Fafnir
Fafnir Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 80 gems: 20 gold, and 12 each of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue
- 1 Fafnir board
- 4 Dividing Screens
- 1 Cloth Bag
- 45 Score Chips (supplied in three quantities: 10, 10, and 25)
- 1 Trash Board
- This rulebook
Setup
- Each player takes a Dividing Screen and sets it up in front of themselves.
- Place the Fafnir board in the middle, between the players.
- For the first round, choose the first Keeper however you like.
- Put all the gems into the bag and mix them well. Without looking inside, the Keeper draws 11 gems, and each of the other players draws 10 gems. Place your gems behind your Dividing Screen so the other players can't see them.
- Place the Trash Board in the center. Draw 3 gems from the bag and lay them out by color as shown on the board, matching each gem's color to the matching color on the Trash Board.
The Auction
Preparing the Auction
- Turn the Fafnir board to face the Keeper.
- Without looking, the Keeper draws 2 gems from the bag and places them on the Fafnir board. If both gems are the same color, draw and place 2 more. Keep doing this until there are 2 or more gems of different colors on the board.
- Place the 1-point Score Chip on the Fafnir board.
- The gems and the 1-point chip on the Fafnir board are the prize for this auction. To bid, put the gems you're willing to throw away into your hand and hold out your fist. You may hold as many gems as you like. Even if you don't want to throw away any gems, bluff anyway and hold out your hand regardless. You may not hold any gem of the same color as the gems on the Fafnir board. A player who holds the wrong-colored gem by mistake may be excluded from the auction, so pay attention.
Winning or Losing the Auction
- Once every player is holding out a hand, count to 3 and open your hands together. Whoever is holding the most gems wins the auction. If there's a tie for the most gems, the winner is whichever of the tied players is seated closest to the Keeper's right.
- The winner takes the gems and the 1-point chip from the Fafnir board, lines up the gems that were in their hand next to the Trash Board, then places the gems they won behind their own Dividing Screen. Every other player returns the gems from their hand back behind their own Dividing Screen.
- If nobody held out any gems, line up the gems from the Fafnir board next to the Trash Board and remove the 1-point chip. Return to "Preparing the Auction" and start a new auction.
- The winner of the auction becomes the next Keeper and continues with a new auction.
Auction Tips
- A color with more gems already in the Trash Board area has a better chance of ending up with a low value. Depending on what you choose to throw away, you can try to manipulate the value of the gems.
- The colors and quantities of gems the other players are holding can help you judge value.
- One strategy is to guess which color another player is trying to collect, and throw away a lot of that color at once to drive its value down.
- A gem color that looks low-value might still win an auction for a small amount. Trying to acquire that color so you can use it in a later auction is another kind of strategy. Try it well before the round is likely to end.
End of the Round
The round ends when the number of gems of a single color in the Trash Board reaches the amount required for the number of players in the game:
| Players | Gems of one color needed |
|---|---|
| 2 players | 6 gems |
| 3 players | 7 gems |
| 4 players | 8 gems |
If the bag runs out of gems, finish the current auction and the round ends there.
Scoring
Each player removes their Dividing Screen and reveals their gems to the other players. For each color, count up all the gems held (not counting any gems on the Trash Board) and rank the colors from most to fewest. If two or more colors are tied on quantity, rank them in this order, highest to lowest: red, orange, yellow, green, blue.
Once the colors are ranked, look up each rank's value:
| Rank | Value |
|---|---|
| Gold | +1 point each, no matter how many you have |
| 1st | +3 points each |
| 2nd | +2 points each |
| 3rd, 4th, and 5th | -1 point each |
Gain or return Score Chips to match the value and quantity of your gems. Keep your Score Chips where every player can see them.
For example: 6 Orange gems ranked 1st is worth +6 points, 3 Red gems ranked 3rd is worth -3 points, and 5 Gold gems is worth +5 points, for a total of 8 points.
If you hold 5 or more gems of a single color, you've overdone it: you don't gain any Score Chips for that color, though those gems still count when ranking colors. You still have to return chips for a negative score, however many gems you hold. Your score can never drop below 0.
End of the Game
The last player to win an auction this round becomes the Keeper for the next round. Return to Setup and begin the next round.
If, at the end of a round, any player has 40 points or more, the game ends immediately. Rank the players starting with whoever has the most points. In case of a tie, rank starting from whoever most recently won an auction and proceeding clockwise from there.