Stonewall Uprising Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
  • Setup the Markets
• Overview
  • Components
• Sequence of Play
• Playing Cards
  • Detaining
  • Demoralizing
  • Retaliation Dice
  • Law Tokens
  • 'S' Token
  • DeckThin Token
• Folding
• Resolving the Event Track
• Market Phase
• The Three Tracks
  • Dice Pool and Winning
• Ending the Game
• The Decades
• Solo Mode (Play as Pride)
  • Folding
  • Running The Man's Automa
  • Detaining and Demoralizing
  • Retaliation Dice
  • Events
  • AIDS Death Cards
  • Win Conditions for The Man's Automa
• Designer's Note on Terminology

Setup

Setup steps are numbered on the setup diagram in the original rulebook:

1. Place Pride's starting hand on the Pride Player Board; place The Man's starting hand on The Man's Player Board.
2. Create Pride's Market and The Man's Market (see below).
3. Place the cube trackers on the game board as shown (on the "S" starting spaces of the tracks, Public Support on its starting space, and the Overton Window and AIDS Deaths trackers as shown).
4. Add the DeckThin tokens to the game board as shown.
5. Give The Man the 1st player token.
6. Set aside the Law, Public Support Starting Space ("S"), and Extra Card tokens.
7. Set up the event track as shown (the Event cards for the 60's, 70's and 80's).

Setup the Markets

• Both players create their market by placing every card with an "A" in the bottom-left corner on the Pride Player Board in the space marked "A".
• The cards should be ordered so the cards from the 80's (indicated in the top-right corner) are on the bottom, the cards from the 70's are on top of that, and the cards from the 60's are on the very top.
• Do the same for the cards marked with letters B through F. Any card without a letter is part of the player's starting deck.

Overview

Stonewall Uprising is played over a series of rounds. In each round, players take turns playing a single card from their hand until they are out of cards or they choose to Fold.

As players play cards, they move cubes on three different tracks, reflecting three different components of the Pride movement. When the cube reaches an Endzone of a track, an effect is triggered, and an Event Token is placed on the Event Track. When the Event track is filled, the winning faction flips an Event card from that Decade.

After an Event card is flipped and resolved, the game progresses to the following Decade. Both players immediately take the top cards out of their markets until they reveal the new cards with the next Decade's symbol on them.

The game can end in two ways. First, if The Man Demoralizes 10 people, they win the game. Or, the Pride player can win by having the total of their dice pool higher than or equal to the Overton Window.

Components

• 5 cube trackers (1 black, 1 red, 1 green, 2 blue)
• 1 Game Board
• 1 First Player Token
• 1 "S" Starting Position Token
• 2 Market Boards
• 2 Player Boards
• 3 Law Tokens
• 5 Deckthin Tokens
• 5 Event Tokens
• 12 Dice: 2d10s, 2d8s, 2d6s, 6d4s
• Base deck
• Automa/solo deck
• 6 Extra Card Tokens
• This rulebook

Sequence of Play

Each round consists of:

1. Players take turns playing a card or folding
2. Resolving the event track (when required)
3. Market Phase
4. Hand off first player token

Playing Cards

At the beginning of a new round, each player draws 5 cards. Draw an extra card for each Extra Card token you have, then return those tokens to the center.

When you play a card:

1. Place it in the center of your player area to indicate that you played it this round, not in your discard pile.
2. Move the cube tracker towards your side along the track value corresponding to the icon in the top left of the card played.
3. Resolve any additional ability on the card.
4. Resolve any Endzone effect that is triggered when a cube tracker goes into an Endzone. Reset the cube back to the starting space on that track.

A card shows its Card Value & the Track it Moves (top left), Card Name, Card Image, Card Ability, Historical Relevance/Flavor Text, and AIDS Deaths icons where applicable.

• If the Overton Window counter crosses or lands on a DeckThin token, the Man permanently removes one card of their choice from their deck or discard pile from the game. The Man shuffles their deck. This effect is triggered once per DeckThin token, which is also removed from the game.

Example: 1. As Pride you play the Marsha P. Johnson card. Move the Public Support track to your side by 2 spaces. 2. This hits your endzone. Receive a D6 to add to your dice pool. 3. Because of the card's ability, you move the Overton Window down by 1.

When you resolve an Endzone Effect at the end of a Track, place an Event Token on the Event Track on an open space with your faction side up. If the Event Track is full then that player does not place an Event Token (see Resolving the Event Track).

Detaining

First, The Man must Detain people from the Pride player's discard pile. If the Pride discard pile is empty, The Man Detains from the top of the Pride player's deck. If The Man Detains from the Pride player's discard pile, the Pride player always gets to pick and choose which people are Detained.

As a note, in the game's text we use the term "people" instead of "card" regarding Detaining and Demoralizing to generate impact and to remind players that these were real people, not just cards in a game.

If the Pride player Undetains people they get to pick and choose from the Detained people and place that many people into their discard pile.

Demoralizing

When The Man Demoralizes people, that many people are randomly taken from the Detained and placed into the Demoralized zone. Demoralized people will remain there for the rest of the game, and unlike Detained people, they can not be saved by the Pride player. As a reminder, Demoralizing 10 people causes the Man to win.

Retaliation Dice

The Pride player may have access to Retaliation Dice. These dice, which are red d4s, can be placed onto cards in The Man's market. When that player purchases a card with one or more Retaliation Dice on them, those dice join Pride's dice pool and are all rolled as normal. These are component-limited to 4.

Law Tokens

The Man may have access to Law Tokens that can be placed on any of the three tracks (Systemic Support, Public Support, or Individual Support). These have an effect when the cube tracker lands on it. The effect only triggers if the cube lands on the space, not if it just passes the space. Once the token is triggered, it returns to The Man's supply. These can be placed on either side of the tracks.

'S' Token

The Pride player also can purchase cards that move the starting "S" token on the Public Opinion track. This cannot be moved onto the colored End Zones which trigger abilities. The Token can be placed adjacent to those spaces.

DeckThin Token

When the Overton window crosses this icon for the first time, remove this DeckThin token from the game and The Man chooses a card from either their deck or discard pile to remove from the game. Then reshuffle The Man's deck.

Folding

If it is your turn and you still have cards in your hand, you have the option to Fold instead of playing a card. After Folding, you will not play any more cards during that round. Your opponent may continue to play as many cards as they want until they decide to fold or they run out of cards in their hand.

Three things happen when the first player folds in a round:

1. The Folding Player pushes one cube tracker one space towards the opponent. This cannot make a cube tracker land on the Endzone of a track. If there is no legal space, no tracker cube is pushed.
2. All card values of the non-Folding Player are doubled for the rest of the round. This does not include the Market Phase.
3. For each card played by the non-Folding Player, the Folding Player will draw an additional card in the following Round. For each card your opponent plays while you are Folded, take an Extra Card token.

If your opponent Folded already, no additional actions happen.

If you play all of your cards, you did not Fold. No steps for Folding are taken.

Resolving the Event Track

When the Event Track is full, both players remove the last decade's unpurchased market cards from the game.

The player with the most event tokens flips an event card for the decade they are currently in. Resolve the effects of this event card.

Any Retaliation Dice in play will retain their relative position in the market when the decade is updated.

Only one Event Card will be drawn each Decade, so only three Event cards may be drawn each game of Stonewall Uprising. Most have one immediate effect and one static effect, usually lasting until the end of the Decade. Event cards never go into the players' decks.

Remove all Event Tokens from the Event Track.

Market Phase

During the Market Phase, each player may buy cards in turn order. The cost of the card is set by its position on the market shown on the Market Board. Unused cards provide their value as shown in the upper left corner. You can have unused cards by folding before you play all of your cards.

If you only have 1 or 2 cards to buy with, any newly purchased cards go on top of your deck. Otherwise, they go into your discard pile. If the value of your remaining cards is higher than the cost of the cards, that extra value is lost. You cannot "bank" card value into the next round.

You may buy as many cards as you can afford.

As an example, if you have two cards in your hand, one a value of 3 and the other a card with a value of 2, you could purchase two 2-cost cards or one 4-cost card. In both scenarios the bought card(s) would go on top of your deck. The remaining 1 from your total of 5 value in your hand disappears as it can only be spent that round.

Each time The Man buys a card from their market in the 80's, move the AIDS Death cube tracker up as many spaces as the card has AIDS Death Icons. Cards from both players may be affected by the number of AIDS Deaths on the AIDS Death tracker.

The Three Tracks

In Stonewall Uprising, there are three tracks both players will be fighting for control over: Systemic Support, Public Support, and Individual Support.

Each track has a cube that starts on the space marked with an "S" on it or on Public Support's * starting space. When players play cards, the cube will move back and forth on the track. Once a cube lands on a colored space on one of the Endzones, resolve the effect that corresponds to that Endzone, written beneath the track. Then reset the cube back to that track's "S" space.

Some cards refer to which side a track is on. The gradient above the cube tracker shows the side it is on.

Dice Pool and Winning

For the Pride player, if your Dice Pool's value ever equals or exceeds the Overton Window you win the game. If The Man Demoralizes 10 people, they win the game.

Dice gained by the Pride player are never removed. Each time the Pride player gains a die, they roll that die and re-roll all dice in the Dice Pool.

Gaining dice into your dice pool is usually done by getting to the end of the Public Support track. If you cannot take a die because the supply is empty, take the next lowest value-die instead.

Ending the Game

The moment The Man Demoralizes 10 people or the Pride player rolls above the Overton Window tracker, the game ends immediately. The same is true if the Pride player gets the Overton Window tracker equal to or below their dice pool's current total as well.

If The Man wins, the LGBT movement is held back by years. If the Pride player wins, LGBT rights are brought into focus and taken seriously, making more progress sooner than anyone could have expected.

This may be optimistic, but yes - No matter who wins this game the Pride movement ends up winning eventually.

The Decades

THE 60's: For a number of decades, rumblings of gay and lesbian groups existed, but the 1960s is when some events finally propelled it all forward. The Black Civil Rights movement proved it could work, and all they needed was one big moment to bring these groups together as one. Meanwhile almost every facet of society detested or ignored the existence of this minority.

THE 70's: The Gay Civil Rights movement was really amping up by the 1970s. Lots of new and wild groups were rapidly founded by this newly galvanized minority. The other side of the spectrum did not take long to notice and was ready, due to their experience with the Black Civil Rights movement. During the 70s, both players will gain access to new cards in their markets and new abilities.

THE 80's: The AIDS Crisis hit the community like a brick, causing a sense of hopelessness among those seeing their friends and loved ones starting to die one after another. The people in power ignored and deferred the situation until it was beyond clear that AIDS wasn't going anywhere.

Solo Mode (Play as Pride)

The player takes turns back and forth playing cards for Pride and flipping Automa cards for The Man. This continues each round until Pride or The Man wins. Both sides have their standard win conditions; The Man's Automa has additional win conditions in solo.

Folding

If Pride folds first:

• Push the cube tracker 1 space closer to The Man's Endzone on one of the 3 tracks. Just like folding in the base game, when Pride folds they get to choose which track to push one space towards their opponent's side.
• Any numbers on The Man's automa cards are doubled for the rest of the round. Numbers in boxes are never doubled.

The Man folds once they've revealed 4 or more hand symbols on cards. If they have, they fold after resolving that card's effects for that decade.

If The Man folds first:

• The track marker moves 1 space on the track as listed in the card's bottom right corner. If this would make a cube tracker land in Pride's endzone, it does not move.
• For the rest of the round, place 1 Extra Card token on The Man's automa deck for each additional card that Pride plays after the man has folded. At the beginning of the next round before playing any cards, play the number of cards equal to the number of Extra Card tokens and resolve their effects. Discard the tokens and cards that are played this way. Normal play then resumes starting with the side in possession of the First Player token.

Running The Man's Automa

To run The Man's automa:

1. Reveal and play the top card of the automa deck.
2. Resolve the current decade's ability. Do not resolve abilities in either of the other 2 decades. Some abilities are modified by the card text below, including increasing the move value or allowing Pride to stop that ability.
3. Resolve any tracks where the marker has moved into the colored Endzone. If the text mentions whether a track is "on The Man's side", it's referring to the gradient directly above the specified track. If the marker is below the rainbow gradient, it's considered to be on Pride's side. If the marker is below the greyscale gradient, it's on The Man's side.
4. Resolve any remaining text on the automa card.

Play goes back and forth between The Man's automa deck and Pride, the same as it does in the 2-player mode of Stonewall Uprising.

At the end of each turn, count the number of Hand icons on all cards played this Round. If there are 4 or more in total, the automa immediately Folds. If the automa folds first, push the marker one space on the track indicated in the bottom right of the last card The Man's automa played:

• If there's a Red Triangle, push the marker on the Systemic Support track.
• If there's a Blue Square, push the marker on the Public Support track.
• If there's a Green Circle, push the marker on the Individual Support track.
• If the marker is already one space away from Pride's colored Endzone, it can't move and nothing happens.

If The Man's automa cards push more than one marker into their track's Endzone in a single turn, resolve them in the following order:

1. Systemic Support
2. Public Support
3. Individual Support

Values in a white-outlined box NEVER get doubled as an effect.

Detaining and Demoralizing

If The Man's automa tries to Demoralize more people than are Detained, Demoralize all Detained cards, then Detain (but do not Demoralize) 1 additional card for each card you were unable to Demoralize.

Example: The Man's automa has Detained 1 person, but wants to Demoralize 3. In this case The Man's automa Demoralizes all Detained people (1), then Detains 2 people from either Pride's discard pile, or the top cards of Pride's deck.

Retaliation Dice

In solo mode, the Pride player may place Red d4 Retaliation Dice on the tracks. When The Man's automa lands within the colored Endzone of a track, Pride takes any amount of Retaliation Dice from that track and adds them to their dice pool. If Pride adds to their dice pool this way, they roll their Dice Pool after the automa's turn is fully resolved.

• Note: The Retaliation Dice are component-limited to 4.

Events

In solo mode, The Man's automa has the same three event cards for each game: one for the 60s, one for the 70s, and one for the 80s.

AIDS Death Cards

Each time the automa plays a card that mentions a number of AIDS Deaths, move the cube tracker up that many spaces on the bordering track.

Win Conditions for The Man's Automa

The Man's automa deck contains 3 alternative win conditions in the 80s. If one of those cards is played and the condition is met, Pride loses the game immediately.

Designer's Note on Terminology

You may notice while playing Stonewall Uprising that some cards refer to the Pride player's movement over the years, like Openly LGBT Businesses or Re-Galvanized LGBT Groups. Originally I intended to use period-appropriate terms for the movement, but as the scope of the game grew beyond just the 1960s that became difficult to justify, and for players to follow.

For those unaware, pre-Stonewall none of the groups had the word "gay" in them. Instead, they called themselves "Homophiles" to hide what they were really discussing, and while that is still a real term, it would be confusing to switch from the Homophile Movement to the Gay Movement in the 1970s, and then finally to the LGBT Movement of the 1980s.

As it stands in 2022, LGBT as an acronym has been modernized to LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA+. As an umbrella term I actually appreciate how flexible and big tent it can get, but for use in a game, things can get dicey for length reasons (with the full acronym at time of writing being LGBTQQIP2SAA). Queer is a fantastic modern word that shortcuts a lot of hassle of specifically saying exactly what you are, but in the context of Stonewall Uprising it also has the extra baggage of being a slur. Hence both of those options weren't really on the table as I wanted to respect those who would have disdain for that term, primarily those who lived through these very events.

The team at Catastrophe Games and I tried our best to find the ideal middle-ground between the most appropriate terms for the groups involved while trying to keep the game as accurate as possible. I'm convinced there is no perfect term but I am happy with where we landed, and I hope you're pleased with it as well.