Histrio

Players: 2–5 players
Play time: 40 min
BGG rating: 6.5

It's that special time of year when the entire kingdom gathers at court for the Munificent Theatrical Festival. Acting troupes from all over the land will come together to perform plays of light-hearted comedy or soul-wrenching tragedy. Will their performance win the favour of the king or will his fickle mood spell a flop? In Histrio, you travel the land recruiting actors to join your troupe. Assemble the right team and you might earn enough money to pay for an entire year of shows. It'll take careful planning and a little luck to out-perform your competitors. The play is the thing in Histrio, and the world is your stage! At the beginning of each round, cards are dealt to eight cities where players can travel to recruit actors. Some of the cards are actors, some grant money, and several are animal characters with special abilities. Players then secretly select a city where they will travel, and all players simultaneously reveal their chosen cities. If a city was chosen by only one player, that player gets all cards at the city. If a city was chosen by more than one, all cards are discarded, each player gets a secret objective card instead, and any actor cards are used to influence the king's mood toward either comedies or tragedies. At the end of the season, players earn money based on how many comedian or tragedian actors they have compared to the king's mood. The player with the most money at the end of two seasons wins.