Designed by: Günter Burkhardt,Wolfgang A. Lehmann
Druids is a trick-taking game where you score points by winning tricks – but there’s a catch.
Standard trick-taking rules apply when a card is led – players must follow suit if they’re able to, with the exception of the special cards (more on those in a moment). There are five suits, and when you win a trick, you score the points of the lowest-value card in that trick, placing it on top of a face-up stack in front of you. If players unable to follow suit have dumped cards of a different colour, they score separately. At the end of the round, players will score points for their face-up cards in the various colours. The previously-mentioned catch is that if you win cards of all five suits, you score minus 3 points – so you’re aiming for four stacks of cards rather than five.
Add into the mix some special cards that ignore the follow-suit rule – there are a few Mistletoe cards that basically function as a ‘pass’, potentially saving you from a trick you don’t want to win. And there are a couple of sickle cards that poison the water – whoever wins the trick with a sickle in will lose their highest-showing points card.
A round ends either when the cards are played out, or – as is likely – somebody hits the unwanted five-suits target. After an agreed number of rounds, the game ends.
High
Low
It's card management to an extent, and to an extent crossing your fingers. Not a game of pure luck, but you can be harpooned by circumstance.
It's very easy to pick up and play, as most trick-takers are. They have a flavour of their own that, if you like them, always scratch the same itch.
3-5
Players
10+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
I do like a trick-taker and Druids is no exception. There's a spicy potential for sabotage running through it that keeps things interesting. On the other hand, compared to a classic like Voodoo Prince it can feel a bit arbitrary at times and more luck-driven than some other trick-takers. Good solid fun though.