Tolerance Card Game Review

Tolerance

WBG Score: 7.5/10

Player Count: 3-5

You’ll like this if you like: Trick taking games with a twist

Published by: Dragon Dawn Productions

Designed by: Tony Cotterill, Ren Multamäki

This is a free review copy. See our review policy here.

Tolerance is a publisher that likes to make card games, specifically trick-taking card games. But the idea is they all come with a twist. We have already reviewed White Hat on What Board Game, a trick-taker with a board and no suits! And Justice, a genius little game that incorporates deduction into the usual trick-taking fare. Now, we are looking at Tolerance, another trick-taker set in Reformation England during the 16th and early 17th centuries. The game plays out over three rounds, each representing the reign of a monarch: Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth I, and King James I. At its core, Tolerance highlights the pain and conflict caused by disagreements over beliefs, particular religious ones. But what is the twist? Well, let's get it to the table and find out. Spoiler, its a good one!

How To Set Up Tolerance

Every players selects a Player Board, a Score Sheet, and a Role Card. For your first game, it's advisable for everyone to opt for the Bertram the Balanced side. In subsequent games, participants can either select Roles or have them distributed randomly. Unused Roles should be placed back in the game box. For your first game, it's fine to be open about this and which role you have. But for later games, when you are using the asymmetric roles, keep your role and agenda secret! It's not the easiest thing to hide, but there you go.

Next, set aside the Monarch cards, and shuffle the Suit cards. If you want to know how many there are in total, ask Bill & Ted. Count out 35 cards for a three player game, 47 for a four player and 59 for a five player. Then add the Monarch card for the current round to these cards, and shuffle this deck. Mary for round one. Elizabeth for round two. And finally James for the last round. Now deal 12 cards to each player. The player who was most recently involved in religious activity, whatever that may be, can now pick the starting player. They can pick themselves if they wish. In round two and three the player that has the lowest score chooses the starting player. You are now ready to play.

How To Play Tolerance

Players will now play 12 rounds of tricks, three times. Each round playing one card from their hand to form the trick. The starting player plays the first card, and the card they play determines the suit of the trick. If the first card played is a wild card, then the first player can choose any suit. Each other player then must play a card from their hand following suit if they can or by playing a wild card. If they cannot follow suit, they can play a wild card, declaring the suit of that card themselves. It does not have to be the lead suit if they wish. The highest card of the lead suit played wins the trick. The player who played the winning card can take the cards in the trick and then applies any end-of-trick effects on any of the cards. More on that later. They will then place the cards into the respective scoring tracks. Again, more on that later. The winning player now leads for the next round.

The end of round effects are conducted in Rank (number) and Suit order. So, the 14 of Nobel's first, down to the one Wild. The end of round effects apply only to the other cards played in that trick, apart from the Monarch card. Each card has its own effect and target. Cards can do one of six things. Let's look at them all. It will help make the rest of the game make a lot more sense.

Royal Execution - The will 'kill' any one card on any players tableau from this round. Note only the Monarchs have this effect. And it happens after all 12 rounds are done if the Monarch has survived. Killing means you move the card to the bottom cemetery section of the player board.

Collect Taxes - You can take money to the value shown on each living card of the specified type. If no type is specified, take from all living cards. Watch out for the cards that never give money; they only take! Such as the Clergy, Bailiff, and Deceitful Lover! Record your taking on your score sheet. You start with five coins and can note any more gained on your score sheet, along with the Piety. Then, when you score any multiple of ten for each, check off one of the Pennants below. Even if you drop below these numbers later, your Pennants remain.

Collect Piety - Collect the value shown in the eye symbol on each card that is living from the trick. Again, do this for the specified type, or all cards if no type was specified. The Piety will either be Catholic or Protestant Piety. It's different, don't you know? So distinguish your different Piety between the two religions as you score when you collect your Piety. That's a weird sentence.

Condemn - This is another way to kill a card. But only if the target cards' Piety is lower than the Piety of the card you are using to Condemn. You can only Condemn people if you are better than them. It's like social media.

Convert - As above, but instead of Condemning a target card, you convert them. Through vigorous, open, and honest debate I suppose.

Kill - A good old fashioned, your dead type of card.

Once all the cards have had their effects, the remaining living cards are now placed into their (potentially new) religious position on your board. And the next round begins.

Once all twelve rounds have been played, all players now score their cards. This can be done one by one to create a bit of a story and have some interaction, or you can do it all simultaneously if you are looking for a quicker, more efficient game. Your choice. Do you even like your friends?

All living cards will score one coin for each Catholic in round one, each Prevailing card in round two, and each Protestant in round three.

If at this point you have less than zero money you must take out a loan. You will now have one money and a loan card. You can only take one loan car per round, and you must pay five money in a future end of round phase to pay off the loan. If you don't, you will lose three points at the end of the game.

Players will now score one Piety for each living card in your Catholic and Protestant piles.

Finally, all players now score points based on their own role shown on their player board. You will score points for each card you have in your tableau. You will score based on their suit, if they are alive or not, and depending on the round, if you have at least one Guild member, or if you have the most. Each character role scores differently and is clearly shown on the card as below.

At the end of round one and two, you will now start a new round by dealing out 12 new cards to each player. At the end of the third round check if you will run through the end of game scoring shown on the role cards. Here, players will score additional points for Money and Piety equal to the amount shown on their role card (between minus one and four) multiplied by the number of Pennants checked off on your score sheet. The maximum you can multiply here is six. Add your Pennants bonus to your total, remove three points for any remaining loan, and this is your final score.

Is It Fun? Tolerance Card Game Review

So, what is the twist? Well, I suppose its religion and 'death'. In that you can score cards based on their religions. But religions can change, and cards can die!

I am joking of course. The twist is the cards won in each trick are not simply piled up and put to the side of the wining player, but they are used. But only by the player who won the trick. And so when you play a card you need to be thinking both about can you win the trick and which card to play to do that. But also, if you cannot win, what card and power do you want to give to your opponent, and which cards do you want to keep back to try and win with on later rounds. It adds a huge layer to the very simple process of trick-taking. And I love it.

It does make the teach for this game a little difficult. Certainly more than your usual trick-taking game. For what is a very simple game, I have personally struggled to teach this game to a few groups. I asked each group why that was the case afterwards, and they said because they found the theme to be a bit dry and the cards to initially seem a little cluttered. However, I, and a few others I played with, adored the theme. It's history. It's real. It felt deeply thematic to me when a Catholic Witch Hunter killed a Protestant card with lower Piety than it. When a Bailiff took money from me, rather than give me money, that made sense to me. When my Valiant Knight killed a Peasant, it all felt like the world was turning as it should! It's brutal, it's harsh, and it's quite dark. But it's real. And executed brilliantly.

As while it is true, the cards do look a little busy at first, this is more to do with the line drawing style of the art than the layout and amount of information on them. After a round or two, I found all players were able to read them very quickly and simply. But it does affect the initial teach, no doubt.

I love the asymmetric style of the game. This is another twist in this game's mechanics. There are not many asymmetric trick-takers out there. And as much as this is more about how you score rather than how you use the cards or play the game, it certainly affects which cards work for you, and which rounds you will want to win. And this asymmetric battle between players, when everyone is vying for slightly different things, makes this game an absolute gem.

If you like trick-taking and asymmetric games, I would say this is a must-have for you. Certainly, it is well worth playing to see if it works for your group. But I would wager if you like those two mechanics, this could well be a huge winner for you. I personally really enjoy this but did struggle to find willing players to enjoy this with me. It is strange how formal and unapproachable this game appears to new players at first. It really doesn't play like that. I would encourage anyone put off by the theme and art to give this a try. I think you may well just love it.