Seize the Bean: 5-6 Player Expansion

Seize the Bean: 5-6 Player Expansion Rulebook

Table of Contents

5-6 Player Mode

Add-On Required

Setup

To play a 5 or 6 player game, set up the additional player Cafés just as you would normally in a 2-4 player game. Some of the components you'll require are already provided, such as extra Friends & Family Customer Cards, but others are only included in the 5-6 Player Expansion, such as the additional player boards and Barista Meeples. Make sure to put out additional Café Achievement Bonuses based on the player count and then adjust the available Good Reviews to 60.

5-6 Player Setup Changes

5 Players: 60 Good Reviews & 5 Bonuses
6 Players: 60 Good Reviews & 6 Bonuses

Game End

With 5 or 6 players, it's very likely that the game will end early due to a City Deck becoming empty before all of the Good Reviews have been taken from the City. Please refer to the Game End section on page 24 of the main Rulebook to be sure you understand how this works.

Compatibility

Seize the Bean plays best at a higher player count when excluding certain Customer Groups that tend to explode player Lines. By excluding these Groups, downtime between turns will often be lower, providing a smoother playing experience. You can refer to the list below to determine which Districts, Customer Groups, and variants are 5 and 6 player compatible. In addition, throughout this Expansion Rulebook, each variant is clearly marked with a 5-6 player compatibility icon.

5-6 Player Districts

Compatible Districts: Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain, Boxhagener Kiez, Charlottenburg
Incompatible Districts: Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Mitte, Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Wrangelkiez, Bergmannkiez

5-6 Player Customer Groups

Compatible Groups: All groups except the incompatible groups listed below.
Incompatible Groups: Party Animals, Funemployed Expats, Starving Artists

5-6 Player Variants

Compatible Variants: All variants except the incompatible variants listed below.
Incompatible Variants: Sold Out!

Districts

Playing a specific District in Seize the Bean means choosing a predefined set of Customer Groups. Regardless of which Customer Groups you choose, Friends & Family are always included.

The 5 Main Districts are recommended to be played first, before enjoying the Additional Districts listed on pages 8 and 9. Seize the Bean has been built for modularity, and these Districts were designed as a structured way to introduce you to each of the individual Customer Abilities.

Terminology Note: In the real city of Berlin, areas are divided into Bezirke (boroughs or districts), Ortsteile (subdistricts) and Kieze (neighborhoods). In order to keep Seize the Bean simple, we're calling all configurations Districts though this may not be factually correct. We've marked each configuration with a small tag denoting its actual, correct terminology.

Main Districts

Kreuzberg

Terminology tag: Ortsteil
5-6 Player: Incompatible
Customer Groups: Hipsters, Cyclists, Tourists, Musicians, Start Uppers, Party Animals

Kreuzberg is the recommended base District for your first play through of Seize the Bean. It introduces a variety of Customer Abilities, from simple to complex, and doesn't incorporate any take that into the game.

Neukölln

Terminology tag: Bezirk
5-6 Player: Incompatible
Customer Groups: Starving Artists, Funemployed Expats, Friendly Locals, Hipsters, Performers, Health Nuts

Neukölln is a District for low-scoring but fast-playing Customer Groups. It provides a variety of Deck manipulation Abilities and ways to accelerate the game. It's a recommended second District to move to after having played through Kreuzberg.

Prenzlauer Berg

Terminology tag: Ortsteil
5-6 Player: Compatible
Customer Groups: Happy Families, Friendly Locals, Tourists, Students, Board Game Geeks, Health Nuts

Prenzlauer Berg is a District for high-scoring but slow-playing Customer Groups. Oddly enough, that can make games in Prenzlauer Berg quite fast. The Customer Abilities are harder to effectively activate, making it an intermediate District to play. It's recommended to play Prenzlauer Berg after having played at least 2 other Districts first, such as Kreuzberg and Neukölln.

Mitte

Terminology tag: Ortsteil
5-6 Player: Incompatible
Customer Groups: Upper Class, Hungry Media, Performers, Fashionistas, Party Animals, Coffee Connoisseurs

Mitte includes Customer Groups with the most challenging and risky Abilities. The swingy nature of these Groups makes games in Mitte feel quite psychologically unbalanced. It's the first District to introduce take that and direct, potentially negative player interaction with the Hungry Media. It's recommended to play this after having played the majority of the other Main Districts listed to the left.

Friedrichshain

Terminology tag: Subdistrict
5-6 Player: Compatible
Customer Groups: Rebels, Street Smarts, Tech Nerds, Criminal Minds, Authority Figures, Students

Friedrichshain is the final of the game's 5 Main Districts. It introduces an extreme amount of player interaction, with 5 out of its 6 Customer Groups having take that Abilities. This is not a District for the faint of heart or thin-skinned players. Play may be aggressive and highly political. The Customers it contains are not necessarily competitive or even well-scoring groups, designed instead as a fun experiment for those that want more silly chaos in Seize the Bean.

Additional Districts

Once you have explored the 5 Main Districts you may want to explore Berlin further by venturing into the following Additional Districts. They continue to build unique experiences that will challenge you to discover new strategies and synergies between Customer Groups.

Boxhagener Kiez

Terminology tag: Kiez
5-6 Player: Compatible
Customer Groups: Cyclists, Happy Families, Students, Board Game Geeks, Health Nuts, Coffee Connoisseurs

Boxhagener Kiez is a non-take that version of the Friedrichshain District. It's intended to thematically represent the District without requiring players to engage in direct, negative player interaction. The District provides a variety of different strategies to approach, giving the players both supportive and standalone Groups to play with.

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

Terminology tag: Bezirk
5-6 Player: Incompatible
Customer Groups: Musicians, Party Animals, Performers, Hipsters, Starving Artists, Funemployed Expats

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg represents the party District of the game. It's all about blowing up your line as much as possible. Including 5 Groups that increase or maintain your line length in a variety of ways, plus the Performers which can mimic any group, it's up to you to decide how to run the best party café in town! Just beware, this District could increase the downtime between turns quite a lot.

Wrangelkiez

Terminology tag: Kiez
5-6 Player: Incompatible
Customer Groups: Hungry Media, Tourists, Funemployed Expats, Fashionistas, Party Animals, Start Uppers

It's all about Customer Attraction here, with 4 of the 6 Customer Groups providing direct means to grow your Deck. Hungry Media are thrown in to make things interesting on the Awards side and also add a bit of potential take that gameplay. Overall, this is a moderately interactive District.

Bergmannkiez

Terminology tag: Kiez
5-6 Player: Incompatible
Customer Groups: Funemployed Expats, Friendly Locals, Starving Artists, Upper Class, Fashionistas, Musicians

Originally designed to showcase the thematic clash between the Friendly Locals and Upper Class Customer Groups, Bergmannkiez grew to become a District for serious Deck manipulation. Funnily enough, almost none of the groups are very powerful completely by themselves, with the exception of the Upper Class. This makes it a terrific District for exploring elaborate combinations of 2, 3 or even 4 Groups.

Charlottenburg

Terminology tag: Ortsteil
5-6 Player: Compatible
Customer Groups: Upper Class, Hungry Media, Tourists, Happy Families, Fashionistas, Start Uppers

The Charlottenburg District is sort of a mashup between the Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg Districts. It has some swingy Groups, but is mostly comprised of big-payoff Groups. Due to the interactions and possible combinations of its Groups, it can be thought of as a more thinky District.

Create your own Kiez

Seize the Bean was specifically designed to be modular so that it can fit a variety of gamer preferences and play styles. After you've explored some of the provided Districts you may find it exciting to create your own. To do so, you can intentionally or randomly pick 6 Customer Groups. To create a random District, gather all of the Customer Group Awards, shuffle them into a Deck, and then randomly draw 6. Use these 6 to set up the game. This is your Custom Kiez.

Additional Friends & Family

5-6 Player: Compatible. Solo Mode: Compatible.

There are 6 sets of 8 different Friends & Family cards in the game. In the base game, a specific set of 4 is used by each player:

Base Friends & Family: Oma, Opa, Lazy Friend, Popular Friend

Once you have gotten used to the base game, feel free to play with the following 4 Additional Friends & Family:

Additional Friends & Family: Fun Cousin, Quirky Auntie, Pug-Lovin' Uncle, Musically-Talented Mom

The 4 Additional Friends & Family, of which 3 are Seize the Bean backers, are used in 2 ways; to raise the level of difficulty in dealing with your Friends & Family cards and to introduce a bit of asymmetry to each player's early game. Detailed explanations of the Additional Friends & Family Customer Abilities can be seen on page 10 of this Expansion Rulebook.

Starting Resources

Whichever of the following 2 variants are played (Advanced Friends & Family or Adopted Friends & Family), the players need to take Starting Resources that match the Main Orders of their 4 Friends & Family cards. Any Special Resource Icons in the Main Orders indicate that the player should take 2 of the corresponding Basic Resource. Players will always reveal their 4 Friends & Family cards to the other players before taking their Starting Resources.

It's important to note that when beginning the game with any of the Additional Friends & Family you should receive Basic Resources equal to the cost of their Main Order.

Advanced Friends & Family

To play the Advanced Friends & Family Variant, simply replace the 4 Base Friends & Family with the 4 Additional Friends & Family cards for each player. The rest of setup and play remains unchanged, though don't forget to take the corresponding Starting Resources, of 4 Beans and 4 Sugar.

Adopted Friends & Family

Playing the Adopted Friends & Family Variant gives players more control over which Friends & Family cards they will start with by having them draft before the game begins. This process involves a bit more setup explained below.

Setup

After the City has been entirely set up, including the reveal of cards from each City Deck, take 1 complete set of all 8 Friends & Family cards for each player in the game and shuffle them into a single Friends & Family Deck. Randomly deal each player 8 cards. Then begin the draft.

Pro Tip: It's important that the draft only take place after all players have had a chance to look at the setup of the cards in the City, so that their strategic ideas may influence their choices during the draft.

Drafting

Each player simultaneously selects a Friends & Family card to keep from their hand of 8 cards. The selected card is placed face down in front of them, so that the other players do not know what it is. Once all players have chosen their first card, they pass the remaining 7 cards in their hand to the player on their left. Repeat this process until all players have 4 Friends & Family cards face down in front of them. Each player returns their remaining hand of 4 unchosen cards back to the box.

Example: Drafting Friends & Family. At the beginning of the draft, Camille must choose 1 card from their hand of 8 to keep. They choose the Popular Friend, and place her face down next to their Café. Camille then passes the remaining 7 cards to the player on their left. Lastly, Camille receives 7 new cards from the player on their right. This process of choosing and passing cards is repeated until Camille is choosing their 4th and final card to keep. Once they have selected the 4th card, they then place their remaining hand of unselected cards back in the box.

Shuffle & Play

After receiving their corresponding Starting Resources, players shuffle their Friends & Family and place them face down as their Customer Deck. The rest of play remains unchanged.

Solo Mode: When using the Adopted Friends & Family Variant with Solo Mode, set up a 2 player draft. During each round of the draft, after choosing a card to keep from your own hand, randomly select a card for Starbots™ to keep from their hand. After the draft, place Starbots' selected cards back in the box.