Band Manager: The Boardgame
Band Manager: The Boardgame Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
What's In The Box
- 120 Career Cards
- 60 Fan Cards
- 10 Passion Cards
- 5 Badges
- Tour Grid T-Shirt
- English & German Rule Booklet
Bonus:
- NSFW Expansion: 19 cards
- Entourage Expansion: 8 cloth patches
Game Setup
- Lay the T-shirt out flat with the Tour Grid facing up, so it is in reach of all of the players.
- Separate the fan cards, passion cards, and career cards.
- Thoroughly shuffle the career cards and place them in a deck face down on the right sleeve of the Tour Grid: the "career deck". A thorough shuffle is very important, especially if it is a fresh pack of cards!
- Thoroughly shuffle the fan cards and place them in a deck face down to the left of the Tour Grid: the "fan deck".
- Each player chooses a badge.
The Rules
Fans
The first player to have 27 fans wins the game!
Get fan cards by going on tour. Each fan card has a value of one, two, three or four fans.
Career
To go on tour, you need career cards. Career cards have a suit and a value.
Suits are Hype, Chops, Riffs and Gear. You need all of them to go on tour.
Values are 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4. Higher value career cards make better tours.
Card distribution in the career deck (the page shows these as icons; the suit and value icons are listed in the page's order, which is taken here as Hype, Chops, Riffs, Gear and values 0 to 4):
| Suit | Copies |
|---|---|
| Hype | x30 |
| Chops | x30 |
| Riffs | x30 |
| Gear | x30 |
| Value | Copies |
|---|---|
| 0 | x15 |
| 1 | x8 |
| 2 | x4 |
| 3 | x2 |
| 4 | x1 |
Passion
Passion cards count as a career card of any suit. With passion you can go on tour even if you do not have the right career cards.
You start the game with two passion cards, and if you lose them you cannot get them back.
How To Play
Shuffle the passion cards and deal two to each player, putting any extras back in the box.
This is what inspired you to go into music! Tell your backstory to the other players.
The player who tells the best backstory goes first, and players take turns clockwise.
On a turn, you can do one of two things:
- Stay Home & Practise: Draw one career card.
- OR Go On Tour: Become band manager and try to put together a tour.
A tour has five phases. Here is a quick overview:
- Assemble The Band: The band manager tries to put together a valid tour using career cards. They have to fill rows of the tour grid with cards of the correct suits. They can use the cards in their hand, or allow other players to contribute their cards for a share of the spoils. Players also negotiate cards to put their badge on. Badges do two things: determine the picking order of the spoils, and mark cards that players get back after the tour.
- Reveal The Spoils: The placement and value of the career cards used on the tour determine the amount and type of spoils the tour produces: a combination of career cards and fan cards. The board is divided into "fan slots" and "career slots". Cards on fan slots produce fan cards and cards on career slots produce career cards. High value cards produce more than low value cards. The spoils are dealt out face up on the table into one pot.
- Divide The Spoils: Band manager gets first pick, then band members take turns picking from the spoils, with the picking order determined by the suit in which badges were placed.
- Clear The Grid: Band members get back the card that was marked with their badge in the first phase. The rest of the cards used on the tour are discarded.
- Band Manager Hand Limit: The band manager (only!) reduces their hand to seven cards by discarding career cards or banking fan cards. Players can avoid this by staying home and practising.
Play continues until one player has 27 fans or more.
Read on for detailed rules for each phase...
Phase One: Assemble The Band
The band manager tries to assemble a valid tour, either on their own or with other players.
A valid tour fills at least one complete row on the tour grid, starting from the bottom. Each row must be filled with one of each suit of career card: hype, chops, riffs & gear. Levels 2 and above also need a fan card.
A level one tour fills the first row.
A level three tour fills the first three rows.
Cards must follow suit.
Rows cannot be left incomplete.
Passion cards count as a career card of any career suit (hype, chops, riffs, gear). They cannot be used in place of a fan card. Tours at the beginning of the game are often made up entirely of passion cards.
The band manager can fill the tour grid entirely with their own cards, or allow other players to join their tour and contribute their cards, as long as the tour is valid. It is cheaper to go on tour with other players, but the spoils from the tour are shared.
Players also negotiate to place their badges on cards on the grid. Players can put their badge on any card, even if they did not put it down themselves. Badge placement has two effects:
- Players get to keep the card their badge is placed on after the tour is over.
- The picking order of the spoils is determined by the suit column badges are placed in.
Only one badge may be placed in each suit column (hype, chops, riffs and gear). Badges may not be placed in the fan column.
At any point in this phase the band manager may kick another player off the tour, or a player may choose to leave, in either case taking back their cards and badge. Negotiation continues until all participating players are satisfied, and the tour is set. Name your new band!
If the band manager goes on tour on their own, they do not get to place their badge. They get to keep all the spoils to themselves, but they lose all the cards they put down.
If the band manager cannot assemble a valid tour, then they must stay home and practise.
A good way for a band manager to start their turn is to say "Who would like to go on tour with me? And what can you bring?", and then choose between the offers they receive.
Going on tour is the best way to get cards, so players should be keen to join tours, but each player is trying to contribute the least while getting the most in return.
Phase Two: Reveal The Spoils
The tour grid is made up of three types of card slots: fan payout slots, career payout slots and null slots.
Tours produce spoils depending on the placement and value of cards on the tour grid.
- Tour cards on fan payout slots produce fan cards.
- Tour cards on career payout slots produce career cards.
- Null slots produce nothing.
The value of a tour card determines the number of spoil cards it produces. For example:
- A value 2 card on a fan payout slot produces two fan cards from the fan deck.
- A value 1 card on a career payout slot produces one career card from the career deck.
- A value 0 card does not produce anything on any slot.
Fan cards in the fan column do not produce anything.
Spoils are dealt out face up into a single pot, to be split in the next phase.
If at any point the career deck or fan deck runs out, replace it with the corresponding shuffled discard pile.
Phase Three: Divide The Spoils
First, the band manager takes one card of their choosing from the spoils.
Then, band members take turns choosing spoils. The order in which they pick is determined by which column their badge is in. (There should only be one badge in each column.)
The player with their badge in the hype column picks first, then chops, then riffs, then gear, then hype again, and so on. Columns without badges can be ignored.
If the band manager has their badge in the hype suit, they will get to pick twice in a row: once because they are band manager, and once because their badge is in the hype column.
If picking up a card means a player has a total of 27 fans or more, they win instantly!
Phase Four: Clear The Grid
Players pick up their badge and put the card underneath it into their hand.
Fan cards are put onto the fan discard pile, face up next to the fan deck.
Career cards are put onto the career discard pile, face up next to the career deck.
Passion cards are put back in the box.
Phase Five: Band Manager Hand Limit
The band manager (only!) must reduce their hand to seven cards by some combination of:
- Discarding their career cards into the discard pile, and
- Putting their fan cards face up in front of them, in view of the other players. (They still count towards the fan score but cannot be used on tour.)
If a player chooses to stay home and practise instead of going on tour, they do not have to reduce their hand to seven cards.
The other players do not have to reduce their hands, only the band manager.
Tips for Beginners
At the start of the game, go on as many tours as possible to try and get high value career cards. 3 and 4 value cards are especially rare and powerful, so hang onto them.
Level 1 tours with 3 or 4 other players are more cost efficient than larger tours with fewer players. Try and negotiate to spend as few cards as possible and have the earliest pick so you can get the best spoils. A tour's manager gets the best card out of that tour, so make sure they pay for the privilege!
As the game progresses and players start to have higher value cards, tours will start producing a lot of career cards. Now you can start going on larger tours with fewer people so you can win more fans.
Zero value cards are useful for filling up lower level rows. If you stay home and practise you do not have to discard down to 7 cards, which can be useful if you are saving career cards for a big solo tour. In a solo tour, you lose all the cards you put down, but you are guaranteed to get all the spoils for yourself.
Beginners Game / Quick Game
For beginners or for a quicker game, players may trade in one of their starting passion cards for a 2 chops, 3 riffs or 4 gear card.
Rules for Expansions
NSFW Cards
Replace the cards in the standard deck with NSFW cards of the same value.
Entourage
In this expansion, each player starts the game with an entourage consisting of fans and crew members who give special abilities.
First, each player selects a crew member from the crew pool. If the one they want is taken by another player, then they must choose another, until everyone has one.
Players then take turns in a clockwise direction as follows:
If you think another player has a better entourage than you, you may add to your entourage any one fan card from the fan deck or crew member from the crew pool, and then offer to exchange your whole entourage for theirs. If they refuse, you keep your entourage, including the additional crew or fan card.
If you are happy with your entourage, or your entourage consists of three cards/crew, move on to the next player.
Continue until there is a round where all players pass, then the game starts as normal.
Entourage fans begin the game banked.
On your turn, tours are valid if the null slots on the tour grid are left empty.
Entourage Crew Abilities
Transcriber's note: on the source page, the eight crew names and the seven ability texts are in separate blocks with icons between them, and the capture does not state which text belongs to which crew member. Rather than guess the pairing, the names and texts are given below each in the page's own order. Verify the pairing against the official PDF rulebook if one is found.
Crew names, in page order: Promoter, Publicist, Manager, Disc Jockey, Producer, Roadie, Sound Technician, Talent Scout.
Ability texts, in page order:
- Your hand limit is increased to nine.
- One time only, you may take two turns in a row. Declare this at the end of the first of the two turns.
- You may bank riffs as you bank fans, and they count towards your score, e.g. a value 2 riff is worth 2 fans.
- When practising, you may draw an additional career card.
- On your turn, column order for picking spoils is reversed; gear column picks first, then riffs etc.
- On your turn, you may place your badge between two cards on the grid and keep both.
- On your turn, value 0 career cards count as value 1 career cards.