Game: Ars Mysteriorum

Thread: Re: Question about receiving stipends

Racinrod — 2008-07-18T03:46:43+00:00

If.... using the example above, my collection consists of 1 Gold, 2 Serpentine, and 3 Jade & I receive 11FL, then the following round I do NOT collect a recipe card, do I once again receive 11FL? Or do I only receive additional income upon gaining another recipe card?

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The Gamester — 2007-03-11T16:56:08+00:00

Paul's home made version, including box!

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The Gamester — 2007-03-11T16:53:41+00:00

Our friend Pauls' home made version, including box!

Thread: Mystery question - Replace Recipes

kimbo — 2006-07-20T04:30:25+00:00

When can the Replace Recipes be canceled by the "Cancel Prvious Mystery" mystery card?

Can a player wait to see what recipes will be replaced before canceling the Replace Recipes card? Or must the Cancel be played after a player states that he will play the Replace Recipes card but before any recipes are replaced?

Thanks for the answer.

-- Kimbo

Thread: Mystery question - Turn Order Bid Change

kimbo — 2006-07-20T04:24:10+00:00

"You may pay any number of any color chips. For each chip paid, add 1 point to your bid."

When are these chips added?

A. When the bid card is laid down...
B. After bid cards are down and before they are revealed...
C. After bid cards have been revealed...

I assume adding chips is part of the bidding process and so would happen when the bid card was placed down (A). Others in the game argued for B and C.

Which is it?

Thanks,

-- Kimbo

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oobydoob — 2006-05-18T23:32:53+00:00

Home made box for 3D edition

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oobydoob — 2006-05-18T23:32:17+00:00

3D home made edition

Thread: Re: Ars Mysteriorum: Occult Scoring System

AnakinOU — 2006-03-06T17:06:24+00:00

AKARed wrote:
A game like Carcassonne, for example, costs about the same amount at full retail, but comes with 72 linen-textured, glossy coated tiles, a matching scoring board, and all those wooden Meeples. It's visually and physically appealing, as even geeks on this site who dislike the game will concede. In contrast, Ars Mysteriorum is just two different sets of little cardstock cards, five cardstock playing boards, miniature poker chips and five resin wizards.

Economies of scale, my friend. It's a lot cheaper (per tile) to print 200,000 cardboard tiles, than it is to print 5,000. Independent game designer/publishers generally don't have the capital to print 10,000 copies of their games, so they can't pass those types of savings on to the end-purchaser of their games.

Thread: Ars Mysteriorum: Occult Scoring System

AKARed — 2006-03-06T02:45:58+00:00

Last night at Open Game Night at the Family Game Store in Historic Savage Mill, Maryland, representatives from local game company Hangman Games were on hand teaching several of their games. Four of us sat down to play Ars Mysteriorum, in which the players take the role of magicians who must collect varying amounts of five different alchemical substances (represented by small poker chips in red, blue, green, yellow and purple) which are then used in different recipes that make precious metals, gemstones, semiprecious gemstones, aromatics, and colourants (my favorite being FD&C Red Dye #5) that go into their personal spell books. While the theme is pretty strong through most of the game, I had a problem in that the winner is the player who gets the most *money* at the end of the game, not necessarily the player with the best depth or breadth in her spell book. If ever there were a game that should be won by some kind of "Victory Points," rather than greenbacks (or "Florims" as the case may be) it seems to me it would be one about alchemy.

Alan, the game's creator, instructed us on how to play. Of course, since he was also teaching one or two other games to people at one or two other tables, he couldn't give us his full attention, which meant that there were several key rules he forgot to explain until he realized it was too late in play to bring them in. This goes to the major criticism my group as a whole had of the game, which is that the rules and scoring are probably too complex for what the game is. There are cards called "mysteries" which are purchased each round and these in particular were often well, mysterious, in meaning to us. Two of the four of us thought they understood what Alan termed the "three dimensional scoring system" and so we had them do the tallys for everyone at the end of each round, but when Alan came by at the end of the game for us to get our final scores, we found out that the players who thought they knew what they were doing didn't in fact know what they were doing.

The game also ran pretty long for what it was but I'm sure that was in part to our newness to the game and that it would play faster a second time around. Likewise, I think Ars Mysteriorum would be more fun if we played it again, but not all of my foursome agreed they'd sit down to it for another game.

My final criticism would be of the production values of Ars Mysteriorum. I'm an artist and am definitely attracted to things that look and feel beautiful, which of course I recognize isn't something that matters to everyone. Ars Mysteriorum is printed entirely on your basic cheap, smooth, single-ply cardstock -- both the playing mats and the tiny undersized cards. I realize that if the cards were bigger, the mats would also have to be twice the size and then wouldn't fit on a typical card table, but then I would have liked a cardboard-backed playing mat to give the game some heft.

A game like Carcassonne, for example, costs about the same amount at full retail, but comes with 72 linen-textured, glossy coated tiles, a matching scoring board, and all those wooden Meeples. It's visually and physically appealing, as even geeks on this site who dislike the game will concede. In contrast, Ars Mysteriorum is just two different sets of little cardstock cards, five cardstock playing boards, miniature poker chips and five resin wizards. There's nothing about it that jumps out and says "buy me!" The use of standard flat-backed glass "gems" would also have complemented the theme and atmosphere of the game alot more than the little plastic ribbed poker chips and are still inexpensive. And there should have been some designated area on your game mat/spell book to keep your chips; if you kept them on the mat you covered up some of your spells and if you moved them off to the side it was too easy to lose them, at least on the busy surface we were playing on.

In conclusion, I would play Ars Mysteriorum at least one more time. I *wanted* to like the game, especially since it's made by local game designers, but before I could see myself buying it, the scoring rules would have to be simplified, the wording on the mystery cards clarified, and either the price lowered or the components upgraded.

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jmellby — 2006-02-09T23:22:21+00:00

First Ars Mysterium game in Plano - Everyone tries to look confident

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jmellby — 2006-02-09T23:22:11+00:00

Recipe card with concentration on Precious Metals

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jmellby — 2006-02-09T23:05:08+00:00

Ars Mysterium tent setup in mid-game

Thread: Re: Money vs VP's, Comparisons with Ys and Game length

Alan D. Ernstein — 2006-02-08T03:01:59+00:00

The decision to use money instead of a track was a deliberate choice resulting from our playtesting. The game originally had a scoring track. Our general opinion was, while it is possible to figure out each player's score, there is so much going on that it wasn't likely that anyone would have the time to bother. In addition, the idea of "the sense of who is leading" was actually more interesting to us. I am also a huge opponent of the last turn game freeze brought on by the analysis of everyone's position as affected by the leader and the last place player. In sum, the mystery of each player's score was more interesting than the reality.

Enjoy,

Alan

Thread: Session Report: Ars Mysteriorum

gschloesser — 2006-01-31T21:38:49+00:00

Editor’s Note: My full review of Ars Mysteriorum can be found under the Game Reviews section of the East Tennessee Gamers website.
www.easttennesseegamers.com

All neophytes were called to once again participate in the tense alchemy competition. Jim, Jared, Erin, Gail and I traveled from tent to tent, gathering articles and elements needed to from precious items.

I grabbed a Mystery card early that allowed me to make two purchases on the same turn, and this did give me an early edge. However, I lagged behind in terms of income, and it was evident that Erin and Jim were enjoying a healthy income each turn. I was hoping to secure the end-game majority in both gems and aromatics, but was thwarted by Erin in gems and only managed a tie with Gail in the valuable aromatics category.

Jim’s consistent income was enough to earn him the victory.

Finals: Jim 98, Erin 88, Gail 82, Greg 81, Jared 70

Ratings: Greg 7.5, Jared 7.5, Gail 7, Jim 7, Erin 7

Thread: Re: Money vs VP's, Comparisons with Ys and Game length

peterschell — 2006-01-27T19:23:07+00:00

A few of the "mysteries" action cards cost florims (money/victory points) to use. Of course, this could've been accomplished just as well by sliding a marker down a VP track when you pay.
This game has no single "main" board to put a VP track on. That might be another reason money was used instead. VP's are not used to determine things like turn order or discounts in this game so why not keep them secret?

Thread: Money vs VP's, Comparisons with Ys and Game length

100%Blade — 2006-01-12T15:28:18+00:00

Apologies for discussing three different topics under one thread - I'm just sharing some thoughts really. I've only played once but enjoyed it.

I was interested in the decision to use money as the basis for rewarding stipends rather than the victory point track round the board which is so common these days. I doubt this was to do with theme as I'm sure either could be justified so assume it was more to do with the desire to keep current scores secret. This is an old debate of course but wondered whether anyone had any thoughts on whether it suits this game better. The only thing I have against the money is that it is more "fiddly" then moving a scoring marker.

The procedure of placing favours at the tents reminded me very much of the mechanism in YS for placing Brokers. As it could be argued that this is the core of both games it makes them very similar although I haven't seen anyone compare the two before. I think the theme in Ars Mysteriorum works better than that in Ys which feels a little dry and I therefore prefer the former. The big downside for me was the game length. Ignoring rules explanations our one four-player game lasted 3 hours or slightly longer. We arn't the quickest set of players but neither are we particularly slow and with experience I'm sure this will drop slightly. However, I want a game of this nature / weight to drop in the 1.5 - 2 hours mark and I just can't see that happening. For this alone, Ys is preferable.

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Lobo — 2005-09-12T15:21:50+00:00

Box

Thread: Re: 3 player shortened game

Alan D. Ernstein — 2005-09-01T13:02:07+00:00

David--between your post and suggestions from the Denver Games group, we have worked out a suggested 3-player format that seems to play more quickly.

Setup remains the same, except that you will not be using the two lowest value bins at each tent.

At the end of phase 8 (after all other players have taken their action), repeat phase 8 (call it phase 8A) with the addition that recipes earned in phase 8A cost two additional chips of the same color.

If you are playing with Mysteries, "Earn Extra Recipe" may only be played after phase 8A with the following additional text: "You may earn this recipe at any tent by paying two additional chips of the target tent." Note that the cost to use the card is therefore 4 additional chips--2 from the original text of the card (they can be any color) and 2 from the additional text (that must be the color of the target tent). You do not need to have earned a recipe in phase 8A to use the Earn Extra Recipe mysteries card.

End of game conditions remain the same. Remember that the game ends when any of the decks is gone--not just the Mysteries. If the last recipe is earned from a tent, the game ends at the end of that turn.

Alan

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snicholson — 2005-08-22T17:43:13+00:00

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snicholson — 2005-08-22T17:43:13+00:00

Playing Ars under the watchful eye of the creator, Alan D. Ernstein, at a WBC 2005 demo

Thread: Re: Question about receiving stipends

Alan D. Ernstein — 2005-06-30T18:58:44+00:00

If I understand your question, Dale's interpretation of the scoring is correct. A recipe card may only score once in each category, and Dale's example is right out of the rulebook. The statement "the stipend is for the entire collection" is there because players wanted the payoff to be for each card used in the collection. So here are some more examples:

Your collection consists of 1 Gold, 2 Serpentine, and 3 Jade. Your Scoring is:

Duplicate Items: 1 Gold pays 1FL; 2 Serpentine pays a total of 2FL (not 2FL for each card), and 3 Jade pays a total of 5FL. Total for Duplicate Items is 8FL

Princes' Combinations: 1 Gold and any number of Jade cards pay 1FL since the Gold may only be used once in each category. There is no scoring for the Serpentine. Total for Princes' Combinations is 1FL.

Masters' Sets: 1 Jade and 1 Serpentine score 1FL. The second Jade and the second Serpentine score 1FL. The Gold and the third Jade do not score in this category. Total for Masters' Sets is 2FL.

Grand Total is 11FL.

I hope that this helps. I will be at Origins Friday through Sunday anyone has other questions or wants a demo of the game. Find us through the kind folks at the GMT booth.

Thread: Re: Question about receiving stipends

Henry Rhombus — 2005-06-27T21:14:30+00:00

Thanks, Dan. I'll go with your first-hand experience over Dale's since I don't know how he learned the game and since your opinion matches up with what the rules state. I thought Dale's explanation was kind of bizarre...

Thread: Re: Question about receiving stipends

tool — 2005-06-27T06:08:33+00:00

Well, it DOES matter how many cards of a type you have, but only for scoring that type of card (the "into the grid" view). It doesn't matter for scoring the horizontal or vertical sets. I was taught the game by Alan and Kurt and am therefore fairly sure I have this right.

Thread: Question about receiving stipends

Henry Rhombus — 2005-06-27T04:48:08+00:00

When I learned Ars Mysteriorum at the Gathering, Dale Yu described the recipe book as a three-dimensional grid in which you receive stipends based upon the cards you have looking across the grid, up the grid, and straight down into the grid.

He explained that if you have duplicate sets when looking at the Master's Sets or Princes' Combinations, you score for all possible sets. For example, a set of 1 Gold and 1 Jade pays 1FL; a set of 2 Gold and 1 Jade also pays 1FL; a set of 2 Gold and 2 Jade, on the other hand, pays 2FL.

Looking over the rules, however, I don't see any support for this interpretation. Both sections of the rules state that "the stipend is for the entire collection, not each recipe card in the collection." I would interpret this statement to mean that it doesn't matter how many Gold, Jade, and so on you possess; you count each of them only once.

Alan Ernstein was at GoF, so perhaps he was teaching the stipend section this way, but a clarification on scoring would be nice. Alan, are you here?

Thread: Re: Move Again (Phase 8) Card

Alan D. Ernstein — 2005-06-14T18:57:09+00:00

Dan is correct. You may only move again with the card. There are many reasons you may want to do this. Perhaps it is cheaper to move to an unoccupied tent for one chip, then, after everyone has moved, move to a tent that is now unoccupied for one chip. The card may also be used in combination with other Mysteries like Earn an Extra Recipe which will allow you to earn an extra recipe at another tent.

Thread: Re: Move Again (Phase 8) Card

tool — 2005-06-09T16:13:00+00:00

No, you cannot. You use it to move before buying your one recipe (or I suppose you could do it afterwards as well, you might be able to save a chip that way).

Thread: Move Again (Phase 8) Card

quarks — 2005-06-09T15:55:09+00:00

There is a Mystery card that allows your apprentice to move again (with normal cost) during phase 8 (aquiring recipes). Using this card, after you move, can you buy a second recipe?

Thread: Re: Duplicate Recipe Cards and Payoff Bin Refills

Tycho — 2005-06-04T09:36:31+00:00

steveowen wrote:
1. Under Earn Recipes it states that "No other player may earn that same Recipe Card"
We interpreted this as either meaning the exact Recipe Card that has already been removed cannot be earned which seems completely self evident as the card is no longer available or that no card of the same set ( eg no more GOLD)could be taken by any other player for the rest of the game which seems rather too restrictive - which is correct?
The same question came up in my recent game. Here's Alan Ernstein's response:
Section 1. under Earn Recipes
should read:

In turn order, each player may earn one Recipe from an easel at the
tent they currently occupy. When a player earns a recipe, the
Recipe Card is immediately removed from the easel and placed in
their Recipe Book.

Thread: Ars Mysteriorum - Session Report

gschloesser — 2005-06-01T04:49:10+00:00

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is an abbreviated version of my review, which will appear in the next issue of Gamer's Alliance Report.)

Last year, the major game highlight for me at the Gathering was Alan Ernstein's Tahuantinsuyu. The game is excellent, and was one of my Top 3 games of 2004. I also thoroughly enjoyed Junkyard, his novel trick-taking game using tiles. So, I was eagerly anticipating his new release, Ars Mysteriorum, and made sure I arranged a playing during this year's Gathering. I am happy to report that I was not disappointed.

In Ars Mysteriorum, players represent apprentices participating in an alchemy competition. Players must collect various ingredients, which they will use to successfully complete recipes and create various elements such as gold, rubies or even Red Dye #5. Recipes are added to a player's recipe book, and income will be earned for the best combination. Ultimately, players desire to compile the best recipe book, earn the most income, and become a Master Alchemist.

Ars Mysteriorum is fun, filled with interesting and significant decisions, and has many head-slapping "Arrghh!" moments. Careful planning is required, but players must be ready with back-up plans and alternative strategies. Yes, there is luck, and your plans can be interrupted by the actions of your opponents, but in the end, proper strategy, planning and management will win the contest.

Alan Ernstein is quickly becoming one of my favorite game designers, and one whose releases are now on my "must play" list. Whereas Tahuantinsuyu was clearly aimed at hard-core gamers, Ars Mysteriorum will appeal to a wider audience. Here's hoping that his designs will begin to get the attention they deserve not only from gamers, but from larger game companies as well.

Alwyn, Matt, Willerd, the team of Keith and Jim, and I competed to acquire elements and covert them to valuable recipes. Matt proved to be the most adept at acquiring florins, but the end-game bonuses swayed the game to Alwyn.

Finals: Alwyn 79, Matt 76, Greg 75, Willerd 70, Keith/Jim 63

Ratings: Greg 7.5, Matt 7.5, Keith 7, Jim 7, Willerd 6.5, Alwyn 6.5

Thread: 3 player shortened game

skeletodoc — 2005-05-28T03:15:02+00:00

Having played the 3 player game by the rules, it takes too long, in the range of 2.5-3 hours. I suggest two ways to shorten the game. First, let each player buy more than one recipe on their turn either at the same or different tent. Second, use the highest 3 chip bins on each card so more chips are available per player after bidding phase rather than the middle 3 bins.A third way is to reduce the number of mystery cards in play beyond the removal of 4.

Thread: Re: Duplicate Recipe Cards and Payoff Bin Refills

Alan D. Ernstein — 2005-05-08T19:44:57+00:00

You only refill a bin to the number on the bin. If a bin in not claimed in the previous turn, it is wiped clean.

Thread: Re: Duplicate Recipe Cards and Payoff Bin Refills

Henry Rhombus — 2005-05-06T02:42:26+00:00

steveowen wrote:
2. Under Reveal Recipes and Stock Elements it states that "Then place the appropriate number of chips in each Element Payoff Bin on each board." Does this mean that in a 2 bin there can only ever be a maximum of 2 chips or that 2 chips are added to any already there at this phase of the turn if they were not claimed in the previous turn?

This happened only once in the two games I've played, and we were momentarily stunned to find this event was not covered in the rules, which are otherwise quite thorough. We decided to sweep leftovers off the card, then fill up from the largest pot to the smallest; otherwise, the available yellow elements would have been 2, 2, 0, 1, 0 -- which makes no sense.

Thus, I'd agree with Dan that you wipe the bins clean, then start filling them from high to low as usual.

Thread: Re: Duplicate Recipe Cards and Payoff Bin Refills

tool — 2005-05-06T00:10:33+00:00

1. Definitely the exact card, the game would be just about impossible to play with the second meaning. While I agree this is self-evident, practice has shown that things that go without saying, need to be said if they are in rules.

2. I am 99% certain that you fill up to the number shown, you do not add the number shown.

Thread: Duplicate Recipe Cards and Payoff Bin Refills

steveowen — 2005-05-05T22:19:48+00:00

2 Questions occurred to us this evening:

1. Under Earn Recipes it states that "No other player may earn that same Recipe Card"
We interpreted this as either meaning the exact Recipe Card that has already been removed cannot be earned which seems completely self evident as the card is no longer available or that no card of the same set ( eg no more GOLD)could be taken by any other player for the rest of the game which seems rather too restrictive - which is correct?

2. Under Reveal Recipes and Stock Elements it states that "Then place the appropriate number of chips in each Element Payoff Bin on each board"
Does this mean that in a 2 bin there can only ever be a maximum of 2 chips or that 2 chips are added to any already there at this phase of the turn if they were not claimed in the previous turn?

Thanks for any assistance here

Thread: Session Report

TamiWhitsett — 2005-05-01T20:31:08+00:00

I then spent basically the entire afternoon playing Ars Mysteriorum with James, Greg, Brian, and Anye. This is a clever little game by Alan D. Ernstein, who taught us how to play, where you are an alchemy apprentice, learning to turn elements into other elements. You get points (in the form of money) by collecting sets. There are 3 ways that you can collect sets: the same element, similar elements, or one of each type of elements. As you learn ways to make the elements, you place them on your board, so scoring is 3-dimensional. You get points based on the number of each element you have, combination in columns (similar elements), and the combination in rows (each type). Blind bidding determines who gets to move first, which determines who wins ties for later blind bidding steps in a round. Greg proved the master of the arts, scoring 143 points, followed by Anye with 120, and James with 119. I scored 107 points, and Brian, who was element-poor the entire game, ended with 95 points. Definitely a game I need to try again.

Thread: Re:Session Report

Alan D. Ernstein — 2005-04-18T19:31:46+00:00

Tycho (#472690),
I did not include this in the rules, but I do try to let players know the following when I teach the game:

If you play a 5-player game, the Mysteries deck limits the game to a maxumum of 7 turns. Therefore, you will probably end the game with only 8 recipes in your book. If you play the game with 4-players, the Mysteries deck limits the game to 9 turns.

Knowing this does help you plan ahead a little since you have an idea of how much of your book you will fill up.

Enjoy,
Alan

Thread: Re:rules?

Tycho — 2005-04-14T07:50:36+00:00

I've added a session report that contains a description of the rules.

Thread: Session Report

Tycho — 2005-04-12T22:43:44+00:00

My first (and so far only) game of Ars Mysteriorum must have taken a more than a couple of hours, maybe even three, but I wasn't really looking at the clock. It started slow, because none of us had played before, but speeded up as it went on. I wasn't the person reading out the rules so I can't really comment on their quality, but there were a few points we were left confused about and had to have explained by someone who had played before.

Using for reference the photo of the back of the box:
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- Each player gets one of the stand-up apprentice figures and a set of 6 "favor" cards of that same colour - e.g. top right corner, the red guy and the cards. The cards are numbered 1-6.
- Each player also gets a card listing the phases of the turn - bottom right of the picture
- Each player gets one of the big "recipe book" boards in the middle of the picture
- The five boards with tents go in front of the players - they define a start location for the stand-ups, but there's no ownership after that
- The counters go on the tents of the same colour, with some handed out to the players initially
- The recipe cards go face down on to the tent boards - there is a deck for each colour, see for example to the right of the yellow tent board
- There is a deck of "mysteries" cards - bottom of picture, these have text on them
- The money goes to the bank
- There is an initial handout of the turn-order cards

I've not played any other Hangman games. This one seemed hand-produced, but with good-quality art and components. The only issue was that one colour of the resource counters ("elements") was missing from the box.

Briefly, this is how it went, with 5 of us. Apologies for any mistakes - we may have understood the rules wrong, or I may be misremembering something. Also, I don't know how the rules vary for <5.

The aim of the game is to have the most money at the end of the game. The end is triggered when one of the decks run out - a colour of recipes, or the mystery cards. There are 40 of these mysteries, and 5 get handed out each turn, so 8 turns (though in our game the yellow recipes ran out in turn 6, I think).

Mostly money is earnt each turn from the recipe cards you own, plus a little when you acquire the recipe. The recipe book boards are where you place the recipes - each type of card goes in a particular position once you've bought it. There are three of each card, and you increase the payout for having multiple of a card, filling rows and filling columns. The payouts are printed on the card (the white numerals in the photo). There is also a game-end payout for the player with the most in each column. All players have the same payouts, but different rows and columns and cards are weighted differently. Each player has the chance to buy one initial recipe at the beginning of the game.

The recipe cards are printed with coloured dots to show how many of which elements are used to make them. You can just about make that out from the photo. So, three yellow, two green, one blue or whatever. At the start of the game two are turned over and placed on the easels next to each tent, and these are refilled as necessary each turn.

The elements are placed in piles on the tent cards, the number varying per tent - see the yellow tent card there are five baskets on the ground with numbers 2,2,1,1,1. Purple has something like 6,4,2,2,1. These baskets are refilled each turn, though in turns after the first there may not be enough to fill all baskets. Spare elements go in a pile on the tent.

A key point is that at any time of the game, players can exchange three element counters of any colour for one counter of the colour of their choice - provided there are some spare.

Each turn of the game proceeds as follows
- Simultaneous choice of one favor card to determine turn order - this card is then set aside for the rest of the turn
- Five mystery cards are laid out and in turn order each player takes one
- In turn order, each player lays one favour card face-down on a tent. Repeat until all are laid, then reveal. Highest card gets the first basket, next the next etc. There are rules for ties. The card numbers are not additive, two cards can get two allocations.
- In turn order, the apprentices are moved to a new tent, or stay where they are. There is a cost of staying and a cost of moving, plus there is a penalty for moving to an already-occupied tent. These are paid in element counters.
- In turn order, the player buys a recipe at their apprentice's current tent and place it on their recipe book card
- The recipe books are scored
- easels and baskets are refilled

The mystery cards have various once-off uses such as "borrow" an element from another player for the scoring phase, increasing or decreasing the movement/penalty costs, cancelling the recipe-acquisition bonus, extra move, extra right to acquire recipe, take extra element, cancel previously-played mystery card, rifle the mystery card discard pile etc. The more powerful ones have a cost to use in elements or money.

That's about it. I liked Ars Mysteriorum, and I look forward to playing it again. On the basis of one session I don't feel this can be considered a proper review, but my Geek rating comments were that the game seemed to end too quickly - with all those empty spaces on the recipe book, it seemed natural we should have been able to collect more recipes, though in terms of game time it certainly went on long enough. It also seemed somewhat fiddly - with all the different cards, counters and phases it lacked the elegance that I appreciate in games by such as Knizia. Minor issues, and I might well feel otherwise after another play.

Thread: Ingredient definitions

peterschell — 2005-04-11T23:53:28+00:00

In case you were wondering, here's what the antiquated terms for the chips mean in modern chemistry terms:

Purple=Salt =Sodium Chloride (probably)
Red=Realgar (pronounced ree-AL-gar)= Arsenic Sulfide
Blue=Quicksilver= Mercury
Green=Verdigris= Copper Acetate
Yellow=Brimstone= Sulfur

Remember kids, alchemy is just make-believe. None of the above chemicals in any combination will turn lead to gold in the real world, sorry.

Thread: Re:rules?

peterschell — 2005-04-09T20:07:21+00:00

skeletodoc (#463507),
I haven't played it yet but here's a brief overview.
Players try to earn the most cash by collecting sets of "recipe" cards on the "recipe book" chart. The chart is 5x3 so you could collect up to 5 recipes horizontally, 3 vertically or 3 to 4 multiples of the same recipe.
You buy recipes with the colored chips. You get the chips by blind bidding your six favor cards onto the five different tents. The highest bid gets the first and fullest pot of chips and the lesser pots are awarded in bid order.
After getting chips, players must pay to move or stay at a tent. Moving to a tent costs one chip of that tent's color. Staying at a tent costs 3 chips of that tent's color. When you end your move, you also have to pay a chip for every other player in that tent.
You then buy one of the two recipes at the tent you're at. You get cash just for buying the recipe. In the last phase of each turn, you earn stipends based on the number of recipes you have in each row or column of the recipe book plus the stipend for multiples of the same recipe. Example: having one recipe in the bottom row is worth 0, 2 recipes is worth 1, 3 is worth 3, 4 is worth 6 and all 5 would get you 10 "florims" (victory points).
Other details: Before bidding for chips, you must blind bid on turn order. That bid card then cannot be used on the chip bidding phase for that turn. Also, face up "mysteries" action cards are chosen in turn order before bidding on chips. There are 28 varieties of mysteries. Some can be activated for free and some cost chips or florims to use. I have a feeling most rules questions will be about these cards because they are not explained in detail in the rules a la the magic cards in Aladdin's Dragons.
When the last recipe card of one tent is sold, the game ends at the end of that turn. The game could also end immediately if there are not enough mysteries cards to dole out during the "reveal mysteries" phase.
Bear in mind each turn has a whopping 9 phases and there's a lot going on in each turn.

Thread: rules?

skeletodoc — 2005-03-29T13:59:02+00:00

Has anyone played this game? How does it play? I'm surprised that it's for sale at game sites already and no one has come forth to give their two cents.