In ancient Rome, tribunes were highly esteemed individuals elected by the people to represent them politically and militarily. In Tribune, players take on the role of a powerful and ambitious patrician family. By applying influence and manipulating controls over the various factions, they attempt to pave their way to victory in order to attain the high office of the tribune.

In more detail, Tribune is a combination of worker placement and set collection. Each round, players take turns positioning their followers on the board to collect cards, achieve objectives, and attempt to take over factions. To gain control of a faction and use its benefits, you must play a set of at least two cards from that specific group. You remain in command of that faction until an opponent plays another set of this faction that either contains more cards or has a higher sum of values.

As soon as a player meets the required number of objectives on the victory condition card selected at the start of the game (with that card being dependent on the number of players), that player wins the game. Alternatively, you can forgo the use of a condition card and play with a point-value option; in this variant, the game ends when a player has collected a certain number of faction markers, and whoever has the most points at this time — based on the completion of various achievements — wins.

This edition of Tribune includes the Tribune: Primus Inter Pares base game and Tribune Expansion while featuring new mechanisms and elements from designer Karl-Heinz Schmiel.