Groo: The Game
Groo: The Game Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Objective
The game ends when at least one player has 7 or more victory points worth of buildings at the end of any turn. The winner is the one with the most VP. In case of ties, the winner is the one whose Army has the most Attack Points of strength. If there is still a tie, the player who is farthest from Groo is the winner. If the players are still tied . . . the game is a tie!
Setup
Choose a dealer and put Groo in front of them to show he is in that town.
Each player gets a hand of five cards. If any purple (Event) cards are found in this initial hand, return them to the draw deck, draw replacements, and then reshuffle the deck.
Tabletop View
Each player has an area for their army and their town. The draw and discard piles are in the middle. The Groo card moves between the towns. Leave room to roll the dice!
The tabletop layout (shown for a 4-player game) has the Draw Pile and Discard Pile in the center, with the Groo Card also in the middle to track which town he is visiting. Each player has a Town area and an Army area arranged around the center.
Components
- 116 cards. One is Groo, who moves around the table wreaking havoc, one is the reference card for Phases, and the others form the deck.
- Seven dice. The white ones produce the raw materials for troops and buildings. The black one is to move Groo around.
Cards
There are six types of cards, distinguished by color.
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Building Cards (yellow)
These are the cards that help you win. Each represents a building and gives its victory point value and its special effects. Some special effects are powered by discarding the building after it is built. You cannot power a special effect by discarding from your hand.
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Troop Cards (green)
Your town's Army includes all your Troop cards. Troop cards have Attack and Defense strengths, and are the only way to directly destroy enemy buildings. Some Troops special effects are powered by discarding the Troop after it is raised. You cannot power a special effect by discarding from your hand.
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Groo Effect Cards (red)
These represent Groo's actions as he wanders peacefully from town to town. They affect only the town where Groo is currently staying.
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Wild Cards (rainbow)
Read the card to see when it can be played. If nothing is specified, the card may be played at any time, even during someone else's turn!
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Event Cards (purple)
An Event card must be played as soon as you draw it! Event cards affect all players at the table.
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Groo Card (blue)
Used to track Groo as he moves around the table. There is only one Groo, for which we thank the gods daily.
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Phases card (black border)
Shows the turn phases. This card always passes to the player whose turn it is.
Card Anatomy
- Name: The name of the card. (Groo likes simple games.)
- Card Type: The card types are described above.
- Victory Points: A 1 or 2 in a circle, found only on Building cards.
- Attack and Defense: Numbers in a skull (attack) and a shield (defense). Found only on Troop cards. Some Troop cards have values of 0; they do not fight, but help in other ways.
- Dice Needed: The icons show what is needed to pay for a Troop or Building: Kopins, Supplies, and/or Labor.
- Illustration: By the one and only Sergio Aragonés!
- Text: Some cards give exceptions to the rules. If the cards disagree with the rules, follow the cards!
The Dice
There are seven dice: six white Raw Materials dice, and one black Groo Movement die.
Raw Materials Dice
Four symbols appear on the Raw Materials Dice:
- Kopins – gold to pay for Buildings and Troops.
- Supplies – to help build Buildings and Troops.
- Labor – to build Buildings and to become Troops.
- Groo Head – to power Groo's well-intentioned trail of destruction.
Groo Movement Die
The black die shows how Groo moves next. All directions are figured from his present position.
- Stays where he is.
- Moves one town to the left.
- Moves two towns to the left.
- Moves one town to the right.
- Moves two towns to the right.
Sequence of Play
Each player follows a specific sequence of steps during their turn. Then it is the next player's turn. This continues until one player has 7 VP at the end of any turn, and wins.
It is very important to follow the sequence of play! If you forget to do something, you cannot go back and do it after you have started a later phase.
Order of Phases
- Discard Phase (optional)
- Draw Phase
- Attack Phase (optional)
- Construction Phase
- Leftover Phase
- Second Draw Phase
1. Discard Phase (optional)
You may discard any or all of the cards in your hand. You don't have to discard any if you don't want to!
2. Draw Phase
Draw enough cards to fill your hand to 5. Look at each card as it is drawn, before drawing the next card. If you draw an Event (purple), then play it immediately, discard it, and continue drawing to 5.
3. Attack Phase (optional)
You may attack one enemy town with part or all of your Army.
4. Construction Phase
(a) Pick up all 7 dice and roll them.
(b) Immediately move Groo if you get a "Move" result on the Groo Movement die.
(c) You may use any Groo Heads rolled to play Groo Effect cards from your hand to affect the player who is currently hosting Groo.
(d) You may now play Building and Troop cards from your hand to the table by spending the symbols on the Raw Materials dice (see Using a Dice Roll box for example). As you use each die, set it to the side. Use as many as you can, because your opponents will get the ones you don't use!
5. Leftover Phase
All dice results that you did NOT use, including Groo Heads, are passed to the player to your left. That player may use as many as possible to buy cards from their own hand and put them into play. Any remaining dice are passed to the left again, and so on, until each players has had a chance or the dice are all used up.
6. Second Draw Phase
If you have fewer than 5 cards in your hand, draw up to 5 again.
Again, if you draw an Event (purple), play it immediately, discard it, and continue drawing to 5.
It is now the next player's turn. Play moves to the left.
Using a Dice Roll
There are four players in the game. It's Sergio's turn, and Groo is at his town.
After the first phases, he rolls the dice! He rolls Rufferto on the Movement die, so Groo stays at his town.
On the other dice, he rolled 1 Groo, 1 Supply, 2 Labor, and 2 Kopins. He immediately uses the Groo result to play "The Wanderer," sending Groo to visit Cherie. Sadly, he does not have the resources to get Groo to do anything awful there.
Sergio uses the single Labor die to build a Residence. To his dismay, he cannot do anything else, and passes 2 Supply and 2 precious Kopins to Mark.
Mark uses 1 Kopin and 1 Supply to bring Chakall out, and passes the remainder to Cherie.
Cherie has the Blacksmith card, which requires only a single Kopin. She plays it, and passes the one remaining die, a Supply, to Ken.
Ken has no cards that require only a single Supply, so he can do nothing.
The dice have now been completely around the table, so the Leftover phase is over.
The Art of War
If you need to take a rival town down a notch or two, you may declare war during your Attack Phase. Pick some or all of your Troop cards to send to the attack.
The defender may pick some of their Troop cards to defend. If the attacking strength is greater than the defending strength, that's how many VP worth of Building cards are lost. Use the printed value on each Building, ignoring any bonus VP another card might give it.
The defender chooses which buildings are lost. You can't destroy half a building in this game, so – for instance – if 3 points of damage gets through but all the defender's buildings are 2-pointers, only a single building is lost.
If the defending strength is equal to or greater than the attack strength, no buildings are lost.
Note that some buildings give bonuses to combat values!
After that, all Troops committed by both sides are discarded!
This means that each Troop card you buy will be used in only one battle. It also means that you may choose not to commit some cards, like the Sage, to battle. Their special powers are worth more than their combat value!
Note that neither the attacker nor the defender must commit their whole army to combat!
Examples
Sergio sends troops with an Attack Value of 9 against Cherie's town. Cherie defends with her whole army, with a Defense Value of 6. Cherie must choose 3 VP of buildings to discard.
Sergio sends troops with an Attack value of 4 against Mark's town. Mark puts up troops with a Defense Value of 4. He loses no buildings.
Sergio sends troops with an Attack Value of 7 against Bill's town. Bill looks at his pathetic little town, with only two buildings, and decides not to defend at all! Therefore, he loses no Troops, while Sergio must discard everything he sent.
Bits and Pieces
End of the Deck
When you run out of cards to draw, reshuffle the discard pile and resume play. But if you run out of cards again, reshuffle once more, but the game is about to end. The current player completes their turn, each other player takes one turn, and then the winner is the player with the most VPs.
Order of Card Effects
Unless a card states otherwise, Wild and Effect cards take effect in the order they are played.
When a card gets bonuses, multiplication takes place before addition. So, for instance, a Cavalry card (attack strength 2) would be doubled to 4 if you use The Minstrel on it, and then increased to 5 if you use the power of a Military Stable.
Two-Player Game
You can have fun with only two players by making these changes:
- When the Movement Die shows that Groo moves, he always moves to the other town.
- Play to 10 VP worth of buildings!
Three-Player Game
With three players, make these changes:
- When the Movement Die shows that Groo moves by two towns, he moves only one.
- Play to 8 VP worth of buildings.
Credits
Artwork and Vision: Sergio Aragonés
Rules: Ken Whitman • Coloring: Tom Luth
Editing: Lester Smith • Cheese Dip: Margaret Weis • Design Contributions: Jeff Grubbs, Rob Holly, Don Perrin, Lester Smith
President/Editor-in-Chief: Steve Jackson • Chief Executive Officer: Philip Reed • Chief Operating Officer: Susan Bueno
Chief Creative Officer: Sam Mitschke • Production Manager: Sabrina Gonzalez • Production Artist: Alex Fernandez • Prepress Checker: Susan Bueno
Project Manager: Darryll Silva • Operations Manager: Randy Scheunemann • Director of Licensing: Alain H. Dawson • Director of Sales: Ross Jepson
Playtesters: Cindy Breid, Jim Dumann, Brad Eames, Larry Elmore, Craig Johnson, Tony Lee, Kevin Lenss, Kurt Lenss, Ashe Marler, Danny Matheson, Matt Mesick, Keith Parkinson, Jennie Pennock, Greg Siehr, Shawn Spingler, Burl Zorn, and many others.
Special Thanks: Cherie Whitman
Second Edition Development: Steve Jackson • Second Edition Sage: Steffan O'Sullivan
Second Edition Playtesters: Susan Bueno, Eric Dow, Devin Lewis, Rachel Merrill, Phil Reed, Gabby Ruenes, Randy Scheunemann, and Hunter Shelburne
Groo is a trademark of Sergio Aragonés and is used under license. Groo characters are copyright © Sergio Aragonés. Groo: The Game is copyright © 2022 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved. Rules version 2.0 (October 2022). This transcription is sourced from the official rules PDF published by Steve Jackson Games at sjgames.com/groo, the current publisher of Groo: The Game (originally published by Archangel Studios in 1997).