Ghost Stories - A Story About Setup

Hey Guys and Gals!

See what I did in that title there? Erm. Anyway.

For those of you that ready my last post about Ghost Stories, you know that I promised you a post about how to set up the game.

And while I do think the rule book on this game can be a bit messy, the setup part honestly isn't the worst.

However, I like pictures with my setup. Also, if it's a game you're thinking about getting, sometimes seeing things like the setup can help you get a feel for the game.

So let's get ready to play!

• You're going to have 9 Village Tiles. Mix these up randomly and lay them in a 3 x 3 square, it's going to look something like this.

There is another tile that is the same size and if you're just setting the game up for the first time, it looks super random. Go ahead and set that aside. It's going to be referenced in the rulebook as the Cemetery Tile, but it's not referenced under "Setup".

• There are 4 player boards. Now, we are setting this up for a 4 player game, but no matter how many people are playing you're going to put all 4 out.

The boards are double sided, they have different abilities on them. Randomly assign the colors and side to the players.

This is what should be in front of you.

And the whole board at this point should look like this.

I'm grouping the final steps, because I feel like it makes sense they go together. Now, they may not, but in my mind they do, so here we go!

• Now, you're going to give everyone 4 Qi Tokens, a Yin Yang token in the players color, a Tao token in the players color and a black Tao Token.

The funny thing about the 4 Qi tokens is that's for the "initiation level". The initiation level. Guys, I've never played with less than 4 and I almost always lose. That sounds encouraging, right?

• Now put the Samurai player figures in the middle of the board. Easy peasy.

• Put the awesome little buddha tokens on the tile with the little buddha symbol. It's the gold tile with the stoic, wise looking man and the buddha symbol on it. (Don't worry, if you keep scrolling there will be a picture.)

• Put the remaining items somewhere within reach.

Your board should look like this.

Now, you're going to notice a deck in the top left hand corner of the picture. That's because I prematurely took the picture before talking about the deck, but don't worry. We are going to go over that now.

• There are 10 Wu-Feng cards with an orange-is back. Shuffle those and set them aside.

They are separate super bad cards. Here is an example of one. He is super appropriately named Hope Killer.

...The game knows what it's doing.

• Shuffle the rest of the cards. (Aren't you glad you have me to break down the complicated stuff?)

• Deal out 10 of the Regular Cards.

• Place a randomly selected Wu-Feng Card on top of the 10.

• Place the remainder of the Regular Cards on top.

Boom. You built your deck.

Basically, the deck is going to work like a timer to keep the pace of the game. You get down to the big baddie and you have 10 more cards to pull to either win or lose.

That's it! This one isn't the worst to set up, but hopefully some pictures and broken done points will help ease any rule book anxiety.

Happy playing!