For the Queen
For the Queen Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- Instruction Cards — deliver the game's rules and setting information, read aloud card by card
- 1 X-Card — a content-calibration tool
- 14 Queen Cards — illustrations players can use to inspire their story
- 46 Prompt Cards — short questions answered by players on their turn
- 1 End Card — the final prompt card; once drawn, it is answered by all players in turn, and then play ends
Number of players: 2–6 Age: 13+ Length: 30–120 minutes Format: Tarot-sized card deck (82 cards total)
The Characters and Their World
For the Queen stars characters who are on a journey with their beloved, and often terrible, Queen. They may or may not know why they were chosen or what will happen to them along the way. No one plays the Queen; players come to know her only through the eyes of the player characters, who love and serve her. Aside from those specifications, everything that happens to and exists around the characters is determined through play. The retinue can be in a realistic, speculative, historical, or fantastic setting.
For the Queen is inspired by early digital RPGs like Final Fantasy, and elegant story games like Aleksandra Sontowska's The Beast.
Authority
Every player shares equitable responsibility for following the rules and developing the story. There is no Game Master or Facilitator. Players take turns drawing and reading cards in clockwise order, starting with the first Instruction card, and answering Prompt cards until the End card is reached.
Instruction Cards
At the start of the game, the numbered Instruction Cards are read aloud one after another, in order, before any Prompt Card is drawn. This is the exact sequence of card text, translated from the licensed French edition (Pour la Reine, Bragelonne Games):
1. We play in turn order, clockwise. On your turn, draw a card and read it aloud.
2. The kingdom we live in has always been at war, a war that began well before we were born.
3. Our Queen has decided to undertake a long and perilous journey to negotiate an alliance with a distant power.
4. She chose us, and no one else, to escort her on this dangerous journey.
5. She chose us because she knows that we love her.
6. We turn over the Queen cards and choose the one whose illustration inspires us most. Once we've made our choice, we place our Queen's card on the table so that it permeates our story.
7. Before starting the game, we set the Question card that reads "The Queen is under attack! Do you defend her?" to one side.
8. We then shuffle the Question cards, and place them in a face-down pile at the center of the table.
9. We place the Question card "The Queen is under attack! Do you defend her?" in the middle of the deck for a thirty-minute game, or at the end for a game of an hour or more.
10. Once all the Instruction cards have been read, we continue taking turns with the Question cards. On your turn, read the card you drew aloud and answer the question it asks. Interpret and answer the question however you see fit.
11. Other players may ask you questions or make suggestions during your turn. You decide whether to respond to them and take their suggestions into account, or not.
12. We place the X-Card where everyone can easily reach it. If there is a card, or an answer, that you do not want included in the story, touch the X-Card. That content is then removed from the game.
13. If the Question card you just drew is removed from the game this way, draw a new one. You may use the X-Card on your own cards.
14. On your turn, you may pass. Give your card to the next player and say, "I would like to hear your answer to this question."
15. A Question card can thus be passed from player to player until a player answers it, or it is removed by the X-Card.
16. We continue playing this way until the Question card "The Queen is under attack! Do you defend her?" is drawn. Each player then answers the question in turn. Then the game ends.
17. The player who wishes may draw the first Question card from the pile.
Content Calibration
When a player draws a Question card, they have three options:
- Read it aloud, and answer it from their character's viewpoint
- Pass it to the next player in turn order, saying, "I'd like to hear your answer to this question."
- Tap the X-Card or otherwise indicate the card is being X-Carded, and draw another one to replace it
A player who answers a question card may do so as simply or as elaborately as they wish. Other players may make suggestions or ask follow-up questions, and the one who drew the card can accept those suggestions or answer those questions to whatever extent they prefer.
A player who receives a passed card may answer it, X-Card it, or pass it the same way the original player did. The original player's turn is now over, and the player who received the passed card's turn will be over when they pass or answer it.
X-Carding a card does not end a player's turn; they draw the next card and continue. Players can also X-Card prompts that are drawn by other players, or any other content that arises during the game. The X-Card removes content from the game, and does not need to be explained or justified by the one who used it.
The X-Card was originally developed by John Stavropoulos and is adapted for use in this game. To learn more about The X-Card, visit http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg
Queen Cards
For the Queen includes illustrated cards which feature a diverse set of Queens that players can use to inspire their own stories. Players can also opt out of selecting an illustration, and allow their Queen's appearance to unfold in their minds, or draw on other materials instead.
Pace of Play
A session of For the Queen lasts approximately thirty minutes to two hours, but sessions have been known to go longer. Pacing depends on three variables:
- Where players shuffle the ending question card into the deck — they can choose to place it roughly in the middle, or shuffle it into the bottom half
- How elaborate players make their question card answers
- How many follow-up questions players ask each other
What Matters
For the Queen is about relationships. Focus on the player characters' subjective impressions of the Queen, their history with her, and how that impacts their relationships with others.
To enjoy this game, listen to each other. Knowing that the world is being built around you as you go, be attentive to what your fellow players are saying, and incorporate it into your own answers.
Question Cards
The deck's 46 Prompt/Question cards are short, first-person questions ("Why are you the Queen's favourite?", "Who did you love that the Queen was responsible for killing?") that the retinue answers in character, building the world, the Queen, and each character's relationship to her turn by turn. They are the bulk of the deck and, along with the Queen illustrations, the game's core content — but their full text has never been published in digital form by Evil Hat, by any of the game's licensed foreign-language publishers (Bragelonne Games, The Hills Press, System Matters Verlag), or by any retailer, forum, or mirror this transcription could locate, despite an extensive search (BGG's file and image galleries, the official SRD, the French edition's official rules PDF and product pages, 1jour-1jeu/cdn.1j1ju.com, Tesera, Tabletopia, Steam Workshop for Tabletop Simulator, desktopgames.com.ua, DriveThruRPG, and the Wayback Machine for all of the above). The publisher's own SRD license explicitly withholds "the specific prompts" from what it releases, and a retailer selling the second edition notes plainly that "as a primarily physical product, there is no PDF of For the Queen." This appears to be content the publisher has deliberately kept off any digital channel, rather than a file that simply hasn't surfaced yet.
The one Question card whose text is confirmed by official photography (the printed French and German editions) is the End Card:
"The Queen is under attack! Do you defend her?"
A small number of other Prompt Cards have been quoted, with attribution, in published third-party reviews of the physical game. They are reproduced here individually, verbatim, as documented examples — this is not a complete or representative list of the 46-card deck, only what could be verified:
- "The Queen trusts you, but no one else in the royal court does. Why?"
- "The Queen gave you a compliment, once. What was it, and why have her words stayed with you?"
- "Why are you the Queen's favourite?"
- "Why does the Queen light a fire in you?"
- "What is the Queen's status, and how does she remind you of this?"
- "What do you do which pleases the Queen?"
- "Who did you love that the Queen was responsible for killing?"
(Source: Who Dares Rolls, "For the Queen," whodaresrolls.com/rpgs/for-the-queen/)
Licensing Note
For the Queen™ is a trademark of Alex Roberts. Portions of this transcription (the flowing rules prose in the sections above) are based on the official For the Queen System Reference Document (forthequeengame.com), a product of Alex Roberts, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).