Partner Track: Rules

** Disclaimer: Nothing in this game is intended to be nor should be construed as legal advice. This is an educational project created by students.  Please consult your lawyer for legal advice.

Overview: The goal of the game is to negotiate partnerships to gain income. Players win by scoring goal cards, and determine the amount of goal cards to be scored at the beginning of the game. For longer games, players can choose a higher limit for goals.

Components and Setup

  1. Shuffle all three decks and place them at the center of the table. 
  2. There are three types of income that can be tracked with either tokens, dice or a notepad: Money, Assets and Influence. Each player should decide a way to track these three incomes, and start with 8 money, 4 assets and 0 influence. 
  3. Each player draws 1 opportunity card and 1 goal card. 
  4. One player is selected as the starting player (using any method), and takes the starting player token. 
  5. A goal limit is decided collectively by the players, a recommended starting limit is 2-3.

Start of a Round

The game takes place in rounds, with each player getting 1 turn during each round. At the start of the round, the following occurs. 

  1. Each player draws 1 opportunity card for free (including the first round, meaning each player will start with 2).
  2. Each player gains the income from each of their active partnerships (not in first round).
  3. Players may dissolve any partnerships (dissolution will be explained later).
  4. Players may spend 6 dollars per card to buy extra opportunity cards (not in first round).
  5. Players may spend 6 assets per card to buy extra goal cards.
  6. Players may spend 6 influence per card to buy fine-print cards.


Once players are finished with the Start of Round phase, the player with the Starting Player Token starts their turn.

Turn

  1. The active player must start their turn by playing 1 opportunity card from their hand. Opportunity Cards are income that will form part of the partnership. If the active player has no Opportunity Cards, they must skip their turn. 
  2. Then, each player is free to make offers to form a partnership with the active player. 
  3. Players can freely negotiate the terms of the potential partnership, adding any terms or conditions they see fit. 
  4. As part of negotiation, the non-active player can also add Opportunity Cards from their hand to the partnership, increasing the value of their proposition. A player may switch which Opportunity Cards they are offering to be added to the partnership income, but beware that you have revealed a card in your hand when doing this. Additionally, players can offer income and resources as part of a negotiation. Players can even offer goals, opportunities (that will not be played but instead added to the other player’s hand or to be used by the partnership) and Fine-Print cards. Nothing is off the table, be creative with negotiating! 
  5. Players may also attempt to negotiate a multi-party partnership, having more than two partners. 
  6. There are default terms, included in the Uniform Partnership Act, that apply to any partnership if they are not negotiated for: 
  7. The active player may accept one of the partnership offers at any time, ending the turn. Track this on a notepad.  
  8. The active player may also skip accepting an offer and pass their turn at any time.
  9. Non-active players can “back out” or pass, if all non-active players do this, the active player’s turn ends.
  10. When the active player’s turn ends, unused opportunity cards are returned to their owners. 

Opportunity Cards

Opportunity Cards provide income to Partnerships. Opportunity Cards have two sections, income and dissolution.

Income: The income section is how much resources, or what effect, triggers between rounds. Partnerships split this amount according to their terms (or evenly if not negotiated for).

Dissolution: If the partnership is dissolved, either by the default method or as negotiated for, this amount will be split between the partners (either evenly or as negotiated). 

Additional opportunity cards can be purchased for 6 money between rounds.

Goal Cards

Goal Cards are how players score points and win the game. There are two types of goal cards, activated goals and triggered goals: 

Activated Goals: activated goals are scored between rounds, during the scoring goals step. These types of goals are often scored by paying a certain amount of resources or taking a specific action. 

Triggered Goals: triggered goals are scored immediately when something happens. An example would be “enter a partnership where any partner takes a greater than 70% share of the income”. 

The game ends when one or more players reach the goal limit. 

Additional goals can be purchased between rounds for 6 assets.

Fine-Print Cards

Fine-Print cards are special cards that can be played at specific times. All fine print cards have conditions for when they can be used (some unique cards may have no condition, but that will be outlined in the card). 

Fine-Print cards affect the game in unique ways, and are powerful cards. They can only be bought with influence, which is the hardest resource to get in the game. Players do not start with them. Fine-Print cards reflect a player using influence to get the upper-hand in a negotiation. Play to find out what they do!

Outside Deal

Another unique way influence can be spent is on an “Outside Deal”. This is an expensive action, as it requires 8 influence (even more than a Fine-Print card!). It allows a player to form a Partnership without another player. 

During a player’s turn, they can initiate this special action. An opportunity card is revealed from the opportunity deck. The active-player then combines their opportunity card with the revealed card, and forms a partnership where they receive half of the combined income. They can also dissolve this partnership at any time, receiving half the dissolution amount.

End of a Round

A round ends when each player has taken 1 turn. At the End of a round, the following occurs: 

  1. Players may score activated goals, if a player reaches the goal limit, the game ends. 
  2. The player with the Starting Player Token passes it clockwise to the next player (skip on first round). 
  3. Start of Round for the next round starts

Dissolution and Dissociation

Dissolution

Any partner, by default, can unilaterally dissolve the partnership. When a partnership is dissolved, its business is wound-up, liquidated and distributed, by default, evenly among the partners. In Partner track, this works by totalling the dissolution value of all the opportunity cards used to form the partnership, and then distributing that income evenly among the partners. After this the partnership ceases to exist. Partners can agree to set a round limit or goal for when dissolution will automatically occur. 

Dissociation

Any partner, by default, can unilaterally dissociate from the partnership. When a partner dissociates, by default they are paid their dissolution value by the other partners. If this is not possible, the other partners can dissolve the partnership. The difference between dissociation and dissolution, is that the partnership continues if a partner dissociates.

End of the Game

The game ends between rounds when a player scores more goals than the predetermined limit. 

Victory

The player with the most points wins!

In case of a tie, the player with the most active partnerships wins. If still tied, the tied player with most influence wins. If still tied, the tied player with the most assets wins. If still tied, the player with the most money wins. If still tied, players share victory.