Art Society

Welcome to Art Society, where you act as an art connoisseur trying to put together the most fashionable collection of art to impress your peers (p. 15). Here is an overview of how to set up the game, how the rounds work, and how the game ends.

Setup

1. Museum Board & Track: Place the museum board in the center of the table with space for discarded paintings, and place the four prestige markers next to it (p. 11).
2. Components: Sort the painting tiles by size, place all decor tiles in a reach-friendly pile, and place the value tokens in a pile in the auction area (p. 11).
3. Player Setup: Each player takes a player board, their matching two score markers, and a hand of 20 bid cards (p. 11).
4. Starting Paintings & Bids: Each player receives and places a starting painting on their gallery wall covering the center spaces (p. 11). Each player also receives a starting bid card, and the player with the lowest value starting bid takes the gavel to become the first Auctioneer (p. 12).

How a Round Works

The game is played in rounds, with each round following these 5 steps (p. 4):

• Prepare Auction: The Auctioneer selects a number of paintings equal to the number of players plus one, places value tokens underneath them based on their backs, and flips them face up (p. 10).
• Place Bids: Every player simultaneously chooses one bid card from their hand and places it face down on top of their bidding stack, then reveals them simultaneously (p. 10). Ties are broken by revealing underlying cards from each player's bidding stack (p. 5).
• Acquire and Place Paintings: In order from the highest bid to the lowest bid, each player selects one painting from the auction area (p. 10). They must place it on their gallery wall following placement rules, give it to their assistant, exchange it at the museum piles if it doesn't fit, or keep it as an excess painting (p. 6, 8, 14).
• Increase Prestige: The single painting left unsold after the auction is placed in the museum pile of its type, and its prestige marker advances on the museum score track (p. 7).
• Round End: The auctioneer gavel passes clockwise to the next player on the left, and a new round begins (p. 13).

How the Game Ends

The end of the game is triggered when any of the following events occur (p. 1):

• A player has no empty space left on their gallery wall (p. 1).
• A player stores their second excess painting (p. 1).
• Players have no bid cards left in hand (p. 1).

After the trigger, finish the current round and count up final scores to determine the winner (p. 1).