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.

As it is explained on the page, it's easy to create sections for other languages, so if anyone is translating games, be sure to add them to the wiki too, and to that page. Of course, feel free to ask any questions (here on the forum or by private message).

Edit: I've renamed the section to Pages in other languages because it should also include original content created in languages other than English. There is already one example of such a game: Revelacion

Of course, the obvious would be a picture of the card, maybe a list of back-links to all the pages that link to them, etc…

A new rank card was introduced to the Extended Deck. This optional Courts rank is positioned between the Pawns and the Crowns and is composed of four cards with three suits each (just like the Pawns). The combinations of suits on these cards are the ones that don't appear on the regular deck.

These cards have not been released freely, so they're not really available at the moment unless you buy a decktet from P.D. Magnus (the designer).

More information from from P.D. Magnus can be found here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/390220

Another possible change is to make the Comments for each game page hidden by default. What do you all think of that one? It makes the game page look cleaner, but at the same time offers no indication of how many comments (if any) are there on that page, which bothers me a bit. Anyway, it's also true that new comments for games also appear at the forums and at the recent posts page and RSS feed, so it might not make much difference in usability…

Thoughts?

Solo Hex is a solitaire game I created a few weeks ago. As such, it needs play testing. you can find it in the all games list.

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.

Here's the link: http://decktet.wikidot.com/local--files/intro/decktet-vassal (from the wiki itself).

Right now it has 2 player sides (red and green) with their own hidden player hands plus the deck on the table with a discard pile.

I guess it's possible to save different setups for different games, but right now there are none. Still, it's not that hard to create a setup from scratch, as you can select cards from the deck manually, or shuffle and deal randomly.

I'm sure there are vassal features I've missed, and other things that could be used too, so please, feel free to comment, suggest, or post any tips or ideas.

-Jorge

I like how the game is played only by holding the cards. Sometimes it's not easy, although it's never really a problem…

From now on, posts made to threads in individual wiki pages should appear on the RSS feed, so no content is missed by users that use this feature…

She urges people with Tarot-ish interests to come and contribute to the wiki. Should we add an extra forum for interpretive discussion, since all the existing forums are either general or specifically about games?

As an aside: This prompted me to clean up the fortunes page that Jens started. I've added links to page categories card: and suit:, because it made sense structurally.

The way resources are produced, the higher cards have much better chances of producing than the lower ones, but the lower ones are much easier to place on the board, so our game saw many turns where nothing was produced. I can see how placing deeds for high cards can be useful because you at least get one resource for the card. Also, it's better to have your resources as cards on the board where they're not affected by taxation (Twice in the game I had to pay 4+ resources to the taxman just when I was about to use them to play a higher card!). In this game I was the only one to place a deed, but I think it was worth it in the end, as it won me the district at the end of the game.

Also, it seems that it's easy to score the same number of VPs, as there are just four districts. Our game was decided by the total ranks of the cards as my gf managed to steal a district from me on the last turn. But in the end I totaled 40 vs. her 37. It was pretty close though.

So we both liked the game and will be playing it again. I'm not sure, but maybe I'd like to see cards on the table producing more, as it seems most of the resources (especially at the beginning and middle of the game) come from lucky 10 rolls and selling cards. I'm thinking different ways to do that, maybe if the highest dice doesn't produce anything, let the other die produce, or maybe just rolling one die (did you try this? if so, how did it go?). Of course, if the cards on the table produce more, players will play more cards and sell less cards, so the game will probably end up being shorter…

Anyway, I think it's a good game and these are just random thoughts :D we'll try the game as it is some more times before trying any changes…

I have played it for a while, and it may be too easy as it stands. However, I might just have gotten lucky.

The scoring could probably be more elegant. Any suggestions along that line are welcome.

Unfortunately, it requires lots of parts in addition to the Decktet: a six-sided die, two ten-siders, and lots of tokens. I worry that this might be too much for a Decktet game.

• Rules at the Decktet website

Although the game is for two players and is clearly inspired by Settlers of Catan, it is not much like the two-player Settlers Card Game. If anything, it's a port of the original Settlers.

The rules are different in several nice respects, though: Rather than continuing until one player gets a target number of victory points, the game ends after the second time through the deck— this can definitely make the endgame a race. If you can't build anything on your turn, you sell one of the cards from your hand— so you never have turns in which you just can't do anything.

I haven't created a wiki page for it yet, but I thought I'd post about it.

EDIT: OK, we changed the name of the game. It had been called Sovereign Power, which seemed a bit misleading.

At Spielbany, the upstate New York playtesting event, I got Chicane out on the table for several hands.

Chicane is a trick-taking game. In a given hand, each number card is treated as having only one suit: either the top or bottom suit on the card. Players bid for the right to decide whether the hand will be top or bottom.

We played several four-player hands, and feedback led us to try out two small changes to the rules.

First, a player must announce whether they want cards to be their top suit or bottom suit when they bid (rather than waiting to announce only if they win the bidding). Top bids are one step higher than a bottom bid at the same number of tricks. For example, '3 top' can be bid over '3 bottom.'

With two bids possible for each number of tricks, there was more space to inch up. This loosened up bidding.

Second, the high bidder must make their bid exactly in order to score points. (If they make their bid, the high bidder scores their bid plus 3 bonus points. Other players just score 1 per trick they won.)

This discourages a player with a power hand to bid just the number of tricks they can definitely take but then to plow ahead and take a bunch more. A player who wants control over top or bottom, wants to lead the first trick, and wants a shot at the 3 bonus points needs to play more carefully. If they bid and take their guaranteed tricks, they then need to wriggle out of taking any more.

Alternately, a player with a power hand can let somebody else win the bid and then try to take as many tricks as possible. But they don't get first lead and don't get bonus points. (This fits in with the first change. The player who decides not to go after the bid will do so knowing in advance whether the hand will be 'top' or 'bottom'.)

This means there are two viable approaches, depending on your cards and your temperament: Bid precisely and go after the bonus. Let someone else bid but try to win a lot of tricks.

These small changes are going to be incorporated into the game.

We played about half a dozen four-player hands. Then I sat out and watched several three-player hands. It was satisfying that people were ready to continue playing. But it was Spielbany, so we moved on to playtesting something else.

I only have one remaining concern about the game: With more tricks in the three-player game, the trick-winning strategy may be stronger than the bid-and-duck-tricks strategy. Perhaps the bonus for making a bid should be 4 points rather than 3. This has some numerical sense, since +3 with 9 tricks in four-player would change to +4 with 12 tricks in three-player. I need to play more before deciding. Maybe it's OK if the three-player game has a slightly different feel to it.

I'll have playtest rules out soon :-)

Today I had the idea of playing with just the top of the two suits on number cards. This would make it possible to exploit a short or long suit. It would still have some of the weird structure of the Decktet, because there would be different numbers of each suit: 10 moons, 7 suns, 7 waves, 5 leaves, 5 wyrms, and 2 knots. (Only the ace and crown of knots would count as knots, since the knot suit symbol is always printed second when it appears.)

Still, this ignores the second suit entirely. So here was my second idea: After looking at their hands, players bid. The high bidder gets to declare TOP or BOTTOM. If TOP, then cards count as having their upper suit symbol for the duration of the hand. If BOTTOM, their lower suit symbol.

The highest bidder leads. Other player must follow the lead if they can. There is no trump, so high card in suit wins.

The high bidder only gets points if they make their bid, other players score regardless: One point per trick.

Given the distribution for TOP, you'd want to call it if you had a lot of moons, suns, or waves. The distribution for BOTTOM is mirror image: 2 moons, 5 suns, 5 waves, 7 leaves, 7 wyrms, and 10 knots. So you'd want it if you had long suits in knots, wyrms, or waves.

Here are the number cards assigned to each suit, TOP:
moons: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
suns: 2,3,5,6,7
waves: 2,4,7,8,9
leaves: 3,6,9
wyrms: 4,5,8
knots: -

BOTTOM:
moons: -
suns: 4,8,9
waves: 3,5,6
leaves: 2,4,5,7,8
wyrms: 2,3,6,7,9
knots: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Adding pawns, leave out the Watchman. Pawns TOP would be a moon, a sun, and a wave; BOTTOM would be a leaf, a knot, and a wyrm.

This also avoids the complication that arises in Ace Trump, when two players follow suit with the same rank. It can't happen in this game.

I haven't tried this yet, but I guess it would be less random and more like a trick-taking game. Thoughts?

Fortune Teller:

Suns Suit:

I've posted the preliminary rules for a game I'm working on based on the concept from "Waving Hands" the classic game of wizard duels.

I've basically simplified the spell system so spell effects are easy to remember, and after a few games players shouldn't even need the small 3x3 table of spells.

I've tired to keep the spells that would make for nice interaction between players, with a balanced number of offensive and defensive spells. Also, offensive spells can usually be countered in different ways, so players have to choose when and how to attack and how to best defend against the possible attacks of their opponents.

Any feedback is welcomed, and feel free to post commnts here or in the game's page.

We did play with the Counter Spell rule, and the spell came up once. It may be too hard to cast… will have to play some more and see.

I've added the Excuse so that when it comes up the discard pile and the draw deck are shuffled into a new draw deck. I did this to reduce the possibility of running out of one or more suits during play.

Overall we did enjoy the game. I like the fact that the spell sequence slowly changes over time, giving a player at a moment in time a specific potential that keeps changing. This way, you usually have time to react to their potential (casting resist heat if they have many suns, etc…).

I decided to put this in the wiki, rather than on my homepage, because this isn't a finished list. There may be features that I've left out, and there are certainly ways to use these features that I haven't listed. I suspect that even some of the games already designed exploit these in ways I don't appreciate.

As an aside: Even though new games don't need to exploit every feature of the Decktet, it is a problem if some feature frustrates the game. The current page does not have any discussion of this.

Gestures become Suits (let's call them Runes, for example). Instead of placing one gesture per hand, players would lay down cards in sequence horizontally and each suit in a card would be a "gesture" from a hand. This way, two lines of suits are made, and the each form one sequence for spells.

As you're more limited in what suits you can use (in Waving Hands you can freely choose each gesture), spells would have to be shorter too. Example of spells could be Wyvern, Sun, Sun for a Fireball spell, or Wyvern, Wave, Wave for an Ice bolt. I've made a small table with some spells, using the meaning of each suit as a guideline for combining them in to each spell.

Another idea I had is that the players play the cards on the table making a 2-d grid of cards as they play. When a player places a card so that when a sequence is completed (maybe restricting spells to horizontal from left to right and vertical from top to bottom) the spell is released. This way players have to take advantage of the growing board and can hinder each other efforts.

Of course, this would dramatically change the game…

Thoughts?

So far I've worked out a way to generate a timeline of the story, with the location of each scene, and choose the characters to play. Epic isn't a complete game yet by any means, but I've got some more ideas that I need to bring into focus.

• Recent Wiki Changes - Will list all the changes to the wiki, just as the Recent Changes does.
• Recent Forum Posts - Will list all the new forum posts, including comments posted on individual pages, just as the Recent Posts does.

This way, feedback can be offered right on the game page, as well as discussions about each game. Each comment posted also appears at the Recent Posts page.

Because someone else submitted it, Terrapin had an entry in the BGG database before it had been tested much. Last Friday, I finally got a big group to try it out. (I'll leave out the breaks for pizza eating, dessert, and whatnot. It's a session report, not surveillance.)

The seven of us began with Western Terrapin: Players get two private cards, then there's a betting round. The dealer turns up three shared cards, then there's a second betting round. Players may then request additional private cards until they are satisfied, then there's a third and final betting round.

Hands are scored using the Turtle Butt rules. Pairs and straights are worth points, but a hand that has one or more of every suit is worthless and cannot possibly win the hand.

Most players (5 of 7) enjoyed the game and thought it worked. Someone commented that it felt like a cross between Texas Hold'em and Blackjack. There is betting and a mix of shared and common cards (as in Hold'em) and the chance to push your luck and risk going bust (as in Blackjack). I think the gameplay had a good rhythm to it.

One player was especially frustrated and didn't enjoy Western. (The also was getting terrible cards, for whatever it's worth.)

After about 14 hands of Western, we switched to Provincial Terrapin. The rules call for each player to get 5 private cards. The dealer decides on a stake and pays it to the pot. Subsequent players may either fold, pay the stake and draw a card, play the stake and discard a card, or pay twice the stake to call and end the hand. Hands are scored in the same way as Western.

We immediately encountered a problem. With 7 players, there was only one card left as a draw pile. Our first thought was to play with a double deck. We tried this, but decided after a few hand that it really wasn't working.

We then tried it with a number of face-up shared cards, plus cards private to each player. We started with three shared plus two private cards. The problem was that three private cards could easily having most of the suits, meaning that just one wrong suit in among your private cards could bust your hand. So we changed to two shared plus three private cards.

We played half a dozen hands this way. The two players who had not enjoyed Western liked it, but something was lacking. It almost worked, but not quite. The biggest problem, I think, that the game can end before it even gets around to you (since a player can call by paying twice the stake on their turn). This also meant that the pot tended not to get as big in Provincial as it had in Western.

After Provincial, we tried two rounds of Liar's Terrapin, One player draws a hand and makes a claim about it, the next player can accept or challenge. A standard bluffing game structure. If a player loses a challenge, they're out of the round.

I had fun with this, but I was in the final three both rounds. Players who were eliminated early found it to be less fun.

We then played about half a dozen more hands of Provincial, and two players had to leave.

The five left were the ones who had liked Western, so we played several more hands of Western before calling it a night.

It was a fun evening. The playtest lessons for me: Western worked pretty well, and should be tried again as is. Provincial needs work. The liar's game is OK, but only for a round or two— perhaps just before eating, so players who drop out can wander off to get themselves a plate. (OK, so I mentioned a bit about the food.)

Game is listed to the right on my site at http://www.jkntech.com/

Thanks much,

J.

And additionally, if you roll an 1 and a 2, do you make a check for both items 1 and 2?

1. Do you place cards in the Tower and Resource pile in such a way that only the last card is visible, or are you allowed to see all cards that build the Tower and Resource piles ?
2. Is it allowed to turn over three more cards from the deck if the top most card of the draw pile could be placed either on a Resource pile or on the Tower ?
3. Is it allowed to move the highest card from the Tower to a Resource pile ? I.e. is the last card you placed on the Tower still available ?

Can someone give me an example of a SET ?

Thanks !