Motto
Motto Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Box Contents
- 54 playing cards
- 27 tokens in three sizes (9 large, 9 medium, 9 small)
- Instructions
Cards
The game cards have several important pieces of information.
I. Symbol: Each card's upper left corner has a life value symbol: love (a heart with an arrow), passion (a starburst), or money (a dollar sign).
II. Number of symbols: Another important piece of information is the number of symbols. A card may have 1, 2 or 3 of a given symbol.
III. Card's color: A card's color is also important. It represents the stage of life:
- youth (purple)
- adulthood (red)
- old age (blue)
Tokens
The game has 27 tokens. Each of the 9 types (3 symbols, 3 numbers, 3 colors) comes in 3 sizes (small, medium, large).
Game Goal
The goal of the game is to collect the most victory points. Points are earned by collecting tokens. Tokens are worth 3 points (large), 2 points (medium), or 1 point (small).
Game Preparation
Shuffle the deck and deal 2 cards to each player. A player's cards are private; only their owner sees them.
Then deal 4 cards face up onto the table; these form a pool of available cards which can be selected. The stack of remaining cards form the draw deck.
Sort the tokens by their values (symbols, numbers, colors) into 9 stacks. In each stack, the largest token is on top, then the medium in the middle, and the smallest is on the bottom.
Sequence of Play
Whoever has the longest life line on their right palm starts the game. Players take turns in clockwise order.
In a player's turn, the player may perform one of the following actions.
Draw a card: The player takes any of the 4 face up cards from the table, or takes the face down card from the top of the deck (without showing it to other players).
Note: There should always be exactly 4 face up cards available on the table. After a face up card is taken from the table, replace it with the top card from the deck. If during play the deck becomes empty, immediately reshuffle the discard pile to create a new deck.
Play cards: The player selects 3 of their own cards which have 1 or 2 common values (the same symbol, same number of symbols, same color) and places them face up on the table.
Then the player collects tokens corresponding to the matching values of the played cards. Always take the largest available token from a stack. Then the played cards are discarded to the discard pile.
Examples
Example 1: All 3 cards are red and they all have 2 symbols. The player takes the largest available red token and the largest available "2" token. The player does not take a token with a symbol, because the played cards do not all have the same symbol: one has the love symbol, and another has the passion symbol.
Example 2: All 3 cards have the money symbol. The player takes the largest available money token. The player does not take a color token, because the played cards do not all have the same color, nor a number token, because one card has 2 symbols but another card has 3 symbols.
End of the Game
The game ends when all the large and medium tokens have been taken by players. The player who took the last such token will not take another turn. Each other player takes one more turn, continuing in clockwise order.
Then all players count their victory points. A large token is worth 3 points, a medium token is 2 points, and a small token is 1 point. The winner is the player with the most points. In case of a tie, the tied players celebrate their joint victory.
Example 3: Adam has collected 4 large tokens, 4 mediums, and 1 small. He scores 21 points (3×4 + 2×4 + 1×1). Thomas has collected 2 large tokens, 3 mediums, and 2 smalls. She scores 14 points (3×2 + 2×3 + 1×2). Patrick has collected 3 large tokens, 2 mediums, and 4 smalls. He scores 17 points (3×3 + 2×2 + 1×4). Thus Adam wins with 21 points.