Gloom of Thrones: How to Play
The sky is on fire. The tea is frozen. In Gloom of Thrones it’s your job to tell the story of the most miserable family to ever seek the porcelain throne.
In Gloom of thrones each player has a family of 5 characters and the players job is to make their characters as miserable as possible while cheering up the other players characters. To set up the game set out each players player mats, if you have them from the deluxe version, and then place their 5 characters on top of the designated spaces. These are purely cosmetic, so don’t worry about them if you don’t have them!
Then set aside the Porcelain Throne card and give reference cards to any players that want them. We like to put ours between two players. Shuffle the rest of the cards together to form a deck and put them in the center of the table. The discard pile will be placed next to it, face up as the game progresses.To start the game each player begins by briefly summarizing the misery of their day so far. The player with the most horrible story takes the first turn!
Bebo: Well to start, my coffee was cold after I poured it. Then I stubbed my toe and fell into my coffee table and I haven’t been the same since. Hailey: My alarm went off late, I missed the bus by a minute and then I had to walk up hill with only ONE shoe all the way to school. 3rd Player: *Silly story*
On each players turn they will take 2 actions. An action is almost always used to play a card from their hand! How that works depends on what kind of card they chose to play.
In the game there are event cards, modifier cards and untimely death cards!
Event cards have immediate effects and are then discarded, for example: *Insert Example*Modifier cards are stacked on top of character cards. These alter the characters self-wroth score and may have additional effects as described on the card. They also have story icons on them which impact game play. You can play modifier cards on any character, not just your own meaning you can always choose to cheer them up! These can not, however, be played on characters who are dead, which makes sense, right?And finally we have Untimely Death cards! When these are played on a character it locks in their score and they can only be played on a character with negative self-worth, this means you’ll likely be killing off your own characters. Untimely death cards can only be played as a first action and never a second action on a players turn. Unless of course, a player has the Porcelain Throne. . Its ability is to allow an Untimely Death as a second play and it’s pretty powerful! This rule will be one of the Gloom of Thrones–specific variations in this game that Gloom veterans might be interested in.
After taking their two actions and telling a fabulous story while playing their cards, the players draw back up to five cards unless otherwise instructed by the cards they played that round! The game ends when one players whole family has an untimely death! The winner of the game is the player with the most negative points!
But let's take a look at some of the funny stories told during our game of Gloom of Thrones:*Cut to us playing and one of the stories we tell as we’re playing the game**3 total stories here to highlight the different types of tales we tell*
One last important thing to note is the Cardinal Rule! The cards are all transparent but you only count up points and icons that are visible because these cards will end up stacked on top of one another. Some of these will be covered up which makes them no longer relevant, legal or valid. If a story icon gets covered up then it no longer applies to game play. The same goes for modifiers that limit your cards in hand so pay careful attention to only the visible symbols and limitations.
And that should give you a general idea of how to play Gloom of Thrones. Thank you so much for watching and please let us know in the comments below which house you would play!
Be Bold, Play Games, Be You! Happy Gaming!