Barbarossa
Players:	3–6
Age range:	16 +
Setup time:	5 minutes
Playing time:	60 minutes
Rules complexity:	Medium
Strategy depth:	Medium
Random chance:	Medium
Skills required:	Sculpture, Logic

This article is about the board game. For more meanings of Barbarossa, see Barbarossa.

Barbarossa is a plasticine-shaping German-style board game for 3 to 6 players, designed by Klaus Teuber in and published in 1988 by Kosmos in German and by Rio Grande Games in English. Barbarossa won the 1988 Spiel des Jahres award. Image File history File linksMetadata Barbarossaspiel. ... A sculpture is a three-dimensional, man-made object selected for special recognition as art. ... Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy among philosophers. ... A board game is any game played with a premarked surface, with counters or pieces that are moved across the board. ... Meanings of Barbarossa (Italian: Red Beard): Barbarossa was the nickname of two famous people in history: Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor Khair ad Din, Barbary pirate and Ottoman admiral. ... Plasticine is a putty-like modelling material; the word is trademarked, but is used generically, especially in the UK. In the US, the generic term modeling clay is much more widely used, and many people are not quite sure what plasticine is, although the particular brand is available. ... German-style board games, also known as Euro games, designer games, family strategy games or hobby board games, are family games designed to appeal simultaneously to older children and adults. ... Klaus Teuber Klaus Teuber (born 1952) is a well-known German designer of board games. ... 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on a Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co. ... Rio Grande Games is a publisher of German-style board games in English. ... The Spiel des Jahres (German for Game of the Year) is arguably the most prestigious board game award for German-style board games. ...

Gameplay

The game is played on a circular board, with three tracks running around it. Around the outside are the scoring track and the elfstone (money) track. Further in there is a circular track with twelve marked spaces on it, and in the center there is a space for sculptures. Later editions (as shown in the infobox) change the shape of the board but not its contents. Money Money is any marketable good or token used by a society as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. ... An infobox on Wikipedia is a consistently-formatted table which is present in articles with a common subject (An infobox is a generalization of a taxobox (from taxonomy) which summarizes information for an organism or group of organisms). ...

At the start of the game, each player chooses two objects from a list provided and creates plasticine sculptures of each, and places them in the middle of the board. Each player places on the board three tokens: A magician, a witches' hat and an Elfstone. The hats are placed on the scoring track; the elfstones are placed on the elfstone track, and the magicians are placed on the space marked "A". Each player receives three curse tokens. Magician redirects here. ... The term witchcraft (and witch) is a controversial one with a complicated history. ...

Players then take turns as follows: They may begin either by rolling a six-sided die and moving their magician that many spaces, or by forfeiting their roll and instead spending elfstones to move. After they roll or spend elfstones, what happens next depends on the space they land on: Rolling dice A die (Old French de, from Latin datum something given or played [1]) is a small polyhedral object (usually a cube) suitable as a gambling device (especially for craps or sic bo). ...

Elfstone (4)

The player gains one elfstone - this is recoded by moving their elfstone token one space forward along the elfstone track. Players may not gain more than 13 elfstones.

Dragon (3)

Each other player gains one point - this is recorded by moving their hat token one space forward along the scoring track

Ghost (1)

Each other player gains two points.

Dwarf (2)

The player may ask an opponent for a letter from the name of their object. The player can specify which letter - e.g. "first", "second" or "last". The opponent writes down the letter and passes it to the player. If the player asks for a letter which is not in the name of the object, they are given an empty sheet of paper.

Question mark (2)

The player may ask two sets of questions about the opponents' objects. The player asks (out loud) one opponent a yes/no question. The opponent must (truthfully) answer "Yes", "No", "Possibly", or "I Don't Know". The player may continue to ask questions until the answer is "No". The player then asks a second set of questions, again until they get the answer "No". The two sets of questions do not have to be about the same object, or to the same opponent. The player then has an opportunity to guess any object, by writing down their guess and passing it to the opponent. If the guess is wrong, the opponent says "No". If it is correct, they say "Yes" and the player sticks a flag into the object's sculpture.

The first player to correctly guess an object gets 5 points, and the second gets 3. The opponent whose object is guessed either gains or receives points, depending on how many players are playing and how many objects have already been correctly guessed.

At any point, a player may spend a curse token to either ask a player for a letter (as if they had landed on a dwarf) or to guess an object (as if they had landed on a question mark, but without the questions). Once a player has spent their first three curse tokens, and five curse tokens have been spent, they may take three more tokens - so any given player may spend six tokens during the course of the game. In J. R. R. Tolkiens fictional Middle-earth universe, Elfstone, also known as the Elessar or the Stone of Eärendil, is a famous green jewel that Galadriel gives as a gift to Aragorn just before the Fellowship of the Ring leaves the wood of Lothlórien. ... Chinese dragon, colour engraving on wood, Japanese Chinese school, 19th Century A dragon is a mythological creature, typically depicted as a large and powerful serpent or other reptile, with magical or spiritual qualities. ... Reputed ghost of a monk. ... A dwarf (plural dwarfs or, more recently, dwarves --see under Tolkien below) is a short humanoid creature in Norse mythology, fairy tales, fantasy fiction and role-playing games. ... Opening (inverted) and closing question marks A question mark (or, less commonly, an interrogation point or eroteme) is a punctuation mark that replaces the period at the end of an interrogative sentence. ...

When a player reaches the end of the scoring track, or when 13 (3-4 players) or 17 (5-6 players) flags have been placed, the game ends. Each player loses two points for each of their objects which only got one flag, and five points for each of their objects which did not get any flags. The player with the highest score wins.

Game interest

The plasticine-shaping aspect of the game, similar to Rapidough or Sculptorades, has a significant appeal to young players. However, since the game rewards players whose sculptures are guessed later in the game, the best sculptures are not necessarily those made by the best sculptor - but more likely those made by the best riddler. That, together with the spend-or-roll mechanic which reduces the impact of luck, make the game interesting for serious gamers. Cranium is a board game manufactured by its own company, Cranium, Inc. ...

External links

• Klaus Teuber's page about the game.
• Kosmos' home page for the game (in German).