, Hasbaya
   • Pile 5: Beirut I, Batroun, Jbeil, Koura, Saida

   For 6 players:

   • Pile 1: Baalbek, Jezzine, Keserwan, Nabatieh
   • Pile 2: Bcharre, Beirut II, Miniyeh, Tripoli
   • Pile 3: Zahle, Akkar, Metn, Zgharta
   • Pile 4: Chouf, Zahrani, Marjayoun, Hasbaya
   • Pile 5: Beirut I, Batroun, Jbeil, Saida
   • Pile 6: Sour, Baabda, West Bekaa, Aley

Gameplay

The game is played in rounds. The round ends once every player has taken one action. At the start of every round, the player with the smallest Parliamentary Bloc becomes the Speaker of the House. In case of equality, the current Speaker decides who of these 2 players will be the next Speaker.

In the Beginner's Game, the Speaker has one privilege: as an action, they have the right to Spread Influence (Campaigning) over a Swing District without the vote of the majority. This will become clearer once you go through the rest of the rules.

Phase 1: The Battle of the Parliament

Every round, starting with the Speaker and going left, every player must take one action. On their turn, a player has exactly 1.5 minutes to think, discuss and declare which action they want to take (use your mobile phones to time it). If after the time is up, the player is undecided, their turn is over.

Once the action is declared, it cannot be changed but you can further negotiate your alliances and seal your deals.

Keep in mind that promises of future commitments do not have to be kept, and any kind of negotiation is possible. However:

• District Cards can only be swapped during a Swap action or lost through a Battle for Influence.
• Other cards cannot be swapped nor given.

Player actions. A player can perform only 1 action on their turn, after which their turn is over. Choose between the following 5 actions:

1. Pass Turn: you skip your turn.

2. Change an Objective: you discard your current Objective Card and draw a new one or Draw a new Objective: if you completed an Objective and decide to draw a new one.

3. Swap Districts: swap one of your Districts with another consenting player's District of equal or inferior IPs.

4. Spread Influence: Campaigning: try to Spread Influence over a Swing District.

5. Spread Influence: Battle of Influence: try to Spread Influence over another adjacent or connected player's District.

Attention:

• A player cannot have more than 10 Districts at the same time!
• A player with 10 Districts cannot take one of the Spread Influence actions!

Spread Influence: Campaigning. You need to run an electoral campaign to take over a Swing District. After negotiations are done, all players will secretly vote using their Voting Cards.

For that, create 2 piles: one Play Pile and one Discard Pile. The Speaker of the House will shuffle and then reveal the cards in the Play Pile. (This is all done to make sure no one guesses who voted what by simply looking at the sequence of the Voting Cards).

If the majority of the cards in the Play Pile are With, the campaigning player takes the Swing District. If not, their turn is over. Return 1 With and 1 Against Card to each player.

You are allowed to say (truthfully or not) what you're going to vote but you are not allowed to reveal your Voting Card!

You can try to take over any Swing District wherever they are on the map.

Spread Influence: Battle of Influence. You need to battle a player if you are to take over one of their Districts. You will be the Challenger, and they will be the Defender. Negotiate well your alliances and make deals when needed. You can only Battle for Influence a District connected to one of yours: either sharing a frontier with it, or connected through a Media Station (review page 4, section 9). Don't forget that Districts with Media Stations are connected.

For better visualization (refer to Drawing 6), Challenger and Defender put their involved Districts face to face on the table. Supporters can place their District cards entering the battle next to the player they are helping!

Also, starting with the player on the left of the Challenger, every player that has one or more Districts sharing a frontier with the Defending District can decide to stay neutral or intervene, with either the Challenger or the Defender.

Attention:

• Challenger or Defender can refuse the help of any other player!
• Once a player gives their support, it cannot be taken back!
• A player cannot help both Challenger and Defender in the same battle!

Example (Drawing 6, using the map setup of Drawing 5 as a reference): Baalbek (11) is Challenging Zahle (10); they are adjacent Districts. Zahle shares frontiers with West Bekaa, Rashaya, Metn, Baabda and Aley, so they can be used to intervene in this battle. Sour, Tripoli and Jbeil can also intervene, each having a Media Station linking them to Zahle (the Defender).

The Challenger has Metn (7) and Aley (4) sharing a frontier with Zahle, as well as Sour (6) that is a Media Station. The total of the Challenger team's IPs is 11 + (7 + 4 + 6) = 28.

The Defender has only West Bekaa (6) sharing a frontier with Zahle. But after a series of successful deals, they bring Yellow to their cause. Yellow supports the Defender with Baabda (12), and Tripoli (8) that is a Media Station. After teaming up with Yellow, the Defender is now favorite. The total of the Defender team's IPs is 10 + (6 + 12 + 8) = 36.

The Challenger loses the battle. Baalbek becomes a Swing District. Note that in this scenario, Green stayed neutral despite being able to intervene from Jbeil.

The team with the highest total of IPs wins the battle.

• When the Challenger wins the Battle of Influence, they take the Defending Card, and place their player Pawn over that District on the map.
• When the Challenger loses the Battle of Influence, the Challenging District becomes a Swing District.
• In case of equal Defending vs Challenging IPs, the Challenger wins.

Update the Parliament District Groups and the Parliamentary Seats Track if needed.

Round ends once every player has taken one action. Proceed to the next round and update the Round Tracker. Round 1 is done, Round 2 is starting.

Phase 1 ends when:

• 6 Objectives in total are completed or
• 5 rounds have passed

And so you proceed to Phase 2!

Phase 2: The Presidential Elections

The moment of truth! Candidates for Presidency present themselves, and players give the total votes of their Parliamentary Blocs to one of them!

1. Players have exactly 5 minutes to debate between each other on who's to be a Candidate for the Presidential Elections. No candidacy is accepted after that time.

2. Within the 5 minutes, any player who places their Character Card next to the board and says "I am Candidate" is officially Candidate and is not allowed to withdraw their candidacy.

3. After closure of candidacy, every player takes one pawn of the color of each Candidate. Every player secretly places the Pawn of the Candidate they decided to vote for in the palm of their closed hand.

4. The moderator proceeds to a countdown (3 2 1) at the end which, all players are obliged to vote (irrespective of whether they achieved an Objective or not) by opening their hand revealing the colored Pawn of the Candidate they chose.

5. Vote count: all players reveal their Character Cards. If any Reformist (including the Judge in the Advanced Game) didn't achieve at least 1 Objective, it means they were "not eligible" to vote and so their own vote is cancelled and the Seats they voted with are equal to zero.

   The Corrupt on the other hand, are always Eligible to vote, irrespective of Objectives completed.

   The Candidate with the most Eligible Seats that voted for them wins!

   Every Eligible player gives all their Parliament Seats votes to the Candidate they voted for. The Candidate who accumulated the most Seats becomes President.

• A Candidate can only vote for themselves!
• A Reformist who did not achieve at least 1 Objective can still be Candidate but their own Seats do not add up to the total votes they receive.

Who wins?

If the elected President is a Corrupt Elite, team Corrupt wins. If not, Reformists win.

If there is a tie for the highest numbers between a Corrupt Candidate and a Reformist Candidate then team Corrupt wins.

In the case where 2 winning Reformists are at a tie, team Corrupt also wins. This trick could be used by the Corrupt to engineer a win by making 2 Reformists go head to head and end up with a tie.

The Advanced Game

You will need to add the 3 below new components. Also, some rules will change.

Advanced Game Components

1. The Judge. The Judge is a Reformist but knows the secret identity of the Exposed Corrupt. The Judge needs to understand the gameplay of the Corrupt and can give hints to the Reformists. Play very carefully to avoid getting caught! You also cannot be Candidate for the Presidential Elections.

2. Newsflash Cards. These Cards activate a passive rule to be applied for the round, or until a new Newsflash is drawn. A new card is drawn at the beginning of every round by the Speaker of the house. 3 Newsflash cards with the chaos symbol are chaotic and entirely change the course of the game. Remove them if you would like a more strategic game rather than a fun hectic one.

   Example Newsflash card shown in the manual (the card carries the chaos symbol):

   EARLY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. The current president of the republic has resigned. The Battle for the Parliament is over. Proceed to the Presidential Elections.

3. Districts of Origin Tokens. A District of Origin is where you come from. You have more power in that District.

Some New Rules

1. District Distribution. Districts are now randomly distributed at the beginning of the game, following Table 2:

   Number of Players	Districts per Player	Number of Corrupt	Number of Reformists	Number of Judge
   4	6	1	3	0
   5	5	2	2	1
   6	4	2	3	1

   The rest of the Districts will be Swing Districts.

2. Districts of Origin. Players must choose one of their Districts to become their District of Origin (DOO) before the start of the game and place their DOO Token on it on the map.

   Your DOO gives you some advantages and a unique power:

Attention: Cards contain instructions that sometimes go against the standard rules. Follow the card instructions, irrespectively.

Quick Summary for Game Setup

1. Distribute the Districts.
2. Place the player Pawns.
3. Declare a Speaker.
4. Place your DOO first then your Media Outlet. Always start with the Speaker and continue counter clockwise.
5. Draw Objective Cards.
6. Draw Character Cards.
7. Run the Identification Steps (close eyes etc.).
8. The game starts with the Speaker who draws and activates a Newsflash and a Vote / No vote Token.

C. A New Character: The Judge

Depending on the number of players, add the Judge and other Characters as per Table 2 (see District Distribution above).

Also, when players close their eyes in the Identification Steps, add 3 extra steps before all players open their eyes:

1. Judge open your eyes.
2. Exposed Elite (card with the eye symbol) silently and blindly, raise your hand.
3. Judge close your eyes.

For a fun game variant, allow the Corrupt to decide who will be the Exposed Corrupt.

Remember that the Judge is not allowed to run as a Candidate for the Presidential Elections.

D. A New Action: Unmask the Judge

A Corrupt Elite, as an action, can formally point out that another player is the Judge. The alleged player needs to answer by yes or no if they indeed are the Judge.

If the Corrupt is wrong, nothing happens and the game goes on.

If the Corrupt has successfully unmasked the Judge, they get to steal one District Card of their choice (it can also be the Judge's DOO) from the Judge and all the rest of the Judge's Districts become Swing Districts.

In addition to that, the Corrupt who unmasked the Judge no longer needs the vote of the majority to Spread Influence for the rest of the game, irrespective of the Vote / No Vote Tokens.

The judge needs to be really careful when helping the Reformists, and the Corrupt very careful when unmasking the judge.