Herd Mentality Board Game: Rules for How to Play

Looking for a specific Herd Mentality rule?  |  Setup  |  Playing the Game  |  Earning Cows  |  Pink Cow  |  Winning the Game  |  FAQ  |  Components  |

Objective

The objective of Herd Mentality is to be the first player to acquire eight cows by matching other players.

Setup

• Assemble the paddock and attach it to the board.
• Place the Cow Tokens and the Pink Cow inside the paddock.
• Choose one player to be the Question Wrangler. They will still play the game, but they are also responsible for reading the Question Cards and handing out cows during the game.

How to Play Herd Mentality

Each round begins with the Question Wrangler drawing a card and reading it out loud. The game also allows players to come up with their own questions if they want to.

After the question is read out loud, all of the players (including the Question Wrangler) have to think of an answer to write down on their answer sheet. You want to write something that you think the majority of the other players are going to write down.

If players are taking too long to write down an answer, the players should “moo” at them to make them hurry up.

Once everyone has written down an answer, all of the players will reveal their answers one at a time. The Question Wrangler reveals their answer first. Players can then earn cows based on how the players answered the question.

Earning Cows

Once all of the players have revealed their answer for the round, the players determine which answer was the most popular.

All of the players that wrote down the most popular answer, receive one cow token. If the cow tokens in the bank start to run out, players can exchange three one point cows for a three point cow.

If two or more answers tie for the most popular, none of the players receive a cow token during the round.

Pink Cow

After the players are done earning cow tokens, they will determine if any player provided an unmatched answer (no one else provided the same answer as them). If only one player was alone in writing an answer, they will take the pink cow.  If there are two or more players that provide an unmatched answer, none of the players take the pink cow.

You will keep the pink cow until another player takes it from you by being the only player to provide an unmatched answer in a future round. The pink cow does not prevent you from earning cow tokens in future rounds. You cannot win the game if you have the pink cow though.

Winning the Game

The first player to collect eight cow tokens wins the game. If the player has the pink cow in front of them though, they can’t win the game until they get rid of it.

If multiple players earn their eighth cow token in the same round, the game continues until a player has more cow tokens than the rest of the players. The winner may need to get 9, 10, etc cow tokens before they can win the game.

Herd Mentality FAQs

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

• 160 Question Cards
• 52 Cow Tokens (38 One Point Cows, 14 Three Point Cows)
• 2 Answer Pads
• Pink Cow
• Paddock
• Instructions
• Big Potato Games Sticker

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Year: 2020 | Publisher: Big Potato Games | Designer: Rich Coombes, Dan Penn | Artist: Robin Sowden García

Genres: Party

Ages: 10+ | Number of Players: 4-20 | Length of Game: 20-30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate

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For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.