Vargach: A card game for your campaign

[thoroughlyS]

I recently saw this post on r/DnDBehindTheScreen, and was inspired to design my own system for the game (which can be found in the comments). I decided to share it with the Playground as well, in case it could inspire other DMs.

Vargach (Draconic for "battle") is a trick-taking card game, which can be played by 2-5 players. It uses a unique deck of 50 cards, divided into 5 suits with ranks 0 through 9. The suits are modeled after the chromatic dragons. At the beginning of the game, the deck is shuffled and the cards are dealt so that each player receives an equal number (with any extra cards removed from the game). During the round, each player plays 1 card from their hand face-down. After everyone has played, all cards are revealed.

Suits trump in the following orders:

• red>white>green>black>blue>red (fire>ice>trees>water>desert>fire)
• red>green>blue>white>black>red (fire>trees>desert>ice>water>fire)

Spoiler: Explanation

Show

These trumps illustrate what people know about the different kinds of dragons: red dragons breathe fire, white dragons live in tundras, green dragons live in forests, black dragons live in wetlands, and blue dragons live in deserts. Obviously this is an oversimplification, but these are the broad ideas that people can remember.

The player who trumps the most other cards takes the trick (wins the round). If multiple players trump the same number, the higher rank wins. In the event of a tied rank (which is much less common than tied suits), no-one wins (and the trick is removed from the game). After all players have played the final card in their hand, the game ends and the player who has taken the most tricks wins.

These rules allow for a tie to occur. Perhaps there are multiple variants for how to resolve a tie in your world (e.g. sudden death between the winners, winners split the pot, winner with highest total of ranks wins...).

In order to test my game, I made a mock-up of the deck which can be printed onto two sheets of cardstock.

Please let me know if you have any feedback about this game.

[thoroughlyS]

I have recently had the opportunity to play a few hands of this game, and it seems to play smoothly. It feels best with 3-5 players, but 2 is still possible. Because it is based primarily on rock-paper-scissors, the strategy seems almost nonexistent... but that shouldn't be a problem since this is just meant to be 'window dressing" for a tavern or gambling scene, not really an entire game on its own. I also decided to make a decorative design for the back of the cards. It is based on the diagram above, and the idea is that each color trumps the two in front of it.

[Yakk]

Let's add some tactics. Same ordering of cards, but trick taking instead of blind RPS:

1. Each player gets 5 face up and 3 face down cards.
2. You take turns playing. You can play face up or face down cards.
3. A player either forfiets a card, or beats the top card in play (value or colour) adding it to the pot.
4. When everyone but one player forfiets, last player wins the battle. They claim highest value card of each colour as spoils face up.
5. Winning player starts a new battle.
6. You can choose to end a battle immediately, either with a same-suit higher number victory, or a trump with matching card value.

Once you forfiet, you have to continue to forfiet each time your turn comes around until the battle ends, unless you can end the battle immediately (rule 6).

Players are eliminated when they forfiet their last card.

You can attempt to attack people's weakness based on their exposed cards.

Game should snowball pretty quickly.

[thoroughlyS]

I've only ever had one other suggestion about how to change this game, and they basically just wanted to turn this into a trick-taking game (i.e. Spades without a trump suit). Your suggestion in contrast, feels exotic and new. I like the idea that both of these games might exist in a setting, and use the same deck. Maybe they are popular in different regions. I will have to try a few hands of this and see how it goes.

One question: Does a player get to look at their own face-down cards?

[Yakk]

I figure it would be like texas hold'm -- you know what your face down cards are.

The idea is that other players can tactically go after your face-up cards, but your face-down cards can mess that up. Run out of face-down cards and your options are an open book.

The idea of taking spoils and using them in later rounds is dragon-esque (why do you want wealth), and eliminates any point scoring (survival is victory). But it would have to be play tested to ensure the game ends (!)

[Thane of Fife]

Here's another variant:

Each game, leave out one of the five suits (which one it is should be common knowledge). This means two suits will only trump one other, and two suits will only be trumped by one other.

At the beginning of the game, everyone antes in and is dealt a hand of cards. At the beginning of each trick, each player can either fold or ante in. The trick is played per the OP. A round last until only one player is left or until a number of tricks equal to everyone's starting hand has been played. At the end of the round, the player who did not fold and who took the most tricks wins the pot.