I am working on a short game which uses cards called Tales of the Fisherman's Wife. I've described it elsewhere (and you can read about it here. I'll post another playtest shortly and if I'm feeling industrious enough I'll put the revised draft up in a few days, after Game Chef.

So Meg, Emily, Vincent and I played the other night. I designed the game to be a 2 player game, but it works real nice with 4 players as you will see here:
This time we had 4 players, and it rocked. I'd eventually like to try it with 3 players, and I'm pretty confident that it would work. I tested new card mechanics and they worked much better. I'm still not confident about the final scene play, but it could be just insecurity. We created a great story and had fun, and that's most important to me for now.

He're a quick synopsis of our game. Emily was the Fisherman, Vincent the wife, I was the Fisherman's demons, and Meg was the Wife's demons.

Act I: The Fisherman leaves for his trip. His wife packs him rice balls with little surprises in each one. After drawing clubs, the Wife reports that she has mended 3 nets for him, and his boat is big. After drawing spades, the Fisherman tells is wife he will be gone 4 days and he has a premonition that he will lose something to the sea.

Their 6 words--The Fisherman to the Wife: "The sun doesn't set on our love."

To the Fisherman: "Turtles come alive under the moon."

Act II: The Wife encountered 3 different demons and she prevailed over all three. Sort of. The first one was a spider demon who wanted to serve her. I can't remember what she wanted from it. But at the end of the first scene, the Wife had a new little servant, who helped her around the house. The second demon wanted to seduce her, and she wanted to merge with it or steal its power, which she did. She turned it into a comb for her hair. The third demon wanted to devour her beauty. The Wife destroyed her, if I recall correctly. The Wife did away with her quickly.

Cut to Act III: The Fisherman met a demon who wanted to devour him, but the Fisherman would have no part of it. It was a creepy eel looking thing, the Fisherman prevailed. For the next three scenes, the Fisherman met the same demon, who alternated between wanting to seduce and devour the Fisherman. In turn, the Fisherman seduced the demon in return, and to keep from being eaten, successfully seduced her.

So the Fisherman brought a seductive water demon home from his fishing trip. You might guess what he lost at sea.

Act IV: Meg played the industrious spider demon who now served the Wife, I played the seductive water demon, and we played in teams, demons vs. humans. The thing is, we both drew the seduction suit. So the question was, who would seduce whom. In the end, the humans won. Now that the wife had the power to breathe underwater, she could go swimming with the water demon.

They all lived happily ever after. Sort of. The Wife told the tale about how the sun did in fact set on their love, and related it back to the Fisherman's behavior with the water demon.

My memory is sketchy, and I've forgotten some details, but this game was terribly fun. Other players, please chime in!

This game was really fun. I realized about halfway through dealing with my first demon that I was going to dedicate myself to owning them, and so I did, until my husband brought his demon home with him. We couldn't own her, we could only ally with her.

My closing story was "once upon a time there was a wife who forgave her husband. The sun didn't set on HER love, and that was enough for them." Emily thought it was a sad ending but I thought it was a happy one.

-Vincent

This sounds amazing! I'd love to playtest it, if that's cool.  Especially as a two-player game, I think it would really appeal to my wife and I.

It sounds very nice. I had a quick look at the playtesting text you have in your blog. There are some details about the cards-playing that I'm not getting. But it is a very quick look. I need to read it again carefully.

Yes, what do the cards mean?  I scanned your site for a place that explained them, but no such luck so far.

I just noticed this! Sorry! I've revamped the rules so the draft online is obsolete.

Here's a quick and dirty explanation of how the cards work:

Each player draws a card at the beginning of a scene. You use the suit of the drawn card to determine what the characters' desired actions are in each scene. Demon actions are seduce (hearts), serve (diamonds), devour (clubs), possess (spades), and supplant (ace of spades). Human actions (the fisherman or the wife) are seduce (hearts), enslave (diamonds), steal power (clubs), merge (spades), and destroy (ace of spades).

Then you return those two cards to the deck and deal 6-10 cards to each player in the scene. Characters dialog back and forth, as they throw a card, one each per round. The highest card wins the round and takes the pair (trick). At the end of the scene, whoever has the most tricks wins their action.

I'm bringing this to GenCon as an ashcan, and will have copies available afterwards.

This is the game which I never play in my life. But it sounds interesting. I really impressed with the contents of the game and above all the title of the game is amazing.
zinadin
California Treatment Centers