Inheritance

How to play Inheritance

Wedding bells are ringing! Win the favour of the Successor, keep the other Admirers at bay, and secure a piece of the Inheritance. If you start your turn holding the Ring of Favour, you win.

The cards

Forty cards in four suits, ranked 1 to 10. Every card has a name and an Influence ability:

Setup

1. Everyone gets 6 cards. One card goes face-up on each Parent, the Successor and the Proposal. The Influence pile starts with Highest rank wins.
2. Everyone picks an Admirer from their hand at the same time. They're revealed, and the favoured Admirer takes the 💍 Ring of Favour.
3. The player after the favoured Admirer goes first (on a tie, a random player does).

Who is favoured?

The Proposal's suit decides which suits are favoured:

• ❤️ True love: the Successor's suit.
• 🪙 A generous dowry: the Parents' suits.
• 🌿 A proclamation of peace: the suits that neither Parent nor the Successor has.
• ⚔️ A declaration of war: no suits.

If exactly one Admirer has a favoured suit, it's favoured. If several do, the one whose rank best fits the Influence rule wins (highest, lowest, or closest to the Successor's rank). If none do, the best rank of all Admirers wins. A tie in rank means nobody is favoured and the Ring goes to the middle. A Secret Admirer, or no Admirer, can't be favoured.

Your turn

1. Holding the Ring? You win.
2. No Admirer (an Assassin got it)? You may play a new one face-up, and that's your turn.
3. Otherwise play one card: put it on the Proposal to change the favoured suits, or use its Influence ability. A Secret Admirer is turned face-up now.
4. The favoured Admirer takes the Ring.
5. Draw a card (while the deck lasts).

Two and four players

• Two players don't draw during a round. Win a round and your Admirer and the Successor become the new Parents; you keep the old Parents as your trophy. Both players draw back to 6, a new Successor is dealt, and you pick new Admirers. When no Successor can be dealt, the most rounds wins.
• Four players can play in teams: you and the player across from you. If either of you wins, you both do.

Tips

• Grabbing the Ring is easy; keeping it for a whole lap is the game. Save an Assassin or Royal to knock out whoever takes it from you.
• Changing the Proposal is often the cheapest way to break someone's hold, and keeps your power cards in hand.
• The Soldier forces a Secret Admirer: it can't be favoured until its owner's next turn.

Rules from Inheritance by Paul Capovilla, developed with Cameron Faulks and Richard Mulchinock (Flying Man Games, 2022, free print-and-play). Not in the rulebook: a player with no cards passes, and if everyone passes in a row with nobody favoured, the game (or round) ends with no winner. With Replay stalled games (3–4 players, on by default) a stalled game becomes a round instead: the Parents, Proposal and Influence stay, every other card is shuffled and dealt again with a new Successor, and the first round someone wins takes the game.