The Federalist Papers Game

The Federalist Papers Game is a short, simple, solitaire, card-driven game about the ratification of the U.S. Constitution between 1787 and 1790. The player’s goal is to get as many of the 13 states as possible to ratify the Constitution. The game takes around 15-20 minutes to play and can be used as a teaching exercise in a classroom.

The game includes a deck of 29 cards, 13 of which are convention cards--one for each of the 13 states. The other cards are Federalist Papers cards representing a selection of the 85 historical Federalist Papers political essays. When a convention card is drawn, the player holds that state's ratification convention. Starting with a base number representing the state's starting level of support for the Constitution, the player rolls two dice to add to the base number. Twelve or higher and the state ratifies; less than 12 and the state rejects it.

The player may choose to add Federalist Papers cards to the convention to increase the odds, but may also spend them for die rolls to advance along two tracks to gain bonuses in future conventions. The player mat is used to keep track of which states ratify as well as progress along the tracks.

Most of the Federalist Papers cards appear early in the game when the easy states hold conventions. The player must conserve them for use late in the game when the difficult states hold their conventions.

To win, the player must get at least 9 states to ratify--the minimum number required for the Constitution to go into effect. But each state has a number of victory points, and the more states that ratify, the higher the score.

—description from the designer