Hello again, treasure hunter!
We say "there are no dice" across the counter and people put the goblin back down. It is a bad pitch twice over: it loses the sale, and it is not accurate.
First, the correction: there are dice
Open the box. Seven four-sided dice, and a six-sided die for every player.
The d4s are the Moonstones. You set up by holding all seven in a fist about a foot over the middle of the table and opening your hand. Where they land is where the treasure is, and the number each shows is its Depth Value, how much digging it takes to get out. Your map is different every game and neither player designed it. The d6 settles who activates first each turn.
What Moonstone does not do is roll dice to resolve a fight. That is the part people mean, and it deserves a better answer than "no dice".
Energy is the engine
This is the piece that gets missed, and it is the heart of the game.
Every character has an energy chart, which is the same track as its health. At the start of each turn you put one blue energy token on it for every blue dot still showing. Energy then buys everything that model does:
- Jog, free, up to 4", once per turn
- Step, 1 energy, up to 1" in any direction
- Harvest, 1 energy, lower a Moonstone's Depth Value by 1, and at zero you take it
- Traverse, 2 energy, get over an obstacle
- Melee Attack, 1 energy
- Active and Arcane Abilities, whatever the card asks for
An activated character spends until it runs dry or you stop, then play passes. Unspent energy is binned at end of turn, so saving it is not a plan.
And here is the part with teeth. As a character takes wounds you fill in health boxes from the right, and blue dots vanish with them. Fewer dots means less energy, which means fewer actions. A hurt model is not merely closer to dying, it does less every turn on the way there. Damage is not a countdown, it is a tax on everything you were going to do.
That is the engine. Your cards do not run your turn. Energy does.
Cards are for fights, and nothing else
There are two decks, both shared by everyone at the table, and neither is a hand you carry around. The Melee Deck is 18 cards, three each of six moves: Sweeping Cut, Falling Swing, Thrust, Rising Attack, High Guard and Low Guard. The Arcane Deck is 21 cards, for Arcane Abilities. You draw from them when something happens, and they go straight back afterwards.
A round of melee
The attacker pays 1 energy and names a target in range.
Then the draw, and note it is lopsided on purpose: the attacker draws cards equal to their Melee Stat plus two. The defender draws their Melee Stat. Everyone always draws at least one, however grim things have got.
Both players choose a card and, when both are ready, reveal at the same moment.
Now read your own card. Each carries a little table listing every move the opponent might have played and a Deal / Suffer value against each. You find their move on your card and read what you dealt; they do the same on theirs. Both of you can be hurt in the same exchange, which is why attacking is never free.
The interactions carry the whole thing. Two Thrusts meeting is a mess for everybody. A guard is safe and achieves nothing. Your card also lists its damage types, Slicing, Impact or Piercing, and you pick one of those printed on it, because many passive abilities key off that choice: Jayda's Dagger does nothing at all on a Sweeping Cut.
Critical hits are the elegant part. If you drew duplicates of the card you played, lay them beside it and multiply the damage by two or three. A bigger draw is not just more choice, it is the chance of a much heavier hit, and that is what the attacker's plus two is really buying.
The bluffing is in the Arcane deck, and it is literal
Arcane Abilities are where the game earns its reputation, and "bluff" is a rule here, not a metaphor. You draw Arcane Cards equal to your Arcane Stat, put one face down, and declare what it is: a number and a colour, or a Catastrophe.
You are under no obligation to tell the truth.
Your opponent answers with one word. "OK", or "Bluff".
Say OK and the card is never turned over. Whatever you claimed, that is what it was. Declare Green 3 and the ability resolves at 3.
Say Bluff and you flip it. If you were honest, good for you. If you were lying, they swap one of their own cards in for yours, and they will choose a Catastrophe if they have one, which fires the disaster clause printed on your own ability against you.
Lying is free right up until it is a catastrophe.
The real skill is reading a person
Both decks are shared and completely public. Eighteen Melee Cards, six moves, everybody knows all of them. There is no collection to build and nothing to research.
So the information that decides games is not in the cards. It is in the player.
Does this one bluff on the first Arcane card every time, because they always do? Do they grab Thrust the instant it shows up? Do they only call Bluff while holding a Catastrophe, which makes the call itself a tell?
That is the game. You are not playing odds against a probability curve, you are building a model of the person across the table and getting punished when it is wrong. It is also why the second game against someone is nothing like the first.
You do not get long, either. The game ends after Turn 4, and whoever holds the most Moonstones wins.
Is it for you?
Yes if: you like poker, and you want the thing that beat you to be a decision somebody made rather than a number that came up.
Probably not if: you love the theatre of a big roll landing in front of a watching table. That is a real pleasure and this game does not offer it.
And if somebody tells you Moonstone has no dice, they are half right. It has plenty. They just never decide a fight.
The Cheapest Way to Find Out
The rulebook recommends six characters each for a two-player game, which is the lowest barrier to entry of anything we stock.
- With a friend: Dusk till Dawn or Life & Death Struggle. Two complete troupes, all the cards and tokens, no second purchase required. Our starter comparison covers which one suits you.
- On your own: a troupe box you like the look of, the Core Rulebook, and an Acrylic Measuring Widget. The faction guide will tell you which troupe fits how you like to play.
- The card side: the Moonstone Game Deck if you need a spare, and the Campaign Deck once you want your troupe to carry over between games.
Come play a demo if you are local. Ten minutes at the counter gets you from "no dice sounds weird" to having your bluff called and enjoying it.
So, honestly: does a fight decided by a read rather than a roll sound like a relief, or like something is missing?
May your bluffs hold and your Moonstones stay stolen.