LARP

[jack]

On Friday I went to LARP. In the spooky coincidence stakes #1, my character had been troubled by prophetic dreams that the end of the world was nigh and his/all gods were returning to judge us. He was pleasently surprised to find that when he turned up in the bar, everyone else also had omens telling them a god was coming and the end of the world was nigh, and had plans well in hand that would hopefully control the situation. This meant he was catapulted into interfering with main plot sooner than possible, but fit in well.

In #2. I was reading about Tarot (looking for CUSFS seating riddles, and thinking "Whoah, Mao with 56 cards and 23 nines of diamonds!" and found they were used in the plot here too.

It would have been nice to go to the linear, but I had a friend staying, and didn't quite feel up to an away/night bash.

Comments

[simont]

I was in a Mao game once that used Tarot cards. We didn't change the conventional starting rule set at all, which meant that to begin with everything was a nine of diamonds! :-) But of course that only lasted until the first person went out, at which point a marginally more sensible ruleset was adopted.

We could have agreed on some sort of a Tarot-related starting rule in advance, but we felt that such a naturally adaptable game really ought to be able to cope fine on its own. :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Yes, introducing a special rule is obviously, wrong[1], but the the thing is, are clubs/diamonds/hearts/spades and wands/pentacles/cups/swords just different representations, or different cards? I would be inclined to equate them[2], perhaps P-of-O-ing the historical note of how I consider them related, but couldn't say anyone who did the other was wrong.

Admittedly, this would technically leave the Knaves as nines-of-diamonds, which would be confusing (but funny) -- if there were beginners there I might try to change the wording to include them in the standard cards somehow.

[1] Did you successfully go 5 rounds, or did anyone make a mistake? :)

[2] I believe those respectively related, but don't have any cites other than wikipedia.

[simont]

The Knights, surely? Knaves are analogous to the Jack in a normal pack, and it's the Knight which is missing.

I can't remember whether we successfully went five rounds. It was too long ago :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Doh! Yes, that's what I meant. I do know knaves=jacks, but somehow my brain wanted them to be knights.

[senji.livejournal.com]

Hmm, the tarot deck I'm used to has Princes and Princesses (Jacks and Jills, we always used to call them).

[senji.livejournal.com]

51 cards and 28 nines of diamonds, surely?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I included the knaves in the standard suits which, as I said to Simon, I think is good, but is not actually justified, so I retract that.

However, the nine of diamonds that looks like a nine of diamonds (pentacles) is surely both a card in a normal 52 card deck as much as any of the others, and also a nine of diamons, giving:

* 52 normal cards, including a nine of diamonds
* 27 nines of diamons, including a natural nine of diamonds, 4 knaves, and 22 major arcana.