MASTER LIST of Games playable with a MODIFIED (or UNMODIFIED) deck of STANDARD playing cards. PLEASE ADD!
Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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OK everyone -- here is my first geeklisk. Please go easy on me.
Now most people are aware of the popular geeklist by Sonja of games playable with a standard deck of cards. A very useful list. At the risk of flames of piracy, I wanted to create a MASTER LIST of card games that are playable with a modified (or unmodified) STANDARD deck of cards. Modification rules include (but are not limited to):
Multiple decks of standard cards.
Marking up cards with *simple* symbols, numbers, or letters.
Addition of simple playing pieces (i.e. dominos, counters, poker chips, bits from easily aquired thrift-store games).
Variants of games playable with a single deck of cards.
Games playable with a 5-suit, 6-suit deck (i.e. rage, 6-nimmt, and similar geeklist items).
This list should NOT include the following:
(Standard card games using a single deck of cards)
***Update: as I've been adding games that require two decks, etc..., I've eliminated this restriction and am allowing ALL GAMES (EASILY) PLAYABLE WITH A STANDARD DECK OF CARDS.
The following restriction still applies:
Marking-up cards with large amounts of text (i.e. MtG) should NOT be listed.
Now a word about piracy. Please use this list as a reference to *try* out games that you may find appealing. Many of us waste a ton of money on games we have never played that we've seen on BGG that end up not beoing our cup-of-tea. This list will allow us to temporarily make some homemade versions of card games that look interesting *before* we go out and buy them. Am I making myself clear here? If you enjoy the game -- please, PLEASE support the designer.
Please add and please tip if you found this geeklist useful!
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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This looks like it can be played with 1 or more decks of cards (1 suit per person).
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Uses a standard deck of cards.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Based on "The Great Dalmuti". 1-10 (Ten 10s, Nine 9s, Eight 8s, ... Two 2s, One 1), 2 Wilds, 3 Special cards.
Playable with 3 decks.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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56 cards: 4 suits, denominations 1-5 (unsure of distribution)
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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6 suits 1-11 plus three jokers, 6 pawns, 6 chips
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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2-4 players
6 suits, numbered 0-5
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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The suits are Spiders, Spooks, Goblins, Bones and Bats, with 11 cards per suit (1-10 and M for "Master" which has special powers) There's also an extra black cat card which is wild.
Requires 2 decks
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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10-A (20 cards).
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Playable with a standard deck of cards.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Uses one deck of cards per person.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Uses 7-A (32 cards).
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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You need 15 each of the following: Jokers, 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's & 5's. So just designate one color for Jokers, one color for 1's, one color for 2's, one color for 3's, one color for 4's & one color for 5's.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Uses 2-7,J,Q,K,A (40 cards).
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Playable using single deck of cards (A-7)
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Playable using 7-A (32 cards).
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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This looks like it can be played with two decks of cards or one cut in half.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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52 cards (1-13 in four suits), some marked with butterflies.
Additional 25 card deck (5 of each suit / butterflies).
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Standard deck of cards.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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7-A, plus Joker (one deck), chips
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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3-4 players
Four suits numbered numbered 0 to 12.
- Extra components required.
- Requires 4 chips or markers which match the colors of the suits to show what trump is.
- Four jokers would be required to play the variant at the end of the rules. Use other cards from the deck.
Could be playes with a single deck of cards.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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5 suits, Unknown Card Distribution
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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Use ranks 1-15 in 5 suits for the draw deck. Use ranks 1-20 in the 6th suit for the businesses: Speakeasy(1-5), Jazz Club(6-10), Brewery(11-15), Gambling House(16-20). If you want to play with the 6 special cards, you could use the 0's in six suits and map each suit to one of the special cards.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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I'm not sure of the distribution, but 116 cards, 5 suits, (1-13), 6 jokers?
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C R
United States
Overland Park
Kansas
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Two decks of cards are needed. Aces are $10,000 banknotes, 2's are $20,000 banknotes, etc. Pull the correct distribution of cards for the game deck.
Colored dice are the only other component needed. Mark each casino with an appropriately facing die from an unused die color, or use some other method to mark each pile of cards with the corresponding die face.
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Glenn Laurent
United States
Lakewood
Colorado
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2-6 players
4 suits 1-15 & 4 extra cards
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Denver
Colorado
Tremonton
Utah
I did end up marking up two decks to try Battleline - pretty crude though. I definitely need to find that game! And that really is the power of this list - try something cheap to ensure you will be happy to spend the money on the game.
I love the idea behind the piecepack. Nice classic components, public domain—both these factors makes it timeless. But so few games makes me want to bring it to the table. Many piecepack ports require tables upon tables of crib text or memorization.
The degree of orthogonality is too big. Or too small, I forget which. I’m no math wiz.
The rainbow deck has a lot of redundancy. The dice suits match up with the colors, for example.
Edit: they’ve changed the rainbow deck a lot since last I looked at it. One good thing they’ve got going on now is that the two colors that are supposed to be shared actually have a common icon on them.)It’s even harder to play Hanabi with the rainbow deck than with a couple of identical Bridge decks.Decktet ports OTOH can be fun because they usually drop any aspirations of isomorphism. Which is a double edge sword—designer games are sometimes fun because of how well the numbers work out and how well they are tested. E.g. Lost Cities where five suits are just perfect.
ni'o:
As for piracy, I love, or would love, to play good games with timeless classic components. But many newer games are better than traditionally evolved hodge-podge (with many notable exceptions, of course).
It’s less a matter of »Heh, heh, heh… I see this nice game, wonder how I can rip it off to save money!« and much more a case of »I have these beautiful decks of playing cards. [Or: This nice Piecepack, or this cool checkers set, or go set or Rummikub tiles or what have you.] I want to have fun with them with a good game. Which good games can I find that I can play with these tactile components?«
And yes, part of the charm/promise of these »generic« systems are that they lure us with their words of saving shelf space, saving money. I live in less than 240 feet² and that’s with shower, kitchen, books, drawing equipment, bed, clothes… there has to be a limit. To what I spend on games and to how many games I will store here. Where do I draw the line? How many decks, of what is essentially the same suits and rank system with minor variations, do I need to buy? But those reasons are the same reasons pirates use…
I can play Lost Cities with plain cards and Knizia will lose out. Or I can play go and Knizia will lose out.
How humanity should react to opportunities and problems with the value of ideas as opposed to tangible goods is an unsolved problem for now.
A new world of porting opportunities has arisen since I learned the Bridge suit order: clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades. [mnemonic: alphabetical order of the English names]
Now there’s truly a three-dimensional array of 1–4 × 1—13 (in two distinct categories no less, faces vs numbers) × [number of decks], and any categories can be conflated either in parallel (e.g. suits can be ignored, just having duplicates of each rank) or in serial (e.g. suits can trumph each other, in effect creating a linear array where the two of diamonds follows the highest clubs). This goes for each axis.
Get three decks from the same company with identical backs. Two of the decks should be the same, but the third should differ significantly. For example, jumbo vs standard (or the other way around). Or another set of suits if you can get weird cards.
Now you don’t even have to write anything on the cards.
For example, the five civilizations in Lost Cities can be clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades and Big Hearts.
Card games with significant amount of text, such as Magic, are trouble, of course, but other than those…
Many card games have cards with one or two dimensions. Colors and numbers are common.
“Colors” in one game can become numbers in your port, and “numbers” can become colors, if need be.
With 2 + 1 deck setup above, you have access to potentially:
8 (one feature, suits) × 14 (numbers) unique cards.
or 4 × 14 with up to three of each one in duplicate (if you can count Big Suits as regular suits for that particular game)
or up to 14 card types with up to 12 in duplicate. So one-dimensional–decks like Coloretto (7×9 + some two-point cards and so on) become a cinch.
Or you can mix it up: let most cards have suits and ranks as usual except that all jacks, for example, mean this-or-that.
Or you can switch in specific weird-suited cards to carry some extra semantic load in some games: i.e, in Triumvirate, put in a Big Suit for the tree, five and seven. They still count as a five of hearts but you don’t need to memorize which cards are legion cards.