BerzerkerUnit
2020-09-14, 08:25 PM
This is pretty obvious, but bear with me.
Warring Kingdoms, an in-world card game for Adventurers
Suits- the symbol of the Cards, most commonly diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades, though elemental or 4 color variants are common
Royals- Face Cards, King, Queen, and Heir
Heir- Jack
Pauper- Joker
Armies/Army pile- Number Cards
Draw- when cards are taken from Army pile AND when 2 Armies have the same value
Exchange- when the 2 Army cards are compared also known as a Round
Discard- Removed from the game
Slain- after Army piles have been drawn and compared they are set aside in a slain pile or stacked on a Royal
Reshuffled- when Slain armies are returned to the Army pile, most often when the Army pile is exhausted.
Trap Card/Assassin- Ace
Requires 2 or 4 players, a standard 52 card deck with 2 Jokers. Jokers are set aside.
The deck is divided by suit and suits are distributed in no particular order.
Each player makes 2 piles, face J/Q/K and numbers A-10.
Players shuffle number piles and draw for high card. High card then chooses preferred suit and then player to left chooses until all suits are chosen.
Players pair off as follows
Hearts vs Diamonds- Diamonds win all draws (when two equal numbers are drawn), love makes life worth living but diamonds pay for food, Hearts receives a Joker.
Clubs vs Spades- Spades win all draws, Clubs make corpses but Spades dig the graves, Clubs receives a Joker.
Face cards (called Royals) are played face up as player desires, the Joker (called the Pauper) is placed with Royals.
Number cards (called the Armies pile) are reshuffled and kept face down.
Paired players draw simultaneously from Army piles and compare results. The winning player places their card on the enemy's Jack. This continues until the Jack has 3 cards on it at which point "the Prince is Dead." Special: A Hearts or Clubs player can declare their Pauper a look alike and discard it to void the last exchange.
Once the Jack has 3 Armies stacked the Jack is discarded and the Armies stacked on it are placed in the Slain pile.
Repeat the whole process with the Queen and the King.
If the Pauper wasn't used to spare the Jack earlier, it can be used when the King is overcome, revealed to be a Prince in Exile. This voids the last successful attack on the King.
The Ace, called the Trap Card or the Assassin automatically wins any exchange except a Draw which resolves normally based on Suit.
Betting on Warring Kingdoms can be as simple as who wins or can go draw by draw though the most common is based on how many exchanges will be required to bring down a given Royal. For example: the Jack of Hearts in 5 means the 5th exchange will end with the elimination of the Jack of Hearts. Serious tournaments may go round by round with bets on which cards will be drawn or the difference in their values, whether or not a Heart or Club player will Pauper for the Heir or the Prince in Exile, etc.
Regional Variants of this exist such as:
The 4 Lords of Kem-Et in which the Ace is treated as a 4th Royal and the cards represent the 4 Genie Lords.
The Bitter Dispute, a Waterdeep variant in which you require 3 or 4 players, each Face card represents the Patriarch and Matriarch of a Noble house backing the disreputable heir of a rival house. In this Variant, Jacks are passed to the left and players battle both players at their right and left simultaneously. Queen's are targeted first, Jacks last, and the first player with only their Jack remaining wins.
Any many more I'm sure.
I'm 1000% confident something like this exists in every culture with playing cards but it was a fun thought experiment.
Thanks for your time.
and many others.
Warring Kingdoms, an in-world card game for Adventurers
Suits- the symbol of the Cards, most commonly diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades, though elemental or 4 color variants are common
Royals- Face Cards, King, Queen, and Heir
Heir- Jack
Pauper- Joker
Armies/Army pile- Number Cards
Draw- when cards are taken from Army pile AND when 2 Armies have the same value
Exchange- when the 2 Army cards are compared also known as a Round
Discard- Removed from the game
Slain- after Army piles have been drawn and compared they are set aside in a slain pile or stacked on a Royal
Reshuffled- when Slain armies are returned to the Army pile, most often when the Army pile is exhausted.
Trap Card/Assassin- Ace
Requires 2 or 4 players, a standard 52 card deck with 2 Jokers. Jokers are set aside.
The deck is divided by suit and suits are distributed in no particular order.
Each player makes 2 piles, face J/Q/K and numbers A-10.
Players shuffle number piles and draw for high card. High card then chooses preferred suit and then player to left chooses until all suits are chosen.
Players pair off as follows
Hearts vs Diamonds- Diamonds win all draws (when two equal numbers are drawn), love makes life worth living but diamonds pay for food, Hearts receives a Joker.
Clubs vs Spades- Spades win all draws, Clubs make corpses but Spades dig the graves, Clubs receives a Joker.
Face cards (called Royals) are played face up as player desires, the Joker (called the Pauper) is placed with Royals.
Number cards (called the Armies pile) are reshuffled and kept face down.
Paired players draw simultaneously from Army piles and compare results. The winning player places their card on the enemy's Jack. This continues until the Jack has 3 cards on it at which point "the Prince is Dead." Special: A Hearts or Clubs player can declare their Pauper a look alike and discard it to void the last exchange.
Once the Jack has 3 Armies stacked the Jack is discarded and the Armies stacked on it are placed in the Slain pile.
Repeat the whole process with the Queen and the King.
If the Pauper wasn't used to spare the Jack earlier, it can be used when the King is overcome, revealed to be a Prince in Exile. This voids the last successful attack on the King.
The Ace, called the Trap Card or the Assassin automatically wins any exchange except a Draw which resolves normally based on Suit.
Betting on Warring Kingdoms can be as simple as who wins or can go draw by draw though the most common is based on how many exchanges will be required to bring down a given Royal. For example: the Jack of Hearts in 5 means the 5th exchange will end with the elimination of the Jack of Hearts. Serious tournaments may go round by round with bets on which cards will be drawn or the difference in their values, whether or not a Heart or Club player will Pauper for the Heir or the Prince in Exile, etc.
Regional Variants of this exist such as:
The 4 Lords of Kem-Et in which the Ace is treated as a 4th Royal and the cards represent the 4 Genie Lords.
The Bitter Dispute, a Waterdeep variant in which you require 3 or 4 players, each Face card represents the Patriarch and Matriarch of a Noble house backing the disreputable heir of a rival house. In this Variant, Jacks are passed to the left and players battle both players at their right and left simultaneously. Queen's are targeted first, Jacks last, and the first player with only their Jack remaining wins.
Any many more I'm sure.
I'm 1000% confident something like this exists in every culture with playing cards but it was a fun thought experiment.
Thanks for your time.
and many others.