Review: The Rich and the Good (Ares Games)

In The Rich and the Good from Ares Games, you’re a commodities trader in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution. There’s growth and opportunity everywhere, but simply making stacks of money isn’t enough.

You want to earn the respect of your society peers, and that means demonstrating your altruistic nature by generously donating to the less fortunate. Well, perhaps not generously, but at least more than the next fellow.

There’s money to be made, so let’s get on the trading floor and learn the top five things you need to know to ensure your rise to high society in The Rich and the Good.

Three Words to Know

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Understanding how this game works depends on carefully using three specific terms: rounds, turns, and phases. It might sound a little silly, but if you start mixing up these terms, the game gets confusing in no time at all.

The Rich and the Good is played in only two rounds, regardless of the number of players. Each round contains four turns, which is where the game’s action lives. Inside each turn, you have two phases, the stock phase and the market manipulation phase. Here, you’ll buy or sell shares, donate to charity, and fiddle with the share prices.

Exploring the Stock Phase

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The first round begins with all commodities at the same price. Don’t worry, those prices will change soon enough. (More about that in a moment.)

During a stock phase, you can either buy or sell share cards in the game’s six commodities: coal, wheat, coffee, rubber, tea, and salt. You can only do this with one, two, or three share cards, so choose wisely. And you can’t buy and sell in the same turn; it’s an either-or choice.

Next, you can choose to donate a single share to charity. To do this, you take the share from your hand and put it face down into one of the four donation spots on your charity board. It stays there until the end of the round. Other players only see that you donated a share, not which share you donated.

Manipulating the Market

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Unlike many stock games, players in The Rich and the Good can choose how they influence market changes. They do this by playing two market cards during each market manipulation phase.

The market cards show a commodity and a number ranging from +4 to -4 (but not zero). This tells you which commodity you’re changing, and how far and in which direction you adjust the price.

Each player shares a set of market cards with the players to their left and right. During this phase, you pick one card to play from your left and one from your right. In a delicious strategic twist, you must play one card at face value and the other at half value. As you play them, you adjust the matching price markers on the game board.

After everyone plays two market cards, the first player marker moves clockwise to the next person, and the next stock phase begins.

Ending a Round

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After four stock and market manipulation phases, the round ends and everyone cashes out their first charity donations. To do this, you publicly reveal the shares on your donation board, look up the share price, and sell the shares to the bank. Money from the sale goes into the top section of each player’s charity board to keep it separate from their personal funds.

Here’s where the game’s biggest tension hits. To win the game, you need to earn the most money from your investments. However, you automatically lose if you donated the smallest amount of money to charity. There’s no benefit to donating the most money; you just don’t want to give the least.

Finishing the Game

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To start the second round, you shuffle all of the market cards (both the ones you used last round and the leftovers) and deal eight cards to each pair of players. Stock values stay where they were at the end of round one.

Play goes through another four turns before everyone cashes out their second group of charity donations and all of their personal investments. Whoever donated the least amount to charity is eliminated, regardless of how much they made. With that player out, the remaining players compare the amount of cash they earned. The one with the most cash on hand wins.

Verdict

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We enjoy stock market games in general, but they can be frustrating, too, because most rely on some kind of random generator to change stock prices. Players have no influence over the market, so the games become more luck-driven than anything else.

Luckily, The Rich and the Good isn’t one of those games.

Because the game includes more market cards than get used each round, there’s no guarantee about how the price of any given commodity will move. One round might see a lot of positive cards come up, while the next round brings mostly negatives.

The random element doesn’t automatically rule the market in this game since players choose their market cards and also decide which one is played at full value versus half value. See a negative card for something you invested heavily in (or a positive card that supports an opponent)? Play it at half value to dull the impact.

The way the game uses shared market information creates one of its most fascinating tensions. You and each of your neighbors see the same group of eight cards at the start of a round, so you all have a sense of what will happen to the market, but only from your own perspective.

If you enjoy finance games and want something that’s competitive without being cutthroat, The Rich and the Good definitely satisfies. Highly recommended.