Gameplay
The core seven-phase turn, character placement, actions and performance sequence.
Overview
With the Dark Alley in play, Trickerion lasts seven turns. Each turn uses a dice roll, planning and character placements to prepare a shared Theater full of trick markers. A magician’s show pays both the owners of its tricks and the magician who performs it.
A turn
- Roll dice. Roll the six Downtown dice. They determine trick categories, available hires and Bank values. An X makes that die unavailable.
- Set initiative. From turn two onward, order players from fewest Fame to most. If players are tied on Fame, reverse their previous relative order. Skip this in turn one.
- Advertise. Once per turn, each player may pay Coins equal to their initiative position and gain 2 Fame.
- Assignment. Simultaneously, place location cards face down under the characters you intend to use. Characters without a card stay idle and do not receive wages. Reveal assignments together when planning ends.
- Place characters. In initiative order, place one character at a time into a free slot matching its assignment. A character’s Action Points equal its base value (Apprentice 1, Specialist 2, Magician 3) plus the slot modifier. You may spend one Shard to gain one additional Action Point, except in the Theater. Spend all Action Points at that location immediately.
- Performance. Resolve occupied weekdays from Thursday through Sunday. A magician chooses one performance card containing one or more of their markers and performs every trick on that card. Each trick’s owner collects its yield. The performer receives 1 Fame per link, bonuses for specialists behind them, and the chosen card’s printed bonus.
- End turn. Pay 1 Coin per active Apprentice (except the Assistant-board Apprentice) and 2 per active Specialist. For each unpaid Coin, lose 2 Fame, to a minimum of zero Fame. Return characters, deliver ordered components, move performance cards clockwise and discard the final card from turn three onward, return posters, advance the turn marker, cycle prophecies and discard used Special Assignments.
Locations
Downtown
| Action | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Learn Trick | 3 AP | Take an available trick into an empty Workshop slot and place its category marker. Its category must match a Residence die or your magician’s Favorite category. Set a used die to X. |
| Hire Character | 3 AP | Take the available character matching an Inn die. A hired character joins your team at the end of this turn. Only one of each Specialist type may be hired. |
| Take Coins | 3 AP | Take Coins matching a Bank die, then set that die to X. |
| Reroll die | 1 AP | Reroll a Residence, Inn or Bank die. |
| Set die | 2 AP | Change one die result to any face. |
You need at least the trick’s Fame threshold to learn it. You may pay the difference in Coins if your Fame is short. Trick levels have thresholds of 1, 16 and 36. Component requirements do not restrict learning.
Market Row
| Action | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Buy | 1 AP | Buy up to three of one component type currently in stock; each costs 1, 2 or 3 Coins for Basic, Advanced or Superior. |
| Bargain | 1 AP each | Only with a Buy: reduce its total price by 1 Coin per Bargain AP, but not below 1 Coin. |
| Order | 1 AP | Put one component on an empty Order slot. It arrives at the end of this turn and becomes purchasable next turn. |
| Quick Order | 2 AP | Put a component in the Quick Order slot, replacing any item there. It is available this turn with a 1-Coin surcharge and returns to supply at end of turn. |
Keep at most three of each component type. The Manager’s two multi-component spaces each count as one extra of the component stacked there and count toward that limit.
Workshop
Prepare a trick by spending the Action Points shown on its card, if you own the required components and it has no Trick markers already. Place the matching marker on its preparation slot. A prepared trick can later be placed in a Theater performance.
Theater
Set up a prepared trick by spending 1 AP and placing its Trick marker onto an open space on a performance card. Orient the Trick so the corner for its category sits in a Link circle. A Trick may appear only once on a given card. When the same category symbol appears twice in a Link circle, the newly placed marker creates a Link. The player who created it immediately chooses the bonus for the Level of the placed Trick: a Level 1 Trick gives 1 Fame or 1 Coin, Level 2 gives 2 Fame or 2 Coins, and Level 3 gives 3 Fame or 3 Coins. If that circle also shows a Shard, each connected Trick owner gets one Shard. During the later Performance phase, the Magician performing the card gains 1 Fame per Link on it.
Dark Alley
Draw First Card costs 1 AP and lets you draw two Special Assignments from a deck, keep one and return the other to its bottom. You may take it once per placement. Draw Further Cards costs 2 AP and works the same way. Fortune Telling costs 1 AP and moves each pending Prophecy one space clockwise. A Special Assignment can be used once, with its printed location bonus, or be spent for +1 AP at that location.
Performances and yields
Each player may place characters on only one weekday during a turn. When resolving that weekday, a magician with Theater markers chooses a card containing their markers and performs every trick on it. Each trick’s owner receives its yield. The performing magician gains 1 Fame per Link and the bonus shown on the selected card, plus 2 Fame for an Assistant, 3 Coins for a Manager and 1 Shard for an Engineer placed behind them.
Components
Basic components cost 1 Coin, Advanced 2 and Superior 3. Bought components come from the general supply; the Market Row indicates what type is available. Components are stored on the player board and needed to prepare tricks. The 2019 revised core rulebook lists all types and the card requirements.