In 1981, Mad magazine artist Sergio Aragones started writing and drawing the comic which chronicled the (mis)adventures of a Conan-esque barbarian named Groo the Wanderer. Although essentially a well-meaning soul, Groo, through sheer clumsiness and utter lack of wits, left a wake of inadvertent destruction wherever he traveled. The running joke of the series was that any town Groo entered would inevitably suffer more devastation than could possibly be caused by the fiercest, most malicious enemy. In truth, that’s about twice as much as you need to know to play and appreciate Groo the Game. (Although knowledge of the comic book will help you identify some of the characters in the game, such as the Fabio look-alike Arcadio, and Groo’s dog Rufferto). All you really need to know is this: when Groo comes to your town, disaster is soon to befall you.
The deck of cards (60 in the basic set, plus 55 more in the expansion) come in five types: Building cards, Army cards, Groo Effect cards, Wild cards and Events. Wild cards and events may be played directly from the hand, but Town, Army and Groo cards must be “bought”: each lists a number of symbols on the left hand side, which represent the resources that must be spent in order to put that card into play.
At the start of play, each player receives a hand of five cards. On his turn, a player first discards as many cards from his hand as he would like, and then draws his hand back up to five. Next, he may attack with his Army (more on that shortly). After combat is resolved, he rolls the seven dice, builds, and then draws his hand back to five before play passes to the left.
The Groo dice show tiny pictures. Six of the dice show resources: Supplies, Labor, Kopins (money) and Groo Heads. After rolling the dice, a player may use the resources he rolled to play Building, Army or Groo cards from his hand. A player could, for example, spend a Labor and a Supply resource to build a Marketplace (Building card), or he could spend two Supplies and play “Cavalry” (Army card). The player may use as many of the resources he rolled as he wishes. Any unused resources, however, get passed to the player on the left, who may spend them (if possible) to play cards from his hand. If he can’t use all the remainders, they get passed to the next player on the left, and so on around the table.
Both the Building Cards and the Army cards have a number in the upper corner: for Building cards this number represents “Victory Points” (VPs), and for Army cards it represents “Strength”. The object of the game is to have a town worth seven Victory Points at the end of your turn. The Army cards, meanwhile, can be used to siege the towns of other players, or to defend your own from invasion. During the attack phase of the turn, a player may use his played Army cards to attack an opponent. The victim may then use one or more of his active Army cards to defend. The total Strength of all the attacking cards is subtracted from the total Strength of all the defending cards, and the result is how many Victory Points worth of Buildings the defender must discard.
The seventh die is the “Groo Movement” die, and indicates what town Groo will wander into that turn. During the “build” phase, players may spend rolled “Groo Heads” to play Groo effects cards, which cause assorted damage to whatever town Groo occupies. You could, for example, spend one Groo Head and play a “Minor Problem” card, causing Groo to destroy one building in his town, or spend two Groo Heads for Groo to destroy the entire army at his current location.
Groo does involve some strategy, but it’s had to take any game with a “Cheese Dip” card seriously. Groo’s price is a bit steep: the basic game plus the expansion (which is almost required to play) cost nearly $25. Still, for $25 (or even $50) you could do a lot worse- I own many a more expensive game that I don’t play nearly as often or enjoy as much. Groo features clever mechanics, is easy to teach, and is portable enough to be brought anywhere - an equation that adds up to lots of fun & frequent play.