Back

How to Play

Shadows over Camelot

3-7 players 60-90 min 7.1 Board Game Geek Rating

Players become Knights of the Round Table in this cooperative adventure with potential betrayal. Complete quests like finding the Holy Grail to earn white swords while avoiding black swords from failures. Each turn requires a helpful action followed by a harmful one. Victory comes from collecting more white than black swords, but beware—one player might secretly be a traitor sabotaging the group.

Published 2005

Shadows over Camelot

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

1
Distribute Merlin cards
Give a Merlin card and 3 white cards to every player
2
Deal additional cards
Starting from the first player, distribute 14 cards in clockwise order until depleted
3
Create loyalty deck
Make a deck of loyalty cards with X loyal cards plus 1 traitor card, where X equals the number of players
4
Hold loyalty cards
Players do not look at their loyalty cards yet (exception: 7 player games check immediately)
5
Use all miniatures (optional)
Include all miniatures in the game for an easier experience

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

1
Perform evil action (harder variant)
On the first turn, each knight must draw 1 black card and do 1 evil action
2
Check traitor activation
After a quest is accomplished, check if enough swords are in play to reveal loyalty cards
3
Reveal loyalty cards
When the sword threshold is met, all players look at their loyalty cards
4
Restrict special white cards
Cards with effects based on loyalty status cannot be used until all players have checked their loyalty cards
5
Discard for healing
Spend 3 cards to heal 2 life points instead of 1

Winning

How to claim victory.

1
Check for traitor presence
When 6 or more swords are placed and a quest is accomplished, check the undistributed loyalty card
2
Compensate for no traitor
If the undistributed card is the traitor card (no traitor in play), the player who finished the quest draws 5 black cards
3
Standard victory conditions
Original game victory conditions apply unless modified by these variant rules

watch & Learn

Let the pros teach you with these top videos.

How to Play Shadows Over Camelot & Review

How to Play Shadows Over Camelot & Review

Instructional

Brettexperiment: Sind Regeln und Mechaniken am Material zu erkennen?

Brettexperiment: Sind Regeln und Mechaniken am Material zu erkennen?

Other

MORE VIDEOS

FULL rules

Looking for the full details? Grab the complete rulebook as a downloadable PDF.

PDF RULEBOOK

Play Board Games Online

Explore breakout hits and fan favourites with no downloads, setup or paywalls. Just click and play.

Play Now

more GAMES LIKE THIS

Nemesis

Nemesis

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game