The Strange Forgeries of Mr. S.C.Rheber Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Goal Of The Game
• Rules
• Setup
• Manifesto
  • Museum Size and Forger Level table
• Exhibition
• Guessing
• Scoring
• What happens to all the drawings?

Introduction

The Strange Forgeries Of Mr. S. C. Rheber is a game of logic where some players (the Collectors) will purchase art from their dealer (the Gallerist) to fill their Museums. However some of the paintings are fakes crafted by the talented forger Simon Charles Rheber. Collectors will need to sharpen their sense of observation to recognize which painting is one of the strange forgeries of Mr. S.C.Rheber (pron. like the German Schreber).

Goal Of The Game

The Gallerist invents a secret rule and it's the Collectors' objective to guess it. During the game, the Collectors will produce many Drawings, and the Gallerist will secretly tell them whether it follows the secret rule or not, aka whether the Drawings are Originals or Fakes.

At the end of the game, the Collectors will put their knowledge to the test, and try to guess whether their opponents' displayed Drawings follow the rule or not. Mistakes determine the winner, so they'll want to try to make as few Mistakes as possible. The Gallerist moderates the game giving out hints as they like.

Rules

A game of The Strange Forgeries is a sequence of 4 phases: Setup, Manifesto, Exhibition, Guessing and Scoring, after which the game ends and a winner is declared. After a game ends, read What happens to all the drawings? and learn how to repurpose them in a new game.

Setup

• One player is the Gallerist, 2-6 other players are Collectors.
• The Gallerist will take the Gallerist Screen, a Pencil, a Marker, a Museum Folder and the Block of White Paper.
• Each Collector will need a Collector Book, the matching Colored Block of Paper, a Marker and a Museum Folder.

Manifesto

• The Gallerist invents a secret rule by writing a Written Hint and example Drawings behind the Gallerist Screen. This is called the Artistic Manifesto. In the Artistic Manifesto the 6 Drawings on the left conform to the secret rule, but the 6 Drawings on the right do not respect the rule. The Written Hint is useful to explain what the Drawings are not able to explain.
• Set the Museum Size and Forger Level for this game based on number of players and desired difficulty: consult the Setting Your Own Difficulty section of the GALLERIST ALMANAQ on page 5 in order to set those parameters. If you use an Artistic Manifesto provided in A Collection of Riddles section of the GALLERIST ALMANAQ (page 10) use the recommended settings for your player count. A summary table is provided in this page.
• The Gallerist creates an example Drawing that would follow the secret rule. Using a Pencil they gently mark the back with an "O" for Original. They show the Collectors this example. This is the First Masterpiece.

Illustration: the Gallerist Screen shows a Written Hint ("is about drawing zig-zag lines"), an Original column of example Drawings on the left and a Fake column on the right; the First Masterpiece is shown front and back, with an "O" on the back.

Museum Size and Forger Level table

Columns are the number of Collectors (five columns, from fewest to most Collectors, as drawn with 1 to 5 Collector figures in the original table; the rulebook supports 2-6 Collectors); rows are the desired difficulty. In each cell, the first number (blue) is the Museum Size and the second (yellow) is the Forger Level.

Difficulty	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4	Column 5
Very Easy	Size 20 / Level 8	Size 10 / Level 8	Size 7 / Level 8	Size 6 / Level 10	Size 5 / Level 10
Easy	Size 20 / Level 6	Size 10 / Level 6	Size 7 / Level 6	Size 6 / Level 7	Size 5 / Level 7
Medium	Size 20 / Level 4	Size 10 / Level 4	Size 7 / Level 4	Size 6 / Level 5	Size 5 / Level 5
Difficult	Size 20 / Level 2	Size 10 / Level 2	Size 7 / Level 2

Museum Size (blue) and Forger Level (yellow) by number of players (columns) and desired difficulty (rows).

Exhibition

• The Gallerist will moderate 6 rounds where the Collectors and the Gallerist will produce each a certain amount of Drawings. The amount of Drawings per round is decided by the Gallerist at the beginning of every round (keep it around 20 per player per game).
• After all Drawings for the round are completed, the Gallerist will secretly write their Solution in the back. Drawings that follow the rule will be marked with an "O" for an Original. If the Drawing doesn't follow the secret rule, it will be marked with an "X" for a Fake. Drawings marked with their Solutions are now called Masterpieces. (Use the Pencil gently or the Solutions will see-through).
  • Example: a zig-zag drawing is marked "O" ("YES, there is a zig-zag line"); a spiral drawing is marked "X" ("NO, there isn't").
• The Gallerist then returns the Masterpieces to the respective players who peeks at the Solution.
• Before the end of each round, the Gallerist can choose to reveal the Solution of any of their own Drawings from the current or previous rounds. (The printed text reads "Before each round ende end of each round"; transcribed here as "Before the end of each round".)
• The other Solutions are kept secret from everyone but the player who drew them until is instructed otherwise.
• Players can look at each other's Drawings during the game. Players may also ask each other Questions about their Masterpieces, and they can choose to ask those Questions privately. A player can respond with "yes," "no," or "I can't provide the answer." Players should only describe a Masterpiece by answering Questions of other players. The reasoning for this is because it's possible that what the player intended to draw is not the same as what the Gallerist interpreted.
• During the Exhibition's rounds the Gallerist can give out verbal hints if they choose.

Guessing

• After the 6th Exhibition round, the Collectors and the Gallerist decide which Masterpieces to put into their Museum Folders to display. They slot into their Museum Folders a number of Masterpieces equal to or less than the Museum Size (Slot Masterpieces in any order, regardless of which round they were created in; the Gallerist may skip this step if they had already revealed all their Solutions during Exhibition).
• Art Critic's Guess phase: Collectors now guess the Solutions of the other players' displayed Masterpieces using the transparent page in their Collector Book by keeping it over the Art Critic's Guesses page.
• They will write O for Original or an X for Fake.
• Once everyone has guessed, flip each Museum Folder to reveal the Solutions. Then each collector flips the transparent page to the right over the Art Critic's Solutions page.
• They mark the Mistakes they have made by filling in the box. An X (or O) guess to a O (or X) Solution is a Mistake.

Scoring

• Declare if any of the Collectors Guess The Rule, which is determined by if they made fewer or equal Mistakes than the Forger Level.
  • Example table (Forger Level = 4), columns Mistakes / Guess The Rule / WIN: 2 Mistakes - YES - YES; 5 Mistakes - NO - NO; 4 Mistakes - YES - NO.
• If only one Collector Guessed The Rule they win.
• If multiple players Guessed The Rule, then the one who made the fewest Mistakes wins.
• If they are still tied, they share the victory.
• You may hold an optional discussion after the game, to see how close players were to the secret rule.

What happens to all the drawings?

Don't throw away the Drawings you create with The Strange Forgeries of Mr. S.C.Rheber: the GALLERIST ALMANAQ explains how to store them (Storing Riddles page 8) and reuse them in a print-and-play game (Re-playing Riddles - THE AUCTION OF THE GRATER FOOL page 24).