Odéon Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal of the Game
• Game Components
• Game Setup
• How to Play
  • 1. Composition
    • The Solfège Tokens
  • 2. Resolution of the Actions
    • Music Notebook Actions
    • Actions from the Conservatory
    • Entering a Competition
  • 3. Opening to the Audience
  • 4. Preparation of the Next Round
• End of the Game

Goal of the Game

You have 5 rounds to train your musicians, improve their music repertoire, make them compete to earn the best places in the orchestra, and, in the end, attract the biggest audience.

If you have the most applause, you will win the game.

Game Components

• 2 double-sided boards:
  • 1 Concert Hall board
  • 1 Conservatory board
• 98 cards:
  • 82 Piece cards divided into 5 periods
  • 12 Music notebook cards
  • 4 Game aid cards
• 54 tokens:
  • 15 Seat tokens
  • 24 Solfège tokens (6/player) of 3 types: 12 quarter note, 4 half note, 8 double quarter rests
  • 8 Trend tokens
  • 6 Soloist tokens
  • 1 First player token
• 65 meeples:
  • 60 Spectator/Musician meeples (15/player)
  • 4 Metronome meeples (1/player)
  • 1 Conductor meeple
• 4 music stands (1/player)
• 1 score pad

Game Setup

1. Put together the Conservatory and Concert Hall boards in the center of the game area. For the Concert Hall board, choose the side according to the number of players (2 or 3/4 players). The Conservatory board is placed on any side chosen randomly.
2. Place the Conductor meeple on the step I of the stairs of the concert hall; this will indicate the current round.
3. Shuffle the Trend tokens and place 2 of them, randomly, in each of the 4 side areas of the concert hall. If, at the end of this step, one period appears twice in an area, discard one of the tokens. In that case, there will be only one trend for this area.
4. Shuffle the 2 Piece decks of cards with distinct backs and place them on each side of the concert hall. Reveal the first 4 Piece cards from each deck, face up.
5. Place the Seat tokens next to the game board.
6. Place the Soloist tokens above the conservatory according to the number of players:
   • In a 2-player game: 25, 21, 15
   • In a 3-player game: 25, 21, 19, 15
   • In a 4-player game: 25, 21, 19, 17, 15, 15
7. Each player chooses a color and receives:
   • 3 Music notebook cards
   • 1 music stand, above which the Music notebook cards will be placed after they have been shuffled
   • 15 Spectator/Musician meeples of their color
   • 6 Solfège tokens: 1 half note, 2 double quarter rests, 3 quarter notes
   • 1 One-beat Piece card dealt at random
   • 1 Metronome meeple
8. The player who applauds the loudest receives the First Player token.

Card and board anatomy is described on the annex sheet.

How to Play

The game is played in 5 rounds, each divided into 4 phases:

1. Composition
2. Resolution of the actions
3. Opening to the audience
4. Next round preparation

1. Composition

At the same time, all players compose a 6-beat bar on their Music notebook card.

• A composition consists of placing Solfège tokens so the arrow designates the chosen action on the Music notebook card.
• It is not mandatory to place all the Solfège tokens, but players have to place a minimum of 3 tokens.
• The Solfège token must remain within the Music notebook card, meaning the dark area for placing the tokens.
• Each token designates a specific action of the notebook. Actions will be resolved from left to right.

The Solfège Tokens

The Solfège tokens are double-sided and can be placed on either side as they designate different actions. A Solfège token must always be entirely on the Music notebook card or on top of 2 other Solfège tokens.

There are 3 different types:

Quarter note — Allows doing the designated action ONCE (except for the "Learn" action).

Half note — Allows doing the designated action TWICE (except for the "Learn" action).

Double soupir (double quarter rest) — Does not allow any action but helps players create new combinations.

The rests — When two rests, with the 2 dark areas, are next to each other, they can be covered by another Solfège token to increase the number of actions. Here, the stacking of the 3rd Solfège token allows designating action 2 to do it during the action resolution phase.

2. Resolution of the Actions

Actions are resolved following the beat order on the Music notebook cards, from 1 to 6, starting with the first player:

• All involved players, meaning those with at least one arrow facing the first beat, will do a first action, one after the other, clockwise.
• Proceed the same way for the next actions until the 6th action.
• Players use their Metronome meeple to follow the order of the actions. For this, it has to be placed underneath the music stand to point at the action currently being resolved.

Example: Camille is the first player. She plays the 1st action once, as she has used a Quarter note Solfège token to choose it, and then she will do the 2nd action once and the 5th action twice.

REMINDER: Except for the "Learn" action, actions designated with a quarter note Solfège token are done once, and actions designated by a half note Solfège token are done twice immediately.

Music Notebook Actions

LEARN: Take a Piece card and place it to the left of your music stand, in the unplayed Piece area. You can choose the first card from the deck OR a face-up one; in this case, reveal immediately the first card from the deck. If you play a Half note Solfège token on this action, you must take a Piece. If there are no more Piece cards available, the action has no effect.

WAIT: Place a spectator in the queue of the concert hall. If you play a Half note Solfège token, place 2 spectators allocated as you want between the 2 queues. Spectators are placed on the first available spot starting from the beginning of the queue and behind those already in place.

TRAIN: Place or move a musician of your color on the track of the Conservatory board, matching the type of instrument (strings, percussion, wind):

• Only one musician of each color can be on the same track.
• Several musicians of different colors can be on the same spot of a track.

Training for the conservatory allows the player to do several additional actions detailed below.

If the musician reaches the 3rd and last spot of the track he has to either:

• do the action on the left (1.) and enter a competition, or
• do the action on the right (2.) and join a Quartet spot.

Play a "Train" action on one of the three instrument types of your choice.

ENTER A COMPETITION: Choose a musician from the conservatory, whatever their position on the track, and place them in the orchestra, respecting their instrument type. The requirements to enter a competition are described below. If a player does not meet these conditions, their musician joins a Quartet. If a player has no musician in the conservatory, this action has no effect.

Actions from the Conservatory

The conservatory allows the players to do several additional actions, to be chosen among those separated by a "|":

• Take a Piece and place it on the left side of the music stand.
• Recover a Piece card that has already been played from the right side of the music stand, and place it on the left side of the music stand.
• Take a Seat token.
• Enter a competition.

Entering a Competition

To enter a competition, your musician must play Piece cards matching the requirements indicated in the orchestra:

• A — Play 2 Piece cards in different keys.
• B — Play 3 Piece cards in different keys.
• C — Central area (Soloist): play 5 Piece cards in the same key OR play 6 Piece cards in different keys.

When a player places a musician in the Soloist area, they immediately take one of the available Soloist tokens above the conservatory. If there are no more Soloist tokens available, it is not possible to place a musician in this area.

Example: Florian has collected 3 Pieces in different keys: Fa, Mi, and a wild key that can count as any key. He can move his musician from the conservatory, from the 1st spot of the percussion track to the orchestra in the matching instrument type area.

• They move their musician to an available spot in the area matching the instrument type: percussion, wind, or string. If there are no more available spots in the orchestra, the musician joins a Quartet. If both Quartets are full, the player takes back their musician. It cannot be placed on the board.
• The Piece cards played are then placed on the right side of the music stand.

3. Opening to the Audience

At the end of each round, the ushers will let the audience in, first with the queue on the Even side, then the Odd side. The entry order in the hall is determined by the position of the spectators in the queue.

• Even side — enters first in the concert hall.
• Odd side — enters when the queue on the Even side is empty.

Example: the blue player has their spectator coming in first, on the Even side, followed by the purple player, then the green, and finally, blue again. The orange player will have their spectator going in, on the Odd side, last.

Entering the hall means placing each spectator in the queue on a seat. To do this:

• Sort your unplayed Piece cards by period, matching the Trend tokens of the area where you want to take a seat.
• When it is the turn of one of your spectators of your color to take a seat in the hall, count the number of seats you have on the Piece cards you are going to use, eventually adding seats to the total by discarding Seat tokens.
• Your spectator can take a seat if the seat number is lower than or equal to the number of seats you have counted.
• The Piece cards played are placed on the right side of your Music stand.

If a player does not have enough Piece cards for one of their spectators to have a seat in the hall, the spectator is placed on the Side stage on the side of the orchestra and will score 1 point at the end of the game.

Example:

a. Céline is the blue player; she has 2 spectators to be placed in the hall. She would like to place the first one in the Even gallery, where the audience would like to hear Baroque or Classical pieces. Among the Piece cards she has collected, she chooses one Baroque piece and one Classical piece for a total of 10 seats and discards 2 Seat tokens to take seat no. 12 in the Even gallery.

b. Then, it is Sébastien's turn, the purple player, to place his spectator on seat no. 6 of the Even gallery. He uses his Contemporary piece card as a wild card.

c. Cyrille, the green player, cannot place his spectator as he lacks 1 seat. Seat no. 6 of the Even gallery is not available, and he would need 8 seats to take the next available spot. So, he places his spectator on the Side stage, next to the orchestra.

d. It is, once again, up to Céline to play. Thanks to her last 2 Romantic pieces with a total of 4 seats plus 2 Seat tokens being discarded, she places her 2nd spectator in seat no. 6 of the Even parterre.

e. It is finally Valériane's turn, the orange player, to place her spectator on the Odd side.

4. Preparation of the Next Round

• Each player removes their Solfège tokens, places the Music notebook card used this round underneath their Music notebook deck of cards, and reveals the next one.
• The First player token passes to the next player clockwise.
• Move the Conductor meeple one spot on the stairs; the next round can start.

ONLY AFTER ROUND III: All players can recover up to 5 Pieces that were played earlier in the game to place them on the unplayed side.

ONLY AFTER ROUND IV: Players may choose between the 2 remaining Music notebook cards for the Composition phase of the last round.

End of the Game

At the end of the 5th round, add up all your Applause:

• From the Spectator meeples in the Hall, including the ones seated on the Side stages on each side of the orchestra,
• From the Musician meeples in the orchestra,
• From the Soloist tokens you eventually earned,
• From the Musician meeples that were part of Quartets.

The player with the most Applause wins the game! Bravo! Your compositions made history!

In the event of a tie, the player with the most pieces, played earlier or not, wins the game! If there is still a tie, these players share the victory.