Soothsayers - Official How to Play. Complete, Clear, Concise Board Game How to Play
Transcript
Mystics hustle to snatch tarot powers out combo rifles to race to fulfill your fate first in tarot inspired game Soothsayers.
And today we'll be teaching you how to play Soothsayers game designed by Jeff Gryenweight and published by Play to Z.
And hi everyone, it's Stella
and Tarant. Welcome to Meable University.
And hey, if you enjoy this video after watching, like, subscribe, and comments. You know what to do. Now, let's get to the classroom. In Soothsayers, two to five players play the roles of clairvoyance, racing against each other to be the one to earn the most fate. Through the actions they take, players will earn money, gain cards, ascend their cards to strengthen their actions, and capture powerful tarot arcas to build up their power and claim the fates. The first player to achieve the required amount of fate for their player count will be the winner. To set up, first separate all cards into these four decks. There's the starter cards. These are all double-sided and have the number one in the top left corner. The common cards, these are the other cards of that type numbered from two to six with this back. the lesser standard tarot cards with the yellow backs and the greater standard tarot cards with the orange backs. With the starter cards, give each player their own set of four cards arranged in this order. Return unused sets to the box.
Shuffle all of the common cards into one deck. Deal a hand of five to each player and lay out a face up market of eight cards in a two or three player game or 10 cards in a four or five player game. Each of the two tarot decks contains two copies each of the numbered arcas which you would find in a standard tarot deck with the lesser decks having cards numbered 0 through 11 and the greater deck with cards from 12 through 21. In each case, you'll have two different cards of the same number, but with different text down the bottom. Assemble the deck by choosing one card of each number. And for your first game, simply choose the ones which do not have this flower icon in the bottom right corner. These are the simpler ones to play with.
Shuffle the chosen lesser and greater cards separately. Then stack the lesser deck on top of the greater deck, giving you a single layered deck. Then each player draws one of the lesser tarot cards into hand. A market of tarot cards is laid face up. This will be four cards in a two or three player game or five cards in a four or five player game. And then if you're playing with fewer than five players, you'll remove a number of these to the box without looking at them. five, three, or one cards for a two, three, or four player game. Make a common supply of the coins and give everyone starting money of four coins. Make a supply of fate tokens and then place the trade board on the side corresponding to your player count and fill it up with one fate per space.
Choose a first player who takes the crystal ball stand and you're now ready to play. In Soothsayers, players are racing to gain fate.
But as players take turns, their rifles are never out of play.
This is because Soothsayers is a game of lead and follow. On any given turn, there will be one player who is the leader, and that player will be holding the crystal ball. To begin the turn, that player chooses one of their four actions by placing the crystal ball on the card. Even as these cards are increased in level throughout the game, the four core actions remain the same. Earn or trade, draft, ascend, or capture. The leader now resolves the stronger effect on the top half of their card for that chosen action. Then in clockwise order, each other player has the choice to either follow the lead action or pass. If a player follows, compare the level of their card against the level of the leader card in the same suit. If the followers card is equal or higher, then they may follow for free and get to resolve the weaker effect on the lower half of their card.
If the follower's card level is lower than the leaders, then the follower must pay coins equal to the difference in level to the leader in order to follow before they again resolve the weaker effect on the lower half of the card. If a follower can't afford to pay that cost or they simply don't wish to follow the action, then they pass, which always means they get to resolve the weaker effect on the lower half of their yellow card. This means earning a small number of coins. Do note that means that if the leader chooses the earn or trade action, all other players would simply automatically pass and do their small earnings from the bottom of their yellow card. They'll never have to pay coins to a player with a higher level earn card when this happens.
After all players have either followed or passed, then replenish any empty spaces in either the common card or tarot card markets from the tops of their decks and hand the crystal ball token one step clockwise. This player will now choose a lead action for the next turn. Continue taking turns in this way until one player has achieved the required number of fate for victory. This is seven in a two-player game, six in a three-player game, or five in a four or five player game. The first player to achieve this wins immediately. It doesn't matter whether the player was leading or following at the time or whether any other players were yet to follow this turn. The game ends immediately and the player with the necessary fate is the winner.
Now, let's gaze into the crystal ball and look at each of the four different actions. First is earn and trade. And this is the very glamorous and mystical art of coins. When you lead, earn or trade, take one of the two options. Either earn the printed amount of money. So for the level one action, this would be four coins, but it could get as high as 12. And gain that money straight from the supply. Alternatively, make a single trade. Purchase the cheapest remaining fate token on this board for its printed price. These will get more expensive as the game progresses. Collect this fate in your supply. This is yours forever. It can never be stolen.
Remember that players can never follow the earn or trade action. If earn trade was led or a player chooses not to follow one of the other led actions, then they pass and earn this lower amount of money which begins at two and can increase as high as four. The second action is draft and this is how players gain new common cards into their hands. When you lead draft, gain the depicted number of cards into your hand. This begins at two and can go as high as five. Each card drafted is taken either from the common card market or the top of the common card deck. There is no hand limit. You cannot draft tarot cards with this action.
Players who follow then draft the lesser number of common cards ranging from one up to three in the same way. Only once all players have followed or passed are spaces in the common market refilled.
Those were the two actions which give you resources.
And the next two are the major ways to go shopping. Buying upgrades and fate with your hard-earned resources. The green action is ascend. And this is how you make the cards in your action row stronger. Separately resolve a number of ascend actions as shown. This will range between two and six when you lead. For each ascend, either take a card from your hand, which is the next number up in a matching suit, and place it over the top of your existing card, or take a card from hand, which is two levels up from the existing card and pay five coins. Again, to lay that over the top, you may only skip a single level on each ascend. For example, I could not skip two levels by paying 10 coins.
But when doing multiple ascends, you can ascend the same or different suits in any combination. And you may pay the five coins to skip a level on any number of those ascensions. After each ascension and before anyone else follows, check your cards for fate. If you now have the single highest leveled card in that suit among all players, then place a fate on that card. That means the first player to ascend a given suit will gain a fate and thereafter any player who ascends higher on that suit will steal the fate. Ascending to an equal level is not enough. This play sees a tie. And so the fate would remain with the player who had it.
But instead, this play, skipping a level, would establish a new leader and steal the fate. That means there'll be four fate on these cards, which will change hands multiple times through the game until someone first reaches the highest level six and claims it forever. When players follow Ascend, they'll be able to ascend either one or two cards following all the same rules, including the right to pay to skip a level. Do note that if you ascend your ascend card, the original card applies for the rest of this turn with the new card taking over only from next turn. So here I'd still be ascending at most two cards when leading and anyone who's following with a level one card can do so without paying me a coin.
The fourth and final action is capture. And this is how you'll gain and play the tarot cards. When you lead capture, you'll be able to capture either one or two tarot cards depending on the level. Resolve each of your captures separately. Choose to capture either the tarot card you were dealt during setup or any one among the tarot cards in the face up market. Pay its cost, which is equal to the level in its top left corner through any combination of discarding common cards from your hand and adding the values in their top left corners and making up the difference with coins. This, for example, would be enough to pay for the level 11 justice.
When capturing multiple tarot, each payment is made completely separately. That means here, I couldn't spend these three threes to make up this total cost of nine. I'd instead be paying two of the threes here overpaying and one of the threes here making up the difference with a coin. Additionally, across your entire capture action, you're limited to spending only this number of cards as part of the costs. And so here, if I wanted to capture these two cards, I could pay these three to make up 18 of the cost, but everything else would have to come from my coins. The ability to pay more cards is the main thing which upgrades as you ascend your capture card.
Having paid for the card, now add it to the column matching the suit in its top left corner. In some cases, you're given a choice, so add it to whichever of those columns you choose. You may have at most one tarot per column, so if you play another, replace the one you already have. Then after each capture, check the level on each player's tarot card in that column, if any. Whoever has the highest gains a fate, stealing it from anyone else who has it in that column. As was the case for the common card levels, that means these four fate are going to be stolen and changing around among the players throughout the game. [clears throat] A player who follows may capture at most one tarot card with a lesser number of common cards allowed to contribute towards the cost.
Then once all players have followed or passed, refill the open market which will eventually go from the lesser tarot to the greater tarot. If you captured the tarot from your hand that you were dealt in setup, do not replace it. This tarot in hand comes only during setup.
Tarot cards are not just about slapping down biggest number to gain fate. They also come with a variety of special rulebending destiny hijacking powers. The different tarot powers have different ways of being triggered. If a tarot has a lead ability, then it is triggered when you lead that column. For a follow ability, it's triggered when you follow in that column. Pass abilities are triggered when you choose to pass, regardless of which column the leader chose to lead in. and an action ability resolves whenever you resolve that column's action, whether you're leading or following. An upon capture effect resolves immediately when that card is captured.
And a when replaced effect is resolved when you capture a card and place it into the same column, discarding the one that's replaced. In some cases, the tarot will enhance or augment the existing action associated with its column. While if the effect says instead, you ignore the normal rules of the action you're taking and instead follow only the effect on the tarot. Cards from the lesser deck tend to provide a number of different ways to build up the strengths of your actions, making you more powerful, while many of the cards in the greater tarot deck provide additional ways to gain fate. Any fate that you gain from such an effect goes into your general fate supply, the same as any fate that you buy from the trade board. That means unlike the fate on your common or tarot cards, these can't generally be stolen.
Remember that in setup you'll be compiling the tarot decks from one copy of each card. You can do this in any combination. And just remember that the ones showing this flower will tend to be a bit more advanced and often a bit more interactive than the basic ones. Continue playing in this way until one player, whether they were leading or following, has the required number of fate for victory. The game ends immediately and that player is the winner.
Thanks for watching and if you like this video, maybe you'd like to watch this next one. Have a great day. Bye.