For a Crown

For a Crown is a fast, cutthroat shared-deck-building board game for 3–5 players, designed by Maxime Rambourg (Dracula vs Van Helsing) with art by Paul Mafayon. A game takes about 30–45 minutes.

Rival noble families have been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and they’ve finally agreed to unite under a single crown. Each family intends to be the one that wears it, and none of them is above a little trickery.

Each player starts with a family chest holding ten hidden rubies and a family heirloom, which can be sold publicly for rubies if you run low. Each round, you recruit mercenaries and courtiers from a market and slip them into a card sleeve in your family’s color. The twist is that you aren’t building your own deck. Every recruited card goes into one shared deck, and once the deck is shuffled it’s revealed card by card. Whoever owns a card resolves its effect when it comes up, whether that’s earning coins, stealing or destroying rubies, handing out raccoon-masked bandit tokens, or shifting turn order. Common event cards shake things up too.

The deck is played through four times, and the cards you pick early get resolved again and again, so those first choices matter. When it’s over, everyone reveals their chests, and the richest family in rubies takes the throne.

The game combines take-that mischief, hidden scores, bluffing, and shaky alliances. It’s easy to teach and works well as a family-friendly gateway game with some bite.