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Mechanic Monday: Tricks and Taking Them

Well well well, if it isn’t a late night Mechanic Monday! As I’m winding down for the quarter and hit my goal of ten Out of Mana posts, I figured it was fine for me to trot out this non-OOM idea that’s been sitting in drafts forever.  Take a looksie!

Determining Suit Desirability in a Trick Taking Game

In GREEM, the deck is shuffled and twelve cards are dealt facedown into a pile to form the Scoring Deck.  The remaining forty cards are dealt facedown to form a hand of ten cards per player.  Two cards are revealed from the Scoring Deck, each placed in a row corresponding with its suit.  The player to the left of the dealer then starts the game by playing a card to begin the trick, and all players must follow suit if able.  The player who plays the highest-valued card of the leading suit takes the trick.  At the end of a trick, the top card of the Scoring Deck is revealed, and placed in a row corresponding with its suit.  The winner of the trick then leads the next trick, repeating until all tricks have been won and all card from the Scoring Deck revealed.

Once all tricks have been played, each player takes the cards from their won tricks and separates them by suit.  They receive +3 points for each card in the suit most represented in the Scoring Deck, +2 for the suit second-most represented, +1 for the suit third-most represented, and -1 for the least represented suit.

Alternately, the Scoring Deck reveal could happen PRIOR to a trick being played, and determine the trump suit for that trick?

What to do when two or more suits are tied? The player with the most cards in a single suit wins?

Maybe it should be three-player, hands of 13 each and 13 cards in the Scoring Deck?

The nice thing about designs that use a poker deck is how easy they are to playtest.  Maybe when I’m back in California for my cousin’s wedding I can rustle up a deck and see if my Grandma or my brothers like the flow of it.  Anyway, til next time!

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