Psychomachia

hi there! in today's video, i'll be presenting the rules of the game psychomachia. psychomachia is a card game for 2 to 4 players, with an average length of 60 minutes. before explaining the rules, i want to show you two basic elements of the game: the cards, and the layout of the table. starting with the cards, there are four different types found in the game: cards that symbolize heavenly virtues, cards that symbolize deadly sins, the sin/virtue cards that symbolize both sins and virtues, and fate cards. let's learn about each of them separately. starting with the heavenly virtue cards, we have patience, kindness, temperance, charity, chastity, diligence and humility. what are the seven deadly sins? they are wrath, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth and pride.

there is only one of each of these cards, so they are very important. the sin/virtue cards show a pair of sins and virtues. each has the same background color as their two respective unique cards. there are eight of each of these cards in the deck. and this is a fate card, which acts as a wildcard. when you play this card, you pick up the white choice of fate pile. it has one of each sin/virtue card as shown here. choose the card that you want, and put it on top of your fate card. if someone has already played a fate card,

you will have one less choice here. so the card you need might not be available! the next step is to understand how the player's table works. it works like this: cards that are rotated horizontally symbolize earth. cards that are above earth symbolize heaven. and cards that are below earth symbolize hell. the object of the game is to place all seven different virtues in heaven, or all seven different sins in hell. [whoops! in hell the card is rotated so that the sin is on top!] now that you have a feel for the cards and the layout, let's get the game set up. gather all the cards that have black on the reverse side. place the seven white choice of fate cards off to the side. shuffle the black deck, and deal seven cards to each player. once you have done this, take the top card off the deck and turn it over.

this card starts the discard pile. you will also give out one active powers card to each player. and you also hand out five of these tokens to each player. these action tokens are spent when using cards. they have a black side and a white side. the black side is used to invoke sins, and the white side is used to invoke virtues. i'll leave these here for now. next, each player looks at their seven cards, without revealing them. from these cards, they choose three to place on earth. let's choose this card, this card and this card. i'm placing them face down, so that no one sees them yet.

place them here, rotated horizontally because they're starting out on earth. after all players have finished, everyone simultaneously reveals the three cards that they put on the table. don't forget, you can only put sinvirtue and fate cards on earth. you can never place a virtue card on earth, because these go directly into heaven. nor sin cards, because sin cards - like this one, for example - also cannot be placed on earth. they go directly into hell. once ready, everyone reveals their cards at the same time. the next step is to determine the starting player, which is quite simple. each player throws their five action tokens on the table. the player who threw the most white tokens will be the starting player. turn order is clockwise from that player.

the game gives you two ways to indicate who the first player is. you can use this pin, or you can use this grey token. so we're done with the setup. now we'll discuss the five steps in a player's turn, in order to understand how to use sins and virtues to accomplish the goal of the game: to put either all seven virtues in heaven, or all seven sins in hell. the first step in a player's turn is to check your active powers card. don't worry; in the first round there won't be any markers on it. but during other turns, it's possible that these powers will have been activated. you show the status of these powers with these activation markers. there's one for each type. the blue one is used to mark diligence; the purple, to mark chastity;

and the yellow, to mark pride. this other part of the active powers card is used when you want to save action tokens that you didn't spend during your turn. if you didn't use all your tokens, put them here. if it's a sinful action, put it on the sin symbol; if it's a virtuous action, put it on the virtue symbol. [saving unspent tokens is optional. you may also discard them at the end of your turn.] how does it work? during your first step, you remove markers from the card if necessary, in accordance with the power activated. so this is what the active powers card is used for. always check it at the beginning of your turn to update your markers. the next step is to throw your action tokens. cup them in your hands, and toss them on the table. there we go. after this, the next step is to draw a card.

you can draw the top card from either the discard pile or the draw deck. in this case, i'll draw a card from the deck. this card goes into my hand. now that i have my card, i can spend my action tokens. there are three different ways to use these tokens: the first way is by laying down cards that are in my hand. this is important because i need to have different cards on the table. my hand isn't very good because i've got lots of duplicate cards! but... when i want to add a card to my table, how do i go about it? this card here, for example, i can put on earth. and i don't have it on my table yet.

i can put it down by spending one black sinful action token and one white virtuous action token. if i had this card in my hand, for example, i could also put it down. this card is a sin, so i'd have to spend two sin tokens, and it would go straight into hell. or if i had this card in my hand i could lay it down by using two virtue tokens. and it would go straight into heaven. you can perceive one of the advantages of these cards: they go directly into heaven or into hell, while the rest of the game's cards begin on earth, and are moved to heaven or hell afterwards. [another advantage: they're immune to the powers of other cards.] the next way to spend action tokens is by moving cards. if i want to put this card in heaven, i would spend one white virtue token to move it up to heaven.

or i could move a card down to hell. let's say i want to move this card down to hell, using one sinful action token. this would leave me with one white virtuous action to spend, which i can use like this: the third way to spend tokens is by invoking powers. so i'll use this virtuous token to invoke humility. the powers of cards that are on still on earth cannot be invoked. the power of humility lets me discard a card from my hand. i'll discard this one, since i have several. i have two here, and another one on my table. i don't need so many identical cards, so i'll discard this one, putting it here, and i'll draw a new card.

i can choose to draw a card from either the discard pile or the draw deck. i'll draw from the deck. i drew a fate card. it's a very good card; we saw that it acts as a wildcard. i add the fate card to my hand, and this card becomes the top card of the discard pile. great! i've spent my five action tokens. now i'll complete the last step of the player's turn, which is choosing a card to discard. when i only have one card in my hand, i don't need to discard. but since i have more than one, i am obliged to. i guess i'll choose this card to discard, since i already have it on the table. and that's how the player's turn concludes in psychomachia. now i will show you how each power works.

here i have setup a player's table. here are the cards in their hand and here is their table. i'll be invoking powers against this table. starting with the sins, let's say i invoke the power of wrath. wrath lets me choose any sin/virtue card on a player's table and put it on top of the discard pile. it's a great power to use when someone is close to winning the game. perhaps they have six virtues and they only need one more to win. so what i can do is use wrath to remove a card from their table and put it on the discard pile. the next power i'll talk about is lust. lust lets me look at the cards in another player's hand. if they have a card that i want, i can exchange that card with one from my hand. it's an interesting power to use to when you know someone has a good card.

the next power is the power of gluttony. gluttony lets me draw a card from the deck and add it to my hand. it's a terrific power when you don't have many cards in your hand. at times you might only have one or two cards, so you could invoke the power of gluttony in order to get more cards. the next power is sloth. sloth lets me move one sin/virtue card on a person's table from heaven or hell to earth. let's say that i want to move this card back to earth, like this. it's another good power to use when a player is close to winning the game. the next sin is greed. greed doubles the effects of any other sin that i invoke during the rest of my turn. for example, if i know that i am going to invoke wrath, i can invoke greed first. this will double the effect of wrath.

what does this mean? it means that i can use wrath against two different players. i'm not allowed to use it twice against the same player. i can remove a card from one player's table and put it on the discard pile, then choose another player and remove a card from their table as well. that's how you double the effect of sins. [powers can only be activated once per turn, so it's important to be able to double their effect!] the next sin is pride. when i invoke this power, i put a pride marker on my active powers card. at the end of my turn i can activate this power by removing the token, so i don't have to discard a card at the end of that turn.

as you remember, at the end of my turn i have to choose one of the cards in my hand to discard. the only time that i'm not forced to discard is when i only have one card in my hand. but if i've got more than that, i have to discard. maybe at the end of my turn i've got really good cards in my hand. i could use the power of pride to not have to discard one of them. lastly we have the power of envy. take a look at the other player's tables. envy lets me steal a sin/virtue card from someone's table if i don't have any cards of that colour on my own. i take that card and put it in my hand. so let's say i don't have any purple cards on my table. i can come here, take this player's card, and add it to my hand. so those were the seven sins. now let's get to know the seven virtues.

let's start with patience. patience allows me choose a sin/virtue card on a player's table and return it to their hand. like this. it's a great power to use to keep other players from winning the game. the next power is temperance. temperance lets me draw the top card from the discard pile. it's an excellent power to use when someone has discarded a card that you want. in this case, i could take this card and add it to my hand. kindness works just like greed, except that it doubles the effects of virtuous powers. recalling that i have to invoke it first, and the rest of the virtues that i invoke during my turn will have their effects doubled. humility is a virtue that lets you exchange one card from your hand with one card from either the discard pile or the draw deck.

how does it work? i'll choose a card, maybe this one, and place it here. now i can choose the top card from the discard pile or the draw deck and add it in my hand. and this card becomes the top card on the discard pile. the next virtue is charity. charity allows you to take any action tokens that you haven't spent - let's say that i haven't spent these two yet - and give them to other players. i don't have to give them to the same player; i can give them to different players. these tokens stay on the same side. if i give a virtue token, it must be used as a virtuous action; if i give a sin token, it must be used as a sinful action. during these players' next turns, they spend the tokens that they received. [tokens are returned at the end of the player's turn, even if they weren't spent.]

by doing this, i am allowed to search for cards in the discard pile. for the number of action tokens that i gave to other players, in this case two, i can choose two cards from anywhere in the discard pile and put them in my hand. it's a very good power. it's worthwhile when you know that there's a really good card in here, or when you haven't been able to get the one card that you need to win the game. you can use charity to get the color of card that you're missing. the next power i'm going to discuss is diligence. diligence is a very interesting power because it protects you during the game. so let's say that i want to keep people from taking cards from my table. i would invoke diligence using a virtuous action token, and take a blue marker and put it here. this shows everyone that i will be protected by diligence for one round.

diligence protects me from patience, wrath and envy. this means that no one will be able to take cards off of my table. why? as you recall, patience removes a card from your table and returns it to your hand, wrath removes a card from your table and sends it to the discard pile, and envy lets a player take a card from your table if they don't have that colour on their own, adding it to their hand. the next power is chastity. chastity, like diligence, is a card that protects you during the game. if i invoke chastity, i take one purple marker to show that i will be protected for one round, and no one will be able to use the following powers against me: sloth, patience, and lust. this means that no one will be able to remove a card from my table and return it to my hand, no one will be able to use sloth to move my cards to earth, taking a card out of heaven or hell that is helping me win the game,

and no one is allowed to use lust to look at the cards in my hand, which prevents other players from exchanging one of my cards with one of theirs. so, these are the powers of psychomachia. i forgot to show you how the fate card works, so i prepared another table to explain the function of this card. i'll get my action tokens and throw them to see how i'll use the card. ok, i got these tokens. fate allows me to do the following. i can put it on the table - just like sin/virtue cards - using one virtue token and one sin token. then i get to look at the choice of fate cards and choose one of the cards that's here. i'll take this one because i don't have a purple card on my table. this card goes on top; the fate card becomes this card. and i return the rest.

that's one possibility. here's the second possibility when using a fate card. i put it on the discard pile. [i forgot! when discarding a fate card, you must pay one sin or one virtue token.] you can see that i have four virtue tokens. let's suppose that i actually wanted four sin tokens. by discarding a fate card, i'm allowed to flip over all of the action tokens that i haven't spent yet. [oops! i should have used this token to invoke the power.] and now i can use these tokens, which i wanted more. so those are the two ways to use the fate card during the game. well everybody, that was the rules video for psychomachia.

don't forget to check out our next video: a gameplay that we filmed with the game's creator, ron halliday. cheers! until next time. recommended video: what comes in the box?

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