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Since the last game went so well (as in people enjoying themselves, not as in the monks winning
 ), I've decided to run another PBF game of Ghost Stories. However, I've decided not to take on experienced players. When I was asking around about participants for the last GSPBEM game, I got several "I would love to but don't know how to play" responses. Since I believe Ghost Stories is one of the finest fully co-operative games I've ever played, and think that it's a shame that it isn't more well-known and popular, I thought this time, I would take four of these newbies and teach them the game via a PBF session. Now, this means I break my tenet from last game that everyone must own the game; clearly none of these people do. HOWEVER, I think that by introducing Ghost Stories to a wider audience, I may actually be doing it some good rather than "pirating" it to an internet forum. (Beside, my Photoshop travesty of a board and pieces is nothing like playing with the stunning actual copy of the game.)
So, here are the four participants that have agreed and checked in
Welfare on Two
Denmark
is inhabited
by Danes of durr
Just trying to help
United States
Pawling
New York
I'm just here to help
brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Danger
United States
California
I'm aware of your oscillations.
Well, okay, blue hasn't 100% agreed yet, but she will. 
Participants: I will be teaching everything you need to know to play right here in the forums. However, if you would like to learn the rules on your own or brush up during the game, you can find a pdf version of the rulebook here. Or may I recommend UniversalHead's amazing rule and play summary instead? Because as much as I adore Ghost Stories, I will say that its rulebook is confusing a bit messily translated here and there. But like I said, I should be providing you with all the information you need to know right here. I'll start writing up rules now, players can check in as they get my GMs.
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brian
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Checking in early.
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Story
Okay. Wu Feng was a bad guy. In the sort of Hitler and Genghis Khan had a baby sort of way. Not a lot is written about what, exactly, he did, but the fact that he's been christened the Lord of the Nine Hells is enough for you to know that he's probably not the type to bring over for tea. Unless it's Evil Tea.
Well, good news is that he's dead. A lot of people worked very hard and most of them died in the process, but the brought down Wu Feng and killed him and burned his body, so he's in Hell and pretty unhappy about it. (Technically, since this is a setting that appears to be Buddhist-oriented, it should probably be called Naraka instead, but whatever, this isn't comparative Religion class.)
So, Wu Feng is dead, his ashes are in a very nice little urn, which is buried in a quiet village on the countryside. A sect of monks (the awesome Crouching Tiger type monks) has been dedicated to protecting the village.
Well, Wu Feng isn't happy about being dead, and Hell is kind of unpleasant. So he's been plotting. And tonight his plots achieve their goal. He is sending his legions of undead Hell-minions (remember, Lord of the Nine Hells) to pay a visit to the village and get his ashes back. If they succeed, he will be able to fully resurrect himself and make life on Earth pretty unhappy. At the end of his waves of undead, Wu Feng himself will incarnate in a lesser, not-quite-full-power form to get the ashes himself if all his minions fail.
Goal
Your goal, as the four marital arts master monks dedicated to protecting the village, is to defend the village against Wu Feng's waves of undead. Once Wu Feng makes an appearance as one of his 10 incarnations (randomly chosen), send him back to Hell where he belongs, and you win!
How to Lose
Like any good cooperative game, Ghost Stories has several different lose conditions, any one of which can send Earth descending into pain and madness:
1.) All four monks are dead. Death doesn't have to be permanent in this game, as long as another monk is around to bring you back, but if all four of you are dead at the same time, there's no one to help you (yeah, the rest of the village is kind of useless when push comes to shove), and Wu Feng wins.
2.) Four village tiles are Haunted. We will get into Haunting later, but suffice to say for now that there are ways for ghosts to drive villagers away. If four out of the nine sections of the village are Haunted (or if a fourth should be Haunted but that row is all full--again, we'll get into it), the village has fallen and you have failed.
3.) If the deck of ghosts runs out. This one isn't really important, because I've yet to see it happen. But, for the sake of completeness: The ghosts that attack the village are drawn from a deck of cards. There are 55 ghosts in this deck, plus 1 Wu Feng incarnation. The deck is setup such that there are 45 ghosts on top, then Wu Feng, then 10 ghosts underneath Wu Feng. If you draw the last card in the ghost deck, you've... run out of time? Thematically, not sure. But you've stalled too long and you lose. Again, this shouldn't happen; you win when you kill Wu Feng. If Wu Feng comes out and you still draw 10 ghosts after him, you're either screwed because everything else is going wrong, or screwed because you clearly have no way of killing him and are just stalling. So don't worry about this loss condition so much. Death and Haunting are the ones that'll get you.
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ColtsFan76 wrote: Checking in early.
Glad you could make it. 
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General Setup and Overview
This is what the board looks like in the beginning of the game.
There is a lot to take in here, don't worry, we'll get to all of it.
What you are seeing in the middle is the village; the board(s) that the game will be played on. The village itself is made up of nine square tiles that are laid in a 3x3 pattern: I've numbered them 1-9 for clarity when we're in the process of playing. The four colored "figurines" in the middle are you (again, the game is incredibly pretty in real life and the cheap cutouts I use for some parts don't do it any justice at all). You will be moving around on these 9 village tiles, trying to fend off the ghosts that are going to be appearing around the edges. (The village, for reference, is randomly set up each time you play, giving a lot of replay value here; a slight variation in which tile is in the center versus which are in the corners can make a large difference.)
The four colored mats around the edges of the board are your player mats. They are where each of you is "sitting" at the table, and where ghosts will appear. Each of your monks has a special power, randomly chosen from between two powers (each side of each board has a different power, again randomly determined). I've taken the liberty of randomizing the village, your seating order, color assignment and which powers each of you has.
You can see that each player mat has 3 gray, rectangular spots with a little buddha-looking circle in the middle. These are Haunting Stones. These are where ghosts will go. The ghosts will hover around the outskirts of the village, threatening in various ways. You will stand in the village and try to fight them off. We'll get to the particulars soon.
Next to each player mat are an array of little bits and pieces. The octagonal pieces with "Qi" written on them are Qi (surprise!). These are your life. If you run out of Qi, you are an ex-monk . At least until one of your other monks brings you back to life, at least.
Each of you has a specific colored circle next to your mat that matches your color and has a symbol on it. The Red Monk has Incense Sticks, the Yellow Monk has Sticky Rice, the Blue Monk has a Taoist Mirror, and the Green Monk has Silver Bells. You can see there is a "bank" of these up in the top-left corner of the picture (including a fifth Black type, called Coins). Collectively, these things are your pieces of Tao. Tao will help you fight off the ghosts by buttressing the many die rolls you will have to make.
Let me make this clear here and now before we go any further: Tao is very important. I cannot express to you enough how much the dice hate you in this game and would like you to die awful fiery deaths. Do not trust the dice.
Each of you also has a colored Yin-Yang next to your mat. This is a burst of special energy you can use very sparingly throughout the game when you need a little extra oomph. We'll get to it near the end of the rules.
Everything else on or around the board (like the little ellipse shapes next to your mats, the little dementor-looking circles near the Tao, and the Buddhas on Tile 4), we'll get to later. I just want you to be acquainted with the general overview of the board and pieces.
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Ghosts
Ghosts come in five colors, the same five colors that the Tao come in: Red, Green, Blue, Black, and Yellow. Ghost cards all look something like this (in the real game, in this version they'll be much less pretty):
Note the beautiful artwork. Seriously, the cards are drool-worthy.
Okay, there are several important pieces of information on each Ghost card.
The top-right and bottom-right have the name and number of the card. That should be simple enough to figure out.
The top-left corner has a number of colored circles, generally in the range of 1-4 (though Wu Feng may have up to 8). This is the ghost's Resistance. This is a measure of how difficult it is to kill that ghost. We'll get to how Exorcisms work later. But for now, more circles=harder to kill. Except for Wu Feng, each ghost will only have one color of Resistance--the same color of the ghost. This will both determine what you need, exactly, to kill it, and also where it goes when it is drawn. We'll get to it.
The bottom can have a series of "stones." Not every ghost will have all of these.
Any symbol that is in the stone in the bottom-left takes effect When the Ghost comes into play. So if the stone on a ghost's bottom-left corner says "-1 Qi," then that ghost will immediately sap a Qi from the monk whose mat it is placed upon. This ghost, the Dark Wraith, has a symbol that means its Haunter will start further forward. Don't worry about understanding what that means right now.
The bottom-middle stone is the "every turn" ability of the ghost. If it said "-1 Qi" here, it means that every time it was the turn of the monk where that ghost was sitting, it would take a Qi from that Monk. For the Dark Wraith here, that dementor-looking thing is a Haunter: that means this ghost will attempt to advance upon the village in order to Haunt a tile. Again, we'll get to it. For now, just remember that middle stone=every turn ability.
The bottom-right stone is, you guessed it, the ghost's leaving-play ability. This is either a Reward (the phat l00tz that the ghost drops), or a Curse (the final blow the ghost deals on the way out), or occasionally both. This Dark Wraith, for example, says you can either get a Qi or get your Yin-Yang back if you kill this ghost; sweet. You will only ever get this Curse/Reward if you physically exorcise the ghost. There are other ways of ridding oneself of a ghost, and those other ways do not net you this bottom-right stone, which may be a blessing or a curse.
These are the things that are going to ruin your life with their mean friends the dice.
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Player Mats
Just a quick note, thought it might be useful to have a better look at the player mats.
Again, gray rectangles with buddha-symbol are the Haunting Stones. In the bottom-left is the icons which tell you what your monk's powers are (we'll get to it). The little circles about the Haunting Stones are the Haunter Track (that's not their official name, but it tells you what they do). They mark the advance of those scary dementor-looking dudes (the Haunters) toward the village. Again, getting to it.
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Turn Overview
Okay, now we're going to get down into the meat of the game. Each turn consists of two phases: the Yin phase and the Yang phase. Like in many co-ops, this boils down to "the bad stuff" and "your turn." So the Yin phase is Ghost Stories's equivalent to the Crisis step, the Mythos phase, the Progression of Evil, etc. Each of these phases has a few different steps.
Yin Phase
1. Activate ghosts
2. Check for full board/being overwhelmed
3. Either draw and place a ghost or be overwhelmed
Yang Phase
1. Movement
2. Action (Exorcism or Request Help)
3. Place a Buddha
We'll go over each step one by one.
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Yin step 1: Activate Ghosts
This is largely covered by the Ghost discussion we had before. During this phase of your turn, you look at your mat of ghosts (just your mat, not any other player's). Any ghost that has a bottom-middle stone, one of those "every turn" abilities, sets off that ability now. You can choose the order they go off in, if it makes any difference. These come in a couple main flavors:
Haunters
Haunters have the little dementor-looking figure in that stone. When a ghost with such a symbol comes into play, a Haunter figurine is placed on it. This is a Haunter:
In the PBF game, they'll be the little black circles with a gold Haunter symbol on it.
Whenever a ghost that has a Haunter ability is activated during the Activate Ghosts step, its Haunter moves forward. Look at the player mat again:
So the first time the Haunter activates, it will move onto that Haunter Track stone, just above the Haunting Stone where the ghost is sitting. I'm going to refer to this as "mid-Haunt" during the game for brevity. The second time that the Haunter moves, it will step onto the stone by the edge of the mat. It will now be directly next to a village tile, and it has advanced closed enough to the village to Haunt that tile. That Village tile will be flipped upside-down (or in this game's case, covered with a big red X) and its special power will be unavailable until it is unHaunted. You can still stand on a Haunted village tile, though. If the Village tile directly in front of the Haunter is already Haunted, it will Haunt the next one in the row, and so on. (That's what that rule in the lose condition about "if a fourth tile in a row should be haunted, you lose" is about; there's only three in a row, but if a Haunter would Haunt the fourth in the row if there was one, you jus tlost.) Once the Haunter has done its dirty deed, it returns back to its starting position on top of the ghost card. Yes, that means that this process will repeat. Unless you do anything, that Haunter will Haunt a village tile every 2 activations.
The other main thing that may happen to you during a ghost's activation is Rolling the Curse Die. The Curse die, as you might expect, is mean.
The Curse die has two blank sides, and four evil ones. The evil ones will do one of the following: Haunt a village tile immediately, take a Qi from the monk rolling, make the monk rolling lose all her Tao, or make the monk rolling the die draw a ghost. Try to avoid rolling this at all costs, it sucks.
There are other ghost activation abilities, but we'll get to 'em when we get to 'em. This is enough to know for now.
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(Nota bene: My heartiest thanks to the wonderful Geeks who have provided all the pictures I used to make the board and form this intro! You're awesome! Everyone should gives them thumbs and GG!)
Yin Step 2: Check for full board/being overwhelmed
This little mini-step just takes a second. All you do is ask yourself: were all three of my Haunting Stones on my mat taken up by ghosts at the beginning of my turn? If no, then you are not overwhelmed and will draw a ghost during the next step. If yes, you are overwhelmed and will not draw a ghost during Yin step 3, but instead will lose a Qi. This is the main way that the monks are sapped of Qi; it is very easy for your ghost problems to spiral terribly out of control and for monks to start losing Qi all over the place.
Note a slight quirk in the way this step works. It is not "Is there an open spot on your board NOW" but "was there one at the beginning of your turn?" So if you had an open Haunting Stone at the beginning of your turn, but had to roll the Curse Die, which forced you to put a ghost on that open spot, and now your mat is full, technically, you are not overwhelmed this turn. This rarely comes up, and I'll make sure to handle it correctly when it does, I just wanted to mention it.
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Yin Step 3: Draw a ghost or Be Overwhelmed
As I mentioned, if your answer from Step 2 was "Yes, I am overwhelmed, I did not have any open spaces on my mat at the beginning of my turn," then this step is "Lose a Qi." That's it, go on to your Yang phase now.
If your answer from Step 2 was "No, I had space at the beginning of my turn, I'm not overwhelmed," then you will draw the top card off the deck of ghosts and place it on one of the player mats (obviously, I'll be providing you with which card it is as the moderator).
Ghost placement works according to the following rules:
If you draw a Blue, Green, Red, or Yellow, it is placed onto the appropriately-colored monk's mat, if possible. So if I'm bluelise, who is the Green Monk, and I draw a red ghost, I will place it onto one of the open Haunting Stones on TheSparky the Red Monk's mat. If there are no open Haunting Stones open on the appropriately-colored monk's mat, you can place the ghost on any open Haunting Stone on any of the other mats. (Note: If you're ever supposed to place a ghost, but ALL of the Haunting Stones are already occupied, then you obviously can't draw a ghost. Instead you lose a Qi.)
If the ghost is Black, it needs to go on the mat of the monk who drew it, if possible. So if bluelise drew the Dark Wraith I showed you earlier, the Dark Wraith would have to go on one of the open spots on bluelise's Green mat. Again, if there are no appropriate spots, you can put the ghost in any open spot. Always keep in mind that the ghost's abilities are tied to the mat it is on: that ghost will activate on that monk's turn, if it says "lose a qi," who loses a Qi is determined by where the ghost is placed, etc. Keep this in mind and try to put dangerous ghosts in places where they will do the least damage.
Note that I've numbered the Haunting Stones 1-3 on each of your boards. That makes it easier to tell me where you want a ghost to go. Dekal can say "Put that Dark Wraith on Y3," and I will know he means the bottom-most haunting stone on the yellow mat.
For notational purposes, since there are both Black and Blue in the game, I'm going to follow the convention I learned from playing Magic: the Gathering back in the day and say "U" for Blue and "B" for black. So the three spaces on ColtsFan76's mat are U1, U2, and U3.
One last note about ghost placement: There are a lot of ghost abilities. We'll cover them as we reach them. However, I want you to be aware ahead of time that there are ghosts whose bottom-left stone ability (their "coming into play" ability) is "Draw Another Ghost." It is possible to get several of these ghosts in a row; my group refers to this as "chaining." So it's possible to end up having to draw 2-4 or even more ghosts during your Yin step 3 if you're terribly unlucky.
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Okay! Bad stuff is done, on to the good stuff!
Yang Step 1: Movement
Not too difficult. Your monk can move one tile in any direction, including diagonally. You only walk on the 9 village tiles, you never walk off the tiles and onto the mats. So from the center village tile (Tile 5), you can walk anywhere, since everything is within 1 step.
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brian
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Thanks for making me Blue. I always play Blue.
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Yang Step 2: Action
This is the meat of your turn as a monk. You can do one of two things on your turn, either request help from the village tile you are standing on, or attempt an exorcism.
Requesting help means using the special ability of the village tile upon which your monk is standing. We will go over the powers of these tiles toward the end of the rules discussion. Note that you cannot request help from a village tile that has been Haunted: the villagers have buggered off and you need to unHaunt the tile to convince them to come back and help you again.
Exorcism is the main mechanic of the game. It's not too hard, though.
To exorcise a ghost, you must be along one of the edge tiles of the village (i.e. not Tile 5). You can only attempt to exorcise ghosts that you are standing next to. So if you're standing on Village Tile 4, you can only attempt to exorcise the ghost on G2 (the middle Haunting Stone of the Green mat). Note that corners tiles are adjacent to two different Haunting Stones; this means that from corners you can attempt to exorcise 2 ghosts at once, possibly. E.g. from Village Tile 1, you can attempt to exorcise the ghosts on both G1 and on R1.
To exorcise, you roll the three Exorcism Dice. They are the three white dice in this picture:
The Exorcism Dice have 6 sides with the following colors:
Red
Green
Blue
Black
Yellow
White
So that's a color for every type of ghost/Resitance, plus White.
What you are attempting to do is roll the ghost's Resistance. So if the ghost has 2 Blue circles in its top-left corner, you need to roll 2 Blue on those three dice. Obviously this is difficult to do, but there's a couple things in your favor.
First, White dice are wild. You can choose them to be whatever color you want. So a roll of Blue, White, Red is enough to kill a ghost with 2 Blue Resistance (or 2 Red, for that matter, or any ghost with just 1 Resistance in any color. You get the idea).
The other, more important factor that will help you in exorcisms is Tao. After rolling the dice, you can spend a Tao to, basically "add a die" of that color to your roll.
So let's say ColtsFan76 wanted to exorcise a pesky 2 Blue ghost (since I know he's reading along, I'll use him as the example ). He rolled, but unfortunately only got one Blue die and no wilds, his other colors were greens or something. BUT, he was smart, and had a Taoist Mirror with him, which is the Blue type of Tao! Then he has the option, after rolling, to spend that Tao, which would bring him to 2 Blue total (one from the dice, one from the Tao), which is enough to exorcise the ghost!
Again, the dice hate you. Make sure you have enough Tao that you need to trust them as little as possible.
Monks cannot trade Tao. HOWEVER, if you are standing in the same square as another monk, you can use their Tao when exorcising on your turn. So if bluelise had been trying to exorcise that 2 Blue ghost instead, and had the same roll, if ColtsFan was standing with her, she could use HIS Tao to kill the ghost. This rule is underrated by a lot of people, but it can save your butts.
Note that there are only 4 Tao of any color. This is a finite quantity. So if you hoard Tao without spending it, you may be preventing your fellow monks from getting ahold of the things they need.
We're almost done with Exorcisms, promise. So, when you exorcise a ghost, you put it in the discard pile, it's dead. You have to do whatever bad stuff may be in its bottom-right corner stone (the "leaving play" stone); this is usually rolling the Curse Die if it's bad. If it's good, you get whatever reward it has there, and that reward goes to the monk that killed it. If it has both bad and good stuff, you do the bad stuff first.
Corner exorcisms are our last portion of this discussion and then we're done. Say I'm standing on Tile 1, and there are ghosts on G1 and R1. I can attempt to exorcise them both; however, it must all be done in one roll. Again, I can use Tao as I would like to add to my roll. But you don't get to roll separately for each ghost. Also, you can assign the dice as you would like if there is only enough to kill one ghost. However, if the dice give you the strength to exorcise a ghost, you must do so, even if you were only hoping to get the other ghost. You are never forced to use your Tao to accomplish an exorcism, but if you can do it flat-out with your dice, you need to do so.
Okay, phew, exorcisms are done.
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ColtsFan76 wrote: Thanks for making me Blue. I always play Blue.
Thank random.org. But, yeah, I always play blue, too, in general, though in this game (like Pandemic or Arkham), I do random assignment.
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Yang Step 3: Placing Buddhas
One of your most effective weapons for controlling the flow of the game and stemming the tide of the ghostly hordes are your Buddha figurines, which you can get at the Buddhist Temple (tile 4).
Buddhas are like ghostly landmines. I like to think of the ghosts as being impaled on the little spike on top of Buddhas head (if/when you buy this game, seriously, tap your finger on the spike, they are SHARP).
On any turn after you have picked up a Buddha, if you are next to an empty Haunting Stone during this part of your turn (so it can be one that you just cleared through Exorcism in step 2), you can place a Buddha on it. That Buddha sits and waits and plots its Buddhist plans. When a ghost should be placed on that Haunting Stone (following the usual placement rules), the ghost is "popped." It dies immediately, having never even come into play. That means it never does its bottom-left stone ability, and it doesn't give you a Curse/Reward (bottom-right stone) for dying. So those ghosts that "chain" that I was talking about before? If you pop one on a Buddha, you can stop that chain dead in its tracks. The Buddha statue will then return to the temple, ready to be taken again. There are 2 Buddhas, and that is a hard limit. Obviously Buddhas can't be used on Wu Feng. He's a boss and he's above that sort of stuff; he just sends the Buddha back to the temple. However, one of the 10 Wu Fengs does need to be put a Buddha before he can be exorcised. Just so you don't say I didn't warn you.
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Okay, that's the basics! Time to clear up the last few little main details, and then everything else (like ghost abilities), we can address as we play. (BTW: We're on the easiest difficulty level (which is why you're starting with 4 Qi instead of 3, and why it's 4 Hauntings to lose instead of 3, and why there's only 1 Wu Feng: harder difficulties have 4
 ), but, seriously, the first few plays of this can be brutal, though you're all smart and may fare better than my group.)
Yin-Yangs
Your Yin-Yang is your ace in the hole. Each of you has one, and you may use it before or after any step in your Yang phase. That means you can use it before you move, after you move but before your action, after your action but before you place a Buddha, or after you place a Buddha but before the next player starts their turn.
You can do one of 2 things with your Yin-Yang. Either you can unHaunt a village tile (any one, doesn't have to be where you are standing), or you can request help from any unHaunted village tile (again, doesn't have to be where you are standing). So a Yin-Yang can let you take two actions on your turn, if you need to, say, get some Tao from the Herbalist's Shop and then exorcise something, you can use the Yin-Yang to activate the Herbalist's Shop, and then use your regular action for exorcism. Once you've used your Yin-Yang, it is in the bank. The only way to get it back is to exorcise one of the ghosts that has a yin-yang as a reward in its bottom-right stone.
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StatSig wrote: Corner exorcisms are our last portion of this discussion and then we're done. Say I'm standing on Tile 1, and there are ghosts on G1 and R1. I can attempt to exorcise them both; however, it must all be done in one roll. Again, I can use Tao as I would like to add to my roll. But you don't get to roll separately for each ghost. Also, you can assign the dice as you would like if there is only enough to kill one ghost. However, if the dice give you the strength to exorcise a ghost, you must do so, even if you were only hoping to get the other ghost. You are never forced to use your Tao to accomplish an exorcism, but if you can do it flat-out with your dice, you need to do so.
Okay, phew, exorcisms are done.
Just making sure I understand this point: I get the whole corner thing, don't get the assigning thing. It seems you are trying to make a distinct point here that I just don't follow. I am not even sure I can come up with an example to illustrate what I think you are saying.
So I guess what you are trying to say is that if I roll results to take out the 2nd ghost, I must take them, even if it somehow blocks me from taking out my primary target?
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Village Tiles
Finally, we can talk about the various village tiles!
I'll go over the tiles in the order that they are on our board for this game. You may want to open my picture of the board in a new window and click on one of the larger sizes so you can get a better look at them.
Tile 1: Sorcerer's Hut. The Sorcerer can get rid of a ghost for you, but takes a pound of flesh in return. Using the Sorcerer's Hut allows you to remove ANY ghost from ANY mat without rolling or using Tao, but then you lose a Qi. (Yes, you can kill yourself this way.) Like Buddhas, this means you are not entitled to the Curse/Reward from that ghost, and this cannot be used on Wu Feng. (If you look really closely, there's a little picture of a bearded guy with a no symbol over it on this tile, that lets you know that Wu Feng is immune.)
Tile 2: Night Watchman's Beat. Using this tile, you choose one monk's mat. All the Haunters that are in the mid-Haunt position (so would Haunt a tile on their next activation) are pushed back onto the ghosts that spawned them. This buys you a single turn for one monk's mat, basically, in terms of Haunting.
Tile 3: Graveyard. Activate the Graveyard to bring a dead monk back to life. They come back at the center of town with 2 Qi, but you must roll the Curse Die after bringing them back.
Tile 4: Buddhist Temple. Using the Temple to pick up a Buddha statue. On any turn after the one where you pick it up, you can place it during Step 3 of your turn.
Tile 5: Pavilion of the Heavenly Winds. You can't see it right now because the monks are crowding it, so here's a picture:
The Pavilion lets you move any one ghost to any empty Haunting Stone (including one that has a Buddha on it; nice trick for getting rid of nasty ghosts!), and then you must move any one monk other than yourself to anywhere in the village you want. (Whenever you see that rectangle with the... Chinese? symbol in it, that means a ghost in this game's iconography, just fyi.)
Tile 6: Taoist Altar: Other than your Yin-Yangs, this is the only way to unHaunt village tiles. Use the Altar to unHaunt any village tile, but then you must draw a ghost in payment.
Tile 7: Circle of Prayer: OH GOD. This tile is so important it's not even funny. Okay, use the CoP to take any one Tao out of the supply and place it into the Circle, replacing whatever Tao was there before. (This is very important: if there are no Tao of a color in the supply, then you cannot set the CoP to that color. DO NOT HOARD ALL THE TAO WITHOUT USING IT.) When the CoP is set to a color, say it has Coins (Black Tao) in it, then ALL ghosts that have Resistance of that color have their Resistance reduced by one of that color. So say our friend the Dark Wraith, who has 3 Black resistance is on the board. If the CoP is set to Black with some Coins, the Dark Wraith is now, effectively, only a 2 Black ghost. This can reduce a ghost to 0 Resistance. Then all anyone has to do is go up to the ghost and point at them menacingly and they are exorcised, no die roll or Tao use needed. There ARE some ghosts that cannot be hurt by the dice, so this is important to note!
Tile 8: Tea House: Put your feet up for a moment and gather your senses. You get any one Tao from the Bank that you want, and get a Qi back. But then, of course, you must pay the price, in the form of Drawing a Ghost.
Tile 9: Herbalist's Shop: Roll 2 of the exorcism dice. You get Tao of those colors from the Bank (white, of course, lets you choose whatever Tao you want for that die). Again, limited supply. If there's no Green tao and you roll greens, tough luck.
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United States
Takoma Park
Maryland
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ColtsFan76 wrote:
Okay, phew, exorcisms are done.
Just making sure I understand this point: I get the whole corner thing, don't get the assigning thing. It seems you are trying to make a distinct point here that I just don't follow. I am not even sure I can come up with an example to illustrate what I think you are saying.
So I guess what you are trying to say is that if I roll results to take out the 2nd ghost, I must take them, even if it somehow blocks me from taking out my primary target?[/q]
I'm sorry, it's a fuzzy point that doesn't come up much so I glossed over it.
Let's say you're standing on Tile 1. G1 has a ghost with 2 Green, and R1 has a ghost with 1 Red. Say that the ghost on R1 has a really nasty Curse for killing it, so you only really want to kill the ghost on G1.
If you roll Green, White, and Blue, you have the power to kill either the G1 ghost (using the White as Green) or the R1 ghost (using the White as Red) but not both, assuming you have no Tao. So you can choose to assign the Green and the White to the G1 ghost and kill it, and you avoid killing the R1 ghost, just like you wanted. Shiny.
But if you rolled Green, White, and Red, now you have enough dice to kill both ghosts, and so you must do so, even though you don't want to kill the R1 ghost.
Even worse, you could roll Blue, Blue. White. This is not enough to kill the G1 ghost (unless you have some Tao: if you do, you're free to use it), but it is enough to kill the R1 ghost. So unless you're using tao, you HAVE to kill the R1 ghost.
This rarely comes up. In reality, if you get the chance to kill a ghost, there is rarely a situation where you do not do so, because you are going to be under a constant assault and can't afford to dilly-dally. But I mention it because the rules sayeth. Mainly, if you can only kill one ghost according to your die roll, but the roll is such that you can choose which ghost, you can choose whichever you want. But if you have the dice to make a kill, you have to do so.
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I think this line's mostly filler
United States
Takoma Park
Maryland
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I hope that cleared up the confusion? If not, let me know and I can make some visual aids in Photoshop.
Other players, when you read along, PLEASE feel free to ask any questions you want. This is supposed to be a teaching game, so I'm here to give any answers you need. 
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Death
Being dead sucks. You are immediately removed from the board. You lose all your Tao. Your mat will remain active. That means that whenever it is your turn, the Yin phase still occurs. Ghosts will activate (other players must pay the price of the Curse Die rolls if there are any), and if your bored is "being overwhelmed" during step 2, one of the living monks must pay the Qi since your board has none to give. However, if your board is not "being overwhelmed," there is no ghost draw during step 3. So it's either Lose a Qi or Nothing during Yin Step 3. After the Yin phase for your board, it is the next monk's turn, since you're dead.
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I think this line's mostly filler
United States
Takoma Park
Maryland
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Your Powers
This is it, the last thing! (I think...) Each of your monks has a special power that differentiates them from the rest. Just keep in mind that some ghosts can take your powers away temporarily, so be ready for this to happen at the worst time!
TheSparky, your Red Monk has the Dance of the Spires; that is, he can fly (again, think Crouching Tiger here). For your movement step, you may move to ANY Village Tile, you aren't constrained by the 1-step movement rule.
Dekal, your Yellow Monk has the power of Bottomless Pockets. At the beginning of your Yang phase, before you move, you may take any 1 Tao from the Bank and put it into your personal supply.
ColtsFan76, your Blue Monk has the power of Second Wind. Whatever action you take during your turn, you may do it twice: either you can use the village tile you are on twice, or you may attempt to exorcise twice. You may NOT mix-and-match; so you can't use the village tile once and exorcise once (that's the power on the other side of your mat ).
(Strategy tip: This is a great power. One of the things most people do is use the Herbalist's Shop twice to get 4 Tao in a single turn. However, one of the awesomest things to do is to pick up both Buddhas from the Temple in a single turn. Then the next turn, if you can situate yourself on a corner with two empty Haunting Stones adjacent, you can drop off both Buddhas at once. This will help give you lots of breathing room from ghosts.)
bluelise, your Green Monk has Strength of a Mountain. When she rolls to exorcise, she gets an extra die all of her own (so she rolls 4 dice to exorcise under regular circumstances). Also, she NEVER has to roll the Curse Die. So if someone needs to be raised from the dead, bluelise is a good person to use the Graveyard. If a nasty ghost makes you roll the Curse Die when it's killed, bluelise is a good person to kill it. If you get a ghost that makes you roll the Curse Die every turn, use the Pavilion of the Heavenly Winds to move it onto bluelise's mat, and you've just neutered its power!
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I think this line's mostly filler
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*Deep breath.* Okay, that should be all you need to know for us to start. Ghost's abilities I can describe on the fly, as we go. So now we just wait for everyone to check in, read the rules, and address any questions, and we're ready to save the world!
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brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
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StatSig wrote: I hope that cleared up the confusion? If not, let me know and I can make some visual aids in Photoshop. Other players, when you read along, PLEASE feel free to ask any questions you want. This is supposed to be a teaching game, so I'm here to give any answers you need.
That cleared it up. You mentioned it, but without seeing them, I forgot ghosts could do bad things to you for killing them. I was under the impression there was some way I could be blocked from killing my primary target because I rolled enough to kill the secondary unwanted target.
I guess a better way to say it is that you MUST use as many of the dice as possible. So if you can spend them in such a way as to leave a ghost, then so be it. Otherwise, you busted that ghost as well.
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