Be the last schemer with a card in hand. You start with two face-down cards and 2 ducats. Your cards are your lives: lose both and you're out.
On your turn, do one thing
- Gondola Fare: take 1 ducat. Nobody can stop you.
- Casino Winnings: take 2 ducats, unless someone claiming the Doge shuts the casino.
- Into the Canal: pay 7 ducats and pick a player; they lose a card. It can't be blocked. With 10 or more ducats, this is the only move you're allowed.
- Claim a role and use its power. You don't have to hold the card. That's the whole game.
The five roles
- Doge: take 3 ducats. Also blocks Casino Winnings.
- Poisoner: pay 3 ducats and pick a player; they lose a card.
- Corsair: take up to 2 ducats from another player. Also blocks robbery.
- Fortune Teller: draw 2 cards, then put back 2 of your choice. Also blocks robbery.
- Plague Doctor: blocks the Poisoner.
Calling a bluff
Whenever someone claims a role, to act or to block, any other player may challenge.
- They were lying: they lose a card and their move fails.
- They were honest: they show the card, shuffle it back and draw a new one, and the challenger loses a card.
Careful when the Poisoner picks you: challenge and lose, or bluff the Plague Doctor and get caught, and you can lose both cards in a single turn.
One player is secretly dealt two Plague Doctors before the game starts: the Untouchable. Needs at least 3 players.
- The Untouchable can't take Gondola Fare or Casino Winnings and gets 2 seconds less per turn. If their clock runs out, they automatically claim the Doge.
- When anyone sends a player who still holds two cards Into the Canal, that player may claim to be the Untouchable and block it. Anyone can make that claim, true or not.
- Anyone may challenge the claim. If the blocker really holds both Plague Doctors, the challenger loses a card and the block stands. If not, the blocker loses a card and still goes into the canal.
- A block that stands has a price: the blocker slips one card back into the deck face down and draws a fresh one.
- In this mode the deck is shuffled every time a card goes back into it, so nobody can track where it went.
Everything works as in Standard, but the clock is merciless: 5 seconds a turn (the host can set 3 to 7).
When your time runs out, the game moves for you: Gondola Fare on your turn (Into the Canal if you hold 10 or more ducats), a pass when you're asked to respond, and a random card when you have to lose one.
Before play begins, the starting hands are sold at auction. Needs at least 3 players.
- Everyone gets 6 tokens. Twice as many cards as there are players go up for sale, one at a time, face up.
- Each card has 8 seconds of bidding. Every bid raises the price by one token and adds 2 seconds back to the clock.
- Bids are anonymous: you see the price and how many bids came in, never who placed them. You can't outbid yourself.
- A card nobody wants goes to the back of the line. When only one player still needs cards, they get the rest for free. If the whole line goes round with no bids, or nobody who still needs a card has a token left, the rest are dealt out free at random.
- Unspent tokens become your starting ducats. Then the game plays as Standard.
A bigger deck of 25 cards with five of every role. Everyone starts with three cards, and up to seven can play.
The Fortune Teller still draws 2, and keeps as many cards as you had. Works with Bounty Mode.
An add-on the host can switch on in the lobby for any mode.
Whoever knocks a player out of the game, by poison, the canal or a winning challenge, collects every ducat that player had left.