Vintage (2020)
Vintage (2020) Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 63 item cards
- 17 bonus cards
What's on an item card?
- Item icon (the item's category symbol)
- Decade icon (for example, 50s)
- Points value
- Item image
- Color icon and year (for example, 1952)
Set up
Randomly determine the first player.
Shuffle the item cards and deal face-up:
- One card in front of the first player,
- Two cards in front of the second player,
- Three cards in front of every other player.
The remaining item cards are placed in a face-down deck in the center of the table. Leave space for a discard pile next to the draw deck.
Place all bonus cards to the side until the end of the game. You may wish to keep them face-up and visible to all players.
Face-up item cards in front of the players make up their Display Case.
During the game, players will place item cards face-down to the side of their Display Case (or, if players prefer, simply held in their hands). This stack is known as a player's Hoard. A player can look at their own Hoard at any time, but may not look at other players' Hoards.
Players will start with 1 to 3 cards in their Display Case at the beginning of the game, but will have no cards in their Hoards.
Playing the game
Each player plays in turn, going clockwise, beginning with the starting player.
On their turn, a player performs three actions, in this order:
- First, they choose one item card from their Display Case and "saves it for later" by placing it face down on top of their Hoard. Note: The first player has no choice and hoards the single card they were dealt during set-up.
- Then, they either:
- Steal one item card from another player's Display Case and add it to their own Display, or,
- Salvage the top card from the face-up discard pile and add it face-up to their Display. Salvaging is not possible for the first player on their first turn.
- Finally, they draw two item cards from the face-down deck, look at them, and choose one to place face-up in their Display. The other card is discarded, face up, onto the discard pile.
Special rule: If a player has only one card left in their Display, players are not allowed to steal it from them.
End of the game
With 3 or 4 players, the game ends at the end of a player's turn when there are less than 2 cards remaining in the draw deck.
With 5 or 6 players, the first time the draw deck is depleted, the discard pile is shuffled to make a new draw deck (if there is only one card left in the draw deck at the end of a player's turn, the player on turn draws it, then shuffles the discards before drawing a second one). This is done only once. The second time the draw deck has less than 2 cards remaining in it, the game ends.
At the end of the game, in turn order, starting with the player on the left of the player who last took a turn, each player may place one final item card from their Display into their Hoard (with one exception: the last player cannot score the card they stole from another player on their final turn).
Depending on the number of players, one or more players may have played one less turn than the others and have one less card in their Hoard. These players can then hoard a second card from their Display Case, (if they have one).
Scoring
Lay out the 17 bonus cards and award each card to the player who has hoarded the most cards in the corresponding category. In case of a tie, the bonus card is given to the player owning the oldest card in the category, as indicated in the lower left corner of the cards. If still a tie, consider the 2nd oldest item, and so on.
Bonuses are awarded for having the most items from the 50s, 60s and 70s (5/8/10 points), for having the most items in each color (6 points each), and finally, for having the most items of each category - lighting, bikes, toys, etc. - (6 points each).
Each player then determines their scores by adding:
- The face value of the item cards in their hoard pile, and,
- The face value of all their bonus cards.
The player with the highest score wins. If there is a tie, the tied player with the oldest item wins. If the players are still tied, the second oldest item wins and so on.
"Take that" variant
Players who don't mind some aggressiveness in their games can play the following variant:
- Start with one fewer card in front of each player (0, 1, 2 cards, instead of 1, 2, 3).
- Stealing the last card in a player's display is allowed.