Grand Tribunal
Grand Tribunal Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
Grand Tribunal is a board game for three to five players, inspired by the Ars Magica roleplaying game. It takes approximately 60 to 90 minutes to play, and is designed for players ages 12 and up. In addition to this rules sheet, it includes: 1 board, 2 decks of 55 cards each, 99 game pieces (24 Voting tokens, 60 Vis tokens, 1 Praeco pawn, 2 Tracker tokens, 4 blue 1st-place Award tokens, 4 red 2nd-place Award tokens, 4 yellow 3rd-place Award tokens), and 1 6-sided die. You'll also need paper and a pen or pencil for scoring.
Card Anatomy
The card diagram on the rules sheet labels the following parts of an Item card: Card Type, Card Title, Effect or Quote, Base Score, Advance or Install Cost, and Installed Spells Allowed.
Setup
Before playing, first follow these steps:
Distribute a Reference card to each player, and set any extras aside.
Place the board in the center of the table, within reach of all the players. Sort the cards into three decks — Items, Spells, and Resources — and place them next to the spaces indicated on the board. Discard piles will form during game play.
Deal one Item card and one Spell card face down to each player, and let the players look at their cards. Then, starting with the player to the dealer's left and moving clockwise, each player brings his starting hand to five cards by drawing three more cards from any combination of the three decks. In this way, each player begins with at least one Item and one Spell card, but may draw additional starting Items, Spells, and Resources as he wishes.
Turn over the top three Spell cards and place them in a line face up next to the Spells deck. Do the same with the top three Item cards.
Place the Voting tokens, Vis tokens, and Award tokens in piles near the spaces indicated for them, along with the die. Distribute 12 Vis tokens to each player. Then take the Tracker tokens and place one on each of the left-most spaces in the Vis Source Track on the board.
Find a sheet of paper and a pen or pencil that you can use to record scores at the end of each Tribunal.
Elect a starting player by any means acceptable to everyone. Place the Praeco pawn in front of him. Turns continue clockwise.
The Sanctum
The table in front of each player where you keep your cards is called your Sanctum. The Items there are your Laboratory, the Spells are your Library, and the Resources are your Vault. To one side are the Vis tokens that are your Vis stores and represent your wizard's arcane power, plus any Items that won awards at past Tribunals.
Any number of cards from your hand can be placed face down in your Sanctum on your turn; this does not take an action. Cards from your Sanctum cannot be put back into your hand, though. You can look at your own face-down cards any time.
You may have any number of Items or Spells in your Sanctum.
Game Play
Game play proceeds as follows:
Praeco
The player chosen as Praeco (pray-co) during setup begins the game. When a player is Praeco, he plays his normal turn as described below, but first takes three Voting tokens from the communal pile called the Concilium (con-sil-ee-um) and places them on any three Item or Spell spaces on the board's Voting Track, one token in each of three different spaces. His votes are generally for the Items and Spells the player hopes will be popular at the next Tribunal. Placing these Voting tokens does not count as an action.
Each round a different player becomes Praeco; when the player on the Praeco's right has finished his turn, the Praeco pawn is passed to the player on the Praeco's left, who begins the next round as the new Praeco.
There are a number of rounds equal to the number of players, so that each player is Praeco once. At the end of the last round, a Tribunal is held. There are three Tribunals in each game, the last of which is the Grand Tribunal where the game's winner is declared.
Turn Order
During his turn, a player does the following, in this order: take 2 different actions, discard, and pass the Praeco pawn if last.
Take 2 Actions
Perform any two different actions in any order. Some actions may require the expenditure of Vis tokens, while other actions will give a player more Vis. Any unused Vis tokens are always kept between rounds and Tribunals. Actions are described in more detail below.
Discard
Discard down to your maximum hand size if you're currently over it. Max hand size is five cards, unless modified by card.
Pass the Praeco Pawn
When the last player in the round finishes, pass the Praeco pawn to the player on the Praeco's left, who starts a new round as Praeco.
Actions
During the action phase of a player's turn, he may do any of the following: place a Voting token, draw an Item or Spell card, advance an Item or Spell, install a Spell on an active Item (free action), cast a Spell from an Item, draw a Resource card (double action), play a Resource card, extract Vis, or gather Vis (double action). These each use up one of a player's two actions, unless noted as a free action or a double action. A single type of action can be taken a maximum of once per turn, unless it's a free action.
Place a Voting Token
Place one additional Voting token from the communal Concilium pile on any one Voting Track space.
Draw an Item or Spell Card
Take one face-up Item or Spell card currently on the board and add it to your Sanctum, placing it there face up. Immediately replace the chosen card with the top card from the appropriate deck.
Instead of taking one of the face-up Item or Spell cards, you may take the top face-down card from the Items or Spells deck, look at it, and then add it to your Sanctum face down.
You may have any number of Items or Spells in your Sanctum.
Advance Items or Spells
A player can take Vis tokens from his Vis stores and distribute them between available Item and Spell cards in his Sanctum in one of these two ways: one Vis token can go on each of up to three cards, or up to two tokens can go on any one card.
A player uses Vis tokens in this way to advance Items and Spells. The term "advance" means the player's wizard is working on that Item or Spell over a number of seasons (signified by rounds), adding enchantments to it until it's complete. The black pips next to the word "Advance" on an Item or Spell card indicate the number of Vis tokens that must be transferred to that Item or Spell for it to become active (usable by the player for installing, casting, and scoring). Items have a variable advancement cost, but Spells always have an advancement cost of two, regardless of their effect.
You may move a card from being incomplete to being active any time after its advancement cost has been met, even if this is during a subsequent turn or Tribunal. It doesn't have to be at the moment that its advancement is complete. When a card becomes active, turn the card face up (if it isn't already) and return all its Vis tokens to the communal pile called the Regio (reh-gee-oh). Then move the card to a different area of your Sanctum so you and your opponents can tell the difference. Note that making a card active when its advancement is complete isn't an action in itself.
When a Spell is made active, it may be immediately installed (as a free action) on an already-active Item that can receive this category of Spell and has space for it (see below).
Install a Spell on an Active Item (free action)
As a free action, take an active Spell of the appropriate category from your Library and place it under an active Item in your Sanctum. The number and categories of Spells the Item can have installed on it are listed on the bottom of the Item card under "Installed Spells." Display each installed Spell so that only its type peeks out from under the top edge of the Item, not the name or the Spell's effects.
Spells can only be cast when they're installed on items. If no active Item is in the player's Laboratory to receive the Spell when it becomes active, the Spell remains face up in the active area of the player's Sanctum for later installation. Because it's a free action, a player can install as many Spells as he likes on his turn.
Cast a Spell from an Item
Remove a Spell from an Item in your Sanctum and immediately follow the effect given on it, discarding the Spell when finished. Spells in the discard pile are out of play until the next Tribunal, at the beginning of which they are reshuffled into the Spell deck.
Casting a Spell costs no additional Vis, but the player may choose to immediately pay 2 Vis tokens to prevent the Spell from being discarded. The Spell goes to its owner's Library instead, face up but inactive; the advance cost must be paid again to activate it.
Draw a Resource Card (double action)
Draw the top Resource card from the deck and, after looking at it, place it face down in your Sanctum. This uses two actions.
Play a Resource Card
Turn over one Resource card in your Sanctum and immediately follow the directions on the card. Note that "draw" always means to take a card from the indicated deck, unless it specifically says to choose a "face up" card from those next to the deck.
Extract Vis
Take Vis tokens from the communal Regio pile and add them to your Vis stores. In the rounds before the first two Tribunals, one Vis token is gained. In those preceding the Grand Tribunal, two Vis are earned. This is marked on the Vis Source Track for quick reference.
Gather Vis (double action)
If a player spends two actions, he may gather Vis tokens. The number of tokens earned by gathering Vis is governed by the Vis Source Track. On the Track, a player may choose either to gather Vis from an Uncontested Source or a Contested Source, with varying results.
If the player gathers from an Uncontested Source, he simply takes the amount of Vis specified by the space the Tracker token is currently on in the Uncontested Source Track, then moves the token one space to the right down the Uncontested Track. Each space shows two numbers, separated by a colon: the first number is the amount of Vis that the player collects, while the second number is the amount of Vis every other player collects. All of this Vis comes from the communal Regio pile.
If the player chooses to gather from a Contested Source, he takes the amount of Vis specified by the space the Tracker token is currently on in the Contested Source Track, then moves that token one space to the right along the Contested Track. In this case, the player must roll the die, rerolling a 1 or a 6; the number that comes up is the amount of Vis collected by that player from the communal Regio pile. After that player has rolled, each other player, in order, has the option of rolling a die to collect Vis from the Regio in the same way — but must pay two Vis to the initiating player for the privilege of doing so.
When a player gathers Vis from a Track whose Tracker token is on the last space in a particular Tribunal area, the Tracker token moves into the next Tribunal's area so that more Vis of that Source can't be collected until then. In this way, there's a limit to how many times players can gather Vis per Tribunal. It's also possible that a token won't advance all the way toward the dividing arrow before a given Tribunal is over; in this case, the Tracker token is moved forward to the first space in the next Tribunal area when the new Tribunal starts.
Ending a Tribunal
The final round of any Tribunal is the one begun by the last person to be Praeco. Once the last person in that round has finished his turn, a Tribunal is called to compare votes and score Items. If this is the third and final Tribunal, it's known as the Grand Tribunal and a winner is determined immediately after the scoring is completed.
Counting Votes
All active Items and the Spells installed on them earn votes.
An Item gets votes equal to the number of Voting tokens on its Item type in the Voting Track, plus those on each of the Spell categories that match a Spell installed in that Item, disregarding multiple installed Spells of a single category. So, if there are two Voting tokens on Elemental Spells, an Item that has three installed Elemental Spells receives two votes, not six. Items do not get credit for simply allowing a particular category of Spell; they must have at least one installed Spell of this category to gain these votes.
The Item with the most votes gets a blue 1st-place Award token, the Item with the second-most votes gets a red 2nd-place Award token, and the Item with the third-most votes gets a yellow 3rd-place Award token. All other items get "Honorable Mention;" they don't receive Award tokens, but they can be improved and entered again in subsequent Tribunals. Items that win have their Award token placed on top of them and are moved to the side of the Sanctum. A winning Item can still have Spells added to it, and a player can cast Spells from such an item, but it can't be entered again.
If two or more Items tie, then their base scores are compared. The Item with the highest base score wins, and the remaining Item(s) compete for the next-lowest Award token. If this method doesn't break a tie, then compare the number of installed Spells on each Item. If this second tiebreaker still doesn't work, then each player gets the same-place Award token; the next-lower place is not awarded for that Tribunal, in this case.
Scoring
After placement is determined, scores are totaled for each active Item, whether they won an award or not. (A player can't elect not to enter an active Item in a given Tribunal.) Record scores for each player.
1st Place
An Item that wins 1st place adds one point to its base score for every Spell installed on it, and then multiplies this number by 4.
2nd Place
An Item that wins 2nd place adds one point to its base score for every Spell installed on it, and then multiplies this number by 3.
3rd Place
An Item that wins 3rd place adds one point to its base score for every Spell installed on it, and then multiplies this number by 2.
Honorable Mention
An Item that does not place gets only its base score, plus one point for each installed Spell. Remember, though, that it may be entered again in later Tribunal competitions.
Beginning a New Tribunal
When all of the scores have been resolved and recorded, the Voting tokens from that round are cleared off the board and put back in the communal Concilium pile, and the cards in the discard piles are shuffled back into their appropriate decks.
Remember that any unused Vis tokens from the last Tribunal are kept for future use by their player, along with the cards in his hand and cards in his Sanctum.
The two Tracker tokens are moved forward on their respective Tracks to the first space in the next Tribunal area.
The player who owns the just-completed Tribunal's 1st-place Item begins the new Tribunal as the first Praeco, placing the Praeco pawn in front of him. Play then continues as normal.
The Grand Tribunal
The very last Tribunal of the game is known as the Grand Tribunal. Voting and scoring works like any other, except for one important difference: the winner of the game is determined immediately afterward. The player with the highest total points at the end of the Grand Tribunal is the winner, and he is invited to become an archmage!