In a large town in medieval China, several talented artisans – Masters in their own right – aspire to become recognized as Zong Shi: the Grand Master craftsman. You are one of these master artisans and together with your apprentice, you are competing with the other Masters to attain this elevated status in the town. To succeed, you'll have to impress the townspeople with your skills. How shall you do it? Will you acquire a specialist's mastery over certain material, or will you enlarge your workshop? Will you create a large number of smaller projects or will you build fewer, but greater, masterworks? That is for you to decide.

Zong Shi blends worker placement, resource management, project completion and special action cards. In each round, players take one action with their master or apprentice, then take one action with their other figure. The possible actions include beginning a project, paying a visit to the townspeople to donate resources in return for a special action, or obtain a scroll from the temple.

When a player completes his sixth project, players complete that round and one additional full round. Players tally points for completed projects, incomplete projects (which are penalized), number of townspeople visited, a full board of exchange tiles, completion of six projects and unused scrolls and material. The player with the most points wins.

Zong Shi is a game for 3-5 players (best with 5) and takes approximately an hour and 15 minutes to play.