How to play

Two to six players. A standard deck plus two Jokers. Five cards — Main Street — are dealt face down on the table. You hold a hand of any size and a holster that takes two cards.

How many cards you start with depends on the size of the table, so the deck stretches to fit:

2 players
5 cards each
3–5 players
4 cards each
6 players
3 cards each

Only your two holster cards, plus the five on Main Street, make your poker hand at the end. Everything else is manoeuvring.

Your turn

Do exactly one of these, then play passes on.

Flip and draw. Turn over a face-down Main Street card, then draw a card.
Play an action. Resolve the rule on a card that has one (7 through Ace). The card is then discarded.
Holster a card, any card, face down. Nobody sees it, and nothing happens. With a full holster you choose which card to give up.
Holster a card face up, firing its holster action — only for the cards that have one (2 through 6). The rule happens, but the card sits face up for the whole table to read. Using the rule is always optional: those cards can go in face down like any other.

The round ends once all five Main Street cards are face up. Best poker hand wins.

The cards

Every card of a rank does the same thing.

Rank	When	Rule
2	on holster	Put in Holster face up, draw 2 cards.
3	on holster	Put in Holster face up, all other players discard a card.
4	on holster	Put in Holster face up, discard any face up card on Main Street and replace it with a face down card from the deck.
5	on holster	Put in Holster face up. All other players with a face down card in their holster must turn one face up.
6	on holster	Put in Holster face up, peek at another player's face down holster card.
7	on play	Draw 2 cards, then discard a card.
8	on play	Switch a face up card on Main Street with any card from your holster.
9	on play	Turn a face up card on Main Street face down, then draw a card.
10	on play	Peek at one face down card on Main Street or in a holster. Draw a card.
J	on play	All players that have a card in their holster must discard one.
Q	on play	Peek at a face down card on Main Street. You may discard it and replace it with the top card of the deck. Draw a card.
K	on play	Draw 2 cards.
A	on play	Take 2 additional turns. You cannot play another Ace on these turns.
Joker	wild	Counts as any card in your holster, and can't be played as an action. If one turns up on Main Street it's discarded and replaced.

Watch it played

KC Grifant walks through the physical game on video. The rules are the same ones the web edition runs — this is the tabletop version being dealt on a real table.

How to play Monster Gunslingers — full overview

One piece at a time

Videos by KC Grifant. They load only when you press play — nothing is fetched from YouTube before then.

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