The Grizzled Game Rules

Hey there! Welcome to the world of The Grizzled, a thrilling cooperative card game that challenges you to navigate the horrors of World War I.

Let’s dive right in and learn how to play this exciting game.

In The Grizzled, we work together as a team to survive the war and emerge victorious. Your task is to deplete the Peace card deck before the Morale card deck runs out. Sounds simple, right? Well, not quite.

To start, we each receive a Character card that represents a soldier. These cards have special abilities that can help us along the way. The Mission cards are shuffled and placed face-down, and the Trials cards are shuffled and placed face-up.

On each turn, you’ll have the opportunity to play a Trial card from your hand. These cards represent the hardships and challenges we face in the war. But be careful! The Trials cards can have negative effects on us, so choose wisely.

Here’s where teamwork comes into play. Before playing a Trial card, we have a chance to talk openly and discuss our strategy. You can share information about the Trial cards in your hand and suggest the best course of action. But remember, communication is limited. We cannot explicitly state what cards we have.

Once we’ve made our decision, we reveal our chosen cards simultaneously. If any two cards with the same symbol are played, a Panic card is added to the Trials cards. These Panic cards will make our mission even harder!

The Support cards are a vital resource. They allow us to overcome the effects of the Trials cards and keep our spirits high. You can play Support cards during your turn to cancel out the negative effects of the Trials cards. Just make sure to use them wisely, as our resources are limited.

We win the game if we deplete the Peace card deck before the Morale card deck runs out. But be warned, if any player’s morale drops to zero, we lose the game. Our collective resilience and cooperation are key to our victory.

And that’s it! You now have a good grasp of the rules in The Grizzled. So gather your comrades and embark on this thrilling journey through the trenches of World War I. Good luck!

• There are 6 Grizzled cards
• There are 59 Trial cards
• You get 16 Support tiles
• There are 5 Speech tokens
• There is 1 Mission Leader token
• Also, you will find 1 Game Aid
• Don’t forget about the 1 peace card
• And the 1 Monument card

Setting Up the Game

To start the game, each player will need to choose a Grizzled card with the Good Luck Charm side facing up.

Next, each player will receive 3 Support tiles:

• 1 tile
• 1 tile – 1 tile randomly drawn from the remaining tiles.

If you are playing with 2 or 3 players, you will not use the and tiles.

There are 25 cards placed facedown on top of the Peace card to create the Trials pile. The remaining 34 cards are also placed facedown on the Monument card, forming the Reserve of Morale for the group.

The number of Speech tokens placed between the card piles depends on the number of players:

• 5 tokens are placed for 2 or 3 players
• 4 tokens are placed for 4 players
• 3 tokens are placed for 5 players

The Mission Leader token is given to the player with the most facial hair. Now, let the game begin!

The Goal of the Game

In this game, I’ll take you on a journey through a series of Missions. Each Mission will bring us closer to our goal: emptying the Trials pile and revealing the cherished Peace card.

Our objective is to win the game by making the Peace card visible and having no cards left in our hands.

But beware! After each Mission, our Morale drops, and cards are moved from the Morale Reserve to the Trials pile. We must stay vigilant, because if the Monument card ever shows up, we lose the game.

What Happens During a Mission

A Mission is made up of 4 steps. So, what are these steps?

1. Preparation
2. The Mission
3. Support
4. Morale Drop

Step I: Preparation

Intensity

First things first, let’s talk about Intensity. The Mission Leader has an important job – they evaluate the risks and decide how intense the Mission will be. This determines how many cards each player gets. We start by dealing the cards one at a time, starting with the Mission Leader. The cards come from the Trials pile.

The intensity always starts at a minimum of 1. If we happen to run out of cards while dealing, we simply stop. It’s possible that some players will have fewer cards than others.

The Flower in the Gun Barrel

Now, here’s an interesting rule – the first Mission of the game is always a minimum of 3 cards. It’s like a little flower that adds some extra challenge to the start of the game.

Step II: The Mission

So here’s the deal – you and the other players are trying to get rid of those Trial cards in your hand. But there’s a catch. We’ve got these pesky Threats that need to be dealt with. We’ll stick ’em in the middle of the table, in this area we like to call No Man’s Land. And then there are the Hard Knocks, which each player will have to deal with personally.

Now, here’s the thing about those Threats. We can’t just have a bunch of the same ones floating around at once. We’ve gotta keep things interesting. So, if there are ever 3 identical Threats active at the same time, well… that’s a big no-no. The Mission can’t continue until we sort that out. Got it?

The Actions

When we play The Grizzled, each one of us takes turns. It starts with the Mission Leader, and then we go clockwise. We keep taking turns as long as the Mission is ongoing. Oh, and when the Mission ends, we’ll talk about that too. Now, on our turn, if we haven’t withdrawn yet, we get to choose an Action. There are a few Actions we can pick from:

Playing a Trials Card from Our Hand

Using a Good Luck Charm

Let me tell you something interesting. When you’re playing this game, there’s a special move you can make. You have a card called the Good Luck Charm, right? Well, here’s what you can do with it. If you have a card in the No Man’s Land that represents a Threat, you can get rid of it by discarding your Good Luck Charm. But here’s the catch – after you do that, you have to flip your Grizzled card over. Isn’t that cool? Now, if you want to use your Good Luck Charm again, you have to get it back somehow. This is where the Support section comes in. It tells you how to recover your Good Luck Charm. So, keep this in mind the next time you’re playing. Have fun!

Time to Speak Up

Hey there! Did you know that if you have a Speech token, you can use it to motivate your teammates and shield them from one of the 6 Threats? It’s pretty cool, let me tell you how it works.

So, as the active player, you get to choose one Threat and announce it to everyone else. Then, all the other players have the chance to discard a single card from their hand that matches that Threat. But here’s the catch – if you have multiple cards with that Threat, you can only discard one of them. Oh, and if you’ve already withdrawn from the game, you won’t benefit from the Speech token. It’s all about fairness, you know?

Once the Speech token has been used, it’s taken out of the game. So choose wisely when to use it! Now, let’s move on to another neat move you can make – withdraw and play a Support Tile.

When I decide to withdraw from the Mission, I’m essentially saying that I don’t want to participate anymore. This means I won’t be able to take any actions. But before I leave, I have to choose another player to support. To do this, I secretly pick one of my Support tiles and place it face-down on my own Grizzled card. I’m not the only one doing this – all the Support tiles will be revealed at the end of the Mission, when everyone has withdrawn.

While I’m withdrawn, any Hard Knocks that I have don’t have any effect on the current mission. I get to keep the cards I still have in my hand for the next round. Even if I don’t have any Support tiles left, I can still withdraw. I just won’t play a Support tile. And if I still have cards in hand, I can use them to represent my withdrawal by placing them face-down on my Grizzled card.

Trap Cards

So, here’s the deal. When you play a card with a Trap symbol on it from your hand, you’ve got to do a couple of things. First, you draw another card from the Trials pile. And not just any card – you have to play it right away. But there’s a catch. If that new card happens to be another Trap, well, tough luck. You’ll just have to ignore it. But, if it’s a Hard Knock, things get a bit more interesting. You’ve got to put that Hard Knock card next to your Grizzled card.

Completing the Mission

There are two possible outcomes for completing the Mission:

• If all the players choose to withdraw, the Mission is successful. The cards in No Man’s Land are discarded.
• If 3 identical Threats are present in No Man’s Land, including the Phobias and Traumas of the players who didn’t withdraw, the Mission is a failure. The No Man’s Land cards are shuffled into the Trials pile and will have to be faced again.

In either case, the cards that were not played are kept in hand, and each of us still holds onto our Hard Knocks. After that, it’s time to move on to the Support phase.

III. How to Support

After completing a Mission, you should reveal the Support tiles you played on your Grizzled cards when you withdrew and give them to the player you chose.

I’m puzzled by the support provided to the player immediately to my left. It raises questions in my mind—what does this support look like? How does it affect the game? It seems like a creative and captivating concept, and I want to understand it better.

When you’re playing the game, it’s important to remember that the player to your right can offer support. If you receive more support than any other player, you’ll benefit from the group’s help. Here’s what you can do:

• Get rid of 2 Hard Knocks cards that are affecting your character.
• Or recover your Good Luck Charm.

If there’s a tie, the effects of each support cancel each other out, and no one gets any support. But don’t worry, you get to keep the support tiles you’ve received.

What if the mission was a failure?

If the mission didn’t go well and some players have already withdrawn, only their support tiles are taken into account. In this case, if you received the most support from the group, you can only get rid of one Hard Knock card.

What happens if someone gets 4 or more Hard Knocks?

After the support has been resolved, if a player has accumulated 4 or more Hard Knocks, the group fails, and the game ends immediately.

Victory Condition

I’m sure you’re wondering how this whole game ends. Well, it’s actually quite simple. The Armistice is the moment we’re all waiting for, and it happens when a few conditions are met. First, the Trials pile needs to be completely empty. Then, the Peace card needs to be visible to all players. Finally, no one should have any more cards left in their hands. Once all of these requirements are fulfilled, the game is over, and we can all celebrate our victory together. Bravo to us!

IV. Morale Drop

Hey there, it’s me again. I wanted to talk to you about the ongoing war and its effect on the group’s morale. You see, as the war rages on, the group’s morale slowly decreases.

So, here’s how it works: we need to keep track of the number of cards remaining in our hands. When we see that number, we transfer that same number of cards from our Morale Reserve to the Trials Pile. But remember, we always need to have at least 3 cards in the Trials Pile.

But wait, there’s a catch!

If our Morale Reserve is completely exhausted and the Monument card is revealed, we lose the game! That’s the defeat condition we need to watch out for.

Now, if we make it through the Morale Drop, the Mission Leader token gets passed on to the next player. And if there are any Speech tokens left, the previous Leader gets one.

With that, a new round begins and the war soldiers on!

Let me clear things up for you

• There are some things in The Grizzled that we can’t share with each other. We can’t reveal the cards in our hands, and we also need to keep our chosen Support tile a secret.

I can tell you all about the Trials and Hard Knocks in the game. It’s pretty interesting! Let’s start with the Trials pile and Morale Reserve. If you want, you can keep track of how many cards are left in both of these piles.

When a card is discarded, it’s out of the game for good. You won’t see it again.

Now, here’s a cool rule. When the Trials pile is empty and you see the dove from the Peace card, any card that should be drawn from it doesn’t count. So, if a Trap or a Hard Knock effect says to draw a card from the Trials pile, you just ignore it.

Now let’s talk about Hard Knocks. This one can get tricky.

If a player withdraws from the game, any Trauma, Phobia, or Fragile cards they have don’t matter anymore. They don’t affect the current Mission.

If you run out of cards in your hand, you can still withdraw. Don’t worry about any active Hard Knocks that might prevent you from leaving.

If you have multiple Hard Knocks affecting you, the oldest one takes precedence. It’s like it has VIP status or something.

When it comes to dealing with Hard Knocks in the game, there are a few important things to keep in mind.

If there is a conflict between Hard Knocks affecting different players, the ones affecting the player who is currently taking their turn are applied first.

If a player draws a Trap while they have a Clumsy Hard Knock, the Trap does not activate.

If a player has a Mute Hard Knock, they are unable to play a Speech token but can still play a Support token.

It’s important to note that the effect of a Hard Knock can force a player to withdraw, preventing them from choosing any other actions.

Now let’s talk about Speech tokens.

• When I am feeling withdrawn, a Speech doesn’t have any impact on me.
• When you give a Speech, it allows other players to get rid of a Trauma or a Phobia from their hand, depending on the Threat.
• All the Speech tokens have the same effect. The words are just there to give you ideas, like saying, “Hey, don’t worry about the bombs, because our sources say there won’t be any explosions today.”