Game Rules

Rules for Round Table

Players begin the game with two decks of cards - one, called the Main Deck, contains all of the player’s regular cards – knights, titles, quests, redirects, and equipment. The other is called the Demesne Deck and contains all of the player’s lands (called demesnes, a medieval word meaning “holding”). Players maintain these decks separately. The player is allowed to customize the main and demesne decks - they are not required (or expected) to use all the cards that came in their base pack. A third deck, called the Regions Deck is a shared resource between both players. During their turn, players can draw cards from either their main deck or their demesne deck. Players can then bring cards from their hand into the play area (called “playing a card”), which brings that card under their control. Players can have any number of cards in their hand at the end of their turn - players are not required to discard down to a particular hand size.

There are seven basic types of cards:

1. Demesnes

   Demesnes are lands that the player controls that give them resources to recruit knights, titles, and equipment as well as activate quests and redirects.

   The basic demesne is a farm, which can be upgraded to a Manor, Large Manor, Keep, and Castle in that order. Only a Manor can be upgraded to a Large Manor, a Keep to a Castle, etc. Each card contains text to remind players.

   Each demesne has a Resource Point value. Resource points for all demesnes under a player’s control are added together to arrive at the total RP the player has to recruit or play knights, titles, equipment, quests, and redirects.

2. Knights

   Knights constitute the main army for each player. Players recruit knights by using resource points from their demesnes. Knights have two primary attributes – influence and resistance – which are used to either conquer or defend a region from conquest.

   Knights can be brought into play if the player has sufficient resource point capacity. The capacity is the total number of points the player has from their controlled demesnes and the allocated RP are those used by the currently in-play cards. If there is sufficient capacity, the player may bring that card into play. For example, if the player has a total capacity of 20 RP and has 6 RP allocated, then they could play any knight requiring up to 14 RP.

   Knights can be engaged meaning they are flipped over or rotated 90° to indicate that they are unavailable. Knights can be engaged through quests played by your opponent or by having participated in a previous campaign. Engaged knights are unable to participate in conquering or defending regions.

   Some knights are also Monarchs. These are special subclasses of knights but do not affect their classification as knights. Additionally, some knights are male and others are female. Some titles and equipment can only be used by male or female characters. The card text will indicate any special restrictions.

3. Equipment

   Equipment is used to increase the influence and/or resistance of a knight. It can only be associated with an individual knight. Some equipment adds influence points and some adds resistance. Fey (fairy) equipment is better than its non-magical equivalent. Equipment counts toward the allocated RP.

4. Quests

   Quests are cards played on your opponent’s knights that cause them to be unavailable to your opponent for one or more turns. To show that a knight is engaged, they are flipped over or rotated 90°.

   Quests require that a player possesses a minimum number of Resource Points. If the player has at least the minimum number of points they may play the quest at the appropriate time. Quests are playable provided that the player has that RP capacity available – it does not require allocating RP to play them.

5. Redirects

   Redirects allow a player to “counter” a quest card played by an opponent. They reverse the effect and make the knight available again. Redirects are also playable provided that the player has that RP capacity available – it does not require allocating RP to play them.

6. Titles

   Titles are special benefits that can be bestowed upon an individual knight. These titles add to the knight’s influence and/or resistance. The same title cannot be bestowed multiple times upon the same knight (i.e., you can’t make the same knight a Baron or a Round Table Knight more than once), but different titles can be bestowed and the effects are cumulative (i.e., a knight can be both a Round Table Knight and a Duke). Titles count toward the allocated RP.

7. Regions

   Regions are the areas of Britain each player tries to control. The number of regions for a game can be varied to change the time required for the game. A minimum of 5 regions are required for a game; there is no predetermined maximum although they must all be unique.

   Each region has a value in Renown points. At the end of the game, the player who has the most renown is crowned Supreme Monarch and wins the game.

Description of Cards

There are 3 main card layouts used in Round Table TCG.

Main Cards

The first is for the cards in the main deck. These cards, whether Knights, Equipment, Quests, or Redirects, are laid out similarly:

Card Title: This is the name of the card.

Card Type: This defines the type. These are the types listed above. Some cards, like the example above, have subtypes. Subtypes are not used in the basic game.

Artwork: A pretty picture of the card.

Card Text: Basic information about the card’s effects in play, if any.

Influence: The “attack strength” or “power” of a card. Not all cards have an influence rating. Influence is used to capture regions. For titles and equipment, this will be a modifier to a knight’s base resistance.

Resource Points: The number of resource points from demesnes a player needs to control to be able to bring the card into play.

Resistance: The “defense” of a card. Resistance is used to resist another player’s attack on a region. For titles and equipment, this will be a modifier to a knight’s base resistance.

Demesne Card

The second card type is the Demesne card. Its layout is as follows:

Card Title: This is the name of the card.

Card Type: This defines the type. These are the types listed above. Some cards, like the example above, have subtypes. Subtypes are not used in the basic game.

Artwork: A pretty picture of the card.

Card Text: Basic information about the card’s effects in play, if any.

Resource Points: This indicates the number of resource points that are available to the player. The Resource Points for all the demesnes a player controls are added together.

Region Card

The third and final type is the Region card. Its layout is as follows:

Region Name: This is the name of the region.

Artwork: A pretty picture of the card.

Resistance Points: The “defense” of a region. Higher resistance points indicate that a region is more difficult for a player to conquer.

Renown: The number of Renown Points earned by the player who conquers the region.

Terms and Terminology

Active indicates a knight that is face-up and available to participate in conquering or defending a region.

Engaged indicates a knight that is face-down and is ineligible for participating in conquering or defending a region. When engaging a knight, flip the card over or rotate it 90°.

Renown is used to measure a player’s success. Regions possess a Renown value. The player controlling the regions with the most total Renown wins the game.

Reset turns a knight face-up or rotates the card back to the original orientation, making them available again. During the Spring Phase of a player’s turn, knights are reset back to a face-up position or original orientation (unless a card dictates otherwise).

Resource Points are used to determine the amount of power a player wields. Resource points are the sum of demesnes currently controlled by a player (i.e., a Castle is worth 7 resource points only, not the accumulated value of previous upgrades). The capacity of RP is the sum of the demesnes under a player’s control. The allocated RP is how much is being used to maintain the cards under the player’s control.

Spent Pile is a face-up pile of cards that were played. This is for knights, quests, redirects, and titles that are used during play.

Game Field

A typical play area will look something like this:

Before Play Begins

Each player should make a deck consisting of no less than 60 cards of which no fewer than 40 are their main deck and the remaining cards are their demesnes (holdings). These decks are tracked separately and are not shuffled together. At the beginning of the game:

1. Each player separates their main deck from their demesne deck
2. Players determine who will go first. Players can use whatever method they desire to determine this (high roll, low roll, rock/paper/scissors, etc.). This first player is the “active” player.
3. Each player pulls a Farm from their demesne deck, puts the Farm into play, and then shuffles the remaining cards.
4. Each player independently shuffles their demesne and main decks.
5. Each player draws however many cards they desire from their demesne deck. They may draw any number from one to ten cards.
6. Each player then draws from their main deck the number of cards needed to reach ten cards in their hand. For example, if a player draws three demesne cards they will draw seven cards from their main deck.
7. The active player then begins their turn.

Basic Game Play

Play consists of rounds where all players are allowed to take actions. A game round consists of five phases. There is an Active Player in each round and play each phase continues clockwise from that active player.

The phases of each round are:

1. Winter Phase

   Active Player draws a card from either their demesne deck or their main deck. If one deck is exhausted the player must draw from the other. If no cards are available in either deck, the game ends and a winner is determined. This is repeated for all other players.

2. Spring Phase

   Active Player's engaged knights are reset (flipped face-up) and become active unless otherwise indicated by a card. The remaining players reset their knights in turn.

   Player may also remove one non-demesne card from play (that they control) and return it to their hand.

3. Summer Phase

   The Active Player may bring knights, equipment, and titles cards into play under their control and may choose to play quest cards on their opponent’s knights.

   A player may only have cards in play that are equal to or less than the total number of resource points from their demesnes.

   When the Active Player has completed their Summer phase activities, the next player will enter their Summer phase. This process is repeated for each player.

   • Campaigning

   Campaigning is a sub-phase of the Summer phase. This is described in detail below.

   When the campaign phase is complete the Summer phase continues, starting again with the Active Player.

4. Fall Phase

   Any final cleanup performed starting with the Active Player and continuing with all remaining players.

Rounds continue until the final region is conquered or both a player’s main and demesne decks are exhausted. In either case, the Renown points for all regions conquered by each player are calculated. Whoever has the most Renown is crowned Supreme Monarch and wins the game.

Campaigning

<Under development - Feb 2023 - do not use>

Campaigning is broken into several steps that allow each player to take actions and allow their opponent to respond to those actions. In cases where a player can and does respond, each player will alternate turns taking actions until both “pass” or choose to do nothing. Once that happens, all cards are resolved in the order they were played and play proceeds to the next step.

1. Declare Campaigns Step
   • a) The active player (called the attacker) determines which of their knights will attempt to conquer which regions. The player groups their knights together and moves them toward each region being conquered (if more than one region is being attacked).
   • b) When the Active Player has finished their attack moves, the next player in clockwise order will declare their attackers. Play continues until all players have declared their attackers.
   • c) The Active Player has the opportunity to play cards (quests, titles, and any other cards that explicitly state they may be played during this phase). See Special Rule on Quests and Redirects for limitations. When they have finished playing their cards, play continues to the next player.
   • 1) Quests and Redirects may be played provided that the RP cost of the card is equal to or less than the number of RP the defending player controls.
   • d) Repeat from step a until both players pass. All cards are processed first in, first out (FIFO).
2. Declare Defense Step
   • a) The defender then selects which (if any) of their knights will participate in the defense of the region(s). The defending player then groups their defending knights together and moves them toward to the region(s) being defended.
   • (Optional Advanced Rule): Damage
     • The defending player determines which of their knights will fight which of the attacker’s knights in each region. The defender can select multiple knights to melee a single knight.
   • The attacking player now has the ability to respond to the defender’s action by playing permissible cards (quests, titles, and any cards that explicitly state they may be played during this phase). See Special Rule on Quests and Redirects for limitations.
   • The defender can respond to the active player’s actions.
   • Repeat from step a until both players pass. All cards are processed first in, first out (FIFO).
3. Resolve Campaign Step
   • The active player chooses one of the regions they are trying to conquer.
   • Each player adds up their influence and resistance for active knights in that region, ignoring any engaged knights. The defending player applies their resistance to the region’s value. If the attacking player’s influence equals or exceeds the region’s resistance plus the defender’s resistance, the region is conquered and placed under the attacking player’s control. If it is less than the resistance plus the defender’s resistance then the attack has failed and the region remains unconquered.

   Example: If the attacking player has 11 points of influence, the defending player has 6 points of resistance, and the region has 5 points of resistance, the attack succeeds (11 (attacking) >= 6 (defending) + 5 (region)).

4. (Optional Advanced Rule): Damage Resolution Step
   • For each melee between attacking and defending knights in the region, each player calculates the influence of active knights (engaged knights are ignored).
   • If more two or more knights are engaged with other knights, each controller determines how the influence (damage) from their opponent(s) are assigned to their knights.
   • If a knight’s resistance is equal to or lower than their opponent(s)’ influence, that knight is defeated and removed from play.
   • Damage is dealt simultaneously and knights are removed from play simultaneously

   Example 1: If Brastius (2/3) and Gareth (5/5) are in a melee with Herdis (6/4), their controller can assign 2 points of Herdis’ damage to Brastius and 4 points to Gareth, which is less than either’s resistance, meaning they both survive.

   Example 2: if Brastius (3 resistance) is in single combat with Dinadin (influence 3), then Brastius is defeated (his 3 resistance <= Dinadin’s 3 influence).

5. Repeat Resolve Campaign Step for each region separately.
6. All attacking knights should now be flipped over to indicate that they were engaged in a campaign.
7. A new region or regions are drawn from the region pile to replace any conquered regions. When all regions from the region deck are conquered, the game is over and a winner is determined.

Special Rule on Knights

There are two kinds of knights in Round Table – generic knights (Knight Mercenary, Knight Errant, Bachelor Knight, and Vassal Knight) and named knights (such as Gawain, Arthur, and Lancelot).

Only one copy of a named knight can be in play at any time. If a player recruits a knight with the same name as a knight already in play under either player’s control, both knights are removed from play and placed in the Spent Pile. Any titles associated with the removed knights are also removed from play. Any equipment used by those knights becomes unpaired; it can be paired with another knight during that owner’s Summer Phase. Special Rule on Quests and Redirects There is a limitation on quests and redirects. Only one of each named quest or redirect can be played during a player’s turn. If, during the Declare Campaigns Step, the defending player uses The Green Knight quest on an attacking knight, neither the attacking player nor the defending player can use The Green Knight quest for the remainder of the turn.

Similarly, if the attacking player used Royal Command to reset one of their knights, the defending player could not use it to reset one of theirs.

This restriction is reset during the Winter Phase of the of the next player’s turn.

Winning the Game

Play ends when one of two conditions occurs:

1. The final region is conquered by a player
2. A player has no more cards to draw from either their main or demesne decks and they must draw a card

Once either condition is met, the players will calculate the total Renown they earned from their captured regions. The player who has the highest Renown is crowned the Supreme Monarch and winner of the game.

If the total Renown is tied, the player who captured the fewest territories is the winner.

If both players have the same total amount of Renown and the same number of Regions, the game is a tie.

Example of Game Play

To be redone.

The Cardinal Rule

There is a cardinal rule for Round Table the CCG: the text on a card may contradict the game rules. In these cases, the card text supersedes the rules in this booklet. If you have any questions about game play or a specific card, there is a Wiki available online that describes game play and card rulings. Please check the main website and click Support.

Constructing Decks

Players may find while playing that they wish they had more of a particular kind of card or fewer (or none) of another. Players are free to use the cards from their collection to build their own decks provided that no more than one of any named knight are used. In other words, a player may not include two or more Arthurs or two Guineveres in their deck. This restriction applies only to named knights - players may include as many duplicate unnamed knights, quests, equipment, titles, and redirect cards as they desire.

The main deck can be of any size provided that it is a minimum of 40 cards. There is no minimum size for the demesne deck. However, the total of the main deck and the demesne deck must be at least 60 cards. There are no maximum sizes imposed for either deck.

Players will decide at the beginning of the game which regions will be used. They may use any number of cards from either player’s region deck provided that the minimum number of 5 regions are used for the game.