Card games

[Starling]

Spoiler: ...on motorcycles!

With that reference out of the way, this thread is to talk about anything and everything pertaining to card games, be they popular or obscure, as well as stuff like particular ways you may have played them and sharing experiences you've had with them.

To start off, every time my family gets together, a bunch of us play a particular card game. Since we only ever talked about in french, I'm not entirely sure what it's called in english. On top of that, we'd abbreviate it to TC (short for trou de cul) as the full name was considered to vulgar to use in the presence of my grandparents, who used to occasionally play as well. Judging by the name, I figured it's probably called jackass or something.

Spoiler: Rules of the game

The game is meant to be played by 4 people. While others might draw straws or something, in the games I've played, everyone is neutral for the first round and lets whoever has the 3 of clubs (sometimes spades) play first.

The goal is to be the first to empty your hand in order to be ranked the highest. The best way to get rid of your cards is to get to play first, allowing you to get rid of all the cards you wouldn't be able to play otherwise. This is done by being the last to play a card on a round, in which only a higher card can be played, single cards on singles, doubles on doubles, etc. In subsequent rounds, top rank gets the lowest player's 2 best cards in exchange for whatever 2 cards they want to give, usually their lowest. The same goes for the other 2 players.

Rankings also affect how many cards you start off with, as well as the order in which you play. If dealing and discarding played cards once everyone's had their turn is assigned to a particular player, it's usually the lowest unless they suck at shuffling.

The entire deck is distributed among all the players, with the higher ranked ones getting more than the bottom, in an effort to counterbalance the advantages and disadvantages a little.

The value of cards always places 3 as lowest, going up to king, followed by ace, 2 and then the joker. Depending on who I played with, the colorless joker was valued above the colored one, which could really screw someone over if they were counting on their joker to guarantee priority for the next round to end with a low card, such as 3 or 4. 2 can be played alone as a double, adding another for a triple and so on and can be paired with any other card (except maybe jokers) to form doubles, triples, etc.

The game also came up occasionally in highschool, where 2 or 3 decks would get shuffled together in an effort to include more than the intended number of players. While it worked well enough with spoons, the results with this game tended to get pretty insane, with stuff like 5 to 8 cards being played by a single person.

 

[Jason Tandro]

Oh jeez, now you've got me going. I love card games. I wish Gold Saucer in FF14 had some of the card games from FF13-2 because I would never leave.

So IRL, my favorite card game of them all is Texas Hold'em, followed very closely by Blackjack. I love games of deception and have a relatively decent poker face.

I've never heard of the game you mention in your post, but the rules seem reminiscent of Hearts or Spades. Hearts is pretty fun but I never got into the pairing fun of Spades. I prefer to only have to rely on my hand.

Rummy is always a fun and easy game to play around with the kids (not counting truly Kid Games like Go Fish and War!) Solitaire is also fun, and Egyptian Solitaire even moreso (if you haven't tried that one out, look up the rules, it's a lot of fun).

When we were kids we used to play Spit a lot, though I haven't played in a long time. That one was probably the most popular one that we spent hours around the table on the front porch playing while listening to our Fun Factory and Ace of Base cassette tapes.

In the manner of non-standard playing card games: Cards Against Humanity. This game is so fun and filthy and my friends and I even made our own in-joke filthy version which we used to play a lot.

There's Fluxx, which was a huge obsession for us around the 2011-2012 time period but we slowly lost interest in it.

Phase 10 is fun in medium sized groups.

 

[Kionae]

I'm more of a dominoes girl (LOVE Mexican Train)... but my favorite card game is probably Bullshit.

Gonna be trying out Exploding Kittens soon, too. It looks like fun.

 

[Joe]

I'm a big fan of texas hold'em poker, it's pretty much the only card game I'd bet money on. I used to play it during free periods at school with some friends which kind of became a regular thing.

As far as non-standard goes I play a lot of Hearthstone, if that counts, and have dabbled in MagicTheGathering before then. I love playing Cards Against Humanity though it's hard to get people together for it to use my physical deck.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Oh man I love card games.

My hands-down favourite is Bridge. It's such a bloodthirsty game, but also really social and I like the fact that you play with a partner and that you really to communicate with and understand each other - the meaning of the vids, the meaning of the leads, ducks, etc... I played Bridge for my college team - but my low point was when I was six down in three spades doubled. That was a humiliation.

I find poker so boring by comparison to bridge. I don't enjoy gambling; I like the mental challenge of figuring out where all the cards and outsmarting your opponents to make the contract.

My family plays a game called "Oh Hell" which also involves bidding for contracts, although in Oh Hell it's every man for himself. It works like this.

Dealer deals out thirteen cards. Dealer then decides what trumps is. (You can have No Trumps). Starting on the dealer's left, each player declares how many tricks they think they can win. The last person to declare is the dealer, but the total number of tricks cannot add up to thirteen. So let's say North is dealer, and East declares four, South declares two, and West declares five. That's eleven tricks altogether. So North can declare for more or less than two, but cannot declare two. That way, somebody always wins either more or less tricks than they declared for.

If you win the number of tricks you declared for, you score the number of those tricks plus ten points. Otherwise, you only score the number of tricks you won.

The role of dealer moves around the table to the left, and with each hand you deal one less card, until you reach the thirteenth round, and everybody is dealt only one card. Because the one-card rounds are so tricky, you play as many of them as there are players in the game.

At the end of the one-card rounds, the winner is the player with the most points.

This game is great training for Bridge.

We also love Euchre. And Uno, of course.

 

[Cthulhu]

There's been talk of organizing monthly MTG games at work lately; I might be interested. But only for the cards, I'll probably get trounced at the game,

 

[Starling]

A lot of theses games are ones I never got the chance to play, as everyone I know seems to only know a select few card games, though don't necessarily use the same set of rules, making for interesting variation (and occasionally arguments due to failure to make clear which rules were being used at the start of the game).

I've played bullshit, though everyone I know calls it cheat. I found the game got kinda boring once everyone figured out who had what cards, which generally only took 2 or 3 rounds. The game would then quickly devolve into people calling cheat before the next person even got the chance to fully set down their cards.

The last game I think I was properly introduced to that I've played regularly is crazy eights, which to me is basically a funner version of uno. Pretty much everyone I've played with had a different set of rules for it. The most variable rule seems to be how many cards the queen of spades makes you pick up (usually either 6 or 8), as well as whether or not the other queens have any effect on it. One time we had to end a game because all 4 2s and the queen of spades stacked, the deck got reshuffled and the next person played a 2 again, causing more than the available number of cards having to be picked.

Another interesting game was the one time I played with someone who had playing an ace cause you to play nonstop until you either ran out of cards of its suit or changed it to another. I personally find the game most fun when only playing against one other person, as your cards directly affect each-other.

At one point someone showed me a game that basically amounts to using the standard 52 card deck for a type of tarot reading. You have to pick 4 people: one you love (hearts), one you hate (spades), one who's your friend (clubs) and one you're indifferent to (diamonds). To be honest it doesn't really matter who you pick as long as it's 4. The kings or queens are set aside to represent the individuals you chose. Then, the dealer asks you various questions, dealing cards starting with the suit that represents your answer, dealing an extra card whenever the suit matches the previous card on the pile. Diamond cards represent how much money you make, hearts how happy your relationship is, spades how many relationship issues and clubs is how many children you end up with. The score is generally scaled as low to high rather than an actual number, based on how many cards you have, save for the number of kids. Obviously, hearts and spades cancel each-other out, leaving you with the excess of whichever suit is more numerous.

You pick whichever you think is best and then find out who you end up with. I tried the game with my cousin once using FF7 characters and ended up with Sephiroth. My cousin used KH characters and ended up with either Roxas or Axel. I personally didn't really care for the relationship angle of the game but found the potential for absurd results based on who you used as the 4 options rather amusing.

 

[Keveh Kins]

Love Uno, enjoy Texas Hold 'Em though truthfully I suck at it.

My girlfriend taught me this card game called Switch which was quite similar to Uno, but with a lot more opportunity for tricksy plays and more specific conditions for winning. We always bring a deck of cards with us when we're travelling by bus or what have you, Switch is a good time killer.

I was schmad into me Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid. I also sucked at it but the enthusiasm was there

Kings and 21 remain the go to drinking card games amongst friends

 

[Starling]

I think Switch is another name for crazy eights. It really is pretty versatile game.

I only ever got one pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards, back during the battle city arc I think. It seemed to be spirit themed. One of them was Infinite Cards, all nice and shiny.

I also have Latios and Latias cards I found in a DVD case, as well as a bunch of Harry Potter cards I think my older brother dumped on me at one point. I don't have nearly enough of any of those to make a proper deck to play with.

 

[Flintlock]

Spoiler: Rules of the game

The game is meant to be played by 4 people. While others might draw straws or something, in the games I've played, everyone is neutral for the first round and lets whoever has the 3 of clubs (sometimes spades) play first.

The goal is to be the first to empty your hand in order to be ranked the highest. The best way to get rid of your cards is to get to play first, allowing you to get rid of all the cards you wouldn't be able to play otherwise. This is done by being the last to play a card on a round, in which only a higher card can be played, single cards on singles, doubles on doubles, etc. In subsequent rounds, top rank gets the lowest player's 2 best cards in exchange for whatever 2 cards they want to give, usually their lowest. The same goes for the other 2 players.

Rankings also affect how many cards you start off with, as well as the order in which you play. If dealing and discarding played cards once everyone's had their turn is assigned to a particular player, it's usually the lowest unless they suck at shuffling.

The entire deck is distributed among all the players, with the higher ranked ones getting more than the bottom, in an effort to counterbalance the advantages and disadvantages a little.

The value of cards always places 3 as lowest, going up to king, followed by ace, 2 and then the joker. Depending on who I played with, the colorless joker was valued above the colored one, which could really screw someone over if they were counting on their joker to guarantee priority for the next round to end with a low card, such as 3 or 4. 2 can be played alone as a double, adding another for a triple and so on and can be paired with any other card (except maybe jokers) to form doubles, triples, etc.

I know that game as President, but it has lots of names. I've never played it with the variation that players start with different numbers of cards, however.

I'm pretty big into card games. I could list all the ones I know but it would be a long list. I'll get back to you with it.

 

[Hisako]

The last one I played was a super nerdy deck-building tabletop game called Ascension. Sort of like a competitive PvE, it scratches my again-nascent Mass Effect multiplayer itch

 

[Starling]

We should try to set up online card games or something. I know cards against humanity has an online set up that can allow for that kind of thing. Does anyone have any ideas for other card games that could work for that kind of thing?

 

[Flare]

Licorice, Oh Hell is something my family plays too every once in a while. It's actually quite fun! It reminds me of Hearts, which is also fun (though I forget the rules all the time).

I've personally been into Bitch and Gripe lately; it can be a long game, but it's fun to play with four to six people. Plenty of bitching and griping while playing.
You get dealt 5 cards and a stack of 12 (I think) cards in front of you. Your goal is to get rid of the stack of cards, but you can only turn one up at a time.
The deck, after dealing, gets placed at the center of the table, and then you have four spots around it where you can start a pile, which goes from Ace to Queen, and once it's finished you take it out and reshuffle.
Kings are wild cards, and can be used in place of any other card EXCEPT for Sevens and Aces.
You get four 'discard' piles next to your stack of 12, and if you can't play, you have to put a card in one of the four piles. You must play the card on the top of the discard pile before you can play the ones underneath it, so you don't want to screw yourself over by discarding them in odd orders.
Except for your first turn, you must draw at the beginning of each turn so that you always have 5 cards.
You get to play as long as you can before you run out of moves, then you must discard and it's the next players turn.

It's pretty fun I think.

Also, for a quick one, there's Golf; Very simple, you get dealt 4 cards facedown, and you lay them out in front of you. You can look at only two of them, then you have to flip them over and try to memorize what they were. The deck is placed in the middle and a card is flipped up. You have to decide if you want that card or if you want to flip over one of your own cards.
Kings are worth zero points, everything else is worth what it says, while jacks and queens are worth ten points. You want to have the lowest amount of points as possible.
The round ends when you've flipped over all four cards, and you have to flip over/trade a card each round. You get 9 'holes' or games to play, and when it's done you get to tally up the points.

Wow, I'm really into this.

Anyway, like Jason said, there's also Cards against Humanity, which is hilariously dirty to play with friends, or it's much tamer counterpart, Apples to Apples. Both are fun, and I'm not gonna explain the rules 'cause they come with a rule sheet and I'm getting tired.

 

[Starling]

4 cards for golf? I only played it with 6. the rare times jokers were involved, they were either -3 or -5 (it's been a while). I never tallied multiple rounds of the game, as it was never mentioned by my grandparents, who taught me the game one time I got bored of solitaire and go fish (for the longest time I thought it was called goldfish), which we basically called barn.

Has anyone here ever found a card version of the werewolf game? It can be played without them but it makes establishing proper rules everyone will follow a lot easier.

 

[Flare]

Oh, I was taught by my cousin, and she's the one that said 4 cards. 6 cards would make it more challenging though, and I like the idea of jokers being included. I'll have to bring this up next time I play it, thanks!

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

Racing demon is a great game.

https://www.thedarkimp.com/blog/2019/06/13/how-to-play-racing-demon/

Oh my god it's brutal

 

[Cthulhu]

Ok so the thread was bumped by a spambot, BUT, thread is still relevant.

We got Exploding Kittens some time ago, and before that we spent an evening playing it with like ten people at once with a work vacation event thing - good fun, plays quickly, not too complicated.

And a few weeks ago we were visiting my brother where we played Dungeon Mayhem, also a fairly straightforward card game but with a ton of interesting twists and abilities on the cards themselves. Plus funny if you set the rule that you have to do sound effects while playing cards, :p

 

[Erotic Materia]

I love board and card games, and I have a few recommendations!

My go-to game, which is also perfect for travel: Love Letter!
Basic premise: be the last one left holding a card.
There are 8 kinds of cards, each of them has different abilities. Easy to learn, SUPER fast game (we can blow through a game in less than a minute at times), only 16 cards. I've been playing it for years, and it never gets old.

Another one I really enjoy: Guillotine!
Basic premise: decapitate the most french nobles over a 3 "day" span.
Also really easy to learn, this one has tons of different cards with really creative abilities. You can play multiple times and still come across cards you haven't seen before.

And while I've only played it a few times, I really enjoyed this deck-builder: The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls!
Basic premise: collect items and loot to kill monsters and collect their souls! First to 4 souls wins!
If you aren't already aware, this a card game based on a (badass) video game. I backed the kickstarter back in 2018, and I don't regret it. This is a great game in its own right. It's MUCH more complicated than the other two, and by no means a short game. But the production value is phenomenal, and the gameplay is satisfying once you get into the groove. It can feel a bit intimidating at first, but it's worth it!