SABOTEUR

OBJECT OF SABOTEUR: The object of Saboteur is to help your team win by completing your needed tasks.

NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 3 to 10 players

MATERIALS: Game rule booklet, 11 player cards (7 miners, 4 saboteurs),  28 gold nugget cards, 27 action cards, and 44 path cards.

TYPE OF GAME: Hidden Role Card Game

AUDIENCE: 8+

OVERVIEW OF SABOTEUR

Saboteur is a hidden role card game for 3 to 10 players. The goal of the game is to either complete a path to the golden nugget if you’re the miners or to prevent the miners from reaching the gold if you are the saboteur.

SETUP

The decks of cards are separated, and the miners and saboteur deck will need to be made. The number of miners and saboteurs depends on the number of players. For a 3-player game, you will need 3 miners and 1 saboteur card. For a 4-player game, you will need 4 miners and 1 saboteur card. In a 5-player game, there will be 4 gold miners and 2 saboteurs. For a 6-player game, 5 gold miners and 2 saboteurs are used. For a 7-player game, 5 miners and 3 saboteurs are used. In an 8-player game, there will be 6 miners and 3 saboteurs. For a 9-player game, 7 miners and 3 saboteurs are used, and finally, in a 10-player game, all the cards are used.

The player deck will be shuffled, and each player will receive a card. It will be kept secret and will tell you which team you are on. The remaining card is set facedown to the side for the remainder of the round.

To set up the play area players will take the starting card, (the one with a ladder printed on it) and place it in the center of the play area. The 3 goal cards are also removed and shuffled and placed randomly in a column on one end of the table. Combine the 40 remaining path cards and the action card to make a single deck. These are shuffled and hands are dealt depending on the number of players.

6 cards are dealt to games with 3 to 5 players. 5 cards are dealt to games with 6 or 7 players, and games with 8 to 10 players receive 4 card hands. The remaining deck is placed faceup near players as a draw pile.

The gold deck is shuffled and placed to the side.

Card Meanings

There are two types of cards used to play the game. These are action and path cards.

Action cards are used to hinder or aid players or gather information. They include broken tools, fix tools, rockfalls, and maps.

Broken or fix tool cards are played on a specific player and complete the corresponding action to the corresponding tool. If a player has a broken tool, they may not play path cards. A player can only ever have one of each type of broken tool in front of them, and a fixed tool of the same type discards the broken card. Fix tools sometimes have 2 tools types they can fix, but they can only fix one tool of either type.

Rockfalls are played in front of a player who can then clear one path card from the layout. This may not be used on the goal or start card.

Maps allow a player to look at one of the goal cards, they may then share their knowledge on if the card is worth digging towards.

Then you have path cards. Path cards are used to move the players forward towards their goal or can be placed to block the goal. They must be played so that they connect to one of the other path cards, and all paths must connect if attaching to multiple cards. path cards can only be played horizontally (longwise) and never vertically (tall wise).

GAMEPLAY

The youngest player starts the game. on a player’s turn, they must start by playing a card. they may either play a path card to the layout, play an action card to the layout, or discard a card to the discard pile facedown. After they play their card, they will then draw the top card of the draw pile and passes their turn.

If the discard pile is emptied no more cards are drawn but players continue to play a card each turn.

END OF ROUND

A round can end one of two ways. If the players create an uninterrupted path from the start to a goal card the round potentially ends, and if the draw pile is emptied and no player has a playable card the round ends.

If a goal is successfully reached the player who played the last card to reach it flips it over. Assuming it’s the gold card the round ends and the miners score. If it is not, the gold card is aligned with the path and the game continues.

If the round ends before the goal card can be reached, then all cards are revealed and the saboteurs score.

SCORING

If the miners win the round, then the last player to place the card to reach the goal will shuffle the gold cards and draw as many gold cards as there are miners. They may then look at them and choose which one they wish to keep and then pass the stack to their left to the closest miner (not saboteur). All miners will receive one gold card.

If the saboteurs win, they score gold depending on the number of saboteurs. If there is only one, they score 4 gold, if two or three saboteurs they each receive 3 gold and if there were four saboteurs, they each receive 2 gold.

Players will keep their gold totals secret till the end of the game.

After scoring a new round begins. The player to play the last path card starts the new round.

END OF GAME

After the third round the game ends. The player with the most gold wins the game.

Amber Crook
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