Value can be a nebulous thing. Gold is shiny, doesn’t rust or decay, and most prize it. But it is worthless to a parched soul lost in a
desert who might even sacrifice a limb for water that anyone in a town with a well thinks little of. However, when it comes to value, there’s one rule to keep in mind: if a dragon is involved, then the dragon decides the value of any treasure. Especially if you’re trying to bribe said dragon.
Please Don’t Burn My Village is the latest game from Fireside Games, the folks behind Castle Panic. Please Don’t Burn My Village takes place in the same world as Castle Panic, but it’s a very different game. For one, it’s competitive, not cooperative. And the monster you face is a dragon, so no number of knights and archers and heroes will be able to slay it even if you had such handy. And you don’t, because each player represents a simple village.
The dragon is in a burnanating mood; someone’s village is getting torched. Your job is to make certain it’s not your village. And you’re going to accomplish this by bribing the dragon (a practice I heartily encourage to everyone, even if you don’t think the dragon is getting ready to burn something to ashes).
The treasures available to choose from include things like enchanted swords, phoenix feathers, magic scrolls and the crowns of kings. Because dragons are completionists, when you make a bribe, you’ll offer a set of all the same sort of treasures (and possibly a few wild cards as well). Then you’ll move the treasure marker for that type of treasure along the Dragon’s Favor track that ranges from 1 to 4 as many spaces as the number of treasure cards in your bribe. The more of a particular type of treasure you bribe the dragon with, the higher the value of that type of object will be.
You acquire these treasures from the Black Market. The Black Market has different valuation for treasures than the dragon, and these are more random, ranging from 0 all the way to 3. In a round you don’t bribe the dragon, you can visit the Black Market instead. You can buy all the treasures in a stall by spending the valuation number of that stall; you can take all the items in the 0 valuation stall for free.
When you pay for treasures, you choose one of the treasures you’re paying with to be the cursed treasure type. That treasure type moves down one space in the dragon’s valuation.
The game ends when you run out of cards. Then you total up all the treasures you’ve offered as bribes as well as all the treasures still in your hand. The points value for these treasures is based on the current dragon valuation of them. The treasures you bribed the dragon with are added to your score, while the treasures still in your hand are subtracted from the dragon (which is only just; clearly you’ve been holding back, and no dragon likes to feel you don’t properly appreciate our majesty and greatness). The village that paid the highest valued bribe of treasures wins and doesn’t get burned to cinders.
Please Don’t Burn My Village is a game for two to five players, and each game takes less than a half-hour to play, so you can easily get in two or three games and still have time for others games that same evening. It’s a fun game where you attempt to manipulate the valuation of your cards, building value in your chosen treasures while denigrating those of your opponents through the careful choice of when to offer a bribe and when to hold back so you can offer a bribe with a lot of the same treasures in it in order to really shoot up the value of that treasure. Talk to the treasured folks at your local Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy® today about adding Please Don’t Burn My Village to your gaming hoard.
All Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy® locations are independently owned and operated by local folks. Not all stores will carry all games but will be willing to attempt to special order any that they do not carry. (And they’ll carry most.)
attempt to special order any that they do not carry. (And they’ll carry most.)
