The object is to become a successful touring musician, although after playing for twenty minutes everyone realizes the actual object is to get home with roughly the same amount of money, equipment and psychological stability you started with.

The board is a map made up of bars, theatres, festivals, church basements, house concerts, border crossings, motels and enormous stretches of highway.

Everyone begins with a musician, an instrument, $500 and an unreasonable degree of optimism. There is no conventional finish line. You must complete a twelve-show tour and return home. The player with the most Money, Audience and Sanity remaining wins.

Each turn you roll the dice and travel toward the next engagement. Landing on certain spaces requires drawing a Card: For Instance i) Promoter forgot you were coming. ii) Lose $200. iii) Audience member buys every CD because your song reminded her of her late husband. Gain $180 and two Sanity points. Or: Piano has not been tuned since Mulroney was Prime Minister. Lose one Sanity point unless you possess the Emergency Piano Tuner card.

There are also Gig Cards. Before every performance you draw one: i) Sold Out, ii) Twenty-three People, iii) Audience Includes Three Drunk Men Discussing Hockey, iv) Opening Act Plays Seventy Minutes, v) Standing Ovation, or [especially feared] vi) Great Show, Nobody Buys Anything.

Money isn’t the only currency. You accumulate Stories. Bad experiences often cost money or Sanity but earn Story points. Your car breaks down outside Wawa: terrible financially, excellent story. You sleep in a promoter’s basement beside an enormous fish-tank containing one piranha: lose two Sanity, gain three Stories. You play a perfect concert in a comfortable theatre and receive the agreed fee: financially excellent, zero Story points. This creates the central philosophical problem of the game: the worse your tour becomes, the better your eventual memoir gets.

There is also a pile called Musician Decisions. These don’t depend on dice. The player has to choose. You have a day off. Drive six hours toward tomorrow’s show, or stay in the motel and rest? The promoter offers another $200 if you play an extra set. A musician you’ve always admired asks you to sit in, but you have to drive 500 kilometres tomorrow morning.

Every musician receives a secret Condition Card at the beginning: Insomnia, Bad Back, Needs Applause, Cannot Pass a Used Record Store, Falls in Love Easily, Vegetarian in Northern Ontario, Believes Every Show Could Change His Life. These make certain spaces more dangerous.

And there is one square everyone fears:

THE BORDER.

You must draw a card and answer the question exactly as written. Nothing good comes from explaining yourself.

The game becomes increasingly absurd. Players acquire merchandise, lose chargers, find better hotels, receive parking tickets, gain fans, lose band members and discover that the venue advertising a “beautiful grand piano” actually means an electronic keyboard stored underneath a foosball table.

The final space is HOME. When you reach it, you count everything. Money matters. Audience matters. Sanity matters. Stories matter. Then comes the final card:

YOU HAVE BEEN HOME FOR THREE DAYS. SOMEONE OFFERS YOU TWELVE SHOWS IN THE MARITIMES.

If you say no, you keep your score.

If you say yes, you win.