City of Brass: a game of colonial exploration

from the introduction: The Expedition Afrique

In 1892, the French led a military campaign in Dahomey, the "Slave Coast" between Nigeria and Togo, against its kings so that they might have control of Porto Novo, a coastal city. They marched all the way to Abomey, the capital of the land, and found the rulers gone. They amused themselves by looting the city for souvenirs. The French press was most impressed by a white parasol decorated with human jawbones.

They never saw the inside of that parasol. Inside it was a map drawn in human blood, a map that pointed to a legendary city deep in Afrca's interior. This city was called the City of Brass, a bastion of ancient African civilization full of treasure, both gold and knowledge.

Sadi Carnot, the president of France, sent a expedition on that doomed journey. It only took three weeks for them to become hopelessly lost in an uncharted land. To this day, no one knows what happened to them. According to legend, only one of them made it, and his greatest wishes were given unto him.

In this game, you will play those lost souls. Trapped in Africa's interior, with a map drawn on a parasol and not enough resources, you search.

A note about the content of this game

While there is no magic in this game, it is a fantasy. The nobility found among the people of Africa is not balanced against the savagery found here. Like all peoples, the historic Africans had both high nobility and awful destruction found in them. Even though this game depicts the negative side of culture disproportionally, the author is fully aware that is not the only side, or even the dominant side.

User summary: This game is a form of highly abstracted, limited scope role-playing game with a fixed set of characters and goals.

Each player takes one of 6 different pre-defined characters: the Explorer, the Official, the Doctor, the Priest, the Naturalist, and the Native Guide. A minimum of 4 players is recommended and one player must play the Explorer. The Explorer nominates the Leader and the Leader selects a Companion. The Leader narrates the obstacles that face the expedition.

Each player must name their character (a French sounding name is recommended) and answer the question: what does your character seek in the City of Brass.

Each character has 6 predefined statistics and each Ability has a corresponding Resource that replenishes it . The Resources are drawn from a deck of resource cards during play.

The game is divided in 5 Acts, in each of the first four Acts there are 5 Obstacles. The fifth act is the City of Brass and final scoring is done at the end of this act.

Points are scored by defeating the obstacles and players may help one another during play, but are free to refuse help. Obstacles are defeated by rolling a pool of dice against the target set by the Leader for that obstacle. The number of dice rolled is determined by the Ability that is required to defeat it.

Each player totals their Quest Points earned during play and plays out the endgame story. The endgame has a blind voting/bluff mechanism that offers a point bonus based on player voting, bluffing is possible during the vote count.

At the end of play, the player with the most points is the winner. Ties are possible.