Auf Heller und Pfennig, or Down to the Last Farthing (Hans Im Gluck)

Game by Reiner Knizia.

Translation by John Webley.

It's all hustle and bustle down in the market place of a large mediaeval town. All kinds of marvellous goods are arrayed on stands and stalls, so marvellous, that even the King and Queen have been tempted out of the castle on a shopping trip. But all that glitters isn't gold, and there are other, less welcome, visitors about, determined to grab part of the profits for themselves.

The players play traders, setting up stall and selling their valuable wares. Trying to grab the best sites in the market, where the richest customers go. And if at the same time they can direct a few less pleasant types in the direction of their rivals, then that's even more reason for them to rub their hands in glee.

40 stamped wooden playing pieces in four different colours (symbolising market stalls with from 1 to 4 goods on offer)
22 painted and coloured tiles.
1 Round Marker.
1 Mediaeval board (Marketplace)
A handful of old-fashioned Hellers, (money in 5 different values)
These Rules

Summary

The aim of the game is to earn as much money as possible over three rounds. Players manage this by placing their stall markers in the same rows or columns as valuable customers. Players should take care however, that their stalls aren't in the same row or column as one or other of such unpleasant types as the tax collector, or they may find their hard earned profits disappearing before their eyes.

The Materials

1) The Market Stalls

The wooden pieces are each stamped with a number of lines. The number of lines represents the amount of wares available on the stand. More lines means more profits, but more risk too.

2) The Tiles

12 Customer tiles with black numbers (1-6), are real buyers. They pay 1-6 Hellers per ware.
6 Customer tiles with red numbers (1-6), are unpleasant characters, they take 1-6 Hellers per ware.
1 Tile showing Bags of Gold doubles the value of all wares, whether positive or negative.
2 Fire tiles are insurmountable obstacles. A fire splits the row and column in which it burns into two parts, each of which is valued separately.
1 Evil Eye tile is every stallholder's nightmare. All buyers in the same row and column as the Evil Eye are so put off by it that they don't buy anything. To make matters worse the unpleasant types ignore it, and snatch their shares regardless.

Preparation

Before the first game the tiles and money must be carefully removed from their backing sheets. Depending on the number of players the players take stall markers in their own colour as shown on the table beneath and place them face up in front of them.


 Players            1 markers           2, 3, and 4 markers

    2                    4                    All

    3                    3                    All

    4                    2                    All

The money should be sorted into denominations and set out next to the market place board. Each player receives 50 Hellers as starting capital. The tiles are shuffled and spread out face down on the table. Each player draws one tile and secretly looks at it, then puts it face down in front of them. The round marker is put onto the tower marked with a "1". One player is chosen to start.

Course of Play

A game lasts for three Rounds. Every time that a player takes their turn, they must carry out one of the following three actions.

They place one of their stall markers onto an empty space in the Marketplace.
They take a face down tile from the table, look at it, and then place it face up onto an empty space in the Marketplace.
They take the tile that they drew at the start of the round and put it face up onto an empty space in the Marketplace.

A player may only pass if he is unable to carry out any of the three actions. Once a tile or marker has been played on the board it may not be moved or replaced during that Round.

Scoring

The most important points are:

Scoring takes place after each Round.
A Round ends when there are no more empty spaces in the Marketplace.
Each Row and Column are valued separately.
Each tile and marker is therefore valued twice, once for the row in which it lies and once for the column.
Basically the value of the tiles in a row or column is multiplied by the number of wares from each player in the row or column.
"Evil Eye", "Fire" and "Gold Bags" tiles have special functions.
Once calculated, the result is paid out to the players in Hellers.

We have set out an example, which shows how the result of a round is calculated. To make things easier we have given the red numbers a minus symbol to make them easier to pick out.

Row 1: The Townswoman (Bürgerin) pays 3 Hellers, while the tax collector (Steuereintreiber) takes 6 per ware from the stallholders.

The basic value of this row is therefore -3. This value is then multiplied by the number of wares that the various players have set out in the row. The White player has set out 5 wares (4+1) and so has to pay 15 Hellers to the Bank. The Grey and Black players have each set out one ware in the row, so each must pay -3 Hellers to the Bank.

Row 4: A fire splits this row into two parts. On the left hand side the Evil Eye disturbs the Townsman (Bürger) so much that he doesn't buy anything. So White's 2 wares don't score anything. The Grey player on the right hand side of the fire sells his one ware to the Abbess, (Äbtissin) for 5 Hellers.

Column 2: The Grey Player takes a fearful fall in this column. The Lady (Dame), who wants to buy something for 4 Hellers is cancelled out by the Evil Eye and so only the Counterfeiter (Falschspieler) has any effect and makes a basic score of -3. This value is doubled by the gold bag so the poor Grey player has to pay 6 Hellers to the Bank for his 1 ware.

Column 4: The fire divides the White player from the rest of the column, but he doesn't let that worry him since the basic score for the column is -4, (-5 for the seller of indulgences (Ablassprediger), +1 for the Knave (Knecht)), and Black has to pay 4 Hellers to the Bank for his 1 ware.

In the same way all the rows and columns are valued. If you have worked everything out correctly you should obtain the following results.


 Player           Rows           Columns           Total

 White             -3             44                41

 Grey               0             12                12

 Black             20             19                39

The Second and Third Rounds

At the beginning of each round all tiles and markers are removed from the Marketplace and the Round marker is moved to the next tower. Players get all 1 markers back but markers marked 2, 3 or 4 are removed from play and returned to the box, they play no further part in the game. The tiles are shuffled again and spread face down on the table. Each player draws one tile, which they look at secretly as before and then place face down in front of them, ready to be played during the round.

End of the Game

The game ends after the third round. The player with the largest amount of cash wins the game.

Variants

The game can also be played using the normal rules but with the following changes.

The round marker is not used. The number of rounds is unknown at the start of the game.
All players receive all available wooden Stall Markers
All Stall Markers played during a round are removed at the end of the round and play no further part in the game.

The game ends at the end of the round in which a player plays their last Stall Marker. The round continues until all spaces in the Marketplace are full or no player can play further. It is then valued as normal, and the player with the largest amount of cash wins the game.

It can happen using this variant that the Marketplace doesn't fill completely in the last round. This is not a problem for the valuation, the spaces are ignored. If some players find themselves unable to play during this round, then they are simply ignored during play until either the Marketplace is full, or no player can play further.

If you want to try playing Auf Heller und Pfennig without any luck element, then try leaving all the tiles face up at the beginning of the round rather than face down.

The Author and Publisher would like to thank the following for advice, tips and untiring playtesting: Gabriela Dreel, Barbara and Dieter Hornung, Markus Michalka, Karl-Heinz Schmiel, Daniel Steel and Franz Vohwinkel.

Distributed from The Rules Bank by Mike Siggins

The Game Cabinet - editor@gamecabinet.com - Ken Tidwell