Actionworks
Actionworks Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Getting Started
There are two kinds of cards: small parts cards and large demand cards. Flip through them and you’ll see that they come in different types (like Make or Borrow). There are many parts cards for each type but only one demand card.
For round one, we’ll be using just three types: Make, Take, and Borrow. Everything else goes back in the box.
DEMAND CARDS Shuffle the three demand cards and deal one to each player. Your demand card shows you which type of cards you’re trying to collect for the end of the round. Set it face up on the table in front of you.
(If you have only two players, one of the three demand cards won’t be dealt this round. If you have more than three players, read these rules, then skip to round two.)
PARTS DECK Shuffle the parts cards, putting them face down on the table. This is the parts deck.
WORKBENCH Take two cards off the parts deck and flip them over, spreading them out face up on the table so everyone can see them. This area is called the workbench. When it’s your turn, you’ll be able to interact with cards on the workbench.
HANDS Each player draws two cards from the parts deck as their starting hand.
The oldest player takes their turn first, then the player to their left takes a turn, and so on, proceeding to the left.
On Your Turn 1
If it’s your turn, whenever you have a card in your hand you can do one of three things with it: play it (to interact with other cards), ship it (to get points), or leave it in your hand. You can do these in any order.
For example, you could play a card, then ship a card, then play another card, then do nothing with any other cards in your hand — all in any order you like.
SHIPPING Your customers want only a certain type of parts: the type that’s listed on your demand card. At the end of the round, these are the parts that get you points. To ship a card to your customers, take it out of your hand and put it face down in front of you. This is your shipping pile. No one gets to look through your shipping pile (not even you) until the round is over.
PLAYING To play a card, take it out of your hand and put it face up on the workbench. Every card has a type and a point value. When you play a card, only the type matters. The value is only important for scoring at the end of the round (see Scoring on page 7).
Make When you play a Make card, flip over the top two cards from the parts deck onto the workbench.
Take When you play a Take, choose a card that’s already on the workbench and take it into your hand. (The card you took is now in your hand, so you could play or ship it if you want.)
Borrow When you play a Borrow, choose a player. They show everyone the cards in their hand. Pick one and take it into your hand.
Other Types Round one only uses Make, Take, and Borrow. All other types should be in the box.
On Your Turn 2
END OF TURN If you don’t want to play or ship any more cards, you can announce that your turn is over. (If you have no cards left in your hand, you have nothing left to do, so your turn ends.)
CLEARING THE WORKBENCH Once your turn is over, the workbench needs to be cleared off. The player to your left takes a card from the workbench into their hand, then the player to their left takes a card, and so on around the table until the workbench is cleared.
NEXT PLAYER’S TURN Once the workbench is cleared, flip over two cards from the parts deck onto the workbench. Now the player to your left begins their turn.
USELESS CARDS Sometimes, when you play a card, its effect can’t happen. You are allowed to play cards that don’t have their full effect.
For example, if someone doesn’t have any cards in their hand, you can still play a Borrow against them, you just don’t get a card from it. If there’s only one card left on the parts deck, you could play a Make to flip over just one card. You could play a Take when there are no cards on the workbench, and you just don’t pick any cards up.
Endings
ENDING THE ROUND The round ends when the parts deck has run out, the current player has finished their turn, and the workbench has been cleared.
At the end of the round, everyone puts their entire hand into their shipping pile.
SCORING Turn your shipping pile face up. Separate it into parts that do match your demand card and parts that don’t. Each part that does match your demand card is worth its face value in points. (So if your demand card is Borrow, and you’ve shipped a Borrow 2, it’s worth 2 points.) For each part in your shipping pile that doesn’t match your demand card, you lose 1 point. Your customers don’t want the wrong type of parts.
NEXT ROUND Round one used only three types: Make, Take, and Borrow. Round two adds another type: Plan. Round three adds Scrap, then rounds four and up include Copy.
If this is your first time playing, you might not want to add a new type until you’re fully comfortable with the types introduced so far.
When one player ends a round, the player to their left begins the next round.
END OF GAME If there are only two players, play until someone gets to 140 points. With three players, play till 100. With four or more, play till 70. The game ends at the end of any round where someone has at least that many points. Whoever has the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
Plan
Round two introduces a new type of card: Plan. For this round, we’ll be using four types: Make, Take, Borrow, and Plan. Everything else goes back in the box.
DEMAND CARDS Shuffle the four demand cards and deal out one to each player. If you have only two players, there will be two demand cards left, so deal those out as well. Players can have more than one, as long as all players have the same number of demand cards.
DECK, WORKBENCH, HANDS This part works just like round one: shuffle the parts deck, flip two parts onto the workbench, everyone draws two parts as their hand.
PLAN The first three types only do a single thing: Make always flips two, Take always picks up one, and Borrow always grabs one card from another player. Plan is different. When you play a Plan card, you can either look at another player’s hand, or you can look at the top card(s) of the parts deck — but you can’t do both at once with a single Plan.
LOOKING AT A HAND When you play a Plan, you could choose a player; they reveal their hand to everyone.
LOOKING AT THE PARTS DECK Instead of looking at someone’s hand, you could look at the top card of the parts deck. But if you play more than one Plan at a time, you can do even more...
For example, if you play three Plans at the same time, you get to look at the top three cards of the parts deck, then put them back in any order.
Play x Plans at once, and you can look at the top x cards of the parts deck, putting them back in any order.
Scrap
Round three introduces Scrap. Up until now, cards could only be in one of four places: the parts deck, the workbench, in someone’s hand, or in someone’s shipping pile. Scrap introduces a new place: the scrap heap.
The parts deck sits in the middle of the table, with the workbench to one side. The scrap heap goes on the other side of the parts deck. At the start of each round, any cards left on the scrap heap get shuffled into the deck.
SCRAP When you play a Scrap card, you can choose one of two effects. Either choose a card that’s already on the workbench and put it face up on the scrap heap, or take the top card from the scrap heap into your hand. Everyone can see the top card of the scrap heap, but no one is allowed to peek at any cards under it.
Copy
Round four introduces Copy. When you play a Copy, it has no effect of its own, so it acts as a copy of another card. You can either copy one of your demand cards, or you can copy another card being played at the same time.
COPYING DEMAND Play a Copy, choose one of your demand cards, and the Copy acts like the type of the card you chose. For example, if you have the Take demand card, you could play a Copy as if it were a Take.
COPYING ANOTHER CARD Play a Copy along with another card, and it acts like that card. For example, you could play a Copy and a Plan, and it would be just like playing two Plans. (And then you could look at the top two parts, or look at two players’ hands, or one of each.)