For a Crown rules: how to play and how to score

For a Crown quick rules

The goal

Each player leads a family that wants to wear the crown. Over four rounds, you recruit Mercenaries who earn you Rubies or make others lose them. At the end, the family with the most Rubies in its chest wins.

Your chest and influence

You start with ten Rubies and your Heirloom, hidden in your chest along with a few Coins. The Gallery lines up the families’ Portraits: the further right your Portrait, the more influential your family. Influence sets the turn order and breaks ties.

Recruiting a Mercenary

From the most influential family to the least, each player recruits a Mercenary from the Royal Square: a faceup card, or the facedown top card of a deck, in a column that has a cost. You pay in Coins, or in Rubies instead. Slide the card into a sleeve with your crest and place it facedown on the shared deck. In the first round, you recruit twice.

The reveal

Shuffle the shared deck and reveal the cards one at a time. Your Mercenary applies its effect when it comes up: gain a Ruby or a Coin, make another family lose a Ruby, give them a Masked Bandit, move a Portrait or roll the magic die. Level 1 Mercenaries let you choose between two effects.

Events

The shared deck also holds Events. Burglary makes the families with the most Masked Bandits lose two Rubies; Scandal makes you lose two, one or zero Rubies depending on your Portrait’s zone. Bribery, Mercenary Mages and Helping Hand round out the deck.

Out of Rubies

If your chest is empty when you must return a Ruby, you sell your Heirloom and take ten Rubies. If you already sold it, your family is out of play: the others finish the round, then the game ends.

End of round and end of game

Between rounds, all played cards form the new shared deck with one new Event, and a 0 tile shifts the recruitment costs. After the fourth round come three final effects, then everyone opens their chest.

Beginner traps

Forgetting the double recruit in the first round. Thinking you can pay a Ruby with a Coin: only the reverse is allowed. Leaving your Masked Bandits lying around. And forgetting to track what the others gain, since chests are secret.

How to score For a Crown

Rubies in your chest

The Rubies in your chest at the end of the fourth round, or of the round when a family went out of play.

Heirloom

Kept, it counts as 10 Rubies; sold, it no longer counts.

Coins left

The family or families with the most Coins gain 1 Ruby.

Masked Bandits

The family or families with the most Masked Bandits in front of them lose 1 Ruby.

Influence

The most influential family gains 1 Ruby. The most Rubies wins; on a tie, the most influential family wins. The Ludingo sheet adds these three effects for you.

Worked example

Emma ends with 14 Rubies, her Heirloom and the most Coins: 14 + 10 + 1 = 25. Jake has 18 Rubies but sold his Heirloom; he is the most influential family and has the most Masked Bandits: 18 + 1 − 1 = 18. Emma wins with 25 Rubies.

Common mistakes

• Forgetting to count a kept Heirloom: it is worth 10 Rubies.
• Giving the Coins Ruby to only one family when several are tied: they all gain it.
• Forgetting the Ruby lost by the families with the most Masked Bandits.
• Breaking ties at random: on equal Rubies, the most influential family wins.

How to set up For a Crown

Setup takes about five minutes, in three parts: the families, the board, then influence.