That's all, apologize for my poor English, and I hope I have made myself clear.

Cascades

a Decktet solitaire game. (DRAFT)

Overview

Cascades is a Decktet solitaire game where the player progresses through the deck three cards at a time attempting to legally play all the cards into three tiers. The game ends when all cards are played, or none of the remaining cards are able to be played.

This game is an adaptation of a solitair game using standard playing cards. Playing with The Decktet changes the game a lot and adds many more interesting decisions while playing than the original game.

Setup

Cascades can be played with the standard Decktet or optionally with all the pawns and courts. The only card not used is The Excuse.

Shuffle the cards and deal in a verticle column along the left side of the playing area three piles of three cards each, all face down. These are the draw piles. The remaining cards will be kept in a the deck to be turned over three at a time during play.

Game Play

To begin play turn over the top three cards of the deck and play the top card just to the right of the top draw pile. This forms the beginning of the first tier. Then continue to play from the deck to any tier according to the rules below. Work through the deck three cards at a time.

After the first pass through the deck turn over the top card in the top draw pile. You may play the cards one by one from this pile in the same way that cars were played from the deck. After the second pass through the deck play from the middle draw pile and likewise begin playing from the bottom draw pile after the third pass through the deck. Once a draw pile is free to be played the top card may be played at anytime.

Cards are played at the right end of each tier. To play a card on the end at least one suit on the card to be played must match the suit of the card that is already on the end.

For the ranked cards only one of each rank is allowed in a tier. To play a card on the middle or bottom tier that card must already be played in the tier above.

Aces and Crowns

Aces and Crowns must also follow suit and there must be an ace in the tier above to play one in a lower tier. Because there are six they can be played two to a tier. No tier may have more than two aces or two crowns played. To play a second ace or crown on a lower tier, the tier directly above it must have two of the same card.

Note that since aces and crowns only have one suit they create a bottleneck of reduced play possbilities on the tier. Be careful when and how they are played.

Pawns and Courts

The pawns and courts are optional. Because they have three suits they are both easier to play and they open up the tier so there are more options for the next card to be played.

Because there are for of each the top tier allows two pawns and two courts to be played, but the second pawn or court can only be played on the top tier when the corresponding card has been played on the bottome tier. So the second pawn or court on the top tier is always the last one played.

End Game

The game ends in one of two ways. A winning game will end when all cards in the deck and in the draw piles are played somewhere in the three tiers. A game is lost when after at least trips through the deck there are no playable cards in the deck or on top of any of the draw piles.

I think it works great because it sets you back but there's still a chance to win and you can keep playing.

Thoughts?

Ace Trump was one of the first two games I invented for the Decktet, but I ultimately grew unhappy with it. The crosscutting suits made it very hard to tell how good your cards were, even ignoring trump. Knowing how good 8s or 9s are requires counting cards for almost every suit, which is just too much. If I lead a 9, for example, then there are two Crowns (one for each suit) that can beat it. An 8 can be topped by one or two 9s and two Crowns.

Moreover, it is possible for there to be ties. If someone leads a number card, two later players can follow suit with higher cards or the same rank - two Crowns, for example. So there had to be a rule for resolving ties, and I never found an elegant solution.

Recently, I played the game Xactika, which inspired this possibility: When a player leads a card, they pick one of its suits. Subsequent players must follow that specific suit if they can. The high card that follows suit wins (assuming no trumps are played). Trumps work as per Ace Trump, so it may still be possible to follow suit and trump in.

This makes 8s and 9s better. If I play a 9 (the Diplomat, say) I can call Moons and so there is only one Crown that can play over it.

This eliminates ties. Only one card at each rank can follow suit. (Except if Pawns or Courts are included, but I don't mind if the extended deck requires new rules.)

Any feedback would be welcome.

See: Fifth Challenge

That list of spells was done with no prior testing, and I haven't played more than a couple of times, so problems are bound to be found…

We used the original twenty four spells on this page, in the way they are said to be used the post below that.

Any time you cast a spell, you spend the runes on the card by discarding said card. If that means that some runes go to waste, then they go to waste.

To decide the order of turns, when each player plays their card (To get runes.), the player who played the highest numbered card goes first. Pawns were the same as two, aces were worth one, and crowns were worth 11. If someone played the excuse, then they would go first that turn. Play would then proceed in a clockwise motion.

The excuse worked as a special rune. You could use it in any spell to double the strength of said spell (As if you cast it twice.).

The game actually worked out very well. The only problem we found is that one two occasions out of the four games we played, one player would only draw one or two knots the whole game. And because only five spells can be cast without knots, they were knocked out extremely early on. In general though, we thought it was fun and we played it several times.

I just realized that we were playing this wrong. We played the "sum+3" as a limit for a challenge even if a player played the challenge on themself.

I have to rewrite the rules and be more clear :D I wrote them down in a hurry… not so good :)

Even so, I am not sure that it stops the vicious Crown— When she played the Crown of Leaves on me in our game, I had already completed a Crown challenge. So it wasn't that I hadn't completed challenges. It was that those challenges didn't help me much in Leaves. Since she had a bunch of the Leaves in front of her as completed challenges, there weren't that many left in the deck for me to draw.

He he, completing a crown too soon is also dangerous :) I'm not sure if it was your case, but I've found myself in a position where I completed a crown too soon (and after all it only gives one bonus) and this gave my gf the chance of putting another one in front of me which I had no chance to complete :) It also looks like she did play well there, limiting your leaves and then playing that crown…

Well, I want to try the possibility of removing elimination from the game, so if that works, you can always try the challenge, die, and start with a 1 card hand and a penalty in points. This is quite harsh though…

Maybe, another possibility could be to allow swapping a challenge with a card from your hand that matches either the number, a suit or both suits… I have to look at the distribution of cards, and see what option is best…

I was thinking of removing the "+3" in the rules, so you can only place a card on them as big as the sum of the cards in front of them.

I just realized that we were playing this wrong. We played the "sum+3" as a limit for a challenge even if a player played the challenge on themself.

Even so, I am not sure that it stops the vicious Crown— When she played the Crown of Leaves on me in our game, I had already completed a Crown challenge. So it wasn't that I hadn't completed challenges. It was that those challenges didn't help me much in Leaves. Since she had a bunch of the Leaves in front of her as completed challenges, there weren't that many left in the deck for me to draw.

What if there were a way to escape a challenge without attempting it, possibly at some cost? Or to swap challenges with another player?

After a few plays the other day, I was starting to think that the limit I placed on the number for a challenge you place on your opponent was to big. I was thinking of removing the "+3" in the rules, so you can only place a card on them as big as the sum of the cards in front of them. That way, the king is not as devastating…

About the hit points rule, I'm not sure, It is pretty definitive and does mean you've got to think well about the risk involved in each roll, and if playing with more than 2 players means a player is out of the game, but the game is pretty short too, so it doesn't seem that bad… Anyway, I'll give it a try and at the least, it could be a variant… but I think it'd be better if the player after losing all the cards to the fight, still gets to draw a card at the end of the turn, otherwise he can't do anything for 2 turns after (one where he doesn't have any cards, and then one where he does have one card, but can't play it). Maybe instead of discarding the challenge, they have to place it face down and will count as zero points towards victory, but will still count as a challenge for the 5 challenge limit to end the game…

Edit: Now that I think about it, this could create a situation where if you're ahead and your opponent plays a king on you, you know that if you try the challenge, no matter if you win or lose the challenge, you still win the game… That doesn't seem so right… Another solution is to place if face down in front of you and it has some negative value (-1 or -2) but it doesn't count as one of the 5 challenges to end the game… This seems like a better solution…

BTW, you're right that the rule on discards can be read that way, but my intention was to let players replace their whole hand. Will have to think about the wording :)

I had a good lead in the first game. I had completed four challenges for a total of 25 points. The she played the Crown of Leaves on me as a challenge, and it was the End. (Ha!) Since I had few Leaves in my challenge pile, I had to build up a good hand before I could attempt it. Even then, I needed a good roll. I had two shots at it and failed.

While I was churning through cards in an attempt to find Leaves, she was looking for challenges big enough that she could outscore me. If I had been more strategic, I would have played small challenges on her so that she would have completed her fifth challenge without matching my score.

In the first game, she had rolled several 1s. In the second, mindful of her bad luck, she was very cautious and only attempted challenges when she knew should could beat them. Taking some chances, I rolled my way through five challenges and so to victory.

She was frustrated by the amount of luck involved, but maybe it's that kind of game.

I was struck by how powerful it could be to play a challenge on your opponent. Once they have completed a couple of challenges, you can play a Crown on them. If you have a Crown that doesn't match the challenges they've completed, there is very little they can do about it. If they make an attempt and roll poorly— even with a good hand— it might kill them.

If these seem like problems, both concerns might be addressed by lessening the penalty for running out of cards. Perhaps: When a player loses all their cards facing a challenge, they discard the uncompleted challenge in front of them and their turn ends immediately; they don't draw another card until next turn.

This will not stop the alternate strategy of throwing low point challenges in front of your opponent once you have a lead. I would need to play it more to know if that's really a problem. If so, maybe a bonus for the player who completes five challenges?

Instead of playing a card, the player may discard as many cards as they want and draw as many as they discarded. … if at any point a player has zero cards in their hand, they're out of the game.

We played so that you could discard all of your cards and draw replacements, but maybe this creates a moment at which you have zero cards. Is the "cards as hit points" rule meant to require you to keep one when discarding?

Thoughts, Ideas, Suggestions? Results from play testing? What do you all think? It could probably use a better name to, but I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

Edit: Changed the rules to be correct. Sorry I didn't realize I could edit my posts before I posted the other two. Ignore them.

I'm still playtesting and changing the game as I go along, but the basics so far (if anyone wants to try it) are these. Please, if you read the rules or try the game out, let me know how it went and any suggestions you might have… Thanks in advance :)

Note: This is just a quick write up of the rules. I hope to make them clearer as the game gets finished and I create a wiki page for it…

Material: Extended decktet, 1d6

Setup:

Each player takes an ace (randomly) and places it in front of him/her. This is the character's basic power. The rest of the aces will not be used.

Shuffle the decktet (with pawns and excuse) and deal 5 cards to each player.

Gameplay:

On their turn, a player may optionally play a card (see challenges below) and also may attempt to complete a challenge (before or after playing the card). Instead of playing a card, the player may discard as many cards as they want and draw as many as they discarded. Then, at the end of their turn, if they have less than 5 cards, they draw one card.

Cards represent amongs other things, life, so if at any point a player has zero cards in their hand, they're out of the game.

The goal of the game is to complete 5 challenges. When a player manages to complete 5 challenges the game is over and points are tallied.

Cards can be either used to place a challenge on another player (including oneself) or as extra effort used to complete a challenge. If a challenge is attempted but the player fails, cards will also be discarded as damage is received.

A challenge card is a numbered card of a crown card (value 10). The value of the card represents how hard the challenge is, and the suit/s what type of challenge. Challenge cards are played face up next to the player's power card or last completed challenge but side wise (to mean an uncompleted challenge). When completed, it's turned straight up.

When playing a challenge on another player, the value of the challenge card cannot exceed the sum of all the cards in front of that player plus 3. So on a starting player, the maximum challenge can be of value 4.

If a player already has an uncompleted challenge in front of him/her, no more can be placed on that player until it is completed.

When a player attempts to complete a challenge (an optional action) they roll the die and sum the number of suits from their own power card and any completed challenge in front of them that match suits from the attempted challenge card. This way, each card can potentially provide a bonus of 2 points maximum.

If the total number equals or exceeds the number on the attempted challenge card, it is completed and its card turned upright (to be used as power for future challenges). If the number is less than the value of the challenge card, the player must pay using suits from their own hand. If they can reach the target number by using suits from their own card matching any of the suits in the challenge card, the challenge is completed too (and those cards used are discarded, reducing the size of the player hand). The player completes the challenge but is damaged in the process.

Note that 3 suits of that don't match the suits on the challenge card can be used as one of the necessary suit. These suits can be on one card or spread over more than once. Any left overs (if you discard 2 cards for 4 suits) are lost.

If the player can't even complete the challenge this way (or doesn't want to) then they must discard a number of cards equal to the difference between the total number they got (the die roll plus any suits used from their hand) and the target number. As some cards may have two matching suits, it's better to use those cards for the suits before applying damage…

When a player completes 5 challenges (they have 6 cards upright in front of them) the game is over. Each player totals the scores for the challenges they managed to complete and the winner is the player with the biggest score. Crowns score 12 points because having only one suit makes them harder than regular number cards.

Maybe I should include some bonus points for the first player, but I'm not sure…

Extended Decktet

Pawns are special because they can't be used as challenges, only as effort cards when attempting a challenge.

When the excuse is drawn, the discard pile and the remaining draw pile are shuffled together and a new draw pile is created.