Once Upon A Plunder
Once Upon A Plunder Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview and Goal of the Game
In this asymmetric game, one player plays the dragon who will try to scare the Heroes away. The others play as a band of Heroes who team up to empty two rooms of the castle or build their Village. If they achieve their goal before the end of ten rounds, they win the game. However, if time runs out or the Dragon manages to scare them, he will be the victor.
Components
- 25 Hero cards (4 Location cards + 1 Camp card per hero)
- 4 Neutral Location cards (Orchard, Armory, Treasure room, Village)
- 4 Dragon cards
- 11 Apple tokens
- 7 Shield tokens
- 7 Treasure tokens
- 13 House tokens
- 1 Flame token
- 1 Hourglass token
- 1 Castle board
Setup
One player becomes the Dragon. They take the 4 corresponding cards and the Castle board, on which they place the Flame token according to the player count. Place the Hourglass token on the starting space of the Time track.
Each of the other players chooses their hero and takes their 5 corresponding cards. They place their Camp card in front of them, face up. This card will be used to store the tokens earned by a Hero during the game. The other cards will form their hand.
The 4 Neutral Location cards are placed in the middle of the table, with a number of tokens placed on top, as indicated on the cards: Orchard, Armory, Treasure room, Village.
Place the House tokens next to the Village card. They represent the Heroes' building objective and they will vary depending on the player count. Return the unused tokens to the box.
Source gap: the Flame token start space, the token counts shown on each Neutral Location card, and the House token count for each player count are printed only as small icon numerals on the cards and the Castle board. These numerals are not legible in the source scan, so they are not transcribed here. Use the printed components or a clearer copy of the rulebook for these figures.
How to Play
The game is played over a maximum of 10 rounds.
During each round, players secretly choose one of the 4 Location cards and place it face down in front of them. Once all players are ready, they reveal their cards simultaneously.
Heroes who have chosen a different Location than the Dragon apply an effect:
- If the Hero chose the Orchard, the Armory or the Treasure room, they take one of that location's tokens and place it on their Camp card.
- If the Hero chose the Village, they place a House token from the supply onto the Village card. They can also build an additional house for each Treasure token they discard from their Camp card (the discarded tokens won't be available for the rest of this game).
Example: Arthur has chosen the Village. He can therefore place 1 House on the Village. He also discards 2 Treasure tokens to place 2 additional Houses, for a total of 3.
Then, players resolve the location visited by the Dragon:
- The Dragon moves his Flame token one space for each Hero that chose the same Location as him. If this is the Village, he also takes 1 token of his choice from each involved Hero's Camp card and returns it to the corresponding Location card.
- The Hero or Heroes that played the same Location card as the Dragon are scared. They don't apply the effect of the Location they chose this turn. Additionally, they won't be able to play their next turn.
Example: Snow White has chosen to go to the Village, unfortunately, this was also the Dragon's choice. The Dragon retrieves the Shield token from her Camp and returns it back on the Armory card. Snow White has no token left and will pass the next turn.
To avoid passing their next turn, heroes can discard 2 Apples OR 1 Shield from their Camp card to give them courage (the discarded tokens won't be available for the rest of this game).
After all effects have been resolved, the Dragon advances the Hourglass token one space.
Each player takes back the card they played.
A new round starts. Scared players pass their turn and will not play this round.
End of the Game
The game ends if any of the Dragon or Hero victory conditions are met, in the following order:
- The Dragon's Flame token reaches the last space of the track. (Dragon victory)
- The Heroes build all the Houses OR recover all the available tokens from 2 of the 3 Place cards: Orchard, Armory or Treasure Room. (Hero victory)
- The ten rounds are completed and the Hourglass can no longer be moved. (Dragon victory)
Note: in the source these three conditions are marked with Dragon and Hero victory icons, which did not survive text extraction. The attributions in parentheses are taken from the Overview and Goal of the Game section, which states that the Heroes win by achieving their goal within ten rounds and the Dragon wins if time runs out or the Heroes are scared.