Four Kings Crossing, the Game

[Shomra]

Hi All,

 

This is a game that I've been working on. I find it rather fun. I mostly wanted a dice game to use with Mat. Over time, I gradually incorporated more features from the books. I promised the people that I tried it with at JordanCon that I'd post it, so here it is ... finally. Let me know if you have suggestions.

 

Tai'shar Manetheren!

 

 

FOUR KINGS CROSSING v5

 

A Wheel of TimeÒ inspired Game of Chance

(based on Gluckhaus with modifications by Jack Cranshaw)

 

Players (2-6): 2 (four kings), 3 (four kings, two rogues), 4 (four kings) or 6 (four kings, two rogues)

Materials: 2 6-sided dice, the Wheel playing surface, 26 'pips' in 3 colors, 2 pairs of ta'veren tokens, 4 King tokens, and one Fisher token. The pips can be any regular åobject. I like to use black, white, and clear stones. Ta'veren can be pennies and nickels.

 

Step 2: Prepare the Players

Have four players choose a King. If there are 3 or 6 players then decide which four get Kings (in whatever manner you like). Pair the Kings into two color teams (black and white). The two without Kings are Rogues and have to "earn their Crown". The order of play should alternate white, (rogue), black, white, (rogue), black.

 

Four Kings uses a fixed pot. Give each player a set of 1-4 pips. Give the Kings their appropriate color pips; any Rogues get clear. One can decide the number of pips by rolling the dice and dividing by 3. Two King pips of different colors are placed on the Dragon to begin.

 

Step 3: The Play

Decide on an initial roller (in whatever manner you like). The player rolls the dice with the following actions based on the value of the roll.

4: Pass

3,5,6 or 8-11: Check the board. If that position has a pip, then take it. If it does

not, then place one. I.e these positions always have 0 or 1 pip on

them.

7: (Dragon) Place a pip on 7. This stack just builds until someone rolls a 12.

2: (DO's Eyes) Take all pips on the board except those on 7 (see Scoring).

12: (Towers) If you have a living King, take all pips on the board, otherwise do

the same as 2 (see Scoring).

After taking the action needed, the person to his right rolls. Play continues in that order. These are exactly the rules of Gluckhaus, which simply uses money and an open pot. The rest is specific to Four Kings.

 

Special Rolls: These are applied in addition to the actions above. 4-4 (Gateways) means skip the next player. 3-3 (Foxes) means reverse the direction of play.

 

 

Non-Player Characters

1. (Required) The Fisher (Padan Fain): When a King player runs out of pips and loses his crown, he falls under the control of the Fisher and takes that token. The rules for the Fisher are discussed under 'Eliminating Players'.
    
   
2. (Optional) Ta'veren: The two ta'veren are the Wolf (Perrin) and the Raven (Mat). They alter the action when a player rolls. When placed on the board, they act like pips. Once a player captures one, he becomes the 'patron'. On the following turn he must place one token of the pair on the border of an empty non-Dragon number (the other token simply marks the patron). The next time that number is rolled, instead of placing a pip, the person who rolled it is subject to the ta'veren. If it is the Wolf, then the patron gets a King from the player that rolled that number. If it is the Raven, then he gets a pip from the roller. Afterward, both ta'veren tokens are placed on the number in place of the pip, and can be won like a normal pip. Other rules that apply:
   

• Ta'veren have no value and cannot be played as pips.
  
• Only one ta'veren may be played per turn, and it can be played either at the beginning or the end of the patron's turn. If not placed at the beginning, it cannot be placed afterward if a 4 is rolled.
  
• It can happen that the roller doesn't have the ta'veren winnings( i.e roller has no King or no pips), or the patron of the ta'veren is the roller. In these cases, the only action is that the ta'veren assumes the pip position. This means the Raven can save a King with no pips from the Fisher while the Wolf can save a Kingless with one pip from the Fisher.
  
• Including ta'veren allows for 'captured' Kings where the King has pips but loses his crown. Only the Fisher can buy back a crown, so captured Kings cannot just be bought back.
  
• If the board is full, then the patron waits till his next turn to place the ta'veren.
  
• This adds the possibility of the Towers being a losing roll. This happens if the board is empty of pips but has ta'veren placed. The roller may then lose a pip and/or a King with no gain.
  
• At the start of play, the two pairs of ta'veren tokens can be placed on 6 (Raven) and 8 (Wolf) or by rolling the dice twice. Any number on the board is a valid roll.
  

Step 4: Eliminating Players

When a player runs out of pips to play, there are several options.

• Cash in a Crown ("Ransom the King"). He does this by handing his King to the player with the most pips and taking a pip from his stack and placing it on his roll. If multiple players are tied for the most, then the casher gets to choose. If a player has multiple Crowns, then he should cash in won Crowns before his own.
  
• Become the Fisher. If he has no pips and no Crown, then he is given the Fisher(Dagger) token and plays with the following rules. He continues to roll in turn, but he only wins on a 2 or a 12 following the action of rolling a 2.
  

Rules for the Fisher

• If a second player goes out, then that player becomes the new Fisher, and the first player is eliminated (only one Fisher allowed!).
  
• Once a Fisher returns to play, he should reclaim his (and only his) Crown by paying back the pip.
  
• As soon as a Fisher takes pips, he is no longer the Fisher, and the normal rules apply. For example, a Fisher (King) has the following rolls: 2, 8, 12. For the 2, he takes 2 pips off the board and reclaims his Crown. For the 8, he places one pip on the eight, leaving him with no pips. On the 12, he takes all the pips including the Dragon.
  
• The special rolls (4-4, 3-3) apply to the Fisher.
  

Dead Kings are King players who have been eliminated. Put their King face down. It is still worth one pip but cannot be reclaimed or used to call the Dragon with the Towers.

 

Step 5: Ending Play

Play ends when one player has all the Kings. Note that there may still be Rogues with pips or pips on the Board. There is a minimum of three players: A Fisher with no pips and two players with a combination of Kings and pips.

 

The Wheel Turns: If all of the pips end up on the Board, then the Dragon has accumulated all followers before the Kings could unite. All debts are cancelled. Note that even if all pips are on the board, play continues until another pip must be played to the board, i.e. it deadlocks.

 

Step 6: Scoring

There are two variants: Drinking and Gambling.

1. In the drinking game, the losing Kings owe the winning Kings each a drink, or the lowest King remaining in play owes the winning Rogue a drink.
    
   
2. In the gambling or points version one uses chits of some sort such as poker chips as stakes to keep score. There are two ways to win stakes.
   

• Dragon Winnings: At the beginning of the game, put a Dragon Reborn marker on the Dragon. Once this is taken, it follows the last person to roll the Towers. If someone rolls the Dark One's eyes, then all players with chits pay one stake to the Shayol Ghul box (the Hoard). These are taken by the Dragon Reborn at the end of the game, or if no one rolled Towers, it carries over to the next game.
  
• King Winnings: The winner of the game is entitled to stakes from each of the King players with the following modifiers.
  
  • If winner is a Rogue then he wins 1 stake from each King player. No further modifiers apply.
    
  • If winner is a King he wins two stakes for each captured King with the following modifiers
    
    • Wins with all his color, +1 stake from each King of losing color.
       
      
    • Wins with all other color, +1 stake from each King of losing color.
       
      
    • Wins with none of his color, -1 stake from each King of losing color.
       
      
    • Wins with Dragon having all of his color, -1 stake from each King of losing color.
       
      
    • (optional) If rolling to determine starting pips, then make Towers double the payouts.
      

King winnings start from 6 and vary from 2 stakes (C, D apply. 2 from other winning color King) to 10 stakes (A, B apply. 4 from each losing color King, 2 from other winning color King). Most common is 6 or 8 stakes. The payout modifiers determine which pips you play. Call it Daes Dae'mar. For example, Rogue pips are worthless, so mainly (but not always) get played first. The max individual payout is 4 stakes, which is a 'King' stake. The main reason to have Rogues is that they add 50% more pips, and the pips aren't needed for modifiers.

 

 

Variants

1. Straight Gluckhaus: Drop all the Kings and pips and go for money. Play follows the same rules but no elimination. Pips are replaced by money and there is no limit.
    
   
2. Chase the Dragon: This makes a nice intro to how the game works. Give every player one pip and put one pip on all the Dragon realms (i.e. all numbers but 7). If the Kings unite before all the pips end up on the board, then the Kings win, otherwise the Dragon wins.
    
   
3. Kaerathon Cycle: Play a series of games in succession. For the first game, each player gets 4 pips. If a King wins the game, then the next game has one less pip per player. Once the Wheel turns with a single pip, the cycle ends. If you can win as a Rogue with only one pip, you truly are Mat's avatar.
    
   
4. Broken Seals: This is a method for doing the gambling version with a fixed pot. Play works best with at least 3 pips and 3 King stakes.
   

• Each King represents a seal. When a King runs out of stakes, he continues to play, but begins the game with a dead King (broken seal).
  
• All payouts are doubled when one King is out, then doubled again (4x original) when two Kings are out. If a dead King comes back in, then payouts revert to what they are for that number of live Kings. As live Kings disappear and stakes double, this can build up quite a Hoard.
  
• Note that payouts double immediately when a King runs out of stakes, but the King changes to dead only at the beginning of the next game.
  
• The tournament ends when only one King has stakes or all stakes are in the Hoard (Tarmon Gai'don). Choose how to handle the latter.
  

Dragon Dice: Custom dice based on Mat's icon in the books.

A Wheel image

 

 

wot4kv3.pdf

 

Four Kings Crossing is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommo...ses/by-sa/3.0/. (2012).