If you read Part 1 (link) and Part 2 (link), you already know you’re not supposed to kill all the Characters, and you have a pretty good idea about how to avoid it.

Today we’re going to take a look at what Dead Guy tokens are, and what they have to do with game balance.

A Dead Guy token is what you use when a Toady or Henchman is out of Mustard, because Bleedin’ Out is too much hassle.

When a Toady or Henchman gets to 0 Mustard, you give ‘em a Dead Guy token to show they’re not long for this world. In the Roundup phase you flip all the Dead Guy tokens Corpse side up and take dead Bad Guys off the table. Easy peasy.

You also use Dead Guy tokens to keep track of how many Bad Guys the Characters have murder-faced during the game, and that’s a big part of game balance.

The Governor should choose how many Dead Guy tokens to use during a game Before We Start. Some games will say It’s Over Now when the Governor is out of Dead Guy tokens, and that means the game is over when the Governor puts his last Dead Guy token on the table.

But here’s the important bit: you can always choose to end a game when you are out of Dead Guy tokens. In fact, if you run out of Dead Guy tokens, it’s usually a good time to call it quits on a game. You can keep a game going after you run out of Dead Guy tokens, of course, but if you do, it’s nice to give the Characters a little extra Learnin’ for kicking epic shit!

So how many Dead Guy tokens should you use?

You’ll notice that the Exiles Starter Set comes with 4 Characters and 10 Dead Guy tokens. That’s because 2-3 Dead Guy tokens per Character is a good number for most games. If the Characters are badasses, you may want to bump up the Dead Guy tokens a bit, but you can also flip your Bad Guy Cards Badass side up instead, and we’ll tell you more about that next time.