Lords of Waterdeep

Waterdeep, the City of Splendors—the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms, and a den of political intrigue and shady back-alley dealings.

Wizards of the Coast surprised everyone with this classy Euro-style game with a Dungeons & Dragons theme. Nothing particularly original mechanics-wise, but a fast playing, fun and easy to learn spin on the worker-placement genre.

This rules summary includes the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion.

Update Log

Date Version Changelog
Mar 2021 2.3 Clarification to Waterdeep Harbour space
Apr 2020 1 Foamcore box insert plans
Jun 2015 2.2 Changed ‘Assign Agents’ title to ‘Assign Agent’
Sep 2014 2.1 Rewording of When Purchased/Start of Round building instructions
Feb 2014 2 Added Scoundrels of Skullport expansion rules summary
May 2013 1.3 Typo fix and small clarifications
Mar 2013 1.2 Slight clarification of ‘rounds’ and ‘turns’
Jul 2012 1.1 Setup error fixed
Jul 2012 1 Original release

13 Comments

  • Tim says:

    Excellent aid – just a small typo on the Buildings section, where “assigns” is incorrect in the “Owners Benefit” line.

  • JS says:

    Quick question: where did you guys get this rules summary? I can’t find anything similar from WOTC. Is it an interpretation? Or does it come from the publishers?

    I played with some friends the other night using the expansion, and we got into a debate regarding the Waterdeep Harbor space. One player wanted to place in the third spot, bypassing the others and we weren’t sure if he could.

    This video seems to indicate that agents are re-assigned in the order in which they are placed (i.e., 1, 2 then 3 in sequential order).

    The argument for placing anywhere was that the original rules hadn’t accounted for the ability to place corruption tokens/adventurers on action spaces, so it should be up to the player’s discretion to grab a later spot on the track, thus forfeiting a better re-assignment, in exchange for the benefit of taking the adventurer or skipping corruption.

    • Universal Head says:

      Where does the EOG get their rules summaries? Why, directly from the caring and hard-working hands of Universal Head, that’s where! The information is summarised directly from the game’s rules. But the EOG doesn’t get too much into rules discussions beyond occasionally updating a sheet if an errata or important FAQ comes out. Boardgamegeek, with its extensive forums, is a much better place for that kind of thing. The rules summaries here are intended to be used as handy, straight-to-the-good-stuff replacements for the rulebooks, so you don’t have to dig through lots of wordy exposition and fluff when you’re refereshing yourself on the rules of a game you haven’t played for a while.

      These summaries aren’t in any way ‘official’ (though very often the publishers approve of their creation), but they don’t include any information that isn’t in the original rulebook (or possibly a later FAQ).

      Sorry I can’t answer your question officially; I’d always thought that agents were re-assigned in the order they were placed, but I don’t have the expansion yet so I’m not sure if a later clarification has been made.

      • JS says:

        No worries. Thank you very much for the thoughtful reply! I’ll be sure to keep rules-related questions on the boardgamegeek forum.

        Cheers!

  • dave says:

    scoundrels page – agents by player number in the setup – wee typo “4” instead of “6”
    thanks for the munificence of gaming goodness 🙂

  • I’ve been playing the iPad version of this for a while now, after having watched the Tabletop episode. It’s a REALLY fun game! Working out your strategies and timing those intrigue cards makes for very entertaining game time.
    I always swore I’d never buy a game that used wooden cubes as parts (plasti-crack addict…) but if I had a regular gaming group I’d pull the trigger on this one in a heartbeat.

  • gamov says:

    Some suggestions:
    – Owner Benefit should also continue: except when owner uses his buildings.
    – Under Start of the round: When purchased / start of the round: I would rephrase title and paragraph:
    ——-
    Buildings in play:
    Follow the start-of-round instructions for every buildings *in play*.
    ——
    Then under Buildings: Builder’s Hall: Add after after the first paragraph: Follow the listed special instructions when the building is purchased.
    ——
    I feel this helps with information context (right info at the right place).

    Hope it helps, keep your awesome work!
    Cheers,
    Gam.

  • Fair enough! Suggestions implemented, cheers.

  • Sam Kelly says:

    Good job! The official Lords of Waterdeep rulebook is one of the worst written I’ve ever encountered and I play a lot of games.

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