HOW TO PLAY SKULL KING

LEARN HOW TO PLAY SKULL KING (VIDEO TRANSCRIPT)

INTRO

Ahoy! Look at you lot o landlubbers! Ya got soft hands, but I spy ya can learn to swab the decks and swing a sword yet. Better hope ya learn quick fer we’re goin’ on a treacherous voyage for treasure, mermaids, and all sortsa unsavory folk.

If yer up fer it, let’s hear yer heartiest “YO-HO-HO!”

OVERVIEW

In Skull King, each turn, players play one card in a clockwise rotation. The highest card wins. This is called Taking a Trick. 

Skull King is a trick-taking game where your goal is to bid the exact number of times you will win the trick in each hand.

Skull King is a tricky game, and crafty pirates, though they’ve got sheepish grins, will seize every opportunity to come out on top!

The pirate with the highest score at the end of the game earns the title of Captain and wins!

SETUP

If this is your first time sailing the seas, remove these cards from the deck. Blank cards, mermaids, loot cards, the Kraken, and the White Whale.

Give each player a set of bid reminder cards and player aid cards.

Now, shuffle the deck and prepare yourselves for battle.

HOW TO PLAY

Skull King is played over 10 rounds. 

Each round begins with dealing cards to each player equal to the number of the current round, so in the first round, 1 card to each player, 2 cards in the second round, and so on.

After the cards are dealt, each player looks at the cards in their hand and decides how many tricks they think they can win that round. 

Skull King is all about getting your bid. During the game you need to modify your play to get your bid, even if things don't go quite as planned. 

With small groups you need to overbid what you might think will win, but with larger groups you need to underbid what might otherwise win as there will be more powerful cards dealt out. This is a key strategy toward getting your bid. 

Every hand can be a winning hand. You can score big by winning several tricks, but also score big by not winning any tricks at all!

Now, after they decide their bids, players pound the table and in unison, proclaim “Yo-ho-ho,” extending the number of fingers equal to their bid, or closed fist if they think they’ll win zero. 

Use your bid reminder cards to display your bid number so everyone can see it.

ON YOUR TURN

Once bidding is complete, the player left of the dealer leads the trick and plays a card to the center of the table. 

Now, going clockwise each player plays a card from their hand following the rules we’ll discuss in just a moment. There are many options, which be part of the magic of this dastardly game!

After everyone has played one card, the player who played the highest-ranking card wins the trick and gathers the stack of cards in front of them. 

They’ll lead the next trick.

The round ends once all tricks have been played. Now it’s time to score!

CARD TYPES AND TERMS

But before I tell ya about scoring, we need to learn about the cards and how they interact with each other.

There are four suits of cards, numbered 1-14 in the deck. 

The three standard suits are Parrots, which are Green, Treasure Chests, which are Yellow, and Maps, which are Purple. Finally the trump suit, the Jolly Roger suit, is Black.

If a suit card is the first card played in a trick, which is called leading a trick, it establishes which of the four suits are in play for this trick.

All other players must play a card of the same suit, or a special card, which we’ll talk about in a moment.

But if you don’t have a card that matches the suit, you can play any other standard numbered card, or a card from the black suit. 

If you play a standard suit, you’ll lose, no matter how high your number is. However, if you play a black suit, it trumps the standard suit, regardless of its value.

Now, let’s look at the special cards.

Escape cards are the lowest value cards in the game. They almost always guarantee you will lose the trick.

Pirates beat all numbered cards. They are also equal in rank with other pirates. And if multiple  are played in a trick, the first player to play one wins it.

The Tigress takes on all the characteristics of either a pirate or escape, when played.

And the namesake of this game, the Skull King! He trumps all Pirates and numbered cards. He can only be beaten by mermaids, but we’ll talk about them in the advanced rules video.

OKAY, now let’s take a gander and learn how to score.

SCORING

There’s two types of scoring, Skull King’s scoring, and the Rascal scoring.

The Rascal scoring is a new, kinder and gentler scoring option that many landlubbers enjoy!

Here be the classic, Skull King scoring. Please see your score pad for tips.

If you bid 1 or more tricks at the start of the round, AND you won the exact number of tricks you bid, you are awarded 20 points per trick you took.

However, if you took more or fewer tricks than you bid, you earn no points, and instead, you lose 10 points for each trick you were off by. (will provide on-screen examples with numbers, etc to show this point)

If you bid zero tricks AND you won zero tricks, multiply the current round number by 10 and earn that many points.

However, if you bid zero and win any tricks, multiply the current round number by 10 and you lose that many points.

Finally, if you got your bid correct you might also have a chance to score some bonus points.

Earn 10 points for each number 14 card you have.

Earn 20 points if you have the black jolly roger 14 card.

And earn 30 points for each pirate taken by the Skull King.

Tally the score on the scorepad.

Now the player left of the dealer becomes the new dealer.

Start the next round by shuffling all cards together, including those from the previous round, then deal cards to each player, equal to the new round’s number.

END GAME

The game continues until the end of the 10th round. 

Tally players’ final scores, and the player with the highest score is appointed the pirate captain of the seven seas!

ADDITIONAL RULES

If you’re a seasoned pirate, and you ain’t no landlubber, there’s a mess of new rules, variants, and all kinds of cards you can add to your game to increase the complexity, scoring variations, and more! 

These include cards such as the mermaids, Kraken, special pirate powers, loot, the White Whale, and more!

It’s best to get used to the classic game, then add in new options as you desire to keep the game a fresh challenge for years to come!

If you want to learn how to include these rules in your game, check them out in the instructions, or visit the link on-screen to watch the advanced rules video!

YARRR!