Rococo

Objective and mode: Run a tailoring shop for seven rounds, make gowns, and decorate the royal ball to earn the most prestige. Employees, gowns, money, and decorations all contribute to final scoring. The original rules list 2–5 players and ages 12+. The original rulebook does not state a duration. The base game is competitive.

Setup and resources: Choose the board side for 2–3 or 4–5 players. Each player takes a personal board, 16 ownership markers, five starting employee cards, 15 Livre, one lace, and one yarn. Set up the employee market, warehouse resources, gown display, decoration areas, and bag. Employees are Masters, Journeymen, or Apprentices; rank controls action eligibility, while card bonuses may resolve immediately or score at the end.

Round preparation and income: Play seven rounds. At the start of a new round, remove leftover employees from the market and reveal four new ones, refill the warehouse and gown display, and reshuffle discarded gowns if the bag is empty. At the end of each round, every player receives 5 Livre plus any fountain income earned from ownership markers and the board’s conditions.

Choose employees and take actions: Each round, all players simultaneously and secretly select three cards from their employee supply. Starting with the first player, players take turns playing one employee card, performing one permitted main action, and optionally using its printed bonus. The player may also skip the main action or bonus. Played employees go to a personal discard pile. If an employee is hired during the round, it enters the current hand and may be played later, so action counts can vary. If the Employee supply has fewer than three cards, take them all and turn the discard pile over as a new supply to complete the hand. If exactly three remain, take those and wait until the next round to turn the discard pile.

Employee ranks: Masters may perform all six main actions. Journeymen cannot hire a new employee. Apprentices cannot claim the Queen’s favor, make a gown, or hire. Check the played employee’s rank before taking an action, then resolve its printed bonus if desired. Deputing an employee removes it from future supply in exchange for cash, but its card bonus remains available when played. You may not depute an Employee when only four cards remain in your Employee deck; this also applies to similar card bonuses.

Six main actions: Claiming the Queen’s favor grants 5 Livre, makes its holder first player next round, and is worth 3 prestige at the end. Acquiring resources takes a warehouse tile; prices fall as a section empties and the last tile is free. Making a gown pays its displayed cost and then rents or sells it. Hiring buys a market employee. Deputing pays 10/7/4 Livre by employee rank. Funding a decoration pays its cost and places an ownership marker on a fireworks, music, statue, or fountain space.

Make, rent, or sell gowns: Only a Master or Journeyman may make a gown; a gown with a Master icon requires a Master. Pay the displayed Livre, silk, and any yarn or lace cost, then either rent the gown in an eligible empty hall space, placing an ownership marker and taking that space’s immediate reward, or sell it for its printed cash value. A free warehouse resource is a bonus on certain rental guest spaces. Only a Master-made gown can occupy a Master Guest space. If there is no eligible empty guest space, the gown must be sold.

Resources and decorations: A purchased resource tile may be kept face down as silk or discarded for its yarn or lace. Funding a decoration requires the printed cost and an empty space. Fireworks affect balcony gown multipliers and majority scoring; music can break ties in a hall; fountains may increase income in later rounds; statues score sets of gowns in different colors. Ownership markers connect these actions to final scoring, so follow the board’s occupancy limits.

Final scoring: After income in round seven, hold the Ball Night scoring. Convert each 10 Livre into one prestige and keep leftover money for tiebreaks. Score employee endgame bonuses and 3 points for the Queen’s favor, then evaluate hall gown majorities, fireworks, balcony multipliers, statue sets, decoration markers, and the All Halls reward. Hall and fireworks spaces use majority awards printed on the board; statues score sets by gown color.

Ties and two-player rules: Highest prestige wins; a tie is broken by remaining Livre. In a hall tie, compare Master Guest gowns and then that hall’s music decoration; if still tied, tied players receive the top award and no second-place award is given. In a two-player game, only the majority player scores in each hall and in fireworks. Rococo Deluxe’s Madame Du Barry Solo and the separate Jewelry Box module are not part of BGG 144344’s original base game. Fireworks ties go to the tied player occupying the more expensive fireworks space. Each of your fireworks markers may move one of your King’s hall dresses to its associated terrace space, where its dress score receives that space’s multiplier.