Il Cognome della rosa Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Setup
• The Game
• How to Modify Phrases
  • Example
• Scoring
• End of the Game
• Card Notes

Contents

• A deck of 33 cards.
• 12 phrase cards (in two colours, 6 per colour).
• A pad of sheets (forms) for writing the phrases.

Setup

Shuffle the deck and deal 5 cards to each player.

Each player takes a sheet from the pad, takes two phrase cards of different colours, and gets a pencil.

The Game

Each player chooses one of the phrases listed on their phrase cards and writes it on their sheet in the space "original phrase" (frase originale).

They then begin to modify it, following the instructions on the cards they were dealt. Each transformed phrase is written onto the sheet as it is made, and the cards may be used in whatever order the player prefers.

When everyone has finished, the starting player is decided at random. That player reads aloud the last phrase of their sequence, stating which list it comes from.

The opponents try to guess the original phrase. If nobody manages it, the player reads their second-to-last phrase, and so on back up the sequence.

Note, however: each opponent has only two guesses, which they may make at any time.

How to Modify Phrases

Modifying a phrase is simple. After choosing one of the phrases listed on the phrase cards, the transformations shown on the cards are applied one after another. In this way the phrase undergoes a series of variations that make the original less and less recognisable.

Example

We start from the proverb La notte porta consiglio (Night brings counsel).

First we use the Famiglia card, which allows us to replace one word with another belonging to the same family. For example, the word notte (night) can become giorno (day):

• Il giorno porta consiglio (The day brings counsel).

Next we use the gioco di parole (wordplay) card and turn consiglio (counsel) into coniglio (rabbit):

• Il giorno porta coniglio (The day brings rabbit).

Now it is the turn of the rosa card, which gives:

• Il giorno rosa coniglio (The day pink rabbit).

Then the mescola (shuffle) card brings us to:

• Coniglio rosa il giorno (Rabbit pink the day).

Finally the indiano card translates into "Indian-western" language:

• Coniglio rosare giorno (Rabbit to-rosare day).

Could you now recognise the original proverb?

Scoring

Points are awarded as follows:

• If the original phrase is guessed after the first phrase is read: 5 points to the guesser.
• If it is guessed after the second phrase is read: 4 points to the guesser, and 1 point to the player who devised the phrase.
• If it is guessed after the third phrase is read: 3 points to the guesser, and 2 points to the player who devised the phrase.
• If it is guessed after the fourth phrase is read: 2 points to the guesser, and 3 points to the player who devised the phrase.
• If it is guessed after the fifth phrase is read: 1 point to the guesser, and 4 points to the player who devised the phrase.
• If nobody guesses: 5 points to the player who devised the phrase.

End of the Game

When all players have presented their "creation" to the others, the game ends. The player with the most points in total wins.

Card Notes

The card diagram on the rulebook shows four card types, and the example refers to four more.

• Famiglia (family): "Replace one or two words with others that belong to the same family." Example: Quando il gatto non c'è i topi ballano (When the cat is not there, the mice dance) becomes Quando il gatto non c'è i lupi ballano (When the cat is not there, the wolves dance).
• Vocabolario (vocabulary): "Replace one or two words with their definition." Example: Quando il gatto non c'è i topi ballano becomes, with ballano (dance) replaced by its definition, Quando il gatto non c'è i topi si muovono ritmicamente al tempo di musica (When the cat is not there, the mice move rhythmically to the beat of music). The second half of this example is partly obscured on the printed page; the wording shown here is the legible reading.
• Togli (remove): "Togli qualcosa da..." (Remove something from...). The rest of the card text is cut off on the printed page and cannot be read.
• Rima (rhyme): the card text is partly hidden by overlapping cards on the printed page. Only fragments are legible ("Sostituisci..." / "parol..." / "fac..."), so the full rule cannot be transcribed from the source.
• The gioco di parole (wordplay), rosa, mescola (shuffle) and indiano (Indian-western) cards are named only in the worked example. The printed rules do not describe them beyond the effect shown in that example.