Let's Play Le Fantôme de l'Opéra and listen to the music of the night

Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a deduction game based on the Phantom of the Opera and is for 2 players. One player assumes the role of the Phantom, as he (or she) tries to frighten the diva La Carlotta and drive her from the Palais Garnier. The other player is the Investigator, tasked with uncovering the Phantom's identify before La Carlotta decides to leave.


The majority of the board is of the Palais Garnier, the opera house where the players will be moving the characters. The rooms are connected by the golden hallways/staircases. Most rooms also have a pink passageway that connects them to another room, but those can only be used by the pink character, Meg Giry.

The bottom of the board has La Carlotta's terror track. If her token ever reaches the right-most space of the track, she leaves the opera house and the Phantom wins the game.


This card depicts the steps in a game Round. It starts off on the Investigator side, and at the end of each round, it is flipped to the opposite side. The magnifying glass represents the Investigator; the mask represents the Phantom.

1. Draw Characters
   The eight character cards are shuffled, then the top four cards are drawn and placed face up.
2. Activate Characters
   When the Game Round card is Investigator side up, the Investigator activates 1 character, the Phantom activates two, and then the Investigator activates the last character.
   When the Game Round card is Phantom side up, the Phantom activates 1 character, the Investigator activates two, and then the Phantom activates the last character.
3. Manifestation of the Phantom
   After the four character cards have been played, the Phantom announces whether it can appear or not.
   • The Phantom CAN appear if the character pretending to be the Phantom is alone in one of the lit rooms OR is in the same room as the Blackout token. The Investigator can then absolve characters that are in lit rooms in the company of at least one other character.
   • The Phantom CANNOT appear if the character pretending to be the Phantom is in a lit rooms and in the company of at least one other character. The Investigator can absolve any characters that are alone in a room or all the characters that are in a room with the Blackout token.
   When characters are absolved, their tokens are flipped to show the "innocent" side without changing their locations.
   
4. End of Round/End of Game
   If there are two or more suspects still on the board, La Carlotta moves towards the exit the same number of spaces as there are suspects still on the board.
   If the Phantom has appeared, then La Carlotta moves one additional space.
   If La Carlotta has reached the exit space, she leaves the Opera Garnier and the Phantom wins.
   If there is only one suspect left, the Phantom is arrested and the Investigator wins.

The Characters AND Movement

Movement - When a character is activated, it Must move 1 room but MAY move up to a number of rooms equal to the total number of characters in the room it started in.
When moving, a character can use corridors that are not blocked by the padlock. The pink passages can only be used by the pink character, Meg Giry.

Set-up

1. The character tokens are shuffled and placed randomly in the eight outside rooms of the opera house.
2. The power token is placed in the same room as the gray character, Joseph Buquet.
3. The Padlock token is placed in the room adjacent to the blue character, Madame Giry, and the adjacent room clockwise.
4. The La Carlotta token is placed on the fourth space on the Terror track.
5. The Game Round card is placed Investigator-side up.
6. The eight character cards are shuffled.
7. The eleven alibi cards are shuffled.
8. The Phantom then draws the top alibi card, looks at it, and keeps it secret. This character is pretending to be the Phantom! (If a Phantom card is drawn, shuffle it back into the alibi deck and draw again.)

Start of Game Map

Round 1

-

I've drawn my alibi card and know who the Phantom is. The Phantom is a mystery.

Red Hedgehog will be playing the Investigator.

When the game round card is investigator side up, the Investigator chooses one character to activate, then the Phantom chooses two characters, and finally the Investigator activates the last one.

So rather than let this thread lay fallow, someone jump in and take the first move.

The obvious first move seems to be moving Raoul to 6.

Raoul moves to room 6 and draws the top alibi card.



Christine Daae is not the Phantom and her token is flipped.



I'll make my Phantom moves after lunch.

1. Meg Giry takes the secret passage in 6 to 9.



2. Le Persan, with Meg in his room, can move two spaces. He drops off Meg in room 10 before stopping in room 3.



Joseph Buqet is the last character.

Red Hedgehog had to drop out. Anyone want to take his place?

I will if no one else does.

Joe Bucket to 7, blackout to 1.

The Phantom can manifest this round. So now we go ahead and clear the characters that cannot be the Phantom.

Just the two in 7, right? That leaves five suspects.

Yup, Bucket and Richard are not the Phantom. La Carlotta moves 5 spaces towards the exit, plus 1 because the Phantom was able to appear.



->

Madame Giry moves the Padlock to the hallway between 2 and 4, then moves to room 5.



Investigator activates the next two.

Christine to 9, attracting Meg, then Richard swaps with Mme. Giry.

Moncharmin moves from 2 to 1.



The Phantom can manifest.

That rules out the Giry ladies, leaving three suspects.

Three suspects remain + the Phantom manifesting means La Carlotta moves 4 spaces towards the exit.



->

Investigator's move

Joseph to 6, moving the blackout to 8.

Mme Giry moves to 8, places Padlock between 1 and 9.
Richard swaps places with Raoul de Chagny.

He would, the jerk.

I believe I have but one legal play, and it's a worthless one. Three suspects remain, and the phantom manifests again.

La Carlotta moves 4 spaces to the right.

->

Christine Daae moves to room 8 and attracts Meg Giry into the same room.

Very interesting game so far.

Quick question: you placed La Carlotta on the fourth space. Is there a way to reduce terror again and move her to the left? Or are the different spaces on the left-hand side sort of like a difficulty setting in that you can decide what her starting position should be?

Or am I missing something?

If Investigator Raoul draws a Phantom alibi card, La Carlotta moves one space left. This is the only way to reverse terror. (There's a pretty decent chance that you'll see this in action this turn.)

Raoul and Le Persan ("the person") move to 4.

If I get lucky, this could win me the game?

La Carlotta will always start in the white spaces, but you can adjust the difficulty depending on placement. If the Phantom is a stronger player, La Carlotta is placed further to left. If the Investigator is stronger, La Carlotta is placed closer towards the exit.

The Investigator activating Raoul and drawing the Phantom alibi card is the only way to have La Carlotta move back.

The alibi card drawn is for Madame Giry.





Meg moves to room 7.



The Phantom cannot manifest. This is going to be a close one.

That eliminates Mouchardier, leaving two suspects. It'll come down to the draw, I think.

Two suspects but the Phantom did not manifest, so La Carlotta only moves 2 spaces.

Oh mannnn

This setup really looks like it favors the phantom. I'm not sure I see any way to avoid losing here. Maybe if I moved second, I'd stand a chance, but as it stands, looks like anything I do is insufficient to stop the phantom from setting it up how he likes.

I think my best bet is Giry to 7, lock 1-2.

Music of the night, what children to my ears!

Moncharmin moves to 4 and scares Raoul to 4 and Persan to 3.
Bucket moves to 7 and the blackout goes to 3.