The Copper Trickster — Rules Manual

The Copper Trickster
A trick-taking game full of fun for 2 to 5 players
1. Story
In Ancient Mesopotamia, no other copper merchant was more feared than the great Ea-Nasir… This is what we believe, at least.
Protagonist of the oldest customer complaining ever found, with complaints eternalized on clay tablets made circa 1750 BCE, Ea-Nasir’s skills of selling really bad copper and kicking out any messengers sent to him weren’t, to our relief, lost in time.
2. Components
60 Copper Cards (1 to 12 in 5 suits)
2 Quality Indicator cards (back and front)
5 Suit cards
6 Character cards

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3. Goals and Overview
Your goal is to make the most points each round, acquiring good and great quality copper and avoiding bad quality copper.
- In every round, you play multiple tricks, contesting or avoiding winning according to your knowledge about the copper’s quality.
- The players have limited knowledge about the copper quality that is given to them based on their character.
- Play your cards strategically, planning when you should or shouldn’t win tricks.
- The game ends when every player has been Ea-Nasir once. The player with the most points is the winner.
4. Game Setup (3 to 4 players)
(rules for 2 players are at the end of the manual)
4.1: Choose the first Ea-Nasir
Select a player randomly. This player receives the Ea-Nasir character card (don’t worry, every player will get the chance to play as the world famous Ea-Nasir).
4.2: Distribute the other characters
Distribute the characters, in clockwise order, from the first Ea-Nasir as follows:
- 3 players: Ea-Nasir - Assyrian Buyer (2/3 players) - Supplier
- 4 players: Ea-Nasir - Assyrian Buyer (4/5 players) - Supplier - Babylonian Buyer
- 5 players: Ea-Nasir - Assyrian Buyer (4/5 players) - Supplier - Babylonian Buyer - Nanni’s Messenger
4.3: Prepare the Copper deck
With 4 or 5 players, use the whole deck.
With 3 players, choose a suit from the copper card deck and take out all 12 cards. Store it in the game box, those cards won’t be used in this game. Store the Suit Card from the corresponding suit as well.
4.4: Place the Quality Indicator card
Find the Quality Indicator card that corresponds to the number of players (center of the card) and put it in the center of the table, with the corresponding number of players facing up.
4.5: Find a way to take notes of the scored points.
The game does not include a component for keeping track of the score. You may use coins, tokens, pen and paper or your smartphone to take notes of the score points.
5. Round start setup
5.1: Deal the Copper cards
Shuffle the copper cards and distribute them equally among the players:
- 3 players: 16 for each player (2 cards remain undealt)
- 4 players: 15 for each player
- 5 players: 12 for each player
Put the remaining cards, if any, in a pile next to the players. They won’t be used this round.

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5.2: Great Quality Copper Suit Definition
Give the suit cards for the "supplier" player. The player will secretly choose a suit to be the "great quality copper". The player must select the suit card with the desired suit and place it face-down beside the Quality Indicator card, matching it with the "great quality copper" icon.

5.3: Quality Assignment of the Other Suits
The "supplier" player will shuffle the remaining suit cards and place, face-down, one suit card near each remaining Quality Indicator card icon. They are the "mediocre quality copper", "bad quality copper", "good quality Assyrian copper" and, on 4 or 5 players, "good quality Babylonian copper".

5.4: Quality Uncovering
Now each player can look at their corresponding character's secret knowledge suits, and then, put the suits back next to the Quality Indicator card position, facedown.
- Ea-Nasir (3 to 5 players): Secretly look at the suit cards close to the icons of "bad quality copper" and "mediocre quality copper".
- Assyrian Buyer (3 players): Secretly look at the suit cards near the "good quality Assyrian copper" icon.
- Assyrian Buyer (4 and 5 players): Secretly look at the suit cards near the "good quality Assyrian copper" icon and "good quality Babylonian copper" icon.
- Babylonian Buyer (4 and 5 players): Secretly look at the suit cards near the "good quality Babylonian copper" and "good quality Assyrian copper" icon.
- Nanni's Messenger (5 players): Doesn't look at any suit.

Great quality copper
Good quality Assyrian copper Good quality Babylonian copper
Mediocre quality copper Bad quality copper

5.5: Card Passing
After all the players have secretly looked at their character's secret knowledge suits, each player has to discard a card in secret, forming a discard pile with any remaining cards after the distribution phase, then pass another card to the player on your left.
- ATTENTION: Ea-Nasir can't pass cards of the "bad quality copper" corresponding suit to the player on their left, only discard it.
- On 5 players: The player with the character "Nanni's Messenger" can only discard a card and does not pass or receive cards. The player with the "Babylonian buyer" character passes their card to the player with the "Ea-Nasir" character.
The player can only look at their received cards after discarding and passing their cards. The received cards are now part of their starting hand.

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Setup for 5 players
6. Round Flow
6.0: Choose the first starting player
The player with the character “Assyrian buyer” will be the first leader.
6.1: Play a card
Starting with the leader, everyone, in clockwise order, plays one card face-up from their hand.
The leader can play any card. All the other players must follow the rules below.
Follow suit rule
You must play a card of the same suit as the leader;
- if you have a card of that suit: You must play a card of that suit
- If you don’t have a card of that suit: You can play any card.
6.2: Define the trick winner
After all players have played one card in the step “6.1 Play a card”, define the trick winner, which will be the player who have played the highest card on the following conditions:

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-Condition1: Same suit as starting player
-Condition2: card with the highest number
6.3: Win the trick
The player that was determined the winner of the trick wins all the cards played on that trick.
Those cards have to be kept facedown on a pile next to the player. Do not return those
cards to your hand. The player can look at the cards on their pile whenever they want.
6.4: Verify “Revelation”
The revelation phase happens on a specific trick, which is different depending on how many
players are in your game:
- 3 players: end of the 8th trick (when all players have 7 cards on their hand)
- 4 players: end of the 7th trick (when all players have 7 cards on their hand)
- 5 players: end of the 6th trick (when all players have 5 cards on their hand)
In case you have reached the indicated moment for the number of players in your game, go
to step “7. Revelation”.
6.5: Preparing for the next trick
The player who won the trick becomes the new leader. Go back to step 6.1 and repeat until
all players have played all their cards.
7. Revelation
(Verify revelation activation on step 6.4: “Verify revelation”)
Turn every card next to the Quality Indicator face up, without changing positions, revealing
the quality information of each copper suit to all the players.
From now on, consider that the Revelation happened for any character effect.
Continue the round from the step “6.5: preparing for the next trick”
8. End of the round
The round ends when the players have no more cards left on their hand. Proceed to step 9
“Characters and score”
(The number of tricks played changes according to the number of players)
9. Characters and Scoring
The scoring is directly connected to your character in that round. The character’s
scoring are shown below:
Assyrian and Babylonian Buyer
Both characters score in a similar way, but they prefer copper from their own affiliation
(Assyrian and Babylonian):
- 2 points for each card of the “great quality copper” suit collected
- 2 points for each card of the “good quality copper (Assyrian/Babylonian)” suit that are
of the same affiliation as the Buyer.
- (4 to 5 players) 1 point for each card of the “good quality copper
(Assyrian/Babylonian)” suit that are not of the same affiliation as the Buyer.
- 0 points for each card of the “good quality copper” suit collected
- -2 points for each card of the “bad quality copper” suit collected.

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Ea-Nasir
Ea-Nasir knows how to sell bad copper, although knowledge can come at a price:
-2 points for each card of the “great quality copper” suit collected
-1 point for each card of the “good quality copper (Assyrian/Babylonian)” suit collected.
-0 points for each card of the “good quality copper” suit collected
--4 points for each card of the “bad quality copper” suit collected
Supplier
The Supplier knows where to get the best copper, but must use its knowledge at the right time:
-3 points for each card of the “great quality copper” suit collected
-1 point for each card of the “good quality copper (Assyrian/Babylonian)” suit collected.
-0 points for each card of the “good quality copper” suit collected
--2 points for each card of the “bad quality copper” suit collected
Nanni’s Messenger
The Messenger of Nanni doesn’t mind what type of copper they get because they are afraid of walking in enemy territory. They don’t want to take anything but the necessary.
- Tricks won before the Revelation
- The Messenger scores -2 points for each trick they win
- Tricks won after Revelation
(Do not consider tricks won before the revelation)
-0 points if the player doesn’t win any tricks
-5 points if the player wins exactly 1 trick
-12 points if the player wins exactly 2 tricks
-2 points if the player wins 3 tricks or more.
For the Messenger, it doesn’t matter the card suits that are part of the trick that they won, only the number of tricks they won before and after the revelation phase.
Remember to leave aside each trick won. Use the left and right side of the character card to separate what you won before and after the Revelation phase.
ATTENTION: The number in the cards does not interfere with the score of any character.
Only consider the card suits or the number of tricks won.

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Scoring example for 5 players
10. Next Round
- All players must pass their character card to the player on their left.
- Take back and shuffle all the copper cards, including the ones that were discarded and not used on this round.
- Go back to step “5.1: Deal the copper cards”
11. End of the game
- The game ends when all the players have been the character Ea-Nasir at least once (the number of rounds is equal to the number of players)
- In case of a draw, the player who scored the most points in the last round is the winner. If the draw persists, the players share the victory.

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The Trickster Proposition - 2 players variant
13. Two players story
Ea-Nasir was caught lying to both of you, copper buyers from rival factions. In a way only a really “special” seller could do, he convinces you both to play a little game to sort all the copper. Ea-Nasir won’t choose any copper himself, he insists that you both sort it for him and he will accept the result… But you have to follow his simple and fair rules.
14. Game Setup (2 players)
14.1: Choose the first player
Select a player randomly. This player is the first player for the first round.
14.2: Prepare the Copper deck
Choose a suit from the copper card deck and take out all 12 cards. Store it in the game box, those cards won’t be used in this game. Store the Suit Card from the corresponding chosen suit as well.
Leave only the cards 1 to 7 of the remaining suits in the copper card deck. Store the cards 8 to 12 in the box, those cards won’t be used in this game.
14.3: Place the 2 players Quality Indicator card
Find the Quality Indicator card that corresponds to 2 players (center of the card) and put it in the center of the table, with the corresponding number of players facing up.
14.4: Find a way to take notes of the score points.
The game does not include a component for keeping track of the score. You may use coins, tokens, pen and paper or your smartphone to take notes of the score points.
15. Round start setup
15.1: Deal the Copper cards
Shuffle the copper cards and distribute 9 for each player.
Put the remaining 10 cards in a pile next to the players. They are the Ea-Nasir hand.
15.2: Quality assignment
Give each player a Suit Card. Put the two remaining quality cards next to the “Bad Quality Copper” and “Great Quality Copper” icons in the Quality Indicator card.
16. Round Flow
16.0: Choose the first starting player
The first player is the first leader.
16.1: Ea-Nasir reveals a card
Ea-Nasir plays the top card of the Ea-Nasir hand.
16.2: Play a card
This step follows the same rules as playing in 3 to 5 players (6.1: Play a card).
16.2.1: Bribe (once per round action)
When the player isn’t leading, they can declare a “bribe”. When bribing, the player does not have to follow suit and loses the trick. This player can see one of the cards next to the Quality Indicator Card in secret.

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The second player to bribe can only see the card that the first player to bribe didn’t choose. Bribing can only be done one time per round by both players.
Bribing makes you the next leader (16.5: Preparing for the next trick)
16.3: Define the trick winner and loser
This step follows the same rules as playing in 3 to 5 players (6.2: Define the trick winner)
The player with the lowest card is the loser.
Ea-Nasir does not win or lose tricks. Ignore his card in this step.
16.4: Sorting the cards
The loser of the trick chooses one of the three cards played to go to Ea-Nasir.
The winner of the trick chooses one of the two remaining cards to keep.
The loser of the trick receives the remaining card to keep.
Those cards have to be kept facedown on a pile next to the player that receives them (including Ea-Nasir). Do not return those cards to your hand. The player can look at the cards on their pile whenever they want.
16.5: Preparing for the next trick
The player who won the trick becomes the new leader unless a player bribed in this round, in which case the briber is the new leader.
Go back to step 16.1 and repeat until all players (do not consider Ea-Nasir) have played all their cards.
17. End of the round and Scoring
17.1: End of the round:
The round ends after 9 rounds, when the players have no more cards left on their hand.
17.2: Revelation
Reveal the suit cards next to the Quality Indicator Card. Each player reveals their suit card.
17.2: Players Scoring
Both players score in the same way
--4 points for each card of the “bad quality copper” suit collected
-3 points for each card of the “great quality copper” suit collected
-2 points for each card of the opponent's secret suit collected.
-1 point for each card of their own secret suit collected
17.2: Ea-Nasir Scoring
Before scoring, Ea-Nasir secretly puts the remaining card from his hand on his scoring pile.
--4 points for each card of the “bad quality copper” suit collected
-3 points for each card of the “great quality copper” suit collected
-1 point for each player's secret suit collected.
Who made the most points wins the round. Ea-Nasir can be the winner. If there is a tie, every tied player wins a point.
18. Next Round
- Take back and shuffle all the copper cards.
- The player who wasn’t the first player in the previous round is the new first player.
- Go back to step “15.1: Deal the copper cards”

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19. End of the two-player game
- The game ends when a player wins 2 rounds. Whoever won 2 rounds, and this includes Ea-Nasir, wins the game.
- In case of multiple players winning 2 rounds, play more rounds until there is a clear winner.
Ea-Nasir’s Party - 3-5 Players Variant
The rules are essentially the same as the base game, with some new rules and changes:
- The discarded cards (5.5: Card passing) are now shuffled, making a new pile. Flip the top card. The suit of the flipped card is now the Trump suit.
- Following the same rules for playing cards (6.1: Play a card), if there are one or more cards from the trump suit in the trick, the highest card in the trump suit wins the trick.
ERRATA: Fellow gathering of friends, all 10s have a misprint on one of 10 and is showing a “01”. Please note that this is a 10 and not a one. If you feel the need, just flip it on your hand to avoid confusion. Truly Sorry about that!
Game Design: Alex Pena
Illustration: Alex Pena
Carteado Editor: Mauricio Torselli
Samba Creative Director: Fel Barros

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