To set up, the Skarov player arranges the nine double-sided game board tiles into a 3x3 grid, with his control room in the center space. Each player takes her character sheet, miniature and 7-10 action cards. These characters enter the grid on one of the side tiles and need to advance around the square – confronting minions and traps along the way – in order to achieve whatever objectives are in place for this game, such as thwarting a nuclear missile attack.
Each turn, the hero players play 1-2 action cards; each card shows both a special power and modifiers to that hero's inherent statistics – movement, attack, defense and mental – and the played cards can be used for either the special power or the modifiers. Each hero player has four actions in a round, and the players can play in any order they wish; the actions are move across the base, attack an enemy, or use a special power on a played action card or the hero's character sheet.
Professor Skarov then receives a number of action points based partially on the heroes' actions, and he uses these to activate himself, his minions, or his robots, with these figures also performing move, attack, or special power actions.
As the players complete (or fail to complete) objectives, the newspapers report on who did what, and the sum of those reports determine who comes out on top.
Each round, players will gain two cubes of different colors through a non-random mechanism, build them on their game board, then eventually stack them in order to make towers according to the building rules. If the players have done their job well, some modules will be able to evolve, becoming bigger in three dimensions. The last phase is an income phase in which players gain money from the shops and parking lots if they are supplied with electricity.
The bigger and higher your city is, the more victory points players will have at the end of the game, which lasts ten rounds – but do not forget to provide electricity to all your flats, shops, and lifts to make them more efficient.
• Duke: Take three coins from the treasury. Block someone from taking foreign aid.
• Assassin: Pay three coins and try to assassinate another player's character.
• Contessa: Block an assassination attempt.
• Captain: Take two coins from another player, or block someone from stealing coins from you.
• Ambassador: Draw two character cards from the Court (the deck), choose which (if any) to exchange with your face-down characters, then return two. Block someone from stealing coins from you.
On your turn, you can take any of the actions listed above, regardless of which characters you actually have in front of you, or you can take one of three other actions:
• Income: Take one coin from the treasury.
• Foreign aid: Take two coins from the treasury.
• Coup: Pay seven coins and launch a coup against an opponent, forcing that player to lose an influence. (If you have ten coins, you must take this action.)
When you take one of the character actions – whether actively on your turn, or defensively in response to someone else's action – that character's action automatically succeeds unless an opponent challenges you. In this case, if you can't reveal the appropriate character, you lose an influence, turning one of your characters face-up. Face-up characters cannot be used, and if both of your characters are face-up, you're out of the game.
If you do have the character in question, you reveal it, the opponent loses an influence, then you shuffle that character into the deck and draw a new one, perhaps getting the same character again and perhaps not.
The last player to still have influence – that is, a face-down character – wins the game!
The game is played over three turns. Each turn, a face-up randomized row of six Roman Fort cards is dealt. Each player draws from her own deck of warrior cards, then programs six card plays in advance each turn. The warrior cards each have a battle strength value and a special text effects. Each round, players reveal one of their programmed warrior cards, resolve effects, and see which player has won the fort card for the round. The winning player discards her face-up warrior cards, while the other players retain theirs. Fort cards also have text effects, which are resolved when the fort is won. Players must anticipate their opponent's choices to succeed.
If the player now fulfills the target with her dice – e.g., a pair of 3s, a quartet of 6s, or a specific combination of numbers – she claims the card, takes back her dice (and returns any other dice on the card to their owner), then places a new card on the table. Each card is worth a certain number of points. The first player to earn forty or more points wins!
With two sets of the game, up to eight players can compete in the same game of Roll For It!