The Plan Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object
• Setup
• Every Turn
• Executing Plans
  • The Smash & Grabs Go First
  • And Then, the Team of Three
  • Since There Were No Lone Specialists, the Teams of Two Go Next
  • After All Plans Are Fully Executed
• Game End
• Scoring
• Contents
• Variants
  • Head-to-Head
  • Solitaire
  • Tie-Breaking Bribes Variant

Object

Devise Plans, organize your teams, and amass the most valuable collection of items.

Setup

For three to six players. For solitaire or head-to-head, see the Variants.

• Shuffle the Plan cards into a stack and deal six cards to each player.
• Scramble the Treasures into a face-down pile.
• Scramble the Trinkets into a face-down pile.

If piles aren't your thing, feel free to stack them. Maybe you wanna put them in a bag? Look, no one is going to judge you. You're robbing a museum here. The only requirement is that you can't see the fronts.

Every Turn

1. Turn over five new Treasures.
2. Turn over three new Trinkets. These are added to any Treasures or Trinkets that may already be face up.
3. Players choose a Plan from their hands and place it face down.
4. Reveal everyone's Plans at the same time.
5. Teams of the same size enter and exit the museum together to Execute their Plans, starting with the smallest and working up. The order is: All Smash & Grabs (do these first), All Lone Specialists (then these), All Teams of Two (and so on), All Teams of Three (and so forth), All Teams of Four (with these last). See Executing Plans below.
6. After discarding all used Plans, each player now passes 2 of their remaining Plan cards to the person on their left. When players have only 2 cards left, discard them and deal 6 new cards to each player. This ends a round. In the 2nd round, switch to passing to the right. Switch back to passing to the left in the 3rd round. Re-shuffle the discarded Plans if you run out of cards.

This ends a turn! There are 4 turns per round.

Executing Plans

As the teams enter the museum, the Specialists immediately snatch up all Treasures that match their Expertise except...

• Teams of the same size will fail to collect Treasures for any Specialists that match. Those Treasures stay where they are and can still be claimed by Plans later in that round.
• If any Plan receives no Treasure during its execution, the player immediately claims any Trinket from either the face-up ones or the pile.
• If more than one player has to take a Trinket at the same time, the player with the lower number of Treasures picks first. If still tied, whoever has the least Trinkets picks first, otherwise both must take blindly from the pile.

The expertise that your team possesses is always in the top-left corner of the Plan cards. These match the kinds of Treasures the Specialists can boost.

The Smash & Grabs Go First

• A solo Smash & Grab gets all Treasures of 1 color.
• Two players here played Smash & Grabs, creating a tie. Neither player can claim a Treasure. But each gets away with one Trinket instead.
• Successful Smash & Grabs claim all Treasures of any one color.

And Then, the Team of Three

There were no Treasures left for these Specialists to claim. But they did get to snag a Trinket on the way out.

Since There Were No Lone Specialists, the Teams of Two Go Next

The Yellow Specialists are tied so neither gets to steal a yellow Treasure. But the red and blue Treasures are successfully stolen.

After All Plans Are Fully Executed

Any leftover face-up Treasures remain there for the next turn.

Game End

The game is over immediately when you cannot reveal five new Treasures at the beginning of a turn.

Scoring

All Treasures and Trinkets are worth the number of symbols pictured below the treasure: 1 point, 2 points, 3 points, or 4 points.

Sure... a dinosaur skull is worth a bunch, but a whole skeleton? Now THAT'S a valuable set of bones.

A complete set of 4 unique Treasures or Trinkets of the same color or type is worth 5 bonus points. For example, a set of four unique Treasures showing four symbols each is worth 10 points from the symbols plus 5 points from the set. A set of four unique Trinkets showing one symbol each is worth 4 points from the symbols plus 5 points from the set.

Even though there are five Trinkets of each type, only four unique Trinkets are needed to make a set.

Ties are broken by the most full collections, followed by the highest number of Treasures, followed by the highest number of Trinkets.

Contents

• 72 Plans, among five types:
  • 16 Smash & Grabs
  • 14 Lone Specialists
  • 14 Teams of Two
  • 14 Teams of Three
  • 14 Teams of Four
• 56 Treasures: seven kinds with two sets of four unique Treasures. The kinds are Jewels, Sculptures, Natural History Specimens, Paintings, Egyptian Artifacts, Fossils, and Lunar Objects.
• 30 Trinkets: three kinds with two sets of five unique Trinkets. The kinds are Documents, Pottery, and Toys.

Variants

Head-to-Head

Remove any two types of Plans from the deck. We recommend removing all the Smash & Grabs and the Teams of Four. (But you can experiment removing any two sets you like.) Then play the game as you normally would.

Solitaire

Remove any 2 types of Plans from the deck. Deal two cards to a Ghost player and 2 cards to yourself. Choose your card and flip up any one of the Ghost's cards. Refill each hand to 2 after executing the Plans. For more of a challenge, play against two or more Ghosts.

Tie-Breaking Bribes Variant

If a tie occurs while executing Plan cards, you can use your Trinkets as a bribe for the Specialists to break the tie!

• If there are multiple ties per Plan card, the person with the least Treasures can choose which color to resolve first.
• Players place the number of Trinkets they are willing to give up in their hand and all bidders reveal simultaneously.
• The player bidding the highest places their Trinkets face up near the pile of Trinkets and collects the objects that they were bidding on.
• Players who tie or do not win a bid, keep their Trinkets.
• If a player wins none of the bids and ends up taking no Treasure after their Plan is executed, they would still swipe a Trinket as compensation.

Example notes from the sheet: there are ties for both Yellow and Orange Treasures. Since this player has fewer Treasures, they'll decide which color is bid on first. Since there's no tie for Jewels, this player takes them all.