Hunting Party (2011)
Hunting Party (2011) Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object
Gain the most points from trophies and your secret goal at end of game.
Method of Play
Each player is a Hunter on safari in darkest Africa. Each round represents one day, during which Hunters choose their actions (Camp, Shoot, or Flee) and then attempt in turn to influence the party's Fate. After all Hunters have had a turn, the final Fate affects the party as a whole and each Hunter individually, and a new round begins.
The game ends when the Fate deck is exhausted or the turn after one of the Hunters dies.
Setup
Shuffle the Fate deck and set it aside. Randomly give each player one Hunter to play, face up. Note that the Hunters have different special abilities and hand limits.
Shuffle the Goal deck, then give each Hunter two cards face down. They may keep one after examining both, discarding face down to the bottom of the deck. Note that the Goal cards are always secret, seen only by their owner.
Shuffle the Action deck and deal a hand of five cards to each Hunter (regardless of hand limit).
Set the Action card deck in the middle of the table. Note that there is no Action discard pile or deck reshuffling -- immediately place discarded Action cards on the bottom of the deck.
Determine a First Hunter alphabetically by Hunter name. Give them the game box to mark this status, then Reveal Fate for the first round.
Action Hand
The number of Action cards in your hand represents your health. If you ever run out of Action cards, you die.
The three types of Action card are: Camp, Flee, and Shoot.
Camp Lets you draw two cards if you meet natives during personal Fate resolution.
Flee Avoids your personal fate. This card can also be played from your hand during personal fate resolution. (Particularly useful if you planned to Camp with the natives but a rhino charges you.)
Shoot Wins a trophy if you meet an animal, otherwise could anger the natives or just waste ammunition.
Sequence of Play
1. Reveal Fate Turn over one Fate card for each live Hunter, plus one extra.
2. Hunter Turns If you are the First Hunter:
- Draw an Action card.
- Play one Action card face down in front of you (this is your Action for the turn).
- Discard your choice of the faceup Fate cards.
Each Hunter takes their turn the same way, proceeding clockwise.
3. Resolve Fate After all Hunter turns are done, there should be one face-up Fate card left.
- Party Fate: Resolve the event described in the Fate card main text (either Ambush, Backtrack, Hunting Accident, Jungle Fever, Restlessness, Resupply, Scavengers, or Vine Bridge).
- Personal Fate: Each Fate card has 5 numbered icons, the first of which applies to the First Hunter, the second to the Hunter to their left, and so on clockwise all around.
Each icon's final effect depends on interaction with the Hunter's chosen Action card, as detailed in the next section. Hunters may use "Flee" Action cards at this time to avoid their personal fate.
4. End of Turn See "End of Turn" section below.
Personal Fate
Animal Attack If your action is Shoot you can add the Fate card to your trophy pile at the end of the round. If you Camp the animal mauls you -- discard 2 cards. If you Flee you escape harm but get no trophy. Only the first Hunter to Shoot in a round bags the trophy. There's only one animal per Fate card, so after a trophy has been bagged subsequent Hunters will not suffer mauling or gain trophies (though they must face other card effects).
Misfire Randomly select and discards one card from your hand.
Natives The natives offer you gifts. If your Action is Camp you draw 2 cards. If you Shoot then discard 2 cards. Fleeing results in no effect.
Opportunity Shot Choose a Fate card from the discard pile and add it to your trophy pile.
Pitfall Choose and discard a card, regardless of your Action.
Reload Draw a card, regardless of your Action.
Icons printed with the personal Fate effects, in their labelled form: Animal Attack • Trophy (shown as a box of animal silhouettes: lion, rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo, and a big cat), Misfire, Natives, Opportunity Fire, Pitfall, and Reload.
Death
If you run out of cards in your Action hand, you die, and the game will end after one more round. Your trophies will be brought back by the porters, so you might even posthumously win the game.
End of Turn
Each Hunter must discard down to their hand limit as necessary. If a Hunter died last round, the game is over.
If the Fate deck is exhausted, the game is over. (In a 4 or 5 player game, reshuffle it, so the game ends after it has been exhausted twice.)
If the game is not over, pass the First Hunter marker clockwise, then begin a new round.
Fate Cards
Source note: the Party Fate list in Resolve Fate names Restlessness, which has no entry in this Fate Cards section; Quicksand has an entry here but is not named in that list. Transcribed as printed.
Ambush On the next turn, players must play the card they draw as their action card. They can still play "Flee" cards from their hand later and/or use special abilities.
Backtrack Each player that shoots but doesn't hit a trophy gets to choose a fate card from the discard pile as a trophy if there is one available.
Hunting Accident All players who shoot but do not hit a trophy choose a Hunter to discard a card.
Jungle Fever Each player reveals a card. Players who match, discard them and repeat until they don't match each other.
Quicksand Each player chooses a card from their hand and discards it.
Resupply All players draw 2 cards.
Scavengers Turn a Fate card. Each player discards one trophy that matches the type if they have one.
Vine Bridge In order, each player names a card then reveals the top 2 cards of the deck taking of the named card into their hand if it appears. If neither is the named card, they discard 2 cards.
End Game Scoring
Each Hunter scores 1 point per card in their trophy pile plus any Goal points. Dead Hunters lose 3 points from embarrassment, but otherwise score normally.
Strategy Hints
Collect Trophies. That's the object of the game. Don't be afraid to make the wrong choice. Oftentimes, the player before you will assume you'll choose to ditch the Fate card they dislike because it hurts you. Sometimes, it is worth suffering a mild setback like discarding a card when you have plenty if it allows you to wreck the plans of somebody who probably assumed you'd protect yourself.
Designer's Notes
Hunting Party went through several iterations including directional shoot cards and reloads but players just weren't getting enough trophies so I ditched them. I also took out the Fate card that made everybody discard a trophy because it just made things suck more rather than making things cooler. This game languished on my back burner for a long time because I was worried it looked like I was ripping off my own "Lifeboat". I got over it. Hunting Party stands on its own.