How to Play The Quacks of Quedlinburg: Bags, Pots & Explosions
The Quacks of Quedlinburg is a nine-round push-your-luck bag-building game. Players simultaneously draw ingredient chips and place them farther around a cauldron, deciding when to stop before too many white cherry bombs make the pot explode.
Draw ingredients one at a time
Pull a chip from your bag and place it the number of spaces shown by its value beyond your current potion marker. Ingredient colors can trigger special effects based on the ingredient book in use.
White chips create explosion risk
Add the values of white cherry-bomb chips in your pot. If their total exceeds the safe limit, your potion explodes and you stop drawing for that round.
You may stop voluntarily before exploding
At any time before drawing the next chip, you can stop and lock in your current potion position. This is the central risk decision of every round.
Resolve scoring and buying from the pot position
Your final potion space determines VP and purchasing power. A safe pot normally receives both benefits; an exploded pot must accept the base-game explosion restriction when choosing rewards.
Buy ingredients to improve future draws
Spend purchasing power on new ingredient chips from the supply. Added chips go into your bag for later rounds, changing both average movement and the probability of drawing white chips.
Rat tails help trailing players
At the start of applicable rounds, players behind the leader can begin farther along their cauldron based on rat tails from the score track, reducing runaway leads.
After round 9, highest VP wins
The final round adds its special endgame conversions and then players compare VP totals.