Magic Money
Magic Money Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 21 Creature Cards
- 6 Player aids
- 6 Ledgers
- 6 Dry Erase Markers
- 6 Bidding Tokens
- 1 Rulebook
Set Up
-
Give each player the following items: ONE Ledger, ONE matching bidding token, and ONE matching dry erase marker.
-
Shuffle the Creature cards. Use the table below to determine the number of cards in the Creature deck, then set a number facedown to form the Creature deck.
| Players | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cards | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
The rest of the Creature cards can be returned to the box. They will not be used in this game.
- The youngest player will be the first Active player. (Or you can randomly pick one.)
Game Play
The game consists of a series of auctions. Each auction has three phases:
1. Begin the Auction
Flip over the top card of the Creature deck and place it faceup in the center of the table. This is the card that is being auctioned off in this round.
The active player begins the auction for that faceup card by writing their opening bid on the "Public" side of their ledger, so that all players can see what amount they have bid.
The opening bid must be, at its highest, one tenth of the previous auction's winning bid. This can be calculated by removing the last digit from the previous winning bid and using the resulting number. (You do not have to round up or down.)
If the winning bid was in the single digits, or if this is the first turn of the game, the maximum starting bid is 1.
Example: Jon won the last auction with a bid of 5,739. He becomes the new active player and must open the auction. The highest bid he can make is 573, since it is one decimal place beneath the winning bid of the last turn. He decides to open at 500, and writes this number on the Public side of his Ledger.
2. Bidding
All non-active players write their bids on their bidding token, keeping the number secret from the other players.
A non-active player can bid any whole, positive number, so the minimum bid is 1 and the maximum bid is as large as you can imagine! You can conjure as much gold as you need! The only thing that matters is how much you expect the other players to bid.
Once you have written your bid on your bidding token, pass it secretly to the active player.
3. Resolve the Auction
The active player looks secretly at the bidding tokens of all the other players and announces which player has bid the highest number, and thus won the auction.
The player who won reveals the amount they bid and writes the number on the Public side of their Ledger. This information will be public knowledge for the rest of the game.
In the case of a tie, the active player decides which tied player wins.
If all of the non-active players bid lower than the active player's public opening bid, the active player wins the auction.
All other players write the number they bid on the Private side of their ledger.
A player's Private ledger remains hidden for the duration of the game, but a player may view their own ledger at any time.
However, even if you lose the auction, the money you bet will still be spent! The number you wrote down on the Private side of your ledger will be included in your total at the end of the game.
The player who won the auction adopts the faceup Creature card in the center of the table and adds it to their play area. This card will score victory points for the player who owns it at the end of the game.
The creature you gained may have a special ability that is triggered when it is adopted. If it does, resolve the ability before the next round starts.
The player who won the auction becomes the new active player and another auction begins. If there are no more cards in the Creature deck, proceed to "End of Game."
End of Game
Once the Creature deck has been emptied and all creatures have been adopted, the game ends. All players score the victory points listed on the creatures in their play area in addition to the bonus points from the attributes on their creatures.
Attributes
There are four attributes a Creature card can have: horns, wings, left heart, and right heart. A single Creature can have multiple of the same attribute, each instance of which is counted separately.
- Horns: If you end the game with an odd number of horns amongst all the creatures in your play area, score 1 victory point for each horn you have. If you end the game with an even number of horns, all the horns on all of the creatures in your play area score 0 victory points.
- Wings: Add up the number of wings amongst all the creatures in your play area. Score 1 victory point for each player with a lower total number of wings than you have. Players who have gathered the same number of wings as you are worth 0 victory points.
- Left and Right Hearts: Score 2 victory points for every full heart amongst the creatures in your play area. A full heart consists of one left heart and one right heart, split in any way amongst your Creature cards. Any leftover left or right hearts without a pair score 0 victory points.
Greediest Wizard
Finally, all players total up the money they spent over the course of the game by adding together all of the numbers written on both the Public and Private sides of their ledger. Any number that was crossed out by a special ability is not added to this total. The player who has the highest total is the Greediest Wizard, and is eliminated from the game.
Of the players remaining after the Greediest Wizard has been eliminated, the one with the highest number of victory points wins the game. In the case of a tie, the player with the higher ledger total is the winner!