Ovation Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Goal
• Game Setup
• Gameplay
  • Main Actions
• Bonus Actions and Abilities
  • Free Actions
  • End of Turn
• Game End
• Legacy Points
• Composer Special Abilities
• Magnum Opus Module (Optional)
• Solo Mode
  • Gameplay
  • Perform
  • Seek Inspiration
  • Seek Fortune
  • Seek Patronage
  • Best Action
  • Bonus Actions
  • Free Actions
  • End of the Game
• Quick Reference
• Icons
• Types of Music

Components

• Concert Music cards: 18
• Chamber Music cards: 27
• Patron cards: 30
• Fortune cards: 33
• Maestro cards: 15
• Ticket cards: 27
• Magnum Opus cards (optional): 18
• Music note tokens: 35
• Composer tokens: 5
• Composer player boards: 6
• Inspiration counters: 15 (5 each of red, yellow, blue)

Goal

The player with most Legacy Points (LPs) at the end of the game is the winner. LPs are awarded on cards you acquire and are marked with a star.

Game Setup

1. Shuffle the Concert Music, Chamber Music, Patron and Fortune decks.
2. Place the decks face down in that order to the left of your play area.
3. Draw 5 cards from each deck, and place them face up in a row to the right of each deck.
4. Shuffle the Tickets deck and place it face down accessible to all players.
5. Shuffle the Maestro deck and draw a number of cards equal to the number of players plus 2, and place them face up in the central play area.
6. Give 1 music token to each player. Place the remaining music tokens in a stack accessible to all players.
7. Shuffle the composer player boards and deal 1 to each player at random. If you are using the optional Magnum Opus Module, also give each player the 3 corresponding Magnum Opus cards to choose 1 for the game (see Magnum Opus Module below). Otherwise, return the Magnum Opus cards to the box.
8. Give each player one Composer token and one Inspiration marker of each tone: Passion, Joy and Sorrow. Place the Inspiration markers on the piano key marked 1.

Gameplay

The person who most recently attended a live music performance goes first and receives the first player marker. Play proceeds clockwise. On your turn, choose one of four different Main Actions, placing your Composer token on the corresponding action on the player board. At any time on your turn, you may also take as many Free Actions as you'd like.

Main Actions

Seek Inspiration – Your main resource in the game is Inspiration. It comes in three tones: Passion, Joy and Sorrow. The primary way to gain Inspiration is by choosing the Seek Inspiration action.

When you choose to Seek Inspiration, move your Inspiration marker up two spaces on the Inspiration track (one marker up 2 spaces or two different markers up 1 space each).

Seek Fortune, Seek Patronage and Perform – These three actions allow you to use your Inspiration to acquire different types of cards. Whenever you take one of these actions, pay the cost for the card by moving your Inspiration marker(s) down the appropriate number of spaces to reflect that you have spent the necessary Inspiration.

Seek Fortune – Pay Inspiration (any tone or combination of tones) to acquire any of the five available Fortune cards. Fortune cards help you to be more effective when you Seek Inspiration, Seek Patronage or when you Perform. Slide the card under the action listed on your player board according to the action symbol in the top left corner of the Fortune card: Seek Inspiration, Seek Patronage or Perform.

From now on, any time you take the action that has your Fortune card attached to it, you will have the option to activate the bonus on the card (see Bonus Actions and Abilities below). When you acquire additional cards for that action, slide the new card under the existing one(s), offering more possible bonuses. You may have multiple cards with the same name.

Seek Patronage – Select one of the five face-up Patron cards, and pay the required Inspiration (any tone or combination of tones). There are two different kinds of Patrons:

• Legacy Patrons have Legacy Point bonuses listed at the top of the card and go to the left of your player board. These will gain and/or lose you Legacy points at the end of the game (see Legacy Points below).
• Patron Financiers with the Fortune symbol slide under your player board at the Seek Fortune action. These Patrons will now allow you to activate bonuses after you take the Seek Fortune action (see Bonus Actions and Abilities below). Slide additional Fortune Patrons under previous cards to offer more bonuses.

Perform – Pay Inspiration of the specific tone(s) listed on the card to Perform Chamber Music or Concert Music. Note that the cost listed on the bottom of the Chamber Music and Concert Music cards shows that these require specific tones of inspiration. Concert Music also requires that you have already performed a certain type or tone of music before, as indicated by the symbol to the left of the Inspiration cost.

For example: with the Violin Concerto, you have to have played a Strings piece before. The String Quartet is an example of the type of music you must have already performed in order to perform the Violin Concerto.

Place performed music on the right side of your player board.

Whenever you Perform music, two more things happen:

1. Gain an additional music token. Your performance experience increases your ability to use your Fortune and Patron bonuses with these tokens (see Bonus Actions and Abilities below).
2. Other players may attend your performance! The players to your left and right may attend your performance and gain one Inspiration for each tone listed in the top left corner of your music card. (For example, with the Violin Concerto above, players who attend would receive 1 Joy and 1 Passion Inspiration. Note that the tone and cost are different, but the tone of the music always matches at least one tone of Inspiration that you spent to Perform.)

Each player who attends must draw one Ticket from the Ticket deck and give it to you. Tickets have an Inspiration tone pictured on them. Tickets will go into your hand. There is no hand limit.

On your turn, you may discard two matching tickets for one Inspiration of that tone as a Free Action (example: 2 Sorrow Tickets = 1 Sorrow; see Free Actions below). At the end of the game, you earn 1 LP for every 2 unspent Tickets.

Note: If there are no Tickets available to draw, shuffle the discarded Tickets to form a new draw deck. If there are no discarded Tickets remaining to form a new deck, players who still wish to attend a performance must give a Ticket from their hand. Players cannot attend without giving a Ticket to the performing player.

Bonus Actions and Abilities

Once an action is complete, you can gain benefits from Fortune or Patron cards on that action. In order to use the bonuses listed on the cards, you will need to use your music tokens. Simply place the music token on the card, and then gain the bonus:

• Gain 1 Passion / 1 Joy / 1 Sorrow
• Take the Seek Inspiration / Seek Fortune / Seek Patronage / Perform action

If the bonus allows you to take another action, move your Composer token to the new action. Once you complete the new action, you may activate bonuses from cards associated with that action as long as you have more tokens! You may only use each card's bonus and each music token once per turn. If there are multiple cards under an action that would allow you to move your Composer token to different actions, you must choose one of the actions to take.

You may not activate any bonus actions under your previous action once you've moved your Composer token to a new space on your player board. However, you may activate any non-action bonuses (like increasing Inspiration) before you move your Composer token. At the end of your turn, all of your music tokens return to you for use on future turns.

Some of the cards have a symbol in the arrow before the bonus. The symbol on the arrow indicates a requirement that you must have fulfilled in order to gain the bonus.

For example, if you have The Prodigy at your player board in the Seek Inspiration slot and you use your Seek Inspiration action to increase Joy by at least 1, you have the option to place your music token on The Prodigy to activate the bonus listed on The Prodigy for 1 extra Joy. If you choose not to increase Joy, then you cannot gain the bonus. If you do increase Joy and also have Collaboration under Seek Inspiration plus a 2nd music token, you would need to activate the bonus for The Prodigy first, since the Collaboration bonus requires you to move your Composer token to the Seek Fortune action.

For example, if you have Lady Antoinette under your player board at the Seek Fortune action at the start of your turn, you may choose the Seek Fortune action to acquire The Prodigy card. Using a music token, you may activate Lady Antoinette's bonus ability to move your Composer token to and perform the Seek Inspiration action. If you choose to increase Joy by at least 1 and you have another music token available, you can use your 2nd music token to gain +1 Joy.

You can activate unused bonuses on actions you have already taken in the same turn if you cycle back to that action again.

Important: you must always complete an action before you may activate any bonus abilities at that action. This includes paying Inspiration to acquire a card to complete the action.

Similarly, with the Piano Pupil card (under the Perform action), whenever you Perform music with the piano icon, your Piano Pupil experience gives you the option to take a bonus Seek Patronage action. If you had the Piano Pupil under Perform and the Commission card under Seek Patronage plus 1 music token available, you could do the following:

1. Choose the 'Perform' action with your Composer token and Perform a Piano music piece, gaining a 2nd music token.
2. Use one of your music tokens to activate the Piano Pupil bonus for a Seek Patronage action.
3. Move your Composer token to Seek Patronage, and pay the Inspiration cost to acquire a Patron card.
4. Use your 2nd music token to activate the Seek Inspiration action on your Commission card.
5. Move your Composer token to the Seek Inspiration action, and increase your Inspiration by 2.

In this example, even if you had The Prodigy card on your Seek Inspiration action, you would not be able to increase your Joy and activate The Prodigy's bonus, since you don't have a 3rd music token available.

You can activate a bonus action on the same turn that you acquire the card.

Free Actions

There are two actions you may perform on your turn which do not count toward the single action you choose.

1. Tickets for Inspiration – You may exchange two matching Tickets for one Inspiration of the tone pictured on the card as a free action. You may do that as many times as you like on your turn.
2. Temperamental Artist – You may permanently give up one of your music tokens to take a free Temperamental Artist action. Being a Temperamental Artist, you will discard and replace one row of cards – Fortune, Patrons, Chamber Music or Concert Music. You may do this as many times as you like at any time during your turn. You will not get any spent bonus tokens back, so choose wisely!
3. Take a Maestro Card – If you are able to complete the task listed on one of the Maestro cards during your turn, you must take it. You can take a maximum of one Maestro card per turn. If you qualify for more than one Maestro card during the same turn, you may choose which of the Maestro cards to take. You may take one other Maestro card on your next turn if you still qualify and it is still available.

End of Turn

At the end of your turn, perform the following steps:

• Refill Fortune, Patron, Chamber Music and Concert Music rows to 5 face-up cards each.
• Remove any music tokens that you used from the cards you activated and keep them for use on future turns.
• Remove your Composer token from its last location. You may choose any of the four actions on your next turn.

Game End

The game ends once there are only two Maestro cards remaining.

Complete the current round of play so that everyone has had an equal number of turns. (Example: If the player who went first takes the Maestro card that would end the game, the remaining players take a final turn.) Players count their Legacy Points, and the composer with the highest total wins.

If there is a tie, the player with the most performed music wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the highest total of unspent Inspiration is the winner. If there is still a tie, the players share the victory.

Legacy Points

Legacy Points (LPs) are listed in a star at the top of the Fortune, Concert Music and Chamber Music cards as well as the Patron Financier cards. Players score additional LPs as follows:

• Legacy Patrons (left of your player board): +2 LPs for music you've performed of the type/tone they love, and -1 LP for music you've performed of the type/tone that they dislike. (Note that one piece of music can count for multiple Legacy Patrons.)
• +1 LP for every 2 unspent Tickets.
• +LPs for any completed Maestro cards.

Composer Special Abilities

Each composer has a unique ability as follows:

• Ludwig van Beethoven – Spend 1 less Passion Inspiration to Perform any music.
• Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges – Spend 1 less Inspiration (any tone) to Perform Strings.
• Franz Joseph Haydn – Spend 1 less Inspiration (any tone) to Perform Concert Music.
• Marianna Martines – Spend 1 less Inspiration (any tone) to Perform Piano.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Spend 1 less Joy Inspiration to Perform any music.
• Franz Schubert – Spend 1 less Sorrow Inspiration to Perform any music.

Magnum Opus Module (Optional)

In the optional Magnum Opus Module, there are 3 Magnum Opus music cards for each composer representing their real compositions. During setup, give each player the 3 Magnum Opus cards that correspond to their composer player board. Players may choose one of the 3 cards to use for the game. They may choose one that corresponds with their special ability or that aligns with one or more of the Maestro cards. Or they may avoid those things to have a less obvious option but one that may be more challenging to achieve. Once chosen, the player may keep the Magnum Opus in their hand or face down on the table. This Magnum Opus can be performed just like any other music using the Perform action but cannot be performed by any other players. Mozart can't perform Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, for example.

Note that the Magnum Opus requires two pieces to have been performed already, each fulfilling one of two requirements. They also cost more than Concert Music usually does. The composer's special ability can be used to offset the cost of the Magnum Opus.

Beethoven must play at least one Symphony and one other piece of music that is Joyful in order to perform his Magnum Opus, while Saint-Georges must perform two different Strings pieces to perform his.

The Magnum Opus cards are worth 12, 14 or 16 points and add a new possible end game condition. The game ends when there are only 2 Maestro cards remaining, or once all players have performed their Magnum Opus.

Solo Mode

Setup as per the multiplayer game, with the following changes:

5. Remove the 'Efficiency Expert' Maestro card. Place the 4 selected Maestro cards randomly in a column from top to bottom.
6. You may select any player board for both yourself and Bot.
7. Shuffle all 9 solo action cards to form the solo action deck. Place the topmost card in Bot's discard pile, leaving a space for the active card.

Gameplay

The Bot will be the first player. Your turns are played as normal.

On Bot's turn reveal the top card of the solo action deck. Place it next to the Bot's deck as the active card. The active card will show one or two actions. Complete the topmost action that can be fully completed. The card on the top of the Bot's discard pile will be the decision card. If Bot's action deck is empty after revealing a card, leave the active and decision cards and shuffle all the other 7 cards to form a new deck.

Bot pays for cards using Inspiration as normal. If it has a choice of which Inspiration to spend, it chooses the Inspiration it has the most of. If still tied it chooses the Inspiration shown leftmost on the decision card. If still tied, choose at random.

At the end of Bot's turn remove the card indicated on the decision card from the display with no effect. Then place the active card on the discard pile to become the new decision card. Whenever a card is gained from the display, slide all remaining cards to the right and fill the empty space on the left from the top of the deck.

1. Reveal active card
2. Resolve action
3. Resolve bonus actions
4. Discard display card indicated on decision card
5. Discard active card and clean up player board

Perform

Bot will perform the most preferred piece of music. Bot will choose a piece of music as listed below. Follow each step until a single card is chosen. Ignore any steps that do not eliminate possible options:

1. A card Bot can complete
2. A Concert Music card (meeting the prerequisite as normal)
3. A card that contributes towards a Maestro card, from top to bottom
4. The card worth the most LP
5. The card in the position indicated by a tick on the decision card. Moving left to right and looping round as needed.

Bot pays Inspiration as normal and must have any required type icons. It may spend any number of pairs of matching tickets instead of an Inspiration in order to complete a card. Bot collects Music tokens as normal.

Perform bonus actions shown on cards in the Perform column.

Seek Inspiration

Bot gains the Inspiration shown on the active card.

Perform bonus actions shown on cards in the Seek Inspiration column.

Seek Fortune

Bot buys the Fortune card shown on the decision card and adds it to the matching action column as normal. Bot will never buy 2 Fortune cards that would allow Bot to take the same bonus action. Instead Bot selects the next card to the right, wrapping round if needed.

Perform Bonus actions shown on cards in the Seek Fortune column.

Seek Patronage

Bot buys the Legacy Patron worth the most LP for it. If no Legacy Patrons would earn Bot LP or none are available, buy the Patron card shown on the decision card.

Perform Bonus actions shown on cards in the Seek Patronage column.

Best Action

Bot selects the action column that contains the most cards. If tied, Bot chooses the first action with a card that grants the Perform bonus action starting from the left of the player board. If Bot doesn't have any Perform bonus action cards, Bot Performs if possible. If not possible, Bot Seeks Inspiration.

Bonus Actions

Bot arranges its cards into 2 sections within each action:

• The top section contains cards that trigger another action
• The bottom section contains cards that gain Inspiration

Bonus actions are activated from bottom to top, moving upwards away from the player board. Bot needs to place Music tokens to activate each bonus as normal. If Bot does not benefit from a bonus action it is skipped.

If Bot cannot take a 'Perform' bonus action it instead gains 1 of each Inspiration and continues to take Bonus actions in this column. Any other Bonus actions that cannot be completed are ignored.

Free Actions

Using Tickets – Store Bot's tickets face up. Bot will use tickets if it allows it to Perform.

Temperamental Artist – Bot will not use this action.

Maestro Card – At the end of its turn, Bot will claim the topmost Maestro card which it has completed.

Attending Performances – When you perform, check the solo decision card. This will indicate whether Bot will attend or not. Bot earns Inspiration and you earn Tickets as normal.

End of the Game

The game ends in the same way as multiplayer, when 2 Maestro cards remain in the display. You score LP as normal. Bot ignores all negative LP from Legacy Patrons. Bot scores differently for cards above its board, Tickets, and Music tokens based on your chosen difficulty:

• Easy – 1 LP per card, 1 LP per 2 tickets, 1 LP for each Music token
• Normal – 2 LP per card, 1 LP per ticket, 2 LP for each Music token
• Hard – 3 LP per card, 2 LP per ticket, 2 LP for each Music token

If you have scored more LP than the Bot, you have won the game!

Quick Reference

1. Choose one of four actions:
   • Seek Inspiration – Gain 2 Inspiration.
   • Seek Fortune – Reduce Inspiration to acquire Fortune card. Place card under appropriate action on your player board.
   • Seek Patronage – Reduce Inspiration to acquire Patron card. Place Patron Financiers under the Fortune action. Place Legacy Patrons to left of your player board.
   • Perform – Reduce Inspiration to acquire Chamber/Concert Music. Neighbors may give you a ticket to attend your performance and gain Inspiration. Place music to right of your player board and gain one music token.
2. Activate bonus abilities after taking actions using music tokens. Actions must be completed before you may activate any bonuses. Each card/bonus can only be activated once per turn.
3. Take free actions at any time during your turn. Trade 2 matching tickets for 1 inspiration of that type. Permanently discard a music token to discard and replace one row of cards. Take a Maestro card if qualified (only one Maestro card per turn).
4. End turn. Refill Fortune, Patron, Chamber Music and Concert Music cards. Remove your composer and music tokens for use on your next turn.

Icons

• Inspiration of any tone: cost is X of any Inspiration.
• A specific tone of Inspiration shown with a number: cost is X of that specified Inspiration.
• Chamber or Concert Music performed: gain one of the Inspiration indicated.
• Concert Music performed: the specified Inspiration must be increased to activate the bonus.
• A star with a number: worth X Legacy Points.
• A music-type symbol on a bonus: you must be performing the specified type of music to activate the bonus.

Types of Music

Inspiration tones: Joy, Passion, Sorrow.

Music types: Piano, Strings, Woodwind.

Concert Music only: Mass, Opera, Symphony.