m. c. de marco: To invent new life and new civilizations...

Rules for Personimo

A tile placement game for the Decktet. 1–6 players.

Urban renewal has come to Jacynth. Once the dust has cleared from the demolition of her seedier areas, you and your architectural rivals compete to build the poshest new district of the sprawling city. But style isn’t everything; equally important is building major attractions and enticing the city’s famous personalities to settle in your growing neighborhoods, while bad luck or poor planning may leave some blocks unimproved and uninhabited.

Extra Material

One unique architect token per player, or two each for a two-player game.

The Pawns and Courts from the extended Decktet. (You can substitute Pawns for Courts if necessary.)

For 4–6 players, a double Decktet. (A double Decktet is also preferable for three players.)

Suit tokens (12–15 per suit, 24–30 for a double Decktet) for marking which style (suit) is assigned to which block (square) of a player’s district; if you don’t have suit tokens, you can use scrap paper for the grid and mark it up. (Suit tokens are not needed if you have Giovanni Anelli’s suit-colored version of the Decktet.)

Optional

One 5x5 grid of 2 ½" squares per player. Some printable grids are available: 8.5 x 11, 11 x 17, A4, and A3.

grid

Non-suited tokens may be used for scoring. You’ll need up to 23 of them, or 46 for a double Decktet.

Overview

During each season (turn) the rival architects (players) commission pairs of blocks (cards) in one or two styles (suits), to be built into stylistically integrated neighborhoods, embellished with personalities (personalities) and attractions (cards of rank 8 or higher).

But each architect’s district is only 5 blocks square, and market fluctuations in the availability of labor and building materials affect what they can achieve during any particular season. And the final judging will be harsh: any neighborhood that does not include at least one personality or attraction by the time the district is complete will not score any points for the district.

Setup

For two players, you can use a single deck. See the variants for how to use a single deck with three players, if necessary. Otherwise, use a double Decktet.

  1. Shuffle the Pawn and Court locations (the Borderland, the Harvest, the Island, the Rite, and the Window) and deal one to each player.
  2. Set aside the remaining Pawns, Courts, and Excuse(s).
  3. For 2, 3, or 4 players, set aside from the deck(s) all 2s, and all events but the Market (the 6 of Leaves and Knots). For 5 players, set those cards aside from only one of the two decks. For six players, use the full double base deck. (You should have 24 cards for two players, 48 for three or four, 60 for five, and 72 for six players.) Shuffle the chosen deck.
  4. Randomly assign an order to the player tokens. (For two players, randomly assign an order to one token each, then invert it, i.e., so the order is either ABBA or BAAB.)

Players place their starting Pawn or Court on a single square of their district. Ignore the slight overlap onto nearby squares. This square is the player’s headquarters and has the three suits indicated on the card. (If using suit tokens, place the three matching suit tokens on each headquarters.)

starting placement

The Market

From the deck, deal out a line of cards: 4 cards for two, three or four players, 5 for five, and 6 for six. Next, sort the line in ascending order by rank. (Aces are low and Crowns high.) Resolve ties using the natural suit order as listed on the reference card (Moons, Suns, Waves, Leaves, Wyrms, Knots); e.g., put the Castle before the Cave. Then, one at a time, remove any personalities from the row and place them at the end, so that they retain their order. (You may also do this by sorting and ordering them separately if you prefer.) The final market should be a line of the required number of cards, without gaps.

Optionally, you can put a scoring marker onto each personality and attraction in the market in order to make their value clearer for new players. Use two tokens if a card is both a personality and an attraction (the Diplomat, the Merchant, the Bard, and the Huntress).

Following the randomly assigned token order, each player places their architect token on their choice of card in the market—one token per card, until all cards are claimed. (In a three-player game, the fourth, unchosen card is always discarded.)

Game Play

Play proceeds for twelve turns (six in a two-player game) until the deck is exhausted.

Turn Order

  1. Deal a new market row next to the old row and sort it using the same method as in the setup.
  2. In ascending token order (as they appear in the old market row), players pick up the old card under their architect token, place that card in their district, then put the token back down on an available card in the new market row.
  3. Repeat.

Card Placement

Cards obtained from the market must be placed on two blocks (squares) of the player’s district (grid) if possible; cards may not be placed outside of the 5x5 grid of the district, nor may they be placed over an already-built block.

Each new card in the district must be orthogonally adjacent to at least one previous card. If the adjacent card is not the player’s headquarters, the two blocks that will be touching must also match in suit. (If more than one card is adjacent to the new card, only one suit of the new card need match, and it need only match one other block.)

legal placement illegal placement

If a player cannot place their chosen card legally within their district, they must discard it instead. (Some blocks of their district will end up empty as a consequence.)

If using an actual grid, note that the entire layout of cards may be shifted in any direction that has room for them at any time until the maximum district size (usually 5x5) is reached; the opening placement does not restrict the final layout.

Assigning Suits

At the end of the game, only the headquarters block may have multiple styles (suits); each other block needs to be assigned a single suit for scoring. In order to assure that all moves are both legal and beneficial, it is best to track suits from the beginning by placing suit tokens to indicate the desired suit orientation of a played card.

card with suit tokens

Each suit of a multi-suited card is assigned to one and only one of the blocks under it. The same suit is assigned to both blocks for a single-suited card (Aces and Crowns). When either assignment of suits to the two blocks under a newly-played card would be legal, suits should be selected before the next card placement.

Scoring

Once the urban renewal frenzy has come to an end and the new districts are complete, each player should choose the suit of any blocks in their district that were not already determined during the placement phase. (The player’s headquarters retains its mulitple suits.)

all chipped

Each region of orthogonally connected blocks of the same style (suit) is a neighborhood. There may be more than one neighborhood per suit. Even a single block (half a card) counts as a neighborhood and may score. Unlike Kingdomino (see credits), a neighborhood may be connected through the headquarters if it shares that suit with it. The headquarters counts as a single block for each of its suits, not two.

If a neighborhood contains no personalities or attractions (cards of rank 8, 9, and 10), it scores zero. (Remove the suit tokens from non-scoring neighborhoods for clarity.) Multi-suited attractions and personalities score points for the neighborhood matching the posher, bottom suit of the card, not for both neighborhoods. If a personality is also an attraction (the Diplomat, the Merchant, the Bard, and the Huntress), it counts twice, but still only for the posher suit.

If using scoring tokens, place one or two on the block matching the scoring suit of each scoring card. You can do this when placing the card.

To score a neighborhood, multiply the number of blocks in the neighborhood by the number of scoring cards/tokens in the neighborhood. (Remember to count the doubled ones twice.) Total all neighborhood scores.

Add any bonus points to the total score. (See variants.)

The architect with the highest score wins. The tiebreakers are: the largest neighborhood (scoring or not), then the most personalities, then the most attractions, then the most Crowns.

Variants

The Tournament: Play a series of games, with rotating player order on the first turn instead of random player order.

Incognito: When sorting the market, leave personalities in their rank order; don’t move them to the posh end of the market at all.

Recognition: When sorting the market, move personalities to the posh end as usual, but then sort them by their scoring suit rather than by rank order. Use the non-scoring suit to resolve ties.

Inception: As in Recognition, sort the scoring cards (now including attractions) by the bottom suit, then the top suit, and, separately, also sort the non-scoring portion of the market the same way. (This is a bit easier to do with Giovanni Anelli’s suit-colored cards.)

Personality Paralysis: For each multi-suited personality and attraction, allow the player to choose which suit scores during the scoring phase. Double-scoring cards (for both personality and attraction) still only score for a single suit as chosen by the player; the double score may not be split between the suits.

Detraction: Adjust the minimum rank for attractions (up or down).

Lucky Nines: Count the 9’s as double-scoring cards, and the Merchant as triple-scoring.

The Soothsayer: Deal and sort the next market before choosing cards from the current market.

There are Four Lights: Deal a five-card market for four players and carry the unpicked card forward into the new market (dealing only four new cards in subsequent rounds). This can be done with other player counts as well.

Five’s a Crowd: Deal a six-card market for five players as you would a four-card market for three players. This can be done with other player counts as well.

The Kickoff: Allow events (the Harvest, the Rite) to be start cards.

The Head Start: Use personalities (the Consul, the Light Keeper, and The Watchman) for the start cards. Score them for their bottommost suit (always Knots).

The Race: Player order for the first round is determined from the start cards rather than randomly, in the following order: The Harvest (first), the Rite, the Island, the Borderland, the Window (last). For the Head Start variant, the player order is: the Consul (first), the Light Keeper, The Watchman (last).

The Reveal: When removing cards from the deck at the beginning of the game, set them out where players can see them.

It’s Drafty in Here: For three or four players, use two architect tokens per player and a double-sized market (6 or 8 cards at a time), as you would for two players.

Between Two Districts (2–6 players): Each architect is assigned two districts, one to their right and one to their left, both shared with neighboring architects. On alternate turns, all players build to their right-hand district, then to the left-hand district. Score each district normally. An architect’s final score is the lower of the two scores for their districts. For two players, each architect manages two unshared districts with two different architect tokens as in a normal four-player game, but his final score is the lower of the two scores for his districts.

The Deck

Three’s Company: To use a single Decktet for three players, you simply use the entire base deck. There is no fourth choice to discard from the market as in the standard rules.

Uneventful: The standard deck: remove all Events except for the Market, the 2s, and the extended deck.

Unknotted: When removing cards from the deck, don’t remove events as in the Uneventful rules above. Instead, remove non-scoring Knots, Wyrms, Leaves, etc., in reverse suit order. You may want to Detraction up to 9 or 10 (Crowns only) as well.

Knot Eventful: With a double deck, configure one deck as in Uneventful and the other as in Unknotted, then shuffle them together.

The Unbalancing: Remove base cards from the deck at random to get to the needed number of cards. You may not want to remove the Huntress (the Crown of Moons), because it is the only scoring card for Moons. (You may remove it when playing the Personality Paralysis variant.)

Courting Danger: Shuffle the set aside Pawns and Courts into the deck. The usual suit-matching rules for cards drawn from the deck apply to Pawns and Courts when drawn this way; also they should cover exactly two squares and those squares may be assigned only one, distinct, suit each.

Don Giovanni: When Courting Danger with Giovanni Anelli’s suit-colored version of the Decktet, drawn Pawns and Courts are played across two squares with the suits of the colored ends counting in one square each and the suit of the colored middle counting for both squares.

Excuses Wild: Shuffle in the Excuse(s) and play an Excuse as a 2-square wild card. It only counts towards one neighborhood, so assign it a single suit when scoring. Place it between 7s and 8s in the market.

Bonus Points

Age of Badgers: Include the first two bonus scoring options below.

Age of Goblins: Select several bonus scoring options to use at random.

Score five bonus points for a complete district. (Note that there are placements that can keep you from filling the district; it’s not only a question of having an unplayed card or two.)

Score 5 bonus points for the headquarters being in the exact center of the district (regardless of whether the district has holes, as long as there aren’t enough holes to make the position ambiguous).

Score 10 bonus points for the headquarters being in a corner of the district (regardless of whether the district has holes, as long as there aren’t enough holes to make the position ambiguous).

Score 5 points for three squares in a row of the same suit, 10 for four in a row, or 15 for five in a row. (Diagonals count.)

Score 5 points for having four squares in a box of the same suit.

Score 10 points for a suit run across the district. (Holes do not count as an edge of the district; you must reach 5 blocks across, possibly through snaking.)

Score 5 points for having the largest neighborhood in a suit, regardless of whether it is a scoring neighborhood. For more than three players, also award 2 points for second place.

District Size Variants

7x7: Two or three players may play on a 7x7 grid instead of 5x5, using a pool of 48 or 72 base cards from a double Decktet.

Teamwork: Teams of two players can also collaborate on one 7x7 district per team. Teammates get different architect tokens and take their own turns as if they were playing individually. Individuals may discuss card placement with their teammate but can select and place their own cards without agreement from their teammate.

6x6: Two players may play on a 6x6 grid with a single Decktet by using a pool of 34 cards drawn from the base deck. The headquarters card should be placed to cover two squares, with one suit (eventually) assigned to each square and the third suit assigned to both squares. See also the Don Giovanni variant above.

9x9: Two players may play on a 9x9 grid instead of 5x5, using a pool of 80 cards from the double Decktet (including the remaining extended deck cards; see the Courting Danger variant above).

The Model: To save table space and for added clarity, you may play only the suit tokens to your grid, discarding the actual card. You will also need to place scoring tokens during the game to track which cards were scoring cards.

Urban Sprawl: Architects are unfettered by grid restrictions; your new districts can wander out into the surrounding farmlands like dominoes spreading out from your headquarters. But your district must remain connected, and all adjacent blocks must match in suit (unless they are on the same card, of course).

Jacynimo

If you don’t have suit tokens or a grid, you can play a hybrid of Jacynth and Personimo instead. Throw out the suit assignment step altogether; instead each player creates a normal 4x4 tableau of cards as in Jacynth, and counts neighborhood size and adjacency as in Jacynth. (That is, each card is a single grid square counting towards all of its suits simultaneously, like the headquarters card in Personimo.)

The deck consists of 15 cards per player, with the same headquarters cards and the same market arrangement as in Personimo. A new card must be placed next to an existing card, and at least one suit on the new card must match at least one suit on at least one othogonally adjacent card. Placement next to the headquarters is still unrestricted.

When scoring, the size of the Jacynth-style neighborhood is multiplied by the number of Personimo scoring cards in it, and personalities and attractions belong to only the bottom suit’s neighborhood, not both.

Many Personimo variants may be used in Jacynimo as well.

Solitaire

Select a headquarters and set up as usual, but do not discard any cards from the base deck of 36 cards.

Thorny Crown: You will play twelve rounds of three cards each. During each round, you select only one card and discard the remaining two. Your first choice is free, but on subsequent rounds your choice of cards is additionally restricted thus:

Score your neighborhoods as usual. A score of 50 or more gets you declared Architect of the Year, while a score of less than 35 may result in an unfortunate tar-and-feathering incident.

The Waning: You still play twelve rounds, but for each set of three rounds, you may only pick each position once; that is, if you pick the first card in the first round, then you may only pick the second or third in the next round, and have a forced choice in the third round. You can use three player markers to track which cards you chose, or just leave the old markets in position to make it clear what your remaining options are.

Repeat this process for rounds 4 through 7: in round 4 you have a free choice of all three, but only of two in round 5 and no choice in round 6. Do the same for rounds 7 through 9 and 10 through 12, respectively.

Score as usual.

7x7x3: With a double Decktet, you can build a larger, 7x7 district with either of the solitaire variants above. A winning scores is 120 or more.

6x6x3: With a 48-card unknotted deck out of a double Decktet, you can also build a 6x6 district: instead of one headquarters card on one square, you should place two starting Pawns or Crowns to cover four squares total. (See the Don Giovanni or Courting Danger variants above for how the three suits work in this situation.) You may use one Personality Pawn or Crown in your headquarters and count it as such. You may not play any card next to your headquarters; you must match suits (though you can arrange the headquarters as you wish). Play is otherwise as above.

Thorny Crowns: With a double Decktet (at least 48 cards) or by shuffling discards, you can play a solitaire game with a 4-card market that better represents a multi-architect market, thus:

Score as usual.

Credits

Devised by M. C. DeMarco.

Inspired by Bruno Cathala’s Kingdomino, its forthcoming (at the time) expansion, Kingdomino: Age of Giants, and its sequel, Queendomino, published by Blue Orange Games. The rules and variants were also influenced by two solo variants, Dwindling Choices and Crown of Thorns, by Nick (jungle_boy at BGG), a forward-looking variant by Andy G (GThreepwood at BGG), the double-drafting variant for more players by Josh Kanehen (jkglife at BGG), a Between Two Kingdoms variant by Nicholas Vaccaro (navaccaro at BGG), a five-tile variant by Peter K (DarkYoder at BGG), a domino variant by Leo King (Melachim at BGG), and some scoring variants by P. D. Magnus (pmagnus at BGG).

The Decktet is the creation of P. D. Magnus.

m.c.d.
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