Tales of the Arabian Nights (2009 Edition) FAQ
174 questions players ask · Updated Nov 12, 2026 · Full rulebook
General
- Can Tales of the Arabian Nights be played solo?
- Are some encounter paragraphs mismapped to the wrong card, and is there an errata sheet?
- Which spaces count as Europe, Africa, Asia and India for quests?
- Can a city encounter or a desert space give a sea-type encounter?
- Does the Carried Away quest start your character somewhere other than Baghdad?
- Why does paragraph 960 send trial by pain to paragraph 112, which does not exist?
- Must you complete a quest once you have drawn it?
- Does the King of Thieves quest use the Destiny Die when you rob a gem?
- Is the Golden Cup (paragraph 2084) a treasure that needs a Fabulous treasure?
- How many times can you use the Magic Lamp, and when is it discarded?
Winning the Game
Components
Setup
- When does the time of day move from Morning to Noon or Night?
- Can you have more than one Quest marker on the board at the same time?
- Are Quest cards kept secret, or read aloud?
- Can Quest markers be placed on Places of Power?
- Can you discard a Quest card to draw a new one?
- Must each player's three starting skills differ from the other players' skills?
- How do you complete the Exile quest, given you must leave Baghdad?
- How do you read the slash in a Quest reward such as S/D/Status?
- After completing a Quest, do you draw a new one immediately?
- What are the Story and Destiny counters for?
- Do you draw the quest before choosing skills and a victory goal?
- Can you choose your character's starting sex?
Game Sequence Overview
Movement Phase
- What paragraph is the Sepulchre of Solomon Place of Power?
- Which spaces count as Arabia for quest text such as outside Arabia?
- Is Baghdad a City, and is the City of Brass one?
- Do cities with different regional artwork count as ordinary cities?
- Can you end your turn in a Place of Power?
- How do you get into a Place of Power?
- Do you get another encounter when you move off a Place of Power along the arrow?
- What counts as a coastal space when an instruction says to move to a coastal space?
- Do the numbers printed on map spaces cost movement points?
- How do Crippled or Diseased movement penalties (-1 movement) affect your fastest and slowest movement rates?
- If you are Lost and also Crippled, can you move at all?
- Do you draw an encounter card when you land on a gem or city space?
Encounter Phase
- Must you be in the terrain shown on a City Encounter card for its paragraph to apply?
- Is there a limit on how many City Encounter cards you can hold?
- Can an encounter roll total be as low as 1 to 3?
- What happens when you draw the Barber encounter card?
- Does a Reaction Matrix N entry on a terrain encounter card apply on any terrain?
- Does the city icon on a Terrain Encounter card have to match the city type you are standing in?
- How do you resolve a City Encounter card once you have it?
Resolving Encounters
- What counts as a successful encounter for a quest that requires one?
- What is the award paragraph in an encounter?
- Does the reader tell the player the consequences before a choice is made?
- Does the Destiny Track encounter bonus stay active once you pass its threshold?
- Does the Destiny Track +1 or +2 apply to every die roll, such as pursuit or imprisonment?
- Does the Protective Talisman stop bad results from every Efreet or Efreeteh encounter?
- Is Tana a city for an encounter, and which city symbol do you use?
- What does if you cannot pay mean in a Book of Tales paragraph?
- What does the Court option mean in the reaction matrix?
- How do you acquire Treasure cards?
- What are the steps of resolving an encounter?
- When a two-dice roll gets +1 from each skill, is the bonus added to the total or to each die?
- Is a Wizard male, and what is the female counterpart in the encounter text?
- Can you use the Celestial Planisphere to destroy a city where your origin marker is?
- Do you roll the Destiny Die when a paragraph sends you straight to another paragraph?
- How do you resolve the Cordoba slave encounter (paragraph 107)?
- Can you choose Buy when the matrix shows N/A for an adjective?
- Are the awards in a result paragraph applied in the order written?
- Does losing the Robe of Honor remove the Respected status and skill it gave you?
- In a Book of Tales paragraph about a comely youth, is the youth the opposite sex of the encountered character?
- Do gender-specific Book of Tales paragraphs change the story when your character is the opposite sex?
- What does an Abduct Beautiful result on chart A lead to, and what does a Fate die roll change?
Skills
- How does Seamanship combine with the Crippled status for movement by water?
- What happens when skill or status tokens run out, as with four or more players, or when a card runs out?
- How do you raise a skill to Master level?
- Can you upgrade a skill to Master instead of taking a new Talent skill when a reward lets you choose one?
- If two paragraph options each name a skill you have at Master level, how do you choose?
- If you reach a paragraph with a Master skill, does a Mandatory result in it still apply?
- Does a Mandatory result apply to skills below Master level?
- Does a Master skill apply to later paragraphs in a chain, or only to the first paragraph you choose?
- Must a Master skill appear at the head of a paragraph, or can it sit in a branch?
- Are skills spent when you use them in an encounter, or kept?
- Can you decline a skill listed in a result paragraph?
- When a paragraph lists several skills, separated by commas, 'or' or 'and', do you need all of them or just one?
- Must you still roll the Destiny Die when a Master skill is listed in one of the three paragraphs?
- Do skills nested under a choice count when checking for a Master-level skill?
- Is the Luck skill reward on paragraph 396 a misprint?
- Should paragraph 504 list Magic instead of Wilderness Lore?
- What does the misprint at paragraph 613 (No Skill, Strange Customs) refer to?
- When you choose a number with Blessed, do the modifiers still apply?
- Can you hold a one-use skill and use it later instead of at the first chance?
- Do you add the +2 from Seamanship only if you actually have the Seamanship skill?
- Does Seamanship limit your sea movement to four, even if your wealth allows more?
- How does Seamanship interact with the movement limit of low Wealth levels?
- What does a Master skill's (1 use) reward mean: does it revert or disappear?
- Does the Story track reward of a Talent-level skill let you upgrade an existing skill to Master?
Statuses
- Can a character hold the same status twice, such as Married, Crippled or Blessed?
- If you gain a status you already have, such as a second Robe of Honor, do you get its one-time bonus again?
- While you are Married, can you accept another Married status, such as one from Beloved, and move your Origin?
- Can a character court or marry someone of the same sex?
- Can a Married character who is Sex-Changed, or in Beast Form, still have children?
- Does changing sex end your Married status?
- If you are Insane and Envious, who chooses your reaction when Rob is possible?
- Is the Robe of Honor a Treasure or a Status card?
- Does Crippled go away if you already have Blessed or Respected?
- If you are Scorned and then earn story points that would give a reward, do you get the reward after Scorned is gone?
- If you are On Pilgrimage and gain Scorned, must you make a second pilgrimage to get rid of Scorned?
- If your Destination marker is moved by another effect while you are On Pilgrimage but before you reach it, does the pilgrimage end?
- If you are On Pilgrimage and receive another On Pilgrimage, do you restart and pick a new destination?
- If a new status or quest moves your Origin or Destination marker, do you lose the earlier status tied to that marker, such as Married?
- How do you get rid of the Fated status, and must its points be earned in one encounter?
- When a player is Fated, can the designated player choose any encounter result, not just a die result?
- What does the Respected status let you reroll?
- Can Determined let you turn down an award paragraph and choose another reaction?
- Does Determined apply when you roll for a City Encounter card?
- Can a Determined player reroll an encounter reaction if a status forces the reaction?
- Can a single On Pilgrimage clear both Envious and Scorned at once?
- How can you satisfy a Pilgrimage while Married, since Married sends you home after city encounters?
- Can you win the game while Sex-Changed?
- Can a character be married more than once?
- While Married or Vizier, must you return to your origin city before another city encounter?
- Must you have an encounter in your origin city to satisfy the Vizier return requirement?
- While Vizier, if you draw a city encounter card on the way home, do you have an encounter in that city?
- Do you collect a Married reward only if you are on your origin space at the end of the encounter?
- How is the Origin marker used?
- Can you win the game while holding the Vizier status?
- When a quest gives Vizier/Married with a slash, do you get both statuses or choose one?
- With Blessed, can you choose any encounter number, or only a die face from 1 to 6 plus the usual modifiers?
- When Blessed's loss check is rolled, how far from the called number can the roll be and still keep the status?
- Must you apply the Blessed status to a roll, or can you decline it?
- Are Blessed and Accursed applied to the Destiny die roll?
- Can a Blessed character examine the Book of Tales beyond the paragraph they are on before choosing a die number?
- Does Crippled cut your land movement to one space?
- When Accursed fixes your die result, does the roll still decide whether you lose the status?
- Is Insane removed by gaining a skill from a completed quest or pilgrimage, or only by an Encounter?
- When you are Insane and another player picks your reaction, who decides whether to use a skill?
- If you are Scorned with no Destiny Points, must you go On Pilgrimage immediately?
- If you are already Scorned and gain Scorned (1 turn), does the shorter duration replace the longer one?
- When you are Enslaved, what passes to the master, and does a lost point pass to the master too?
- If a player is Enslaved and Scorned and gains a Destiny point, is it stolen by the master?
- If an Enslaved player gains a third Story point, can the Enslaved status be removed?
- If you are Enslaved and then become the Sultan, are you still Enslaved?
- Can the Sultan status let you treat a city as one space for movement?
- Can a player acquire the Sultan status without meeting its requirements?
- Can you gain a status such as Vizier or Sultan for free from a result that lets you pick any status?
- How do you get rid of the Under Geas status?
- When does a points-based status such as Grief-Stricken or Geas end after you gain points?
- How long does a status with a turn count, such as Crippled (2 turns) or Grief-Stricken (1 turn), last?
- Does a Treasure, or two Wealth levels, gained from rolling on a City Encounter card count toward losing Envious?
- Can you sell a treasure or play a City card while Imprisoned?
- Does moving to another location with the Ebony Horse or an encounter end Imprisoned or Lost?
- If you gain Outlaw during a city encounter, are you imprisoned immediately?
- Can I take an action to lose a status on another player's turn?
- If a story result lets you choose between two statuses and you already have one of them, which do you take?
- If a result awards Beloved but you cannot court that sex, do you still take the other rewards?
- If you are Outlawed and in Samarkand, which city is nearest for the Origin marker?
- Are you prevented from gaining a status when no markers or cards are left for it?
- What happens when a status says to give a wealth level to a player in your space who has Scholarship, such as Wounded?
Wealth and Selling Treasures
- Can you give yourself a wealth level as an option, for example to cure Beastform?
- When one encounter result grants several rewards, are they applied together or in the order printed?
- Does gaining wealth above the maximum count toward losing the Envious status?
- When a card says lose 1 Wealth with a minimum level, what happens if you are above that minimum?
- When a quest or encounter says you pay someone, does your Wealth level change?
- Can a Sultan's Wealth level refill to Fabulously Wealthy after losing a level?
- How do you give a Wealth level to another player to get rid of a status?
- Can you use a wealth gain to lose a status when you are already at maximum wealth?
- What does the maximum wealth level written on a Treasure card mean?
Death and Game End
- If your character dies, is the sibling replacement immediate, and can you still declare a win?
- How do you win Tales of the Arabian Nights?
- Do your Story and Destiny totals have to match the goal exactly to win?
- Do you still have encounters on the trip back to Baghdad after reaching your goals?
- What happens to your quests and City Encounter cards when your character dies?
- Is 20 a cap on Story or Destiny points?