I'm working on a card mechanic for The Gay Recruitment Squad Wants YOU!. I'm finding it difficult to explain, though, so I'd really appreciate some feedback.

At this point in the game, every player will have a separate conflict (or "challenge", as it's called below) to resolve with the GM. Each challenge has a separate difficulty number (2, 3 or 4). This mechanic resolves all those challenges at once.

Here's the mechanic so far. It's based on the game of Rummy. Does it make sense? Is there anything you don't understand? How could I make it clearer? Can you see any interesting ways to tweak it?

The GM deals each player a card to add to their hand. He also deals, to himself, a number of cards equal to the number of players minus one. The easiest way for the GM to do this is to deal a card to the first player, then one to himself; then a card to the second player, then one to himself; until the last card is dealt to the last player, after which the GM does not deal a card to himself.

Then, starting with the GM and proceeding to the left, each person may lay down a "meld" from their hand. A meld consists of either:

    * Two or more cards of the same rank (e.g. 2C, 2S, 2D) or
    * Two or more consecutive cards of the same suit (e.g. 2S, 3S, 4S)

Example: Turquoise holds 5D, QD, 8C, 6H, 5S, AS, 8D, 8S. He lays down 8D and 8S, a meld of two cards of the same rank.

Alternatively, a player may add to a meld which he lay down earlier in the game, to produce a bigger meld: adding, as appropriate, more cards of the same rank or more consecutive cards.

Example: Turquoise holds 4S, 8S, 9H. In an earlier round, he laid down a meld of two nines: 9S and 9C. This round, he adds 9H to that meld, producing a meld of three nines.

The melds are laid face up, in front of the person who played them. Jokers are wild cards and may represent any other card.

To win the challenge, a player must produce a meld that both:

    * Beats, or is equal with, the GM’s meld and
    * Beats, or is equal with, the difficulty number.

To work out whether a player’s meld beats the GM’s meld:

    * First, compare the number of cards. The meld with the most cards wins.
    * If the two melds have the same number of cards, the meld with the highest card wins. For example, a meld with a ten as the highest card beats a meld with a nine as the highest card. An ace is the highest card.
    * If the two melds have equal highest cards, then they are equal, and the player wins.

A meld beats the difficulty number if it has more cards than the difficulty number. For example, if the difficulty number is 3, then a meld of 3 cards would equal the difficulty number, and a meld of 4 cards would beat it.

At the end of the round, the players keep their hands, to use in the next set of challenges and the next round of cards.

Extended example

In this round, Lilac is attempting a challenge with a difficulty number of 4; Salmon is attempting one with a difficulty number of 3; and Turquoise’s challenge also has a difficulty of 4.

First, the players and GM are dealt extra cards, as above. At the start of the round, the cards are as follows:

GM: 9S, JS, 9D, 3C, 4C, 5C, 9C, JC, QC
Lilac: 7S, KD, AD, 2C, 8H, 9H, 10H
Salmon: QS, KS, 2D, 3D, 10D, 5H, QH
Turquoise: 5D, QD, 8C, 6H, 5S, AS, Joker

In an earlier round, Turquoise laid down a meld consisting of two eights: 8D and 8S.

In this round, the GM plays first, and lays down a meld of three nines: 9S, 9D and 9C.
Lilac goes second, laying down a meld of consecutive hearts: 8H, 9H, 10H.
Salmon decides not to lay down a meld, because he cannot produce anything that will beat the GM's meld.
Turquoise goes last, adding 8C and the Joker to his existing meld, producing a meld of four eights: 8D, 8C, 8S and the Joker.

So, Lilac produced a greater meld than the GM: although they both produced melds of three cards, Lilac's meld contained the higher card. However, he didn’t beat the difficulty number, and loses the challenge.

Salmon did not lay down a meld. He loses his challenge.

Turquoise produced a greater meld than the GM: by adding to an existing meld, he produced a meld of four cards. He also equalled his difficulty number. Turquoise wins his challenge.

Hi Graham,

Not sure if "meld" is a UK phrase or if I'm card game ignorant, but I'm not familiar with that expression. 

Are suits ranked?  In other words, if I lay down 3C, 4C and you lay down 3H, 4H do you win?  Did I miss this?

It does not seem unduly complicated to me.  One nice feature would be some way to empower players to "borrow" from others melds, or to have some public resource that could be stolen or won - a face-up card that is common property given specific actions or circumstances. 

Yep, meld is the right word.

Here are some initial thoughts:

Does a meld in front of me only count if I add a card or can I reuse an existing one?
Does the GM keep all the melds in front of him? Since they are getting one card per player their hand is vastly superior to the players. If the player cannot reuse a meld without adding to it there is a good chance they wont be able to play at all if they are only getting one card. Is there another way to get cards?

Does each player only get one chance to add cards? If I get more than one can I add cards to different melds (not sure why I'd want to but it needs to be asked). If I can only play once then its a bit like a once round bidding game, the first player doesn't know how hard they have to try. An alternative is to keep going round playing one card at a time. If you've ever seen the games Attacke, Ivanhoe or Beowulf these adopt this approach.

You'll quickly reach a point where the melds on the table stabilise and are very difficult or impossible to add to. Drawing one card a conflict makes these existing melds hard to beat. This makes Jokers incredibly powerful.

Jason,

Meld is the standard term used in rummy, but it's a bit jargony, and I'll probably change it to "set of cards". While I'm at it, I'll probably change "rank" too.

The suits aren't ranked, but thanks, that's useful to clarify.

And, yes, players can use each other's melds, although I didn't put that chunk of rules in the post above. I should have done, because it's the best thing about the mechanic: if you're assisting another player in a challenge, you can add to his melds and he can add to yours. So working together is very powerful and the major advantage that the players have against the GM.

Graham

Martin, those are fantastic questions, thanks very much.

Here are the answers as they stand at the moment, but all the things you've asked about are things which might change if they unbalance the game.

Martin wrote:
Does a meld in front of me only count if I add a card or can I reuse an existing one?

Does the GM keep all the melds in front of him?

Since they are getting one card per player their hand is vastly superior to the players.

If the player cannot reuse a meld without adding to it there is a good chance they wont be able to play at all if they are only getting one card.

Does each player only get one chance to add cards? If I get more than one can I add cards to different melds (not sure why I'd want to but it needs to be asked).

If I can only play once then its a bit like a once round bidding game, the first player doesn't know how hard they have to try.