Dreams Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• The Game
• Set-Up of the Game
• Course of the Game
  • Lay Out Dreams
  • Determine the Vision & the Mortal
  • Place Stars
  • Guess & Resolve
  • Record Points on the Gods Track
• The Next Round
• Ending & Winning the Game
• Epilog

The Game

We are Gods. There is one ordinary mortal among us. But only HE knows that HE is no God.

• 4 images are on display. 3 of them are false. 1 image is the true vision. Only the Gods know which dream is the true vision.
• We place stars in the sky. We Gods place the stars so that we recognize the true vision in the constellation. But we don't make it too obvious - that's because the true vision is to be kept hidden from the mortal.
• Studying our divine stars, the mortal tries to figure out the true vision in order to give a "deceptively real" impression and contribute to our constellation. This way, he can remain undetected. And the suspicion of being mortal reflects on the Gods.

A player advances on the Gods track if he,

• being the mortal, remains unrecognized
• being the mortal, deciphers the true vision
• being a God, convicts the mortal
• being a God, does not arouse any suspicion that he himself is the mortal.

The player who is in the lead on the Gods track in the end wins the game.

Set-Up of the Game

• Place the firmament between the players within easy reach for everybody.
• Put both parts of the Gods track next to it.
• Place the well-shuffled 72 Dream cards as a face-down draw pile next to the firmament.
• Have the 4 image numbers accessible.
• Each player gets one of the 6 crescents of the moon in the player color he has chosen. He places it on space 0 of the Gods track.
• There are 18 stars. Each player gets one star of each kind (one each in transparent, gray, and black).
• Each player takes one of the star-shaped selection tokens in the player color he has chosen. Before the first game, put together the selection tokens as shown in the illustration (upper star, adhesive dot, connecting token, adhesive dot, bottom star, bottom round plate).
• Divide the 20 Gods markers into four face-down stacks. Each stack may contain only markers of the same number (one marker less than there are players). Mix one Mortal marker into each stack.
• Put excess Gods markers and selection tokens aside. You won't need them for this particular game.

Course of the Game

The game is played over several rounds. Each round consists of the following phases:

1. Lay out dreams
2. Determine the vision & the mortal
3. Place stars
4. Guess & resolve
5. Record points on the Gods track

Lay Out Dreams

Lay out 4 Dream cards face up arranged as a square. Make sure that the orientation of the four cards corresponds to the orientation of the firmament. Place one image number on a corner of each card. From now on, each Dream card has a number.

Determine the Vision & the Mortal

Mix the Gods markers. Close your eyes! Only one of you - determined beforehand - keeps them open. He now changes ("mixes") the positions of the 4 stacks of Gods markers. Then he closes his eyes. Now all the other players, with their eyes open, may change the positions of the 4 face-down stacks again in any way they want. Consider that you may not change the composition of the individual stacks.

From now on, nobody knows any longer what number is in what stack.

Deal out Gods markers. The player who had his eyes closed last now chooses one stack and mixes it. Then he deals one marker from this stack face down to each player (himself included).

Who is a God? Who is the mortal? Nobody knows what marker the other players got.

Now have a look at your own Gods marker. Don't let any other player know what you see on your marker.

• Gods see a number on their marker. This is the image number of the true vision.
• The mortal sees the symbol of the mortal on his marker. So he doesn't know the true vision.

Place Stars

• The player who dealt out the Gods markers begins. He places one star on the firmament. After that, his left neighbor has his turn. Players continue playing, in turn, until all players have placed their 3 stars.
• When you place a star, you may freely decide which of your 3 stars to place, and freely choose the place for it on the firmament.
• What has been placed remains there! You may not relocate any star on the firmament or remove it from there. Consequently, on your second turn you can only choose between the two stars that you have not placed yet. And on your third turn, you place your last star.
• Mark distinctive details! Place your star on the firmament in such a way that they can be considered points of the true vision image.

Now each of you has placed all three stars!

Example: Andrea first places her transparent star. Peter's first choice is his black star. George and Nina both decide to begin with their gray star.

Hints: Gods, mind where you look! Then the mortal cannot read from your eyes whether you are particularly intensely viewing an image. Feel free to talk and bluff! Nobody will believe you anyway. You don't have to comment on what you're doing - but you're allowed to. Anything somebody says can be true or made up.

Guess & Resolve

Now, all players secretly indicate their own guess on the uncovered prong of their own selection token:

• Each God guesses the player color of the mortal.
• The mortal guesses the image number of the true vision.

As soon as all players have indicated their guess, reveal your selection tokens simultaneously, and reveal your Gods markers. Now all can see which image is the true vision and which player is the mortal.

Record Points on the Gods Track

Now you are rewarded with Gods points for correct guesses and smart laying-out of the stars. Each player records his points by advancing his own crescent of the moon on the Gods track.

The mortal gets:

• 3 Gods points if nobody has guessed his color correctly. (He has remained undetected as the mortal!)
• 2 Gods points if he has guessed the image number of the true vision correctly. (He has deciphered the divine vision!)

Each God gets:

• 2 Gods points if he has guessed the color of the mortal correctly. (He has uncovered the mortal!)
• 1 Gods point if nobody has guessed his color. (He has acted in a divine manner so he was not suspected of being an ordinary mortal.)

To keep track, it is advisable to award the Gods points in turn, one after another, beginning with the mortal.

Example: The mortal (George) guessed image 2. Wrong! Image 3 is the true vision. But all the Gods are wrong, too: None of them has set his clue on BLUE (George). Only YELLOW (Peter) and GREEN (Andrea) were suspected of being the mortal. George earns 3 Gods points for this (nobody guessed his color), but doesn't get any Gods points for the image number, since he guessed the wrong one. Nobody gets points for guessing the mortal, since no one guessed George. Nina earns one point for this: nobody suspected her.

The Next Round

If nobody has reached 16 Gods points yet, play continues.

• Take your stars back.
• Put the 4 laid-out Dream cards aside.
• Put all dealt-out markers (Gods markers + Mortal marker) back into one face-down stack and mix it.
• The mixing and dealing of the stacks of Gods markers for the next game round is done by the player to the left of the one who did it last time.

Ending & Winning the Game

The game ends with the completion of the game round in which (at least) one player reaches 16 Gods points. The player who is in the lead on the Gods track is the (almost) immortal winner of the game. There can be several Go... ahem, winners.

Example: Peter, the mortal, has deciphered the true vision. For this, he earns 2 points and thus reaches space 16 of the Gods track. Nina has Peter uncovered as the mortal, which gives her 2 points. Consequently, Nina even scores 17 points and wins the game.

Epilog

Legend has it that the mortal placed the stars in the sky in a far more visionary and wiser way than many a God managed to do. And so, it remains a divine secret to the present day that it might actually have been a human who invented dreaming while reaching for the stars.