La Petite Mort
La Petite Mort Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Main goal
Your goal is to be the first player to obtain your Reaping Diploma by achieving 4 of the objectives shown on the game Diploma.
During the game, each player will have characters in their playing area who will be born, grow, age, enrich their personalities or acquire skills that will bring them strengths and weaknesses throughout their lives.
IMPORTANT: Each player's graveyard must remain organized so that all information is visible to other players. The ideal way is to place the cards in a column, one on top of the other and by shifting them so that the different symbols remain visible.
Game ending
Once a player has placed his 4th "Little Death" pawn on the Diploma, the game ends immediately at the end of the round. Less frequently, the game may also end if a player can no longer draw, due to a lack of cards in one of the three decks.
It is possible that several players may place their 4th "Little Death" pawns during the same game round. In this case, the player with the most soul points in their graveyard wins the game.
In case of a tie, the one with the most characters in their graveyard wins. If the tie persists, the youngest finalist becomes the new Grim Reaper.
And if you were born on the same day at the same time... go play the lottery!
Game rounds
A game round is composed of 4 phases. During each phase, the players will play simultaneously:
- Phase 1: Life events
- Phase 2: Reaping
- Phase 3: The deathbed
- Phase 4: Life goes on
Cards
Overview of the different types of cards.
Character Cards
A Character card shows its Soul Point(s) value at the top right and, at the bottom, its Weakness(es) or Strength(s).
Personality Cards
A Personality card shows its Soul Point(s) value at the top right, a Quote, and its Weakness(es) and/or Strength(s) at the bottom. Special Icons at the top left may appear: the Darwin Award and the Job.
Reap Cards
A Reap card shows the Prerequisites for reaping at its top left, and a Reaping figure (there are 4 kinds of them).
Game setup
Choose one of the 9 available scenarios (for your first game, we strongly advise you to start with the "April Harvest" Diploma to discover the game). Place the Diploma at the center of the table. Shuffle separately the 3 decks of "Personality", "Character" and "Reap" cards and place them at the center of the table.
Each player draws 3 "Character" cards and places them in front of them in a column. To make up their hand, each player draws 3 "Personality" cards and 2 "Reap" cards. Finally, each player takes 5 "Little Dead" pawns of a same color.
Example of a 3-player game setup
Legend of the setup illustration:
- 3x Character cards
- "Little Death" pawns
- Graveyard
- Player's hand
- Reap by the Red player
(The illustration shows the Black player's playing area.)
Phase 1 - Life events
Starting a round, each player has 3 "Personality" cards in their hand.
During this phase, each player will keep one of these cards and give one to each of their neighbors (in a 2-player game, you must give two cards to your opponent).
Then, with 3 "Personality" cards in hand again, every player must play two of them, "attaching" them to their characters (those in their own playing area) as they wish. It will therefore be possible to place both cards on the same character or to distribute them.
You are not allowed to attach more than 3 cards to a single character.
Each "attached" card makes a character age. Consider that a character without any attached card has just been born. Then they will enter their first, second and third ages, depending on how many cards are attached to them.
The different Weakness symbols
- Cardiac (heart)
- Stroke (brain)
- Accident
- Lung Disease (lungs)
- Suicide (noose)
- Cancer (crab)
- Darwin Award
Case study!
Symbols shown on a card define the character condition.
For example, each of the 3 cards composing the character is worth soul points (at the top right of the cards), which gives us here 4 points!
(Note: the character in this example has a definite risk of ending his life by committing suicide: the character card has a Suicide Weakness symbol.)
Green symbols are strengths. Here, the character is protected from one "Accident" weakness because he has a green Accident symbol.
In the example above, Kurt will have been a passionate geek in his life and has been a civil servant.
He is in his second age because he has two cards attached. If a third card is attached, Kurt will enter the third age.... Close to his deathbed if he lives that far.
On the other hand, with 2 Cardiac symbols, it seems he have a fragile heart. More, he risks dying from a Stroke symbol and his job being absolutely morose, he accumulates suicidal (Suicide symbol) desires.
The Darwin Award symbol at the top left of the first attached card is a "Darwin Award", which means that this character could also foolishly die in a silly way because of that weakness.
One could think that, so passionate about his work, he doesn't have enough time to go to a drugstore to buy his treatment for his Cardiac symbol, which in the long run would be fatal...
IMPORTANT: a green symbol cancels out a red symbol of the same type. E.g., a character who would have a red Accident symbol and a green Accident symbol would therefore have no accident weakness, the two cancelling each other out.
Phase 2 - Reaping
With their "Reap" cards in hand, players may now try to reap opponent characters. To do so, each Reap card also shows symbols at its top left of the card. (See Cards.) These are requirements (prerequisites) to meet to reap a character. These conditions must be present on the targeted character's cards. It is possible to reap several characters in the same round with several Reap cards.
If one of your Reap cards allows you to reap one or more opponent characters, then place the Reap card face up next to the targeted character with one of your "Little Death" pawns on it to identify yourself as the reaper. (See the setup illustration, item 5.)
Let's go back to the Kurt example, our first Reap card cannot be used because if Kurt has a Darwin Award symbol, there is still a Cancer symbol missing. But, the second Reap card meets all the prerequisites. In addition to the Darwin Award symbol, there is a Stroke symbol on the "Geek" Personality card... ...it's going to be fatal.
"Death Powa" tokens
What if I can't or don't want to reap?
If a player cannot or does not want to reap during a round, they can freely choose one of the "Death Powa" tokens, initially placed near the game current Diploma, which they can use from the next round.
This token represents a weakness that may be placed on a character to make them easier to reap during the reaping phase. It is possible to keep several "Death Powa" tokens and even to place several on a same character.
Once used, put "Death Powa" tokens back at the center of the table to be used again.
Note: With a "Death Powa" token placed on a character, you still have to take into account their Strength symbols. Furthermore, this "Death Powa" token might be used by all!
Sharing cards
When reaping a character, the Reap card used is discarded after having checked the prerequisites.
Then the reaper takes back their "Little Death" pawn, the Character card and all their attached cards, in order to share them with the owner of the reaped character.
Sharing rules
The reaper keeps half of the cards rounded up and gives the other half to the player who lost their character.
The reaper decides which cards they keep. The shared cards are placed in each player's respective graveyards.
Collaborative reaping
If several players reap a same character, reapers will share the "loot" equally.
If there are just as many cards to share as there are reapers, the reaped player takes the cards to share, secretly shuffles them under the table and then, randomly deals them among the reapers. In this case, the owner of the reaped character does not win any cards.
If there is one card left to share, the player who lost their character keeps the last remaining card.
If there are not enough cards to be distributed, the loot is completed with Reap cards that have been used in order to have a number of cards that can be fairly shared between each reaper.
Too bad for those who will get some of those because, unless otherwise stated on a Diploma, they are worthless. All you'll have to do is discard them!
Phase 3 - The Deathbed
Do you still have characters in your playing area with 3 attached cards?
They have been living well and have earned an eternal rest in peace. You can now gently guide them to the afterlife...
Collect all the cards from this character and place them cautiously in your graveyard. No sharing!
Phase 4 - Life goes on
Each player has to make sure that they have 3 characters in their playing area. If not, complete the playing area(s) so that every player has 3 characters at the beginning of the next round.
Then, each player draws 2 new Personality cards and completes their hand if they used Reap card(s).