Before you start we suggest picking a scorekeeper, someone who writes the names of all the players down and keeps track of when they gain or lose health, this will make it easier to know which players are in the lead at any given time.
To begin, separate your cards into two piles. One with the back marked “You Got” and the other marked as “Schooled.” The “You Got” pile is your People and their accomplishments, this pile is where you will pull your Historical Figures and the moves they can use from. People need Brains in order to be used, Moves need money in order to be used.
The Schooled draw pile is your brains and money. The brains are needed to make People cards playable, their moves are paid for with Money.
Drawing from piles is a strategic action. Think about what goal you’re working toward, if you have a Historical Figure in school but you have no moves for them you’re going to want to keep pulling from your “You Got” draw pile until you have the moves you want. If you have Historical Figures in your hand and can’t get them on the field, you’re going to want to go brain hunting so draw from your “Schooled” draw pile.
Announce to your Rivals “You Will Get Schooled by My (Say the type of deck you are playing with for example “physics”) deck”
Each player cuts their “You Got” deck and shows a card. The hope is to draw a Person card. If more than one player draws a person card the card with the highest value of Brains needed goes first. If no one draws a card with a brains amount on it then the highest value of Money goes first and chooses the direction of play (clockwise or counterclockwise) all players now reshuffle your “You Got” draw pile.
Draw seven cards, this is your starting hand, you can draw from either draw pile. Think about your goals and draw strategically.
The basic order of each turn goes as follows:
- Draw a card from either the “You Got” or the “Schooled” pile.
- Play cards.
- You may lay down ONLY 1 card of each type from your hand onto the field per turn. 1 brains, 1 money, 1 Person, 1 Accomplishment.
- Use your moves
- Finish your turn and tell the next player it is their turn.
Once you have the correct amount of brains you may put a person out into “School” and once they have spent their one required turn in school they may be moved into the Field of Excellence.
You can only have one Person in the Field Of Excellence at a time unless a card says otherwise. Some cards pull other People into the Field of Excellence, pay close attention, and read every card carefully.
You can only have three people “in school” unless a card says otherwise. People can also be moved back into school from the Field of Excellence if there is room in school, you still can not exceed the three people in school rule. There are plenty of exceptions to the “in school” rule, there are many people who can skip being “in school” with unique abilities, those will be said on the cards, please read your cards.
People in school and people on the Field of Excellence can have moves with them, You can only use the moves of the person on the Field of Excellence. You can only put moves with their related Historical Figure, you can not use someone else’s move unless you have a card that says you can.The baseline rule is that you can only use moves with the name of THAT person on them, you can not place a Rosa Parks card on Einstein.
Moves cost money to play, you need to spend that amount of money by putting it into the discard, you do not get change so if the move is $15 and you spend a $20 you have forfeited that $5. Multiple moves can be used in one turn, add all the money you want to spend up, and discard that amount. You can not use one move more than once per turn.
Brains cards are used to bring people on to the board, either in school or on the Field of Excellence. Brains cards can be used over and over again, once you learn something it is not easily forgotten. If you have a historical figure in school or on the Field of Excellence you can discard them (take them completely out of play and put them in the discard pile) to then have access to their brains. So, if you have Benjamin Franklin on the Field of excellence, he’s using 45 brains to be there. If you want to pull out Nikola Tesla (also 45 brains) and you don’t have enough in your pile to do that, you can discard Benjamin Franklin (and all of his moves) to the discard pile and use those brains to bring Nikola Tesla to School. Brains can also be split, so If you have three 20 brains cards under Franklin you’re only using 45 of the 60 brains there and can use the other 15 toward putting someone else on the board. Brains cards CAN be discarded through special means but they are NOT discarded when a Person is sent to the discard, your brains go back into your bank of usable brains and funding.
There are cards that can warp and shape rules, so read everything on the card!
The first Player To 10 Points per player playing wins!! (20 health is the goal in a 1v1 battle) When you are half way to winning you need to declare “You are getting schooled by my (say name of deck) deck” if you don’t say it and you are called out for not saying it you lose three health as a penalty. Saying it out loud gives your Rivals notice that you are half way to winning so they can adjust their strategy if they need to.
We suggest having a piece of paper handy for score keeping, you might want to have one for yourself as well to remind yourself what health you are gaining that round. If you forget to tell the scorekeeper or say out loud that you are gaining health you won’t gain the health that round. If you are the scorekeeper and you are adding your health each round without saying it out loud you can be accused of cheating. If you are caught cheating in this way or any other way you lose 10 health automatically and it is given to the person who caught you cheating.
These are the core rules, they will be the tournament rules, if you are playing at home with friends and you want to adjust some rules for home brew play you can of course do that. Just remember, these are the rules all other players will expect are being used, have fun, play around, get good.