A printable Caverna log lives or dies on the one record nobody keeps: what each player actually held when the twelfth round ended, because Caverna ends after round 12 and then final scoring adds up more than a dozen separate categories, and the winner is not the player ahead on animals but the player ahead after grain, tiles, unused spaces, missing animal types, and begging markers are all applied. Nobody at the table argues about the game they played; they argue about whether a missing donkey was charged, whether grain still sitting on a field was counted and rounded up, whether an empty forest space was penalized, and whether a begging marker taken during a hungry harvest was subtracted at all. The only evidence is the log: a line for each animal type, a line for grain and vegetables, a line for each tile and mine, a line for each penalty, or a single gold total that was written at the end and can be defended by nobody.
Animals are the first trap the sheet is built to catch, because they score twice over: once as points and once as a diversity penalty. Each farm animal — Sheep, Donkey, Wild boar, and Cattle — is worth 1 gold point, and each Dog is also worth 1 gold point, even though dogs are not farm animals. But at the end of the game a player should hold at least one of each of the four farm animal types, and loses 2 gold points for each type they do not have on their home board, and dogs do not count toward that requirement. A player who writes down "animals: 14" with no breakdown by type has written down a total nobody can re-add, because a herd of fourteen animals with no donkey in it is worth 2 points less than a herd of fourteen with all four types present, and a dog counted as a farm animal type hides a missing type entirely. The log therefore has a separate line for sheep, donkeys, wild boars, cattle, and dogs, plus a missing-type line beside them, so a zero on the donkey line shows up as a -2 before the totals are announced, not as a surprise after them.
Grain and crops are the second trap, because they are counted from two places and one of them is divided. Each vegetable is worth 1 gold point, counting tokens both in supply and still left on fields, and each ruby is worth 1 gold point, each dwarf is worth 1 gold point, and gold coins count at their face value. Grain is different: all grain tokens, both in supply and still left on fields, are added together and divided by 2, rounded up, so 9 grain is worth 5 gold points, not 4. A player who counts only the grain in their supply, or who rounds 9 grain down to 4, or who sweeps vegetables and grain into a single "crops" number, has mis-scored by exactly the margin these games are won by. The log therefore has separate lines for vegetables, grain tokens, and the grain division written out, so 9 grain shows as 5 points with the rounding visible, not as a guessed number.
Tiles, unused spaces, and begging markers are the third trap, and they are the one that decides games, because the tile points look fixed while the penalties are easy to forget once the board is being packed away. Furnishing tiles are worth the gold points printed on them, small pastures are worth 2 gold points, large pastures are worth 4, ore mines are worth 3, and ruby mines are worth 4. Against that, a player loses 1 gold point for each unused space on their home board — a space with no tile or stable on it, with the two pre-printed caverns counted as used — and loses 3 gold points for each begging marker they hold, while gold coins add their face value. A player who adds up the tiles and stops there, or who counts a pre-printed cavern as an unused space, or who simply forgets a begging marker taken three harvests ago, has overcounted by exactly the margin these games are won by. The log therefore has separate lines for pastures, mines, and furnishing tiles, plus unused-space and begging lines recorded before the totals are announced, and it records that a tie means multiple winners, so nobody invents a tiebreaker the rules do not have.
The worked tally is where the sheet earns its price, because it shows the exact arithmetic a buyer will have to defend at their own table. Player A finished with 12 points from animals (4 sheep, 3 donkeys, 2 wild boars, 2 cattle, and 1 dog), plus 6 from vegetables, plus 4 from grain (8 tokens divided by 2), plus 7 from rubies, plus 5 from dwarves, plus 4 from gold coins, plus 22 from tiles (a small pasture for 2, a large pasture for 4, an ore mine for 3, a ruby mine for 4, and furnishing tiles worth 9), minus 2 for 2 unused spaces, for 12 + 6 + 4 + 7 + 5 + 4 + 22 - 2 = 58. Player B finished with 14 points from animals (5 sheep, 0 donkeys, 3 wild boars, 4 cattle, and 2 dogs), plus 5 from vegetables, plus 5 from grain (9 tokens divided by 2, rounded up), plus 8 from rubies, plus 4 from dwarves, plus 8 from gold coins, plus 19 from tiles (two small pastures for 4, an ore mine for 3, a ruby mine for 4, and furnishing tiles worth 8), minus 1 for 1 unused space, minus 2 for the missing donkey type, minus 3 for 1 begging marker, for 14 + 5 + 5 + 8 + 4 + 8 + 19 - 1 - 2 - 3 = 57, so A wins by 1 despite B holding more animals and more gross points before penalties. The counterfactuals are printed beside the tally because they are the arguments the sheet prevents: if B's missing donkey is forgotten, B scores 59 and falsely wins a game actually lost by 1, because each missing farm animal type costs 2 points; if B's begging marker is forgotten, B scores 60 and falsely wins by 3, because each begging marker costs 3 points; and if A's 2 unused spaces are forgotten, A scores 60 and falsely wins by 3, because each unused space costs 1 point. Every one of those errors is a single line the log either records or does not.
That is the product: not a rules summary, but a scoring log a seller can print, a buyer can fill in after the twelfth round, and a table can trust when the winner is announced. The sheet lists each animal type on its own line with the missing-type penalty beside it, vegetables and grain with the grain division written out, rubies, dwarves, and gold coins, pastures, mines, and furnishing tiles with their printed values, and unused spaces and begging markers as separate penalty lines, so that the final total is the sum of lines anyone can re-add, and the game-end trigger is recorded alongside it in case anyone disputes when scoring stopped.
A buyer who has lost a game to a forgotten donkey penalty or a begging marker nobody subtracted will pay for a sheet that makes both visible before the totals are announced, and a seller who has watched that argument ruin a game night will buy the sheet that ends it. Sell the log, not the lesson: the buyer already knows how Caverna scores, and what they are missing is the record that proves it.
This log is a printable download for personal table use. It is not affiliated with the publisher or the designer, and it does not replace the rulebook: where the log and the rulebook disagree, the rulebook wins, and the sheet should be checked against the animals, grain, tiles, and markers actually in play before the game starts.
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