Game: Drunter und Drüber

Thread: Re: UK rules....... Help

fmoros — 2008-03-17T09:57:56+00:00

It is a great fun game.
It took me months to figure out the rules for placing the tiles, though.

Thread: Re: UK rules....... Help

Jokerman — 2008-03-15T22:14:14+00:00

Thanks all.
I have them now via your download.
I love this site and I love you guys. Never to busy to help.
Thanks again.

Thread: Re: UK rules....... Help

SteveK2 — 2008-03-15T19:45:17+00:00

English rules are also available through a link here on bgg:

http://www.gamecabinet.com/sumoRulesBank/DrunterUndDruber.ht...

Thread: Re: UK rules....... Help

GeoMan — 2008-03-15T17:56:30+00:00

Jokerman wrote:
HI all,
Recently picked this up but sadly my German Is not up to much anyone by any chance got or know of a uk rule set?.

Any help would be gratefuly recieved.

I uploaded the English rules in .doc format. I hope that they will be available soon.

Thread: UK rules....... Help

Jokerman — 2008-03-15T17:29:58+00:00

HI all,
Recently picked this up but sadly my German Is not up to much anyone by any chance got or know of a uk rule set?.

Any help would be gratefuly recieved.

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DaMilli — 2008-03-02T18:42:25+00:00

Component Overview

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DaMilli — 2008-03-02T18:41:55+00:00

Component Overview

Thread: Re: What do you do when this happens?????

Dr Schlotter — 2007-10-23T16:55:49+00:00

jttm wrote:
I'm pretty sure its specified in the rules.

If tied, and at least 1 No, then you can't build.
If tied, and no objections, then you can build.

That's what I was trying to say

Thread: Re: What do you do when this happens?????

fmoros — 2007-10-23T01:03:12+00:00

mmmm...
we have played that when ties the player chooses to build or not.

I read somewhere that once the player has seen the intentions could decided for leaving the tile or taking it, adding more strategy to the game...

happy games
fer
sk

Thread: Re: What do you do when this happens?????

jttm — 2007-10-22T15:14:27+00:00

I'm pretty sure its specified in the rules.

If tied, and at least 1 No, then you can't build.
If tied, and no objections, then you can build.

Thread: Re: What do you do when this happens?????

Dr Schlotter — 2007-10-22T13:52:39+00:00

sorry, did misunderstand ya. Fortunately the chocolate stain on my rules are at another place. It says here that the you cannot place the tiles over the 4 corner buildungs.

Thread: Re: What do you do when this happens?????

intheclear — 2007-10-22T11:17:26+00:00

I think you might of misunderstood my second question, hopefully this makes more sense:
The board has 4 corner squares, during the game the gang figures move around the board as tiles are played, can a tile be played on the board so that it covers the corner square, hence (then the gang figure would move to the end of the tile which is the corner.)The four corner buildings have no number on them.
ps. Don't eat chocolate ice cream near rules as it always seems to find it's way on to them. (the immovable smudge)

Thread: Re: What do you do when this happens?????

Dr Schlotter — 2007-10-22T08:46:25+00:00

I think you're right about the voting thing. The rules state that if positive and negative votes are tied, the building is laid out. Now if you are really picky you could argue that the don't care vote is neither, therefore the rule does not apply to said situation. Given this there would be no rule for the situation, the game would be broken as is your board! Nah! It makes perfect sense to play it the way you did, we've always done it that way. The game is biased towards building over not building.

The way I understand your second question, I think it is not correct. Every tile except for the one space ones has a symbol on one side (boat for rivers, soldier for walls, horse carriage for road). That symbol has to connect to the pawn. What I am trying to say is if you wanna lay out a three space road, the horse's ass has to point towards the pawn. Therefore a three space tile has to lead three spaces into one direction as seen from the pawn, not say one space east and then two spaces north.

It is tough to put this in words, so I hope I could help.

PS. don't feed pawn to guinea pig as it will die.

Thread: What do you do when this happens?????

intheclear — 2007-10-22T07:57:29+00:00

While playing the game with 3 players we all played the card which represents the don't care vote, When building over a toilet( so we had 3 don't care's) We played that if this happens then the tile is played is this correct?

Also we played the rule that you can place a tile over the corner starting buildings where the pawns (gang figures) started is this correct?

Ps. don't fold board the wrong way as it splits in two (DOH)

Thread: Re: How does it play?

Tim Synge — 2007-05-30T13:27:36+00:00

With four players, there is little control, simply because three other tiles get laid between two of your turns and there is less opportunity to influence the direction of development. It's a lightweight affair in which the focus is on bluff and acting out your disappointment or satisfaction as each building is crushed.

With two players, the game becomes a little more chess-like. Move and counter-move, with greater opportunity to influence the development. Again, a lot of fun. Slightly more serious and tactical. The voting works fine. It's really just a slightly different game.

Thread: Re: Opt to not play tiles?

fmoros — 2007-05-04T15:25:34+00:00

Nop, you can not opt to pass.
It is actually quite frustrating if you have to smash your own buildings.
Make sure that you repeat that a few times towards the middle of the game, specially with new players.
Once you understand that is part of the strategy, you will not have probs with it.

by the way, i finally mastered the tile placement! (i am the original poster of the placement questions). Once i understood the role of the bridges everything fall into place, and i thought "how could i have soo many probs!!" . But yes, I could not figure it out for months ))

it is a game that we have always enjoyed to play.
I explain the votes after the first round of placement , though.

Thread: Re: How does it play?

wtrollkin2000 — 2007-03-20T13:59:49+00:00

While I prefer 4 players, I found 2 players alright also.

I would not compare this to other tile laying games. As you are destroying different color building this game is really about bluffing to throw off your opponent as to which building color is yours. I prefer the advanced rules without the outhouse voting (and don't think the voting would work with 2 players)

Thread: How does it play?

zapatista234 — 2007-03-20T12:27:45+00:00

It may sound like an ambiguous question but here goes: most of the games I play and own are quite suitable or solely for 2 people. Is this game considered a good one for 2? If not then why?

Also, does it play anything like Carcassonne or other tile-laying games? Is it heavy strategy? Is it complex? I am very curious about it and have considered buying it but wanted some more information before I decided to pop $30+ on it.

Thanks!

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samoan_jo — 2007-03-19T07:53:46+00:00

'Drunter und Drüber' - 'Spiel des Jahres 1991' [improved quality, admins pls remove my previous image]

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itiswon — 2007-01-19T17:38:54+00:00

map of the new town

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itiswon — 2007-01-19T17:37:51+00:00

6 houses of player's

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moxtaveto — 2006-10-20T20:45:08+00:00

early German edition (complete cover image, since no Game of the Year award on box yet)

Thread: Re: Translation of the title?

Ponton — 2006-09-11T10:06:23+00:00

Minok wrote:
Idiomatically, thats what it means "messy" or "topsy turvy".

Literally translated, it means "underneath & over-top"

A hundred points for you. Yes, "Drunter und drüber" is a German idiom and means "messy" or "topsy turvy".

Thread: Re: Translation of the title?

Minok — 2006-09-11T03:25:24+00:00

Idiomatically, thats what it means "messy" or "topsy turvy".

Literally translated, it means "underneath & over-top"

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tomasz — 2006-09-07T19:16:04+00:00

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tomasz — 2006-09-07T19:10:13+00:00

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tomasz — 2006-09-07T19:10:04+00:00

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cktjharris — 2006-09-01T21:22:25+00:00

The Back of the Box

Thread: Re: Translation of the title?

flieger — 2006-01-23T14:19:13+00:00

Halloween Jack got it right. It means 'topsy turvy', or just plain 'messy.'

Thread: Re: Translation of the title?

Tim Synge — 2006-01-23T13:42:52+00:00

It's slightly shortened from "Darunter und darüber", which can be most closely translated as "under and over there/it" or "above and below it". I guess it's intended to convey the complexity and unpredictability of the routes that will develop as the game progresses.

Thread: Re: Translation of the title?

Blind Reality — 2006-01-23T11:31:12+00:00

literally it meeans
"below and on top" or "under and over"

Thread: Re: Translation of the title?

gnomehome — 2006-01-23T10:21:19+00:00

It means : higgledy-piggledy, topsy-turvy, in a disordered manner,...

Thread: Translation of the title?

Aelf — 2006-01-23T09:40:55+00:00

I've been wondering what "Drunter und Drüber" actually means - are they names, or puns of some sort?

Babelfish isn't any help, and Google turns up adverts for underwear!

Thread: Tile Placement Clarification

fofluff — 2005-08-05T13:44:04+00:00

vosos102:
We finally played our first game and understand tile placement now

You may have figured this out already, but, anyway, the answer to your question is "yes", you can play the "2" tile going north (as long as it is the same kind of tile as the "1" tile, of course). The right-hand (eastern) branch of that "2" tile just gets "cut off" because it is touching that original "3" tile. That is okay. As long as tiles are legally placed, it does not matter which other tiles they happen to then be adjacent to: tiles do not have to match surrounding tiles on all sides as they do in Carcassonne.

Tile Placement: the new tile must be laid with its start field adjacent to a gang figure. The start field is always the short end of a tile (except for single ("1") tiles which have all four sides available for placement). So, only the short end of the tile (the end with the little wagon, soldier, or boat printed on it) gets placed adjacent to the gang figure on a tile that matches the placed tile (wall to wall, road to road, river to river). After placing the tile, it may end up touching tiles that do not match (rivers can run next to roads, for instance, and branches can ubuptly end). Again, to belabor the point, the new tile's start field is the only thing that must "match" anything...it only needs to match one of the available ends of the tile that it is being added to.

Thread: Session Report

flieger — 2005-06-01T16:30:03+00:00

Drunter und Drüber
This game was new to all of us: J.R., Heidi, Dave, Christoph.
The rules are fairly simple and were explained (including the background story) in about 10-15 minutes. I did have to refer back to the manual a few times to clear up some questions about the voting process.
The game is a tile laying game that requires players to place tiles in such a way that they do not cover up any of their own scoring buildings but, in the process try to cover up the opponent's buildings. The colors of the players' buildings are secret until the end of the game, when the colors are revealed, and the scores for the uncovered buildings are added up.
The tiles are distributed at random to each player, who then displays them openly in front of them.
Voting comes into play when a player intends to cover up an outhouse with his tile. All the players then vote on whether to allow the outhouse to be covered up or not.

The game flows pretty well, although there were some points where the decisions on where to place a tile became tough and required a little down time. But all in all it wasn't too bad, even for an impatient player like me.

It seemed to me that we all weren't trying to figure out who played with color. Rather we just tried to hang in there and make sure our own buildings weren't covered up. J.R. succeeded in not having any of his buildings covered up, thus achieving the highest score.

I think the game was enjoyed by most.

Thanks to J.R., Heidi, and Dave for playing.

Christoph

Thread: Session Report

sbwilson — 2005-02-27T02:34:11+00:00

I was a little late arriving today. Most of the group was half-heartedly playing a game of Carcassonne, but two eagerly dropped out when I opened my bag 'o games. They had not heard of Drunter und Druber before and thought the title sounded interesting enough to play (not to mention my description of voting on the destruction of outhouses).

I just got started with the rules when a fouth player showed up and joined us. We breezed through the instructions (probably was the easiest game I ever had to explain yet) and started construction of the new city. There wasn't much chitchat and I wondered how everyone was liking it. It became obvious fairly early what color certain players were based on how they voted. At a few points I thought it odd (having only played once before myself) that depending on the distribution of tiles among the players, someone could have their tile placement voted down but then on his next turn put it in the same place - and keep doing that until the vote went his way. Given the limited number of voting cards, I could see that tactic as becoming extremely annoying.

However, I was lucky enough to remain relatively vague about my voting (mostly due to the tiles never really threatening my buildings) and managed to squeek out a win at the end. After the game, a few comments were made along the lines of: "I was doing great at the beginning, but then *wham!* I had no buildings left." I think it was enjoyable, but not terribly stimulating.

Overall, it is a light game in which you don't have to invest a lot of emotion or brain power. It plays quickly and gets you warmed up for something bigger.

Thread: Re:Opt to not play tiles?

vosos102 — 2004-12-06T17:42:34+00:00

fofluff (#68018),
Thanks for the replies...one more question...do tiles have to "line up" properly?

For example, if there is a "3" tile heading south, followed by a "1" tile below it, then another "1" tile to the left of that one, can you play a "2" tile to the north of that one? The branches of that tile wouldnt match up with the original "3" tile...Wish I had an illustration...

Thread: Re:Opt to not play tiles?

fofluff — 2004-12-06T14:52:30+00:00

Following are the above questions along with answers provided by upfront2000:

1) can adjacent tiles coming from different or the same "snakes" not to link properly? (there is a drawing on the rules, where a tile is placed inside a horseshoe formation, and nothing matches there):
Answer: The diagram shown represents that the building gang for the road has come to a position where all three adjacent squares have already been covered with tiles. In this case, walls. The building gang is removed from the board, since the road can no longer be built.

2) on the example of the rules where 2 bridges are shown.. where does the "building pawn" will move? or is not moved at all?
Answer: In the diagram with the two bridges the wall tile has just been laid and the gang is moved to the end of the tile. The arrows show that there are three legal placements for another wall tile, bottom, left, or top on the other side of the bridge. The pawn would be moved when the next tile is laid.

3) can a river "snake" become a wall "snake" by playing adjacent bridges?
Answer: This question seems like its a continuation of the above question. No, in the above case and using the same diagram, the tile placed at the top arrow would have to be a wall. You cannot change the structure just because of a bridge.

4) Played my first game last night, had one quick question. Towards the end of the game the river was forced down towards my building and I was the only one with river tiles left...Are you forced to play tiles or can you decide to not play them even if you could?
Answer: If you have playable tiles, you have to play them. Of course, you get to choose the order in which they are played, and you could divert the river into a position where you would not be able to play all of your tiles.

Thanks, upfront2000!

Thread: Re:Opt to not play tiles?

fofluff — 2004-11-29T11:23:56+00:00

vosos102 (#67961),

Sorry, I have no answer for you as I've not played the game yet. I have, however, tried to figure it out on my own before trying to teach my family & I just don't quite understand things like your question myself. I just don't get the tile placement (and think one of the examples in the rules may be incorrect). So, I'm adding some other questions that were buried in a session report...same questions that I have & hope someone can answer all of these questions here (vosos102, maybe you can help with the answers below ? )

So, here goes, in addition to your question...

"At the moment I am struggling to understand legal/illegal placements of tiles... I am very confused. But as I see that nobody else has that problem, I am glad to believe that there must be a way to easily master the placement of tiles and simply i am not getting there yet. May be I am blinded by the carcassonne way?

just to give you an idea of how lost i am:

1) can adjacent tiles coming from different or the same "snakes" not to link properly? (there is a drawing on the rules, where a tile is placed inside a horseshoe formation, and nothing matches there)

2) on the example of the rules where 2 bridges are shown.. where does the "building pawn" will move? or is not moved at all?

3) can a river "snake" become a wall "snake" by playing adjacent bridges?

as you can see .. I dont get it, sorry for asking. Is there a golden rules or some pictures i can see to tackle this matter?

thanks , fer
SK"

Thanks for any replies! fofluff

Thread: Opt to not play tiles?

vosos102 — 2004-11-29T02:05:03+00:00

Hello--
Played my first game last night, had one quick question. Towards the end of the game the river was forced down towards my building and I was the only one with river tiles left...Are you forced to play tiles or can you decide to not play them even if you could?
Thanks,
Bob

Thread: Re:Session Report

GaryP — 2004-09-09T16:16:35+00:00

RPardoe (#52788),
Great report! I have been pondering getting this one for a couple years now, but have never been sure whether or not I (and the others) would enjoy it enough. Your experience furthers that notion that I really need to play this before I purchase it. However, your short bit of analysis at the end has got me thinking.

Others have mentioned how it is relatively easy to determine who has what color once a big building is about to be stomped (or set up to be). I can accept that the lack of control you felt might well fade with additional plays, but your comment on mutual benefits and losses perhaps points out what is needed. I don't have the rules, so perhaps this is already an offical variant. My thought was that each player would have multiple building types to score. I figure 3 types each for a three-player game and 2 each with four players. To prevent two people from getting the exact same combination, you could each write down what you get each time the cards are handed out. The first building type would be worth 1 bonus point per building. I'd have to consider a good way to deal with someone getting the same building twice. Doubling up on points seems too vunerable. Announcing a need to redeal would give some information to the other players, but it might not be useful unless it occurred to the same person twice in the same deal. Obviously, a tiny computer program would make this easy, but I don't want to bring that into it.

Logistics of the deal aside, I think this might make for a slightly more interesting game as you try to see who else is trying to protect the same buildings you are, but try to weaken their other color. Again, this is all just mind ramblings, but I've been thinking up ideas for an area control game, and I very much like the idea of common but unequivalent benefits.

Thread: Session Report

RPardoe — 2004-09-07T23:19:03+00:00

With a good hour of playing time left in the evening, we selected Drunter und Druber (Dos D's?) for the second game. This was the 1991 winner of the Spiel des jahres and the 3rd SdJ for Klaus Teuber in 4 years (1988, 1990, 1991) prior to his 1995 win for some little game about settlers on some little island called Catan. D&D (no, not that one, this one) is about a town that has been built but built a bit backwards. The key buildings (and lots of outhouses) are in place, but the roads, walls, or aquaducts have yet to be built. Four building crews stand ready at each corner of this rectangular town to build the necessary roads, walls, and aquaducts. Each player is randomly dealt a set of tiles depicting these items. Some tiles are length 1, some are length 2, and some are length 3. The roads, walls, or aquaducts are extended by laying the appropriate tile at the end of the development. As each player has a limited selection of tiles from which to choose, there is some tile management to maintain flexibility as the game progresses. If the tile is placed over an building, it is destroyed. Razing an key building is not an issue, but razing an outhouse requires a vote of the town people (players).

Each player is dealt 3 yes, 3 no, 1 variable (yes or no), and 1 abstention card. The yes and no cards vary in strength from 1 to 3 points. When a vote is called, each player plays one of their vote cards face down. If there are more yes votes than no votes or an equal number of yes and no votes, the tile remains in place(*). If the no votes outnumber the yes votes, the tile is removed and the turn advanced to the next player. At the end of the voting, all cards (except the abstention card) are discarded, so out of all the possible votes (there are 14 outhouses on the board, but some might get voted repeatedly if the first vote is no), there are only 7 votes where a player's vote counts. Once those oppotunities are used, there is nothing a player can do to influence the voting.

(*)Slight aside here. We had some discussion during the rules explanation about tied votes. Looking on the Geek, found the following, which confirms that we did in fact play with the correct rules:

The German rules state: “Ueberwiegen die Ja-Stimmen oder waren Nein- und Ja-Stimmen gleich stark, bleibt das Plaettchen ueber dem Toilettenhaeuschen liegen.”

Which can be translated as: "If there are more Yes votes than No votes, or if there is an equal number of No and Yes votes, the tile remains in place (lit. covering the outhouse)."

This seems to be missing from several English translations of the rules resulting in numerous variations about how to handle ties.

Finally, each of the key buildings is numbered 1 through 5. Each player is secretly dealt one type of key building that is "their" building type. The winner of the game is the player with the most points (sum of numbers for their building type) still standing in the town (on the board) after all the possible tiles have been played. So in quick summary, the game combines development (placing tiles) with limited voting and an element of bluff (keeping your key building type secret as long as possible).

The inital moves were a bit tentative as no one really knew who was trying to protect which building. After a few moves, the first building to be razed was the 1 point fire-house. As the pathways developed, the aquaduct was fairly limited to one edge of the board. The two walls seemed to head towards the center (where the 5 point buildings are located). The roadways seemed to stick to the other edge of the board. As the walls, started to destroy the the first couple of 5 point buildings, the others were quickly razed also so that no player would have a 5 point building by games end.

As the game progressed, one wall and the aquaduct were "killed" in that their ends snaked into themselves leaving no possible route for further development. In the final stages of the game, there were 5 points of firehouses and 5 points of museums remaining on the board. Dave attempted to lay a roadway toward the 1 point museum, but had to cross over an outhouse on the way. A quick vote of the townspeople resulted in a no vote (voiced most vosiferously by Rich). Sterling then built a 3 tile roadway down which went in unopposed. At this point, Rich played a 1 tile roadway which made it impossible with the remaining tiles to destroy to 1 point museum. As no further destructive construction was possible, it was time to tally the points. The firehouses and museusm were still tied at 5. The clocktowers had 4 points on the board. Dave owned the clocktowers while Sterling owned the firehouses. No surprise that Rich owned the Museums (why else vote no to the previous roadway?) So in the end, Sterling and Rich tied for the win.

Even with the win, I didn't feel much sense of control in the game. In the late stages, when the options were much more limited, I could sense some control and realized that "no" votes were important as they change the tempo of building. For example, I didn't want Dave to build the roadway as Sterling would destroy my museum. But I didn't care what Sterling built as I had the tile to counter his move. So the strong "no" allowed me to shift the roadway tempo from Dave to Sterling and perserved my share of the lead in the game. But this feeling of control existed only near the end of the game when the possibilities were more limited. In the beginning, there were too many possibilities, that the game felt almost random in its progression. Rather than ranging in these two extremes, I would have preferred something more moderate and closer to the middle of the two extremes.

As part of the post-game analysis, Dave raised an interesting point about D&D, this game is very much 1-on-1-on-1, but a move that hinders your opponent directly helps you. There is no sharing of results in the game. (Dave contrasted this with Dos Rios which is also 1-on-1-on-1, but where river moves can help/hinder you and your opponent almost equally. During 1 mover, Sterling needed cash, but his best move also gave cash to Dave.) Dave thought the variant rules where one has other "key buildings" - for example, all the 4 point buildings - might be useful as now there might be two players seeking to preserve certain buildings. Just enough commonality of some goals to make the decisions more interesting. An interesting idea I would certainly encourage in the next playing of the game.

Thread: Re:Session Report

fmoros — 2004-04-30T16:19:04+00:00

EYE of NiGHT (#32205),
It is nice to see you are still keen on playing this game after so many years! I have now finally got mine, following your very first list of recommended games.

At the moment I am struggling to understand legal/illegal placements of tiles... I am very confused. But as I see that nobody else has that problem, I am glad to believe that there must be a way to easily master the placement of tiles and simply i am not getting there yet. May be I am blinded by the carcassonne way?

just to give you an idea of how lost i am:

1) can adjacent tiles coming from different or the same "snakes" not to link properly? (there is a drawing on the rules, where a tile is placed inside a horseshoe formation, and nothing matches there)

2) on the example of the rules where 2 bridges are shown.. where does the "building pawn" will move? or is not moved at all?

3) can a river "snake" become a wall "snake" by playing adjacent bridges?

as you can see .. I dont get it, sorry for asking. Is there a golden rules or some pictures i can see to tackle this matter?

thanks , fer
SK

Thread: Session Report

EYE of NiGHT — 2004-04-06T01:04:23+00:00

Next up was Drunter & Druber, as Richard had expressed an interest in some lighter, more family games. D&D has been in print continously since winning the Spiel des Jahres in 1991. It's a pretty simple, quick game with a mix of tile placement and voting. Each player gets tiles for the walls, river and road through the town, the tiles being 3, 2 or 1 squares long. You also get a deck of voting cards, which get spent during the game, and a secret card which shows which colour you're trying to protect.

The story is that the foolish townsfolk have built lots of townhalls and libraries etc, and loads of public lavatories, but forgotten to build the walls, road or watercourse. As players put these down, extending from the end of the last tile in chains, they overlie the buildings, knocking them down. No problem, except you score points for each building of your colour that survives till the end of the game. How do you avert disaster? Well, the people do care about the lavs, so if a tile also knocks one down, the council MUST vote. Here's your chance to vote No to get the tile lifted, or Yes to Make sure it stays (taking the danger past your buildings in the process).

Gradually, as players lay tiles and vote, it becomes obvious who has which colour. We knocked down an Orange building, and we all voted Yes to make sure it happened, so clearly no-one was Orange!

The game ends when no more tiles can be laid, so careful choice of tile length can prevent the others taking turns. The 3 tiles also have bridges allowing the other tiles to pass through to the other side though.

Things opened up well for me, I lost a 1 building early, but the tiles stayed neatly away from my plots. Strangely, Richard placed a single tile on a loo, then voted No to try removing it (it stayed). But it went very odd as I couldn't figure out Ian's moves. He voted Yes to knock down Orange & Brown, he knocked down Red, Blue and my Pink. But he voted Yes on a tile which was headed straight to the Grey 5! And he sent the waterway lurching away from several colours. What was he doing?!

I opened up the second wall, hoping to get more tiles used up, but suddenly things went...horribly wrong! My pink 4 and 5 where both under threat from road and wall! I could only avert danger by really obvious moves, but I saved them. I steered the water into a dead end, wasting their tiles, and after a little more voting, the single tiles wiggled their way into the end of the game.

I finished with my 3,4 & 5 intact, but I realised Blue had 3,4,5 & 1. Was Ian blue? Nope, Richard has blue all along! Completely missed that, as it turned out Ian had Grey. A very early move had been a very bad mistake and he played oddly all along. This was the second time Richard fooled us with a secret colour game, having done a similar thing in Clans.

I like Drunter & Druber, it is very simple and the voting is funny. Another game to add to your pool if you like family fun, and the balance of luck and choices keep it fun.

Thread: Session Report

apecage — 2004-03-05T17:42:20+00:00

After a couple of run through hands of Mu, we were joined by Devon, who generously taught us Drunter und Drüber.
Quickly adopting a "don't use 'opinion' cards until you really have to" strategy, I caught the all-too-seldom win (so, of course, I'll play this one again.)

Thread: Session Report

jaywowzer — 2004-02-29T19:47:22+00:00

GamesDay 15, January 31, 2004: DRUNTER UND DRUBER (new to me)

This one wasn't on my list of games I wanted to play, but am glad I
joined in. This is a combination of tile placement, hidden player
color, and voting which results in a very enjoyable little game,
which I could see bing a hit at home. I'll hAve to keep my eyes out
for it...

Thread: Session Report

PBrennan — 2003-06-29T12:54:11+00:00

Two plays this month of the old SdJ winner, and the stomping game was as enjoyable, though also as frivolous, as always. I like it because it's the one game you can stomp over other people's scores without any compunction for feelings, as well as offering up a sense of overt delight in the destruction (given all scores are secret so you're making up the story as you go). An 8 after 27 plays.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2003-05-17T15:46:49+00:00

This Klaus Teuber design made my “Last Chance Games” list at the beginning of this year. This is a list of games that I’ve played in the past, but just wasn’t terribly impressed with. So, I vowed to play as many of them as I could this year and finally get off the fence: either they stay or they head to the Bayou Bazaar.

Drunter & Druber is one that receives wide acclaim as a fantastic game, but my previous playings left me decidedly unimpressed. I found the game rather unexciting and uninspiring. To quote from my August 16, 2000 session report:

The game sounds more interesting than it really is. At best, the game is average. The voting is not really as dramatic or tense as one would think. Also, it is quite possible that one player will be stuck with an abundance of one type of infrastructure, which will greatly hinder his placement options during the game. There really isn't a whole lot of control here ... nor excitement.

I recruited Willerd, Keith and Michael for the game and I was hoping that this playing would improve my opinion. Keith and Michael were new to the game, but Willerd had played back in my August 2000 match. We did play with the voting rules, which state that a vote must be held before an outhouse can be destroyed.

To my surprise, I enjoyed this match a tad more than my previous games. Not much, but enough to warrant a space on my shelf for the game. I’m still not excited by the game, but will likely keep it due to its status as a Spiel des Jahre winner and healthy reputation in the gaming community. I guess the fact that I won didn’t hurt matters, either!

Finals: Greg 11, Willerd 7, Keith 6, Michael 5

Ratings: Keith 6.5, everyone else 6

Thread: Tied voting

acpac — 2003-05-09T13:30:56+00:00

There seem to be a number of default variants that have been developed in the absence of a clear ruling on this in the English translation of the rules.

The German rules state:

“Ueberwiegen die Ja-Stimmen oder waren Nein- und Ja-Stimmen gleich stark, bleibt das Plaettchen ueber dem Toilettenhaeuschen liegen.”

Which can be translated as:

If there are more Yes votes than No votes, or if there is an equal number of No and Yes votes, the tile remains in place.

In the case of a tie, the German rules make no distinction between a positive number of Yes and No votes and zero Yes and No votes. A tie is therefore any result where there is no difference between the number cast each way.

Thread: Session Report

Neal Herperger — 2003-02-23T23:48:38+00:00

Drunter & Druber (60 min)
First time out for me on this one. As usual, even with a good rules explanation I find myself playing catch-up trying to figure out exactly how I should be proceeding when playing a new game. Being it that your building type is hidden from everyone else, there is good opportunity for bluff in this game (which I like usually). With everyone dealt a set of tiles at the beginning of the game, I see how it is important to leave yourself with as many options as possible as the game progresses. We didn’t seem to cover many of the outhouses during the game, so there wasn’t as much voting as I think there could have been. Still, it was an interesting game and I look forward to playing it soon again.
7.5 out of 10 after 1 play. Once everyone is familiar with this one I could see it being played in a shorter amount of time (30-40 min) which would make it great as an opener or closer.

Thread: Session Report

Michael Becker — 2003-02-21T19:05:49+00:00

Neal, Weng, Kent and I were the first to arrive so we decided to play a game of Drunter and Druber. I believe the game loosely translates to over and under and this title fits the game perfectly. Another member of our group, Thomas, who is from Germany, mentioned the Schildans refer to a crazy group of people from a legend or fable. Now it is all starting to make sense...

This was the first game for both Neal and Kent. Weng had played one previous game.

The game kind of reminds me of Heimlich and Co (Undercover, or Top Secret Spies). Every player has a secret type of building they are trying to keep from being destroyed. If you have more buildings standing than your opponents at game end you have a good chance of winning. Your turn consists of playing a tile onto the board. Any buildings can be destroyed without any fuss. (After all, walls, rivers, and roads are way more important than useless buildings...) If your tile is going to destroy an outhouse then the city council gets a bit nervous and decides to hold a meeting. The meeting is decided by players voting for or against the construction. If the vote is won the tile is placed. If the vote is lost the tile is returned to the owner. All cards are then discarded and the game continues.

Unfortunately, I used up most of my single pieces early in the game. This left me with three large pieces and therefore I had little flexibility during the end game. Half way through the game it became apparent that someone was maintaining the orange buildings. With some clever placement Weng managed to divert the crazy river, walls and road segments away from his precious constructions. A round or two later the building gangs were ordered to stop working and the game was over.

Weng 1st
Mike 2nd
Neal 3rd
Kent 4th

I like this game. It is light, has a crazy theme, is easy to learn, and plays quickly. And did I forget to mention the looks we rec'd when I mentioned the Schildans fetish for toilets??? Our club responds well to take-that games. This is a good example of the genre and I intend on bringing it out more often.

Thread: Session Report

MarkEJohnson — 2002-11-10T18:58:02+00:00

This game almost fits the night's theme. Though it won the Spiel des Jahres several years ago, it's not as popular as some other SdJ winners, and you rarely hear about people playing it. I've heard that it's a favorite of designer Alan Moon, though. It's a tile laying game where the underlying board depicts buildings, some secretly belonging to each player. As the buildings get covered up by tiles, the player loses points. Player identity is secret, but since some tile placements call for a vote (when an outhouse is covered up!), as the game goes on you start to figure out who's who. I don't think I've ever won this game, and this night was no exception. Despite stopping the canal construction early, rendering the water tiles Ryan held worthless, he went on to win the game handily.

Thread: Session Report

Dan Bosley — 2002-07-24T22:11:21+00:00

The other table was STILL playing Urland, so the 3 of us then gave Drunter & Druber a try - the Spiel des Jahres winner from 1991.

I don’t know - I guess things were “simpler” back then. Oh, it’s a fun enough game all right - but it is certainly not mentally taxing. And it’s kind of cute having to vote whenever the outhouses are going to get demolished.

The tiles also sort of remind me of a distant predecessor to the tiles in Carcassonne.

A light game. But nothing spectacular.

Final scores:
Dan - *11*
Jeremy - 7
Corwin - 6

Ratings: 6 from everybody.

Thread: Variants / Clarification

chesrcat — 2002-07-01T12:57:52+00:00

Note to editor:
For these diagrams to make sense, they need to show in Courier or a similar fixed width font. My browser doesn’t support the font formatting, so I hope I coded it correcly.

================================

There’s some question as to the legal placement of a tile where the current “Worker” pawn is located. Here’s our interpretation, plus a couple variants we like.

"STANDARD RULES"
Start with any line of tiles "x" where the Worker is standing on the LAST square of the last tile (shown as Capital XX).

We say a new tile of that type can only be played proceeding away from XX in any of the 3 orthogonal directions a1...a3 or b1...b3 or c1...c3. The tile stretches as far along those lines as it needs to.

. . . . . . a3
. . . . . . a2
. . . . . . a1
. .xx xx xx XX b1 b2 b3
. . . . . . c1
. . . . . . c2
. . . . . . c3

If the new tile touches but does NOT overlap another tile of any kind, that's fine and legal. And of course, if the line covers an Outhouse, you have to call for a public vote to proceed. If the tile is approved by the voters, then you place the tile, and place the Worker for the line in the final square (furthest from XX) of the tile just played.

In the rare case that that Worker, or any nearby Worker, now can not add to their line in any way (above, say that a1, b1 and c1 were ALL blocked), then that worker is removed, and that line is finished for the rest of the game.

VARIATION #1 "Nasty"
A slightly different picture than above. Some people allow, and we play as a variation, that tile placements are legal if they BEGIN in a1, b1, c1 as before, but they do not have to radiate directly "outward". So in this drawing, the following placements are all legal in this variant:

. . . . . .
. . . . . . . .b3
. . . a3 a2 a1 b2
. .xx xx xx XX b1
. . . . . . c1 c2 c3
. . . . . .

Keep in mind the placements shown for the Standard Rules are ALSO all legal placements (tiles radiating directly outward).

As you can see, if you play this variant, you still "start from the Worker,” but you have many more choices in which direction your played tile is going to fall. This usually means most every building in the game will meet its doom, so expect low scores!

Since you always move the worker to the "final" square of the new tile, you usually won't have the "mess" shown above where multiple tiles seem to emanate from one point "XX". But it can happen when the lines loop back on themselves...

VARIATION #2 "Architect"
For this variation, we use the Nasty Variant, shown above, but with one new restriction; the "pictures" on the tiles must line up and follow a continuous path or paths! So, there are no rivers flowing from banks of dirt around lakes. There are no connections of roads that appear to connect to dead ends. When the game is complete, it looks very aesthetic. Meanwhile, you can protect your buildings by clever play of the pictures on the tiles themselves.

For this variation, to make it playable, we alter one other rule. Usually the tile has a marker to show which "end" must be connected to the Worker. For this variant, we scrub that rule. Any tile may be played in ANY orientation, as long as it connects to the Worker. So these are all legal plays IF the pictures line up:

. . . . . . a1
. . . . . . a2 b3
. . . . . . a3 b2
xx xx xx XX b1
. . . . . . c1 c2 c3
. . . . . .

This game has a more "group think" character, since architecture is now an underlying goal as well. We see once in a while, when players agree, the replaying or swapping of existing tiles in order to make the picture "right".

Our standard match is now one game with Standard rules, and one game with Architect rules, with each person still only drawing one "goal" card at the beginning of each game.

We’d be pleased to have feedback or comments on our ideas.

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2002-06-04T11:42:42+00:00

After Nautilus, we decided to finish our session with something lighter, and Dan had Drunter und Druber just for that occasion. The players were Dan, Joe, Shari and me (Rick).

Drunter und Druber is a fairly light tile-laying game. There are five buildings on the board (numbered from 1 to 5) in each of six different colors. Each player secretly chooses a building color.

The tiles consist of roads, waterways and walls. Players play tiles extending the roads, waterways and walls over the board. Many tiles may be played without opposition, but if tiles are played in certain places, a vote will be taken as to whether the tile is played or not. Each player is given a set of voting cards for this purpose.

Basically the object of the game is to try to place your tiles so that they cover other player’s buildings while keeping the tiles from covering yours. Of course, you don’t know which color each player is (but you are able to figure it out soon enough) so there is an element of bluff and second-guessing. At the end of the game, a player scores by summing his buildings that are not covered by tiles.

We played two games.

Game One

Score:

*Shari* – 11
Rick – 10
Joe – 6
Dan – 6

Game Two

Score:

*Shari* - 7
Dan – 5
Rick – 4
Joe - 3

Shari is the big winner in both games.

Ratings:

Shari – 6
Dan – 6
Rick – 6
Joe - 5

I think we all thought the game was a little too light. It’s basically a guessing game and you are sort of stuck with the tiles you have, if you don’t have the tiles you need, bummer. We played the standard game – I would call it middling light filler, but not much more. There are some advanced rules, which supposedly make the game more interesting, we’ll have to try those next time.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-10-12T17:40:06+00:00

Dai, Anthony, Peter and James tried this game for the first time using the basic rules. To begin with the walls, roads and rivers hugged the sides of the board and everyone seemed nervous about heading towards the centre of the board where the value 5 buildings are to be found. Eventually the walls headed out and divided the board up before heading into early dead ends. Some of the bridges were used and the game ended with everyone having soem unplaced tiles. By the end everyone was aware of the building types that each had.

Dai 8 pts, Anthony 7, Peter 7 and James 1.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-10-11T06:22:17+00:00

Just to refresh Keith's memory............Tony won the first game and Timothy won the second. Not that who wins is at all important you understand!

Tony.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-10-06T00:44:54+00:00

Four of us (Timothy, Tony, James II and Keith) played a couple of games of this golden oldie (Critics Game of the Year 1991?. We played by the standard rules but with the error that a tied vote means the tile gets played instead of the proper rule that the tile only gets laid if the tied vote is 0-0. Keith also only remembered the tie breaking rule (the number of votes left in your hand at the end of the game) after several votes had been taken so a certain amount of wailing from the others was justified once again.

The first game played quite conventionally with buildings steadily getting covered up and the walls, roads and canal wending their way across the board with a few bridges being used.

The second game was a lot more wild with Timothy and Tony deploying walls to restrict the canal to a tiny corner of the board and then doing something similar with the road so leaving most of the 5 buildings still in existance.

verdict? - an enjoyable middle weight game with a little strategy but not much. Not a great deal of interaction whise it is being played but enough to keep the energy level up and a lot of inquests after a game has finished! It plays in about 45 minutes so isn't really a filler as described in a previous report.

Who won? Sorry I can't remember.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-09-18T07:36:53+00:00

Played by Ryan, Eric, Tom, Jeph
Looks like there wasn't much of a random tile distribution as the water and road ways didn't go very far. We all drove the paths to dead ends for a fairly quick game. Strategy will be increased during the next playing as it was the first play for half of the players.

Thread: Session Report

derk — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

George, Ken, Tim, Derk

After the guys finished with what looked like a very interesting take on the Settlers frame, Tim, Ken, George, and I opted for this light filler game. I had a copy of this game once, but traded it away before I had been able to play it (Hiya Rob). That’s too bad, as the game turned out to be a lovely little distraction. George explained the rules: destroy buildings, vote, whoever has the most building points left after over wins. Of course when he made examples, he depicted the coffeehouses getting destroyed. And just who do you suppose drew the coffeehouses? Why me, of course. Anyway, the game progressed and the coffeehouses really took it on the chin early on. I tried to help my case by appearing to relish the coffeehouse destruction, but it would be for naught. We killed all kinds of outhouses and buildings, however we seemed to miss the yellow buildings almost every time. Conveniently, George happened to be the yellow building representative. At the end, he had at least nine points of buildings, with the next closest competitor having no more than three or four. But we all enjoyed the game immensely. I guess I’ll have to find another copy.

Tim: Good, light tile placement game. Rating: 6