Game rules

Lords of Waterdeep rules: how to play and how to score

Reviewed on 10 October 2026 against the publisher’s rulebook. How we check

Lords of Waterdeep plays 2 to 5 players over eight rounds: everyone sends Agents across the city of Waterdeep to hire adventurers and complete Quests. Here are the essential rules, setup and final scoring, based on the official rulebook.

Players: 2 to 5
Play time: About 90 minutes
Winner: Most points; on a tie, the most gold

Lords of Waterdeep quick rules

The goal: You are one of the secret Lords of Waterdeep, a great city of Dungeons and Dragons. Your Agents hire adventurers in the city’s buildings, and you spend them to complete Quests, which earn points. The game lasts eight rounds. Your Lord card, kept secret, gives you extra points for two types of Quests.
Your turn: Play goes clockwise. On your turn, place a single Agent on a free space of a building and immediately do what it says; an occupied space is blocked for everyone, even you. As long as you have an Agent left, you must place it. Then, you may complete a Quest.
Adventurers and buildings: There are four kinds of adventurers: white Clerics, orange Fighters, black Rogues and purple Wizards, kept with your gold in the Tavern of your mat. Blackstaff Tower gives a Wizard, the Field of Triumph two Fighters, the Grinning Lion Tavern two Rogues, the Plinth a Cleric. Aurora’s Realms Shop gives 4 gold, and Castle Waterdeep an Intrigue card and the First Player marker.
Three places to know: Cliffwatch Inn gives you a new Quest, with 2 gold or an Intrigue card. Builder’s Hall lets you buy a Building: pay its price, score the points on it, and collect the owner’s bonus whenever an opponent goes there. At Waterdeep Harbor, you play an Intrigue card; once all Agents are placed, each Agent in the Harbor moves to another free space.
Quests: To complete a Quest, return the adventurers and gold it requires to the supply and collect the reward: points, often resources too. Only one Quest per turn. There are five types: Arcana, Piety, Skullduggery, Warfare and Commerce. Plot Quests keep an ongoing effect, and an Intrigue card can force a Mandatory Quest on you, to be completed before any other.
Rounds and the end: At the start of each round, the round’s three point tokens go onto the Buildings for sale: the longer a Building waits, the more it pays. At the start of the fifth round, everyone gains one more Agent. A round ends when all Agents are placed and the Harbor has been emptied. After the eighth round, do the final count.
The final count: Everyone reveals their Lord card. Add to your points one point per adventurer left in your Tavern, one point per pair of gold coins, and your Lord’s bonus. The highest total wins; on a tie, the most gold wins.
Beginner traps: With no Intrigue card in hand, you can’t go to the Harbor. A Mandatory Quest from an opponent blocks all your other Quests. Even with two Agents placed in one turn, you complete only one Quest. And when an opponent uses your Building, claim your bonus.

How to score Lords of Waterdeep

Points during the game: Your position on the scoring track: Quests, Buildings, Intrigue… plus 100 per 100-point token.
Adventurers left: 1 point per Cleric, Fighter, Rogue or Wizard left in your Tavern.
Gold: 1 point per pair of gold coins. Gold is also the tie-breaker.
Lord bonus: 4 points per Quest of your card’s two types, or 6 per Building with Larissa Neathal.
Corruption (Skullport): Each Corruption token in your Tavern costs the value of the empty space on the Corruption track farthest from −1 (5 points for −5), the same for the whole table.

Worked example

Emma ends at 98 points on the track. She has 7 adventurers left (7) and 9 gold coins, so 4 pairs (4). Her Lord card covers 5 of her completed Quests (5 × 4 = 20): 98 + 7 + 4 + 20 = 129 points.

Common mistakes

Scoring gold coin by coin: it’s 1 point per pair, and a single coin scores nothing.
Forgetting to reveal your Lord card: 4 points per Quest of its two types, often over 20 points.
With Larissa Neathal, counting Quests: her bonus is 6 points per Building.
Forgetting the adventurers left in your Tavern: 1 point each, whatever their color.
With Skullport, using the nearest Corruption space: it’s the empty space farthest from −1.

How to set up Lords of Waterdeep

Only the number of Agents depends on the player count. The player who most recently visited another city goes first.

The board

Unfold the board in the middle of the table.It shows the districts of Waterdeep, the round track along the bottom and the scoring track all around.
Put 3 Victory Point tokens on each of the 8 spaces of the round track.These tokens mark the current round; at the start of each round, they go onto the Buildings for sale.
Put the Adventurer cubes and the gold next to the board: that’s the supply.
Shuffle the Building tiles and put 3 face up on the 3 spaces of Builder’s Hall.The rest form a face-down stack next to Builder’s Hall.

The cards

Shuffle the Lord cards and deal one face down to each player.Everyone looks at theirs in secret: it’s their identity and hidden goal. Put the others back in the box without looking.
Shuffle the Quest cards and deal 2 face up to each player.These are your active Quests; everyone can see them.
Put 4 Quest cards face up on the 4 spaces of Cliffwatch Inn, then the rest as a draw pile next to it.Cliffwatch Inn is the building where you pick up new Quests.
Shuffle the Intrigue cards, deal 2 face down to each player and put the draw pile near the Harbor.Keep your Intrigue cards secret: you play them at Waterdeep Harbor.

Each player

Everyone picks a color and takes the player mat and scoring marker of that color.Put your scoring marker on space 0 of the scoring track.
With 2 players, everyone puts 4 Agents of their color in the Agent pool of their mat.
With 3 players, everyone puts 3.
With 4 or 5 players, everyone puts 2.
Everyone puts 1 more Agent near space 5 of the round track.This Agent joins you at the start of the fifth round, for the rest of the game.
Put the Ambassador and the Lieutenant next to the board.These two neutral Agents belong to nobody at the start; a Building and a Quest let you get them.

Starting gold

Give the First Player marker to the player who starts.
The first player takes 4 gold coins, their left neighbor 5, the next 6, and so on.Gold goes in the Tavern of your player mat, with your adventurers.

Frequently asked questions

How many Agents do you get in Lords of Waterdeep?

4 Agents each with 2 players, 3 with 3 players, 2 with 4 or 5 players, plus one extra Agent at the start of the fifth round.

Who goes first in Lords of Waterdeep?

The player who most recently visited another city. They take 4 gold, their left neighbor 5, the next 6.

How many points is your Lord card worth in Lords of Waterdeep?

4 points per completed Quest of its two types, revealed at the final count. Larissa Neathal instead scores 6 points per Building.

Ludingo’s Lords of Waterdeep sheet was last reviewed on 10 October 2026, based on: wizards.com, BoardGameGeek.