Trickster: A Reverse-Drafting Game? [Prototype A]

Miscellaneous Playing Cards

I like to design games from a deck of playing cards. They're a tried-and-true set of predictable probabilities with well-studied values for various combinations. Why ignore that deep body of knowledge? I figure if the game is nascent enough, it can't hurt to start from a well-established core and develop from there. So, without further ado, Trickster Prototype A, playable with a standard deck of playing cards.


TRICKSTER
The tricksters of ancient lore are meeting for a legendary competition of guile and deceit.


Designer's Blah Blah Blah
This game is designed as an experiment in "reverse drafting." It's basically the opposite of a game like 7 Wonders or Sushi Go, where players pass around hands of cards, collecting one from the hand at a time. Instead, players in this game are discarding cards to their hands, then passing hands to the next player. This allows for a simultaneous trick-taking game wherein only one trick is visible to each player at a time. The rules of "evasion-type" trick-taking games are otherwise pretty standard, with players trying to have the lowest score at the end of the game.


Goal
The goal is to have the lowest score after a series of rounds, one round per player. You score points by being forced to collect cards discarded by the other players, one point per card, with face cards counting as two, three or four points for jack, queen or king. You can shoot the moon, if you collect the most cards of a suit, thereby negating points scored by a particular suit.


Setup
  1. Remove jokers from the game.
  2. Deal a complete deck of cards evenly to each player face-up.
  3. If there are any extra cards, remove them from the game.
  4. Organize your cards in an orderly tableau in front of you.

How to Play
Each of the following steps is done by all players simultaneously.
  1. Each player will hold her left hand over her tableau.
  2. On a count of "3, 2, 1," each player will put her left hand down on a card of her choice.
  3. Each player will take her chosen card and add to her right hand.
  4. Each player passes her hand of cards to the player on her right.

Thereafter... You must follow suit. In other words, when you choose a card to add to your hand, it must be the same suit as the cards already in that hand.


Collecting Cards
There are two conditions in which you would be forced to collect cards.
  • If you cannot add a card to your hand because you cannot follow suit.
  • If you cause your hand to exceed a sum of ranks greater than 13. (Face cards do not count towards this sum.)
If any of these situations apply, you must first put the current hand face-down into your secret collection. Then use your chosen card to start a new hand.


End of Round
The round ends when all players have used their last card in their tableau. Players collect whatever cards they have left in their hand and tally their scores.

Score 1 point for each basic card in your collection. Score 2 points for each Jack, 3 for each Queen, 4 for each Queen.

Shoot the Moon: If you collected the most cards of a suit, you can ignore any points earned from that suit this round.


End of Game
When you have played one round per player, the game is over. The player with the lowest total score from all rounds wins!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5 Graphic Design and Typography Tips for your Card Game

Image
Chris Farrell of Illuminating Games just wrote a thorough critique of card games setting their body text to be so small that they cannot be read at arm's length, let alone across the table. Here's an excerpt, but the whole thing is worth a read for any would-be card game designers out there. (Myself included.) Break out your copy of the base set of Dominion, and look at the Chapel. This has a text box roughly 3.5cm by 4.5cm. It's got a single line of text. That line of text is 1 (one) millimeter high. 1mm! For me, it's only clearly readable at half an arm's length even in the bright light of day. (...) Compare this to a more sane game like Glory to Rome, where the font size is 2-3 times as large (text is 2mm high, keywords 3mm and usually highlighted). I can generally read Glory to Rome cards across the table, and can certainly see the important keywords. To heap insult upon injury, not only does Glory to Rome have far more legible text than Dominion it also has...
Read more

Low-High Dice Game

Image
A dice game inspired by the stock market (and playing lots of Martian Dice). Roll a bunch of dice and choose which sets to keep. Choose your strategy wisely! Stuff You Need Two-to-Six PLAYERS A PENCIL and PAPER to keep score Thirteen standard six-sided DICE How to Play The shortest player takes the first turn. On your turn, first roll all thirteen dice. Several dice will have matching results. These are called SETS. (A single die result is a set, too.) You must choose a set to keep. For example, your first roll results are 111124445555 . The sets are four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, and four 5 s. After keeping a set of dice, lock them up in a row. This is called the GOOD TRACK. For example,  you could keep the set of four 1 s, one 2 , three 4 s, or four 5 s . You decide to keep the four 1 s and line them up in your good track. After keeping a set, you may end your turn or re-roll the remaining unlocked dice. When you re-roll, immediately set aside any results tha...
Read more

One Thing to Avoid in Game Design

Image
When game designer Paul Peterson was interviewed for the upcoming Titans Series of games from Calliope Games, there was one segment at 1:55 that really caught my attention (emphasis mine): "A couple years ago I was teaching people how to play Guillotine and I hadn't played in a while. The first thing I did was say, 'The first thing you gonna do when you open your game is you look through this deck and you take this card.' I pulled out the Callous Guards card and threw it over my shoulder. Everybody laughed. I said, ' That's the biggest mistake I ever made as a game designer in my life.'" Oof. Those are strong words. What's the big deal? For context, the game Guillotine is all about collecting the heads of French nobles during the revolution. There is only one guillotine, with a line of nobles waiting for their grim fate. On your turn, you play action cards to change the order of the line, then take the Noble card from the front of the ...
Read more