Dollars Wanted Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Object of the Game
• Set-Up of the Game
• Course of the Game
  • 1. Lay Out Cards
  • 2. Rob a Building
  • 3. Draw New Cards
• End of the Game
• Variant with Player Colors

Contents

• 100 bandit cards (20 cards each in red, yellow, green, blue, and gray)
• 18 building cards (banks, casinos, saloons, shops)
• 2 penalty cards (for the variant)

Object of the Game

In keeping with the motto "Dollars Wanted!," you go on a raid with four bandits. Each bandit has specific equipment (colt, stick of dynamite, crowbar, pickaxe). You use the given equipment icons to break into the buildings displayed in the middle of the table. To do so, you connect the bandit cards to the building cards, face down. And if you then seize the right moment for robbing, you can rake in a good deal of dollars. Special bandit cards help you along the way, but they can also thwart other players.

Set-Up of the Game

Shuffle the 18 building cards and separate them into 3 piles of 6 cards each, with the dollar side facing down. Place the 3 piles in the middle of the table, one below the other. Leave enough space to the right of the 3 piles. Shuffle the bandit cards and deal 6 of them, face down, to each player; everybody takes his cards into his hand. Put the remaining bandit cards within reach, unseen, as a face-down draw pile.

Course of the Game

The player who last withdrew money from a bank begins. Then play continues clockwise.

On your turn, you carry out these actions, one after another:

1. Lay out cards
2. Rob a building (optional)
3. Draw new cards

1. Lay Out Cards

On your turn, you have to lay out 2 of your hand cards by connecting them to the buildings that you want to rob. The following rules apply to the placement of bandit cards:

• Always place a bandit card face down on the first free space to the far right of one of the three building card piles.

• In doing so, you always need to place bandit cards so that they match the icons required. So, if a building requires the employment of Clint, Joe, and Judy (recognizable by the icons colt, stick of dynamite, and crowbar), you may place only these bandits there – but, in this case, not Enzo with the pickaxe! The number is arbitrary, though; that means you may place Joe multiple times, even if there is only one dynamite stick depicted on the building card. Each bandit has cards showing 1 icon or 2 icons.

  Note: When cards are revealed that were inadvertently wrongly connected, they are removed and put on the discard pile.

• You can connect the special cards (Jolly Joker, elixir, coyote, and vulture) to a building, face down, without having to consider any icons.

  Note: In the very rare case that you are not able to place a bandit card (no suitable hand cards, no special cards), you show your cards to the other players. After that, put them on the discard pile and draw 6 new cards; then you carry out your regular turn.

2. Rob a Building

After laying out the two hand cards, you can optionally rob one building. If you want to do this, you point at one of the three displayed building cards and call out "Dollars wanted!" Beginning with the card that is lying directly to the right of the building, the bandit cards are revealed, one after another. Bandits count for the icons required for robbing the building.

The special cards have the following effects:

• Jolly Joker simply has everything with him and thus replaces any icon that is needed for robbing (crowbar, pickaxe, colt or dynamite stick). If this wildcard is doubled because of the elixir, it can replace two icons (even two different ones).
• Elixir doubles the effect on all subsequent bandits (including Jolly Joker). Multiple elixirs don't increase the effect any further.
• Coyote snatches the next card, ignoring its effect, and both cards are immediately put on the discard pile. The elixir has no effect on the coyote.
• Vulture instantaneously stops all robbing, i.e., the revealing of the cards. Only if there are already enough icons showing in order to rob the building do you obtain the building card. Otherwise, the already-revealed cards remain in place, face up. During the further course of the game, more cards can be added to this row. When someone tries to rob the building again, the already-revealed vulture card is ineffective.

Note: Robbing is also triggered automatically if, after your turn, there are at least 7 face-down cards in the same row connected to one or more buildings. If all symbols required by the building(s) have been revealed, the active player obtains the card(s). Otherwise, the revealed cards remain in place, face up.

Have the required icons been revealed? Yippie! You get the building card and place it in front of you, with the dollar side facing up; the scoring will take place at the end of the game. The general rule is: The more bandits and icons required for robbing a building, the more valuable is the loot. All the cards connected to the building are put face up on the discard pile. After the successful robbery, a new building card turns up on top of the pile, so that there are again three buildings to choose from.

Example A: Robbing this building (here, a casino) requires 1 pickaxe, 2 colts, and 2 sticks of dynamite. The revealed cards show 2 pickaxes, 2 sticks of dynamite, and 1 colt. The colt that is still missing can be replaced by Jolly Joker. The active player obtains the card and puts it in front of him, with the dollar side facing up.

Haven't enough icons been revealed? Too bad! The building card remains in the display. All the already-revealed cards remain in place, face up (and any unrevealed cards remain face down). Thanks to the good groundwork, a subsequent player might have the chance to successfully complete the robbery. Any cards that are newly connected to buildings (see "1. Lay out cards") are played face down, as before.

Example B: Robbing the building at the bottom (here, a saloon) requires 2 pickaxes and 2 sticks of dynamite. However, the vulture stops the revealing of the cards immediately. The bandits that have been revealed so far (showing 2 sticks of dynamite and 1 pickaxe) are not sufficient for robbing the building. Consequently, the active player does not get the card. All the already-revealed cards remain in place, face up (and any unrevealed cards remain face down).

3. Draw New Cards

As the last action on your turn, you refill your card hand to 6 bandit cards; then your turn ends. The next player, in clockwise order, takes his turn. If the draw pile is depleted, you shuffle the cards from the discard pile and put it out as the new draw pile.

End of the Game

The game ends as soon as one of the three displayed building card piles is empty after a player's turn. Then the scoring takes place: The player who has been able to rake in the most dollars with the buildings he has robbed wins the game. In case of a tie, the involved player with the most building cards wins. If there is still a tie, the victory is shared.

Variant with Player Colors

Each player gets the 20 bandit cards of one color (red, yellow, green, blue or gray). This makes the distribution of the cards a bit less random. The players shuffle their own card deck, and everybody takes 6 cards into his hand. The remaining cards form an individual draw pile that each player has in front of him. In addition, put the two penalty cards within reach.

As in the standard game, you have 3 actions per turn in this variant, and your objective is to rob as many buildings as possible, as described above. But if now, while cards are being revealed, a wrongly connected bandit card comes up, this card can be allocated to one player because of its color. The player in question receives a penalty card and gets a deduction of $300 for this at the scoring at the end of the game. After a building has been robbed, the associated bandit cards are not put on a common discard pile; instead, each player has his individual discard pile for cards in his color. In the end, here also, the player who has raked in the most dollars wins the game.