# Paper Tales

Paper Tales is a board game for 2–5 players. It plays in 30 minutes and is meant for ages 12 and up. Ludoya players call it best with 4. It is rated 7 out of 10 by 42 Ludoya reviewers. The cheapest copy in stock is $33.42 (United States).

- **Players:** 2–5 (best with 4)
- **Playing time:** 30 minutes
- **Minimum age:** 12+
- **Complexity:** 2.2 out of 5
- **Year published:** 2017
- **Categories:** Fantasy, Card Game
- **Mechanics:** End Game Bonuses, Secret Unit Deployment, Closed Drafting, Hand Management, Simultaneous Action Selection
- **Ludoya rating:** 7 out of 10, from 42 reviews
- **Owned by:** 86 Ludoya players
- **Plays logged on Ludoya:** 215
- **Unique players:** 288

**Designers:** Masato Uesugi

**Artists:** Christine Alcouffe

## Where to buy in United States

| Shop | Price | Link |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Gamers Guild AZ | 33.42 $ | https://gamersguildaz.com/products/paper-tales |
| Mono de Juegos | 28 € | https://www.monodejuegos.shop/juego-de-mesa/reinos-de-papel/ |
| Spelexperten | 449 kr | https://www.spelexperten.com/sallskapsspel/kortspel/paper-tales.html |
| Fantasiapelit | 46.7 € | https://www.fantasiapelit.com/index.php?main=ai&kat=single&mista=indeksi&etsittava=_182805 |
| Nexus | 7495 kr | https://nexus.is/vara/paper-tales/ |

## Expansions

- [Paper Tales: Beyond the Gates](https://www.ludoya.com/games/paper-tales-beyond-the-gates)
- [Paper Tales: Ce qui forge les légendes](https://www.ludoya.com/games/paper-tales-ce-qui-forge-les-legendes)

## Similar games

- [Paper Tales : Édition intégrale](https://www.ludoya.com/games/paper-tales-lintegrale)
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- [Bunny Kingdom](https://www.ludoya.com/games/bunny-kingdom)
- [Spectacular](https://www.ludoya.com/games/spectacular)
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## Rules questions

### Do I have to pay the deployment cost for Units every turn, or only when I first play them?

You pay a Unit's cost when you reveal it during the Deployment phase; Units already in play never have to be repaid. (See page 5.)

### How does card passing during Recruitment work — how many cards do I get/keep and which direction do we pass?

Each player is dealt 5 cards, keeps one and passes the rest, repeating until everyone has a new hand of 5; the passing direction changes by turn (left on turns 1 and 3, right on turns 2 and 4). (See page 4.)

### When a unit has a one‑time reveal ability, when does it trigger and can I use that gold immediately to pay for other units?

A one‑time reveal ability triggers as soon as the Unit is revealed in Deployment, and any Gold earned (e.g. from Monkey) can be used immediately to pay deployment costs. (See pages 5 and 8.)

### How exactly do Wars work — how is strength calculated and what counts as a win or tie?

Add the shield (strength) values of Units in your Front (stars indicate modifiers), then compare your total separately to each neighbour; having equal or greater strength wins that War (ties mean both players win) and each War won scores 3 Legend Points. (See page 5.)

### When I construct or upgrade a Building, are resource costs consumed and how do I calculate Gold land cost?

Resource production is not spent — you only need the required resources to be produced by cards in your Kingdom; when constructing a new Building you also pay 2 Gold per Building you already own as Land cost, and upgrading from level 1 to 2 has no Land cost (only the level‑2 resource requirement). (See page 6.)

### When do Units die from aging, and when do I get the 5th Unit spot from level‑2 Buildings?

During the Aging phase any Unit that already has one or more Age tokens is discarded, then you add one Age token to every surviving Unit; any player with at least one level‑2 Building immediately gains the 5th Front spot for deployments. (See page 7.)

## Links

- [This page](https://www.ludoya.com/games/paper-tales)
- [Paper Tales in the Ludoya app](https://app.ludoya.com/g/paper-tales)
- [BoardGameGeek entry](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/217861)

_Data from Ludoya, updated 2026-09-19. Ratings, ownership and play counts are Ludoya's own._