Paperbag Dungeon
Paperbag Dungeon Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview
This is a solitaire game. Start with Chill Mode. Each mode adds new rules. Double Dungeons adds 2-player play.
Have you Mopped?: It's best to play on the floor, but if you only have a small table, you can lay cards end to end along two sides of the table to measure it. Multiply this by two and a half and play with a deck of that many cards.
Chill Mode
It's your first day on the job and the monsters haven't come out yet. The gnomes are digging and the goblins are in a great mood. Let's take this dungeon for a spin!
Setup: Place one Dungeon Gate on the table to start your dungeon. Shuffle your deck and draw two cards. Keep these beside your deck. These are your Vault cards.
How to Play: Each turn, draw one card. Add it to your dungeon or swap it with a Vault card and build the Vault card instead. Repeat until you build every card in the deck to win. If you're crafty enough, win early by sealing every tunnel to create a ‧⁺˚･༓☾Perfect Dungeon☽༓･˚⁺‧ If you run out of room or can't build, you lose.
Building Rules: The floor of the card you're building must touch the floor of a tunnel in your dungeon. You may overlap only if necessary, but only the hash-marked area behind walls, not any part of the tunnel wall or floor.
Variants: If the game is too hard, add more Vault cards. If too easy, try a smaller table.
That's all! Go Play!
Winners may display the Spoils of Victory (page 8) in the band of their best fedora. Losers must wear the Soil of Defeat.
Janitor Mode
Begin with Chill Mode. Add these rules.
POV: Your contact with the goblins says the monsters are awake...and they're ornery. So much for taking it easy. But your gnomes have got the traps tweaked, oiled the hinges on the hatches, and fixed the boards on all the doors. You've got this!
Setup: Flip half the deck over while shuffling to ensure randomness. Whichever face is showing on top of the draw pile is how the card enters play.
How to Play: Each turn, begin with the Draw Phase followed by the Build Phase, then the Monster Phase, and finally the Flip Phase.
Draw: If you draw a monster or Dungeon Gate, you must build it. You may not swap it with a Vault card. Monsters have a starburst pattern on the front, similar to the light from an open Dungeon Gate.
Note: Monsters don't enter the dungeon until turn 9. If you draw a monster before turn 9, place it under your deck and draw again. (Variant: With 20 cards or fewer, monsters enter on turn 6.)
Build: If you draw a monster face-up, it must attach as far as possible from your Dungeon Gate (see Counting below). If you drew a monster face-down, it must attach as close to your Dungeon Gate as possible, then flip the monster face-up.
Monster Phase: After building, trace a path from each live monster to the nearest Dungeon Gate. Players choose which monster goes first. If all paths are blocked by doors, grates, or walls, you're safe.
If a monster's path reaches your Dungeon Gate, it stops—flip the Gate to open. If another monster reaches the Dungeon Gate before the end of the Monster Phase, nothing more happens—unless you have a second Dungeon Gate, then your second monster will continue their path toward the second Dungeon Gate. If a monster reaches a Dungeon Gate that was already open before your Monster Phase began, then they escape the dungeon and you lose.
Traps: If a monster's path passes over a "set" Trap card, you may flip it to flip the monster and stop it. Traps are easy to identify. The "sprung" side of the Trap has pointy bits showing. The "set" side has them hidden.
Counting: Tunnel length is determined only by the number of cards in a path. Monsters always take the shortest possible path.
Flip Phase: While some cards trigger a flip during any phase, you may only spend Gems and Vaults during the Flip Phase. (Note: Overlapped cards can never flip.)
Gems: Flip any card with Gems on it to spend the gems. For each Gem spent you may flip one other card. Note: If a card with a Gem is flipped by a separate ability or trigger, that Gem can't be spent before it goes away.
Vaults: Discard a Vault (place it on the bottom of your deck) to flip any card. Once spent, Vaults are gone. Caution: Spending Vaults reduces your options.
Flip Limits: Cards may only flip once per turn, except monsters which may flip 3x and Dungeon Gates which have no limit.
Build every card or create a Perfect Dungeon to win. Run out of room or let a monster escape and you lose.
That's all! Go Play!
Warden Mode
Begin with Janitor Mode. Add these rules.
POV: When you peeked up through the royal latrine to ask for a promotion, you never imagined minding the royal dungeon would be this complicated. What were you thinking? The monsters are digging, they're smashing down doors, even the goblins have turned against you.
Hatches: Hatches allow monsters to get around obstructions. Treat every hatch as if it is connected to every other hatch card. If a hatch is closed it has no effect.
Open Tunnels: Monsters can pass between two unfinished tunnels if the open tunnels are facing each other, but only in a straight line, not diagonally.
Sleeping Giants: Can't be flipped by Gems.
Goblins: Any time you flip a card with a Goblin on it, you must flip every Goblin in your dungeon. Spot them by their pointy ears, toes and fingers.
Goblin Guardians: Figures holding a battle axe are Goblin Guardians. This includes Dungeon Gates and some monsters. Goblins adjacent to a Goblin Guardians are immune to Goblin triggers.
Music Symbol: Whenever a Music Symbol enters your dungeon or is revealed by a flip, you must flip the nearest face-down monster or Sleeping Giant.
Note: If flips/triggers during the Flip Phase wake monsters or free ones that were trapped, begin a new monster phase for just those monsters. (If they reach an open gate, even one opened in your prior Monster Phase, you lose.)
Note: If a card has reached its flip limit, it will not respond to any triggers.
Monster Abilities
Grate Passing: If a monster card depicts the monster passing between Grates/Bars then it has the ability to pass through Grates/Bars (and metal Doors, which count as both Doors and Grates/Bars).
Door Opening: If a monster card shows a door, it has the ability to open doors. Flip any closed Door cards it encounters on the way to your Dungeon Gate.
Digging: Monster cards that depict a demolished earthen wall and rubble have the ability to pass through any earthen (not stone) wall and move between tunnels any distance apart. They must dig straight, not diagonally.
Stone Digging: If the demolished wall on the monster card is stone, they may pass through stone or earthen walls, but only for a distance equal to the length of one card.
That's all! Go Play!
Hardcore Mode
Pick one or two rules to add to Warden Mode.
POV: The mice are organizing and the rats have joined them! The gnomes unionized and are on strike! You dream of the peaceful days of shoveling latrines. If you can release enough cats to keep the mice at bay, and bribe some goblins to find your stolen pickaxes, you just might make it through the day.
Gnomes: If the path that a monster traces to your Dungeon Gate crosses a card with a Gnome, flip the Gnome card over first.
Sewerthulu: One monster card depicts a water-filled sewer. One regular card also depicts a water-filled sewer. Treat these two as if they were connected by a hatch.
Mice-Rat Alliance: There are two Rat Monsters. These do not count as mice. Mouse icons are hidden in the dungeon. If your total mice (minus 1 for each cat or snake visible) is 5 or more, any Rat Monsters flip to life. This occurs any time a new mouse is revealed. If 7 mice are visible, search your deck for a Rat Monster and put it on top of your deck. If 10 mice are visible search your deck for the second.
Snakes vs. Rats: There is one Snake Monster in the game. If this monster is alive at the same time as a Rat Monster and crosses paths with them flip the Rat Monster over.
Union Rules: Cards showing shovels can't be flipped unless one other card in your dungeon shows a pickaxe. Optional Variant: Cards with shovels can't be flipped unless you have an equal or greater number of pickaxes in your dungeon.
That's all! Go Play!
Spoils of Victory and Soil of Defeat
Page 8 of the rules is an illustrated page (Spoils of Victory and Soil of Defeat artwork) with no rules text.
Double Dungeons (2-Player)
The 2-player section is printed on pages 9 and 10 of the rules.
Begin with solo rules.
Setup: Shuffle, then split the deck in two. Place these piles in the center of the table with enough space for a discard pile between them. Each player begins with one Dungeon Gate on their side of the table, exactly 3 card lengths from the central discard pile. Each player draws 5 Vault cards and places them on the edge of the table.
Bidding: Before your turn, your opponent has the option of bidding by wagering any number of vault cards and placing them sideways on top of one draw pile. If you choose to outbid them, cards they wagered are returned to them and your cards are put in their place.
Draw: You may draw the top card from either pile (unless your opponent reserved it with a winning bid) or from the discard pile. If you had a winning bid, you must draw the card you reserved and place the cards wagered into the discard pile.
Build: You may build your card into your dungeon or swap it with one from your Vault and build that instead.
Note: In Double Dungeons, you may swap monsters into your vault. You may build monsters anywhere you like and face-down monsters don't automatically flip to life after they're built. Live monsters attack the nearest gate. Until you connect to your opponent's dungeon, that will usually be your own. So place monsters carefully and use digging and hatches to attack.
Flip Phase: You may flip cards in your dungeon by spending a Gem or Vault card as usual. The cost to flip cards in your opponent's dungeon varies. You may flip your opponent's cards for 1 Gem/Vault if they are on your side of the table, 2 Gems/Vaults if they are on the center line, and 3 Gems/Vaults on your opponent's side of the table. Note: Triggers such as Goblins flip cards in both dungeons as usual.
If your tunnels become directly connected to your opponent's you merge into a single dungeon and you may build onto your opponent's tunnels and flip any card in their dungeon for one Gem/Vault, regardless of where it lies on the table.
5.Monster: The Monster Phase occurs at the end of your turn, instead of the beginning. This is to give you the opportunity to close doors and flip monsters that your opponent woke during their turn. If a monster reaches your closed Dungeon Gate during your opponent's turn, it opens the gate as usual. But if a monster reaches your open Dungeon Gate, during your opponent's turn, nothing happens. You do not lose until a monster reaches your open gate during your own turn.
Source note: the rules print this heading as "5.Monster:" (the "5." is transcribed as printed; it is not a numbered step in the source).
Note: The draw and discard piles block digging monsters.
Optional Vault Rule: Players may keep their vault cards on either side of the draw piles to form a temporary wall.
How to Win: Monsters will pass between the dungeons as if they were owned by the same player. This means that a monster who cannot reach your Dungeon Gate will use open tunnels, digging, hatches, etc. to attack your opponent's Gate.
Note about Modes: If you play Chill Mode you may not connect dungeons. Your goal is to surround and limit building space. Or be the first to complete a Perfect Dungeon.
Victory: Gloating is mandatory and best done while wearing the Crown of Victory.
That's all! Go play!