Rocky Mountain Man

About this board game

Rocky Mountain Man is a 1–2-player exploration game set in the American West around 1825, with sessions lasting up to 720 minutes. Players lead crews of Mountain Men into the Rocky Mountains, exploring new hexes and recording their discoveries in crayon.

Each crew combines different skills and equipment, and success depends on managing them carefully. During play, players deal with trapping, hunting, movement, dangers, exploration, and encounters as they push farther into unexplored territory.

• Explore new hexes and draw discoveries in crayon.
• Manage a crew with varied skills and equipment.
• Seek beaver pelts, exploration opportunities, discoveries, and valuable routes.
• Find routes to the Great Salt Lake and map the Colorado River.

The game can be played solitaire or against another player. In a two-player game, both players follow a kind of simultaneous solitaire format: each may proceed at their own pace, even working through different phases or completing more turns than the other.

Players can choose timed sessions, goal-based play, or a campaign. A game ends when the time limit is reached, a goal is achieved, the Trading Post is built in a campaign, or all crews have been killed. In two-player games, Victory Points determine the winner; in solitaire play, achieving a goal provides victory.

Based on the Source of the Nile game system, Rocky Mountain Man retains the general pattern of that 1978 game while adjusting some rules and adding others. Familiarity may help, but previous players should not assume every rule works exactly the same way.