Turn
The player's turn is series of steps completed by the player. The steps are:
Starting/Building Step
A player’s turn will always begin at the start of the Build Step. The Build Step is when the active player will have the ability to play any Characters, Actions, Fields, Toys, Scenes, and Tasks. The turn player is allowed to play both non-quick or quick cards and abilities during their Build Phase. The requirements for activating cards/abilities for the active player during this phase are being able to pay the associated cookie cost, meeting activation requirements (if any) for the card, and being able to resolve all public information of the effects of the card (See section on Illegal Activations/Failed to Find).
The non-active/non-turn player is also able to activate cards/abilities during the opponent’s Build Phase, but they can only play or activate “Quick” cards and abilities.
Each player can only activate or play up to four cards or abilities in total during each Build Phase.
Note that Mandatory Effects are NOT included in the total.
The turn player can choose to end their Build Phase at any point. At this time, the non-active player is allowed to play a card or activate an ability if they have not already reached their limit of 4. If the non-active player elects to make an additional choice during this period, the active player will get an opportunity to play an additional card or activate an additional ability.
Fight Step
The Fight Phase starts immediately when the Build Phase ends. The Fight Phase is broken into 3 stages: Pre-fight, Fight, and Rewards.
Players can activate a total of 4 cards or abilities for the entirety of the 3 stages of the Fight Phase.
Note that Mandatory Effects are NOT included in the total.
Any cards or effects activated during previous phases that instruct players to skip the fight this turn causes the turn to progress directly from the start of the Pre-Fight phase to the end of the Rewards step. There will be no opportunity activate additional cards or abilities if the Fight Phase is skipped in this way.
Pre-Fight:
Pre-Fight is like the Build Phase with one key difference: during this phase, players may only activate cards or abilities with the “Quick” designation. This means players will not be able to play Character, Field, Toy, Scene, or Task cards, but they will be able to activate quick abilities (indicated by a (shooting star) symbol) on these types of cards that are already in play.
The order for playing cards and abilities during this phase follows the same priority of the Build Phase and is outlined in the section “General Turn Priority”
Fight:
At the start of this step, the active player may choose one character they control and one character they do not to fight. If the active player declines to choose 2 characters to fight, the turn moves directly to the Resource Phase and no more cards/abilities can be activated.
If the active player has chosen 2 characters, these characters are now Fighting. If a character has a “when this character is chosen as a part of a Fight” effect, that effect happens immediately before any other cards or abilities can be played.
- The only ways a Fight can be stopped once 2 characters are Fighting is if an effect is resolved that ends the current fight, or at least one of the 2 characters Fighting leaves the Play Space.
- If a Character is Regressed/Restored while Fighting, the new adult/regressed character is still Fighting.
Like the Pre-Fight phase, players may only activate cards or abilities with the “Quick” designation during this step. Play of cards and abilities during this phase follows the same priority of the Build Phase and is outlined in the section “General Turn Priority”
Rewards:
Once the Rewards step starts, players are no longer able to activate any cards or abilities. Mandatory effects and effects that trigger in the reward step still occur.
This phase begins with comparing the Confidence and Maturity of the characters that are Fighting. Either player may ask for clarification of why a character has its current Confidence or Maturity.
Below is a list of the potential outcomes for a fight. The Cookies a character gains from a fight is represented by a Character’s Fight Reward, represented by a (Fight Reward) symbol on the card.
- Neither Character’s Confidence is greater than or equal to the opposing character’s Maturity: This fight is a tie. Neither character is regressed/sent to Timeout and no cookies are awarded, unless effect(s) have been activated that trigger during this step.
- Only one Character’s Confidence is greater than or equal to the other Character’s Maturity: The fight is a win for the player whose Character meets this description. Regress/send to Timeout (whichever is applicable) the opposing Character and reward the winner with the cookie reward listed on the losing Character.
- Both Characters’ Confidences are greater than or equal to the opposing Character’s Maturity: This is a considered a win and a loss for both players. Regress/send to Timeout (whichever is applicable) both Characters and reward cookies equal to the opposing character’s fight reward to each player.
Note that fight rewards/results (gaining Cookies and regressing or sending a character to timeout) are considered to occur simultaneously. Once all characters that lost the fight are determined and all cookie rewards have been verified, any mandatory effects triggered off gaining cookies or regressing/sending characters will trigger. Once these effects are applied, resolve the outcome of the fight – reward each player with any fight rewards and regress or send to timeout any character that lost the fight. Any instance where a Character is regressed or sent to time out due to losing a fight is considered a Fight Loss. Any card that triggers “When a/this character loses a fight” triggers at this time as well.
Reminder - A player winning 10 Fights is one of the standard ways to win a game of Little Troubles. If a player reaches 10 fight wins after the outcome and distribution of Fight Rewards in the Rewards Phase, the game is considered over and no further effects trigger.
After all mandatory effects and Fight Rewards have been resolved, any delayed effects that trigger at the end of the Fight will trigger and resolve. Once all delayed effects have been resolved, the Fight Phase ends.
Resource Step
Like the Rewards Step, players are not able to activate any cards or abilities during the Resource Phase. Mandatory effects and effects that trigger in the Resource Phase still occur.
The turn player calculates the Resources they will gain by looking at the cards they currently control in their Play Space. Most Character Cards and some Field Cards will have Resource Values on them These are represented by a <card symbol> indicating the number of cards to draw and a <cookie symbol> indicating the number of cookies gained in a player’s Resource Phase. Other cards and effects in play can also change the number of resources a player gains, such as giving an extra card draw or doubling the number of cookies gained.
During the resource phase, the active player will read their cards in play and determine the total number of cards to draw and cookies to gain by adding/multiplying all resources/effects in play. The non-active player will confirm this total, then the active player will draw cards/gain cookies equal to these totals.
- Each player will get 1 extra card draw each Resource Phase after their first turn. A player receives this 1-card-draw even if their total cards to draw from their resources in play is less than 1.
- Determining Draw/Cookie values are done in the following order:
- All addition and subtraction
- All multiplication and division
- As an example, if your total cookies values/effects are +3,+2,-1,-2, and x2: your total cookies for that turn will be 4. Think of it as being reverse PEMDAS.
Any effects that resolve at the end of the turn will occur immediately after resources have been gained. Once all effects that apply at the end of turn are resolved, the Resource Phase and Active Player’s Turn ends.
At the end of the turn, after all effects have been applied, the below mandatory events occur. During this time, no Cards/Abilities can be activated and no effects are triggered:
- Any card that applies a continuous effect for the turn resets. An example is “(Behind) the Couch”; the number of action cards played this turn resets to zero.
- Any effect applied by an action card or ability that changes the confidence or Maturity of a character will revert.
- If the turn player has over 9 cards in their hand, they must discard cards until they have exactly 9 cards left in hand.
At the completion of the Resource Step, the player's turn is over and the next player's turn starts.