Agency
Agency Rulebook
Table of Contents
Overview
Agency is a 4-player only partnership trick taking game. You do not have your own hand of cards, but share hands with your opponents to your left and right. Your partner sits across the table from you.
Agency is a "point trick" game, meaning rather than scoring per trick taken, specific cards have points on them and those are the only ones that score. In the black suits, 3s and 7s are worth 2 points, 5s are worth 4 points - pips on the cards signify this. The red trump suit cards are not worth any points.
Agency is must follow but may trump (and may "wall") - meaning when a suit is led, your options are:
- follow suit
- play a trump card
- play a Wall card
Walls have no numbers, cannot win tricks, and are used to separate the shared hands. They can be played at any time (as long as there is not already a Wall played into a trick) but cannot be led unless you have no other cards available. If a Wall is led, the next player sets the lead suit. Walls are worth 2 points when scoring a trick.
Agency's deck consists of 44 cards: 1-9 in four suits - Hats, Moustaches, Briefcases, and Vans - and 8 Wall cards. You will need free-standing card holders to play - they are not provided.
Vans are trump, can be played at any time, and do not need to be broken before they can be led.
Setup
- Arrange the card holders between the players so that each player can see the cards to their left and right (see diagram on the back of the rulebook).
- Shuffle the 36 suited cards and deal 8 cards face down to each player. 4 cards will be undealt and left face down off to the side.
- Each player takes the cards - DO NOT SORT THEM - and splays them in the order they were dealt on the card holder to their left, inserting Wall cards so that there are 3 suited cards on the left, then a Wall, then 2 suited cards, then a Wall, and then 3 suited cards (see diagram on the back of the rulebook).
- The least trustworthy player is the first player.
Gameplay
On your turn, you may play any card from either of your hands, up to and including the first Wall in each. Once a Wall card in a hand has been played, you have access to all cards that were blocked by that Wall. If both walls in a hand are played, both players have access to all cards in that hand.
The highest trump card played (or the highest card in the led suit if no trump was played) wins the trick. Teams should choose one partner to take all of their tricks for ease of counting points at the end of the hand.
The hand ends when one player has no cards in either hand or no legal play (if this happens mid-trick, discard trick). A hand can also end early if one team collects 22 points (there are a possible 40 points available).
Each hand won counts as 1 game point. If there is a tie at the end of a round, whichever team took the last trick gains the game point.
Collect the cards (separating out the Walls), reshuffle and deal. Setup is the same as detailed previously. The team who lost the previous hand chooses which of them will lead the first trick.
Play until one team has 2 game points (or 3 game points for a longer game).