Broken and Beautiful: A Game About Kintsugi Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Overview
• Setup
  • New Player
• Elements of a Card
• Playing the Game
  • 1. Starting a Round
  • 2. Drafting
    • Choices After Drafting
  • 3. Pottery Breaks
    • Serving Trays and Storage Boxes
    • Gold Cards
  • 4. Repairing Pottery
• Ending the Game
• Pottery Scores
• Scoring Example

Components

• 46 game cards
  • 39 pottery cards
  • 3 gold cards
  • 2 serving tray cards
  • 2 storage box cards
• 4 reference cards
• 14 gold ingots
• First player marker

Overview

In Broken and Beautiful, players draft and collect cards representing pottery.

Pottery has immediate value when acquired. When broken, it loses its worth. If repaired, however, it is worth even more than when it was brand new.

To win, you must draft cleverly. Each type of pottery scores differently, so choose pottery that works well together, while denying high-scoring sets to others.

You must also manage — as best you can — the breakage of different pottery types to create advantage for yourself and disaster for your opponents.

Finally, you must choose when to give up new cards to accumulate gold ingots instead, so you can repair your broken treasures.

Setup

1. Face the Cards. Organize the game cards so their unbroken sides (gray background) face up.
2. Shuffle the Deck. Shuffle the game cards to form a deck.
3. Set the Table. Place the gold ingots and game deck (grey side up) in the center of the table.
4. First Player. The player who most recently washed the dishes takes the first player marker. (Unless the group just finished a game. In that case, the player who was last in that game chooses the first player.)
5. Reference Cards. Any player who'd like one takes a reference card.

New Player

Anyone who has never played Broken and Beautiful before takes an ingot.

Elements of a Card

Each card shows:

• Type Icon — the kind of object: Bowl, Cup, Plate, Saucer, Teapot, Tea Jar, Vase, Serving Tray, Storage Box.
• Pattern Icon — the decorative pattern of the piece.
• Picture — the object itself.
• Score — how the card scores.
• Sale Value / Repair Cost — the number of ingots (lower left corner) you gain if you sell the card, and the number of ingots it costs to repair the card.

Gold cards show a gold icon in the upper right, and have no pattern or score.

Playing the Game

Broken and Beautiful is played in rounds. In each round, each player drafts two cards. Then, some cards likely break. Finally, players can repair broken cards.

At the end of each round, the first player marker is passed clockwise and the next round begins.

1. Starting a Round

To start a round, deal a number of cards to a drafting area. The number to be dealt is equal to two times the number of players, plus one. (So, for example, seven cards in a three-player game.)

Begin the round by dealing cards to the drafting area. Deal two per player, plus one card.

2. Drafting

Players draft cards from the drafting area in a "snake draft."

This means that the first player chooses a card, followed by the player to their left, and so on around the table, until all players have one card. Then, the player who drafted last chooses a second card. Second drafts continue counterclockwise back around the table, so that the player who chose first is also the player who chooses last.

At the end of the snake draft, each player should have two cards, and there should be one undrafted card left behind.

When you draft a card, before the next player drafts, you must either add it to your collection or sell it for gold. (Exception: Gold cards must be sold. They can't be added to your collection.)

Choices After Drafting

• Add to Your Collection. Place cards you are adding to your collection on the table in front of you, unbroken (gray) side up.
• Sell for Gold. When you sell a card for gold, discard the card from the game and take a number of ingots from the supply equal to the number of ingots shown on the card's lower left corner.

3. Pottery Breaks

After all players have drafted there should be one card left in the drafting area, and one card visible on the top of the deck.

All unbroken cards in players' collections that match these cards' types break. For example, if there is a teapot on the top of the deck and a cup leftover in the drafting area, all unbroken teapots and all unbroken cups in all players' collections break.

Indicate that a card is broken by turning it sideways.

Cards that have been previously repaired aren't considered "unbroken." That is, those cards can't be broken again.

Once broken pottery has been resolved, discard the leftover card in the drafting area from the game.

Serving Trays and Storage Boxes

Serving trays and storage boxes can't be broken. If any of these are showing when determining which pottery breaks, they have no effect.

Gold Cards

Gold cards don't cause breakage. If one or more of these are showing when determining which pottery breaks, each player will get one free repair — see "Repairing Pottery."

4. Repairing Pottery

Starting with the first player, each player may fix a broken item by paying a cost. The cost to repair a piece of pottery is the number of ingots on that card. Return spent ingots to the supply and flip the card.

In a round where the draft ended with a gold card showing, the first item each player fixes that round costs nothing. (If two gold cards, still only one fix.)

After each player has fixed an item or passed, players may fix additional items, again in turn. Each additional item costs extra gold: A second item costs the regular price plus one ingot, a third item costs the regular price plus two ingots, and so on.

Repair continues until all players pass in turn. Then, the first player marker is passed clockwise and the next round begins, unless there are not enough cards left — see "Ending the Game."

Ending the Game

The game ends when you can no longer deal enough cards for a draft. When that happens, players total the values of their unbroken and repaired pottery according to the "Pottery Scores" table.

Broken (unrepaired) pottery is worthless at scoring. Not only does it contribute no points, it contributes nothing to other cards. For example, a broken cup whose pattern matches an unbroken teapot contributes nothing to the teapot's value.

Cups and saucers can be freely paired when the game ends. It doesn't matter whether their patterns match, or when they were drafted with respect to each other. That is, cups and saucers don't need to be paired when they're drafted, only when the game ends.

Whoever has the most points wins! Ties are broken by the most repaired items, and then the most items overall. Players still tied after that share the win.

Pottery Scores

Type	Unbroken	Repaired
Cup	1	3
Saucer	A saucer multiplies by 2 the value of a single cup it is paired with. A given saucer can only be paired with one cup, and a given cup can only be paired with one saucer.	As when unbroken, but the multiplier is 3.
Plate	Each pair of plates is worth 6. (A single plate is worth nothing by itself.)	As when unbroken, plus 2 per repaired plate. (E.g., three plates, all repaired, are collectively worth 12: One pair is worth 6, and each repaired plate is worth 2 more.)
Bowl	Each bowl is worth the quantity of bowls in your collection. (E.g., if you have 3 bowls, each is worth 3, for a total of 9 points from bowls.)	As when unbroken, plus 1 per repaired bowl.
Tea Jar	Whoever has the most tea jars scores 6. If players tie for most, all tied players score 6.	As when unbroken, plus 1 per repaired tea jar.
Vase	One vase scores 1, two vases score 5 (collectively), and three vases score 15 (collectively).	As when unbroken, plus 1 per repaired vase.
Teapot	A teapot is worth points equal to the number of items in its owner's collection that match its pattern (including the teapot itself).	A repaired teapot is worth twice as much as an unbroken teapot.
Serving Tray	2	—
Storage Box	Each storage box's value equals the number of ingots its owner has at the end of the game, with a maximum of 4 per storage box. Multiple boxes can score the same ingot.	—

Scoring Example

This collection scores 20 points. The bowls score 5 (each bowl is worth 2, plus 1 because one is repaired). The teapot scores 4 (although you have five cards of its pattern, one is broken). The cup scores 1 (which is not multiplied because the saucer is broken). The plates score 8 (6 for one pair, plus 2 because one plate is repaired). The vase scores 2 (1 because you have one vase, plus 1 because it has been repaired).