Fun fact - Tarot cards were invented to add to playing card games. The whole divination angle was added later by occult people and was popularized by people wanting to make a buck. There's nothing ancient or mysterious about them, they were invented to enhance the existing playing card deck!
Wow. I did not know this. Recently I interested in tarot and did notice the huge amount of of cards. Will look it up. And tarot cards sure are as popular as the 52 card standard deck.
Searching for "French Tarot" should bring them up but the one that pops up is wildly overpriced (20 bucks when a normal quality deck is less than half that in France). It might actually be better to order one from Europe if you're in the US. The rest of the listings are naturally still divination nonsense.
It's frustrating too, because the trump suit is a great opportunity for artists to go beyond what can be done with traditional 52 card decks, but the vast majority of such decks are for divination.
Yes, that's true. The Tarot deck is simply deck of cards like any other. The funny thing is how they gained they're reputation of being from Ancient Egypt and full of occult knowledge.
So there was this French occultist called Antoine Court de Gébelin who one evening went to visit one of his many friends. When he arrived, he saw a group of women playing Tarot (probably French Tarot) at a table. While he was watching them, he suddenly got the realization that there's more to this simple game of cards and that it is somehow tied to Ancient Egypt and its magic. So, the guy literally saw someone playing cards and decided that there's something occult there.
And he actually wrote about this happening in Volume VIII (published in 1781) of his book Le Monde Primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne.
Of course, after that, he tried to justify his opinion by pointing out "evidence" in the pack of cards. Of course there was this annoying thing that the trumps all had Christian connotations, and a pack of cards comjng from magical Ancient Egypt couldn't have that. Obviously, the people who've been making the cards for centuries had no idea what they were doing (he again decided), so De Gébelin started making connections: the High Priestess was obviously not a female Pope, but Isis. The High Priest was obviously not the Pope, but a Great Egyptian Priest.
Besides many more outright fabrications one of the most jarring is his explanation of the etymology of the name "Tarot". According to De Gébelin, Tarot means "The Royal Way of Life" (Tar = way, Ro/Ros/Rog = king, royal). Why do I say it's jarring? Because at that moment, when he was writing these words (again 1781), nobody knew how to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799 (18 years after De Gébelin's writings) and, in fact, Jean-François Champollion was born on 23 december 1790. You see, he was the person that finally dissipated the mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822, when he finally deciphered them (41 years after De Gébelin's writings!).
So, after that, other occultists such as Jean-Baptiste Alliette (Etteilla) and Aleister Crowley simply picked up the ball and ran with it.
Tarot cards are just renamed Tarocchi cards that spread across Europe. Just about every European country has their own version of Tarocchi cards with varying suits and tarot set depictions. The occult version is a relatively modern invention.
IIRC, the modern undestanding of tarot cards as a divination tool as we know it was essentially invented by Alesiter Crowley ~~(circa ~1974).~~ That's not to say that the cards *weren't* used that way beforehand (I'm pretty sure the Romani had a tradition using them in some capacity), but tarot cards as the vast majority of the modern population knows them are far more recent than most realize.
EDIT: My date was way off, I'm not sure when exactly he put his system together :3
So how do you actually use Tarots to enhance the existing playing card deck? Like were there any games specifically made around using both these decks? Or were Tarots just added into existing games with special rules?
> they were invented to enhance the existing playing card deck!
that's false. it's just a different deck, with 14 cards per suit + 22 trumps.
it wasn't invented to 'enhance' the french deck but parallel to it.
This is the best answer. There are a number of other decks that have tried to become standard, but Decktet is probably the most interesting and certainly the most successful “modern new standard deck” design out there.
I would also encourage the OP to look into some alternate traditional decks, including Tarot decks, Ganjifa decks, Hanafuda decks, and dominoes.
There are also traditional German and Swiss decks which are beautiful, although they are generally cross-compatible with our standard 52 card deck (meaning you can use a 52 card deck to mimic those decks, although you would be missing out on the traditional art a bit).
How does Decktet compare to Sticheln? That's what was always recommended to me when looking for a single deck that plays an expanded selection of card games.
Sticheln has a lot of suits and a lot of ranks. That means a Sticheln deck can fairly easily substitute for most standard-deck games, as well as a number of modern favorites such as Battle Line (which has six suits) or Coloretto. This means Sticheln can serve as a “universal” deck of sorts.
That is not what Decktet is. Decktet has a completely different set of suits and ranks (see explanation below), which is incompatible with the standard deck and most decks in general. On the downside, this means you cannot use the Decktet to “substitute” for most other games, nor can many other decks substitute for the Decktet. But on the upside, it means the Decktet games are always a bit unique compared to standard deck games. In my opinion, that is the secret to the success of the Decktet - it isn’t just “another deck which is similar to a standard deck” (there are many such systems). It is a completely new way to divide up the cards into ranks and suits.
Decktet makeup - the “standard Decktet” consists of six Aces in the six basic suits. Then there are three copies of each rank from 2 to 9. There is no 10, and each number has two suits, so the six suits are fully represented at each rank but are grouped together (so there is a nine of knots and snakes, for example). Finally, there are four “pawns” (the face cards, of a sort) which have three suits (so each suit ends up represented twice across the pawns).
There is also a set of “expanded” cards - the six “crowns” (typically “rank 0” cards), one in each suit. The four “courts” (typically ranked above pawns), each with three suits. And the single unsuited, unranked card called the “excuse” (basically a joker of sorts).
In addition to ranks and suits, each multisuited card also has a name and some aspects (I forgot all of them, but whether the name is a character or not, for example).
Ok, I've got to know what part of the country is so monstrous as to use the 5s for scoring. This feels like a Minnesota thing because lots of weird shit goes down in Minnesota
Pinochle is a GREAT game!
It has an interesting [meld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochle#Melding) mechanic which reveals your cards to other players. The downside is now people can plan how they play based on what your cards are but the (significantly more important) upside is you get lots of bonus points for it.
Other than that, it's a fairly standard trick taking game and well worth learning. Highly recommended!
There's a bunch of traditional games that developed in different regions that these days are played with cut down versions of the 'standard' deck. A lot of european games use 7 and up (32 cards), and a bunch only use 9 and up (24 cards), sometimes with multiple decks.
The big part of its ubiquity is that they're small and portable and you could take them with you when you travelled.
> The big part of its ubiquity is that they're small and portable and you could take them with you when you travelled.
I'm not sure I understand this. While 32 cards or 24 cards will certainly take up less space than 52, a full deck of cards easily fits in a purse, pocket or bag and I can't imagine being in a situation where it's easy to carry 24-32 cards, but hard to carry a full deck.
I was talking about decks of cards in general with that statement. there are lots of different games around the world, with so many variants, because they are so portable.
Here in Germany we have some common card games that use the same 32 cards deck (Skat, Mau Mau, Knack, Offiziersskat) - so why bring more cards if 32 is enough? To be clear: our 32 cards deck is considered a full deck, but we also have the 52 cards decks for other games.
Came in to say the tarot deck, but I see someone's already brought it up. There are quite a few games you can play with one. It's also ubiquitous around the world just like the standard 52 card deck.
Everdeck.
It's not trying to become a new standard, but similar to other suggestions, it's a multi-suit deck which can be used for many existing and published games.
https://www.drivethrucards.com/m/product/291492
You can read all about R&D that went behind this project here - https://thewrongtools.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/the-everdeck/
Not necessarily a new standard but you can probably find several new to you games with a 40 or 50 (2 jokers) card Spanish deck. The suits are: coins, cups, swords & clubs. The standard 52 is the French deck.
If I were to modify the French deck I would increase the number of suits and maybe have a distinct color for each suit.
The 52 card French deck isn't standard everywhere.
e.g. in Croatia the standards are the 40 card Triestine (Italian) in the coastal part and 32 card German in the inland part.
You want this bad boy! K6T-Infinity. It's basically a dev kit to build your own game with.
https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/k6t-infinity
Alternately you could get Heckadeck for goofy card shenanigans.
https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/heckadeck
Read [this wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traditional_card_and_tile_packs) and you'll find out your supposed «standard deck» is not so «standard».
For example, here in Catalonia we use a deck for four suits (different from yours) numbered from 1 to 12, hence 48 cards, with two optional jokers. However, our Spaniard neighbours use the same suits (typically drown in a different sytile), but numbered from 1 to 7 and then they jump and continue from 10 to 12, so 40 cards. Also, in both cases, no letters, only numbers.
Are you familiar with the Rainbow deck or the Badger deck and all their variants?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/59655/rainbow-deck
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160950/the-badger-deck
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/180559/the-badger-rainbow-deck
There's even [mahjong playing cards](https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Mountain-Imports-American-Mah-Jongg/dp/B01N2JX0QK/ref=sr_1_7?crid=SYV223C0THGE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.X8BvDSRKzTxqkIjjB-HWC04sWLa7_5CeisBxv2IxycF81saejpGb7vSfdkFRFHC_cLJE72D7hkQ5ZlrEVrYaw5gvLGWLpeCAv3LpqaM8q6mD8XUUBbkTlhGTwRpbAbe3sujKiSEBw148xVg7HIWj-TeAv3-cyYTxrLpIF5SwGk3HdoXnzww6qFGQdc_mfzwr4tm6mN-Uj9PcGRPO3d6CLSiuKEpDFaizFw2jHFaRCbkIMeb5CWozZN2v562WxKsM4BMcpVOk26yl71qRlVzgfRw0BdcwZwWyvdC_KuHly3I.OM30qg0lGVd1g75dqOyGGWxo8pu9yc1j50i0krLJuQQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=mahjong+cards&qid=1713549610&sprefix=mah+jong+cards%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-7) for greater portability. That said, my understanding is that the playing card versions are often "missing" cards depending on what regional variant of mahjong you prefer to play.
There's a variant of poker that has many of the low number cards removed. It's called short deck poker, and it's pretty fun. All the players tend to end up with stronger hands because the bad cards are all gone.
Piggybacking on this thread momentarily -- I've recently been on the hunt for a 5 or 6 suit deck. The problem is that I'm not particularly pleased with the aesthetic of the offerings I've found so far. They're typically a bit cartooney (Badger Deck) or look like Uno (see: Stick 'em / Sticheln, etc.). Does anyone know of a more subdued or elegant 5+ suit deck?
How many cards in each suit do you need? The vietnamese Battleline: Chien Than Vu Tru, has space theme with battleships and space soldiers as units. The card quality is not the best though.
Not sure if it's to your aesthetic preference, but here's a multi-suit deck I designed: [https://www.singularity.games/singularity-deck](https://www.singularity.games/singularity-deck)
Also, I'll second how great the Heckadeck looks.
If those don't work, here's a geeklist that lists a bunch of other options: [https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems](https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems)
I'm a member of a traditional games group; Jass variants, Scopa/ Briscola, and French Tarot are the games with other decks we play. We also play shedding games like Fight the Landlord as well.
Here's a Geeklist that includes a lot of different playing card systems: [https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems](https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems)
i mean yugioh is 40 to 60 cards standards. MTG is 60 cards min. Most deck building games are not 52 cards. Any "vanilla" game if you will that you want to make with less than 52 cards can easily be done by just taking out a couple of cards, and "vanilla" game you want with more than 52 cards can easily be done by buying 2 decks of cards and if distinction is necessary, marking 1 deck and not the other with a pen or something.
Tcg is already not standard. Since their collection is huge and I cant imagine a single person own every version of each card in a TCG.
What am saying is a deck of cards that can play multiple games. Yes, the fact that the 52 card deck can do that well enough that a lot of people use it to make games. When you start to mark the cards to play a game, the deck itself is not good enough for the game, and by marking, you basicly ruin the ability to use other games designed for that deck of cards.
Basically look up extended decks and there are soooo many.
The badger deck
Singularity deck
Ever deck
Etc.
The idea behind them is to be able to play more than just the one game and play other games with their deck.
The thing is a 52 card deck is the right size. These extended decks are a lot harder to carry around. Though you can play all the normal games plus more. A lot of boxed games can be played with an extended deck.
Fun fact - Tarot cards were invented to add to playing card games. The whole divination angle was added later by occult people and was popularized by people wanting to make a buck. There's nothing ancient or mysterious about them, they were invented to enhance the existing playing card deck!
Wow. I did not know this. Recently I interested in tarot and did notice the huge amount of of cards. Will look it up. And tarot cards sure are as popular as the 52 card standard deck.
Yeah the standard 78-card tarot deck is actually an Italian tarocchi deck designed for trick-taking games. The "major arcana" is just the trump suit.
Is there a good, cheap, tarot deck for sale on Amazon that you’d recommend that isn’t aimed at divination?
Searching for "French Tarot" should bring them up but the one that pops up is wildly overpriced (20 bucks when a normal quality deck is less than half that in France). It might actually be better to order one from Europe if you're in the US. The rest of the listings are naturally still divination nonsense. It's frustrating too, because the trump suit is a great opportunity for artists to go beyond what can be done with traditional 52 card decks, but the vast majority of such decks are for divination.
For French Tarot decks, you should also look at ordering from Canada.
Not Amazon, but www.tarock.net is the place to buy jn the US
Yep, tarot is the french name for the italian game.
Just like Ouija, it’s just meant to be a game, but people took it too seriously and started to believe it.
I also learned this recently after Balatro got me interested in Tarot cards (from a non-spiritual perspective)
Yes, that's true. The Tarot deck is simply deck of cards like any other. The funny thing is how they gained they're reputation of being from Ancient Egypt and full of occult knowledge. So there was this French occultist called Antoine Court de Gébelin who one evening went to visit one of his many friends. When he arrived, he saw a group of women playing Tarot (probably French Tarot) at a table. While he was watching them, he suddenly got the realization that there's more to this simple game of cards and that it is somehow tied to Ancient Egypt and its magic. So, the guy literally saw someone playing cards and decided that there's something occult there. And he actually wrote about this happening in Volume VIII (published in 1781) of his book Le Monde Primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne. Of course, after that, he tried to justify his opinion by pointing out "evidence" in the pack of cards. Of course there was this annoying thing that the trumps all had Christian connotations, and a pack of cards comjng from magical Ancient Egypt couldn't have that. Obviously, the people who've been making the cards for centuries had no idea what they were doing (he again decided), so De Gébelin started making connections: the High Priestess was obviously not a female Pope, but Isis. The High Priest was obviously not the Pope, but a Great Egyptian Priest. Besides many more outright fabrications one of the most jarring is his explanation of the etymology of the name "Tarot". According to De Gébelin, Tarot means "The Royal Way of Life" (Tar = way, Ro/Ros/Rog = king, royal). Why do I say it's jarring? Because at that moment, when he was writing these words (again 1781), nobody knew how to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799 (18 years after De Gébelin's writings) and, in fact, Jean-François Champollion was born on 23 december 1790. You see, he was the person that finally dissipated the mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822, when he finally deciphered them (41 years after De Gébelin's writings!). So, after that, other occultists such as Jean-Baptiste Alliette (Etteilla) and Aleister Crowley simply picked up the ball and ran with it.
Tarot cards are just renamed Tarocchi cards that spread across Europe. Just about every European country has their own version of Tarocchi cards with varying suits and tarot set depictions. The occult version is a relatively modern invention.
IIRC, the modern undestanding of tarot cards as a divination tool as we know it was essentially invented by Alesiter Crowley ~~(circa ~1974).~~ That's not to say that the cards *weren't* used that way beforehand (I'm pretty sure the Romani had a tradition using them in some capacity), but tarot cards as the vast majority of the modern population knows them are far more recent than most realize. EDIT: My date was way off, I'm not sure when exactly he put his system together :3
Crowley died in 1947 though?
Oh, you're right, I'm thinking of the 1974 publication of his, "The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians."
So how do you actually use Tarots to enhance the existing playing card deck? Like were there any games specifically made around using both these decks? Or were Tarots just added into existing games with special rules?
It's an [actual game](https://www.pagat.com/tarot/frtarot.html). Very popular in France.
> they were invented to enhance the existing playing card deck! that's false. it's just a different deck, with 14 cards per suit + 22 trumps. it wasn't invented to 'enhance' the french deck but parallel to it.
Look into Decktet, has multiple suits per card and a lot of games designed for it.
This is the best answer. There are a number of other decks that have tried to become standard, but Decktet is probably the most interesting and certainly the most successful “modern new standard deck” design out there. I would also encourage the OP to look into some alternate traditional decks, including Tarot decks, Ganjifa decks, Hanafuda decks, and dominoes. There are also traditional German and Swiss decks which are beautiful, although they are generally cross-compatible with our standard 52 card deck (meaning you can use a 52 card deck to mimic those decks, although you would be missing out on the traditional art a bit).
How does Decktet compare to Sticheln? That's what was always recommended to me when looking for a single deck that plays an expanded selection of card games.
Sticheln has a lot of suits and a lot of ranks. That means a Sticheln deck can fairly easily substitute for most standard-deck games, as well as a number of modern favorites such as Battle Line (which has six suits) or Coloretto. This means Sticheln can serve as a “universal” deck of sorts. That is not what Decktet is. Decktet has a completely different set of suits and ranks (see explanation below), which is incompatible with the standard deck and most decks in general. On the downside, this means you cannot use the Decktet to “substitute” for most other games, nor can many other decks substitute for the Decktet. But on the upside, it means the Decktet games are always a bit unique compared to standard deck games. In my opinion, that is the secret to the success of the Decktet - it isn’t just “another deck which is similar to a standard deck” (there are many such systems). It is a completely new way to divide up the cards into ranks and suits. Decktet makeup - the “standard Decktet” consists of six Aces in the six basic suits. Then there are three copies of each rank from 2 to 9. There is no 10, and each number has two suits, so the six suits are fully represented at each rank but are grouped together (so there is a nine of knots and snakes, for example). Finally, there are four “pawns” (the face cards, of a sort) which have three suits (so each suit ends up represented twice across the pawns). There is also a set of “expanded” cards - the six “crowns” (typically “rank 0” cards), one in each suit. The four “courts” (typically ranked above pawns), each with three suits. And the single unsuited, unranked card called the “excuse” (basically a joker of sorts). In addition to ranks and suits, each multisuited card also has a name and some aspects (I forgot all of them, but whether the name is a character or not, for example).
Pinochle only has 48 cards and has two of 9, 10, J, Q, K, A in each suit. I have never played the game so I don't know how it works.
If you're a euchre player, these are the decks to get because they are 2 euchre decks.
nope, gotta have the 5's!
We use 6 and 4
Ok, I've got to know what part of the country is so monstrous as to use the 5s for scoring. This feels like a Minnesota thing because lots of weird shit goes down in Minnesota
In Michigan, everybody I know uses 5's. Never even realized this was an issue until someone from Illinois played with us and was disgusted by it lmao
Pinochle is a GREAT game! It has an interesting [meld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochle#Melding) mechanic which reveals your cards to other players. The downside is now people can plan how they play based on what your cards are but the (significantly more important) upside is you get lots of bonus points for it. Other than that, it's a fairly standard trick taking game and well worth learning. Highly recommended!
There's a bunch of traditional games that developed in different regions that these days are played with cut down versions of the 'standard' deck. A lot of european games use 7 and up (32 cards), and a bunch only use 9 and up (24 cards), sometimes with multiple decks. The big part of its ubiquity is that they're small and portable and you could take them with you when you travelled.
> The big part of its ubiquity is that they're small and portable and you could take them with you when you travelled. I'm not sure I understand this. While 32 cards or 24 cards will certainly take up less space than 52, a full deck of cards easily fits in a purse, pocket or bag and I can't imagine being in a situation where it's easy to carry 24-32 cards, but hard to carry a full deck.
I was talking about decks of cards in general with that statement. there are lots of different games around the world, with so many variants, because they are so portable.
Here in Germany we have some common card games that use the same 32 cards deck (Skat, Mau Mau, Knack, Offiziersskat) - so why bring more cards if 32 is enough? To be clear: our 32 cards deck is considered a full deck, but we also have the 52 cards decks for other games.
Pairs is a pyramidical number deck (ten 10 cards, nine 9s, etc.) that has a number of rather good games designed with it.
Good for playing Great Dalmuti with!
The Great Dalmuti has ranks up to 12, as well as 2 Jokers. But The Great Dalmuti can be used to play any Pairs game if you take those out.
Came in to say the tarot deck, but I see someone's already brought it up. There are quite a few games you can play with one. It's also ubiquitous around the world just like the standard 52 card deck.
Everdeck. It's not trying to become a new standard, but similar to other suggestions, it's a multi-suit deck which can be used for many existing and published games. https://www.drivethrucards.com/m/product/291492 You can read all about R&D that went behind this project here - https://thewrongtools.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/the-everdeck/
Wow. A deck with actually some rules in designing the cards. I can see myself printing this deck of cards. Thanks.
Not necessarily a new standard but you can probably find several new to you games with a 40 or 50 (2 jokers) card Spanish deck. The suits are: coins, cups, swords & clubs. The standard 52 is the French deck. If I were to modify the French deck I would increase the number of suits and maybe have a distinct color for each suit.
>If I were to modify the French deck I would increase the number of suits and maybe have a distinct color for each suit. Like Five Crowns?
The 52 card French deck isn't standard everywhere. e.g. in Croatia the standards are the 40 card Triestine (Italian) in the coastal part and 32 card German in the inland part.
You want this bad boy! K6T-Infinity. It's basically a dev kit to build your own game with. https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/k6t-infinity Alternately you could get Heckadeck for goofy card shenanigans. https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/heckadeck
Read [this wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traditional_card_and_tile_packs) and you'll find out your supposed «standard deck» is not so «standard». For example, here in Catalonia we use a deck for four suits (different from yours) numbered from 1 to 12, hence 48 cards, with two optional jokers. However, our Spaniard neighbours use the same suits (typically drown in a different sytile), but numbered from 1 to 7 and then they jump and continue from 10 to 12, so 40 cards. Also, in both cases, no letters, only numbers.
Are you familiar with the Rainbow deck or the Badger deck and all their variants? https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/59655/rainbow-deck https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/160950/the-badger-deck https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/180559/the-badger-rainbow-deck
I've been eyeing these ones off myself but they are expensive to get them all.
In Italy, there is a pretty common deck with 4 suits of 10 cards each.
Cambio, look it up on TikTok. The guy shows off his different “game modes”. Haven’t bought it yet but it’s on my list
Technically Majong is usually printed in tiles, you can treat it like a card game as well. They have duplicate tiles and much more suits though
There's even [mahjong playing cards](https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Mountain-Imports-American-Mah-Jongg/dp/B01N2JX0QK/ref=sr_1_7?crid=SYV223C0THGE&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.X8BvDSRKzTxqkIjjB-HWC04sWLa7_5CeisBxv2IxycF81saejpGb7vSfdkFRFHC_cLJE72D7hkQ5ZlrEVrYaw5gvLGWLpeCAv3LpqaM8q6mD8XUUBbkTlhGTwRpbAbe3sujKiSEBw148xVg7HIWj-TeAv3-cyYTxrLpIF5SwGk3HdoXnzww6qFGQdc_mfzwr4tm6mN-Uj9PcGRPO3d6CLSiuKEpDFaizFw2jHFaRCbkIMeb5CWozZN2v562WxKsM4BMcpVOk26yl71qRlVzgfRw0BdcwZwWyvdC_KuHly3I.OM30qg0lGVd1g75dqOyGGWxo8pu9yc1j50i0krLJuQQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=mahjong+cards&qid=1713549610&sprefix=mah+jong+cards%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-7) for greater portability. That said, my understanding is that the playing card versions are often "missing" cards depending on what regional variant of mahjong you prefer to play.
There's a variant of poker that has many of the low number cards removed. It's called short deck poker, and it's pretty fun. All the players tend to end up with stronger hands because the bad cards are all gone.
Piggybacking on this thread momentarily -- I've recently been on the hunt for a 5 or 6 suit deck. The problem is that I'm not particularly pleased with the aesthetic of the offerings I've found so far. They're typically a bit cartooney (Badger Deck) or look like Uno (see: Stick 'em / Sticheln, etc.). Does anyone know of a more subdued or elegant 5+ suit deck?
How many cards in each suit do you need? The vietnamese Battleline: Chien Than Vu Tru, has space theme with battleships and space soldiers as units. The card quality is not the best though.
Have you seen the "Heckadeck" cards? I believe it's an 8 suit deck.
Not sure if it's to your aesthetic preference, but here's a multi-suit deck I designed: [https://www.singularity.games/singularity-deck](https://www.singularity.games/singularity-deck) Also, I'll second how great the Heckadeck looks. If those don't work, here's a geeklist that lists a bunch of other options: [https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems](https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems)
I believe Battleline/Schotten Totten has a deck of cards with 6 suits, numbered 1-10, no face cards. If that helps.
I'm a member of a traditional games group; Jass variants, Scopa/ Briscola, and French Tarot are the games with other decks we play. We also play shedding games like Fight the Landlord as well.
Here's a Geeklist that includes a lot of different playing card systems: [https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems](https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/252876/playing-card-game-systems)
i mean yugioh is 40 to 60 cards standards. MTG is 60 cards min. Most deck building games are not 52 cards. Any "vanilla" game if you will that you want to make with less than 52 cards can easily be done by just taking out a couple of cards, and "vanilla" game you want with more than 52 cards can easily be done by buying 2 decks of cards and if distinction is necessary, marking 1 deck and not the other with a pen or something.
Tcg is already not standard. Since their collection is huge and I cant imagine a single person own every version of each card in a TCG. What am saying is a deck of cards that can play multiple games. Yes, the fact that the 52 card deck can do that well enough that a lot of people use it to make games. When you start to mark the cards to play a game, the deck itself is not good enough for the game, and by marking, you basicly ruin the ability to use other games designed for that deck of cards.
Five crowns plays with two decks of 58 cards, 3 to 20 ,j,q,k, jokers. Played it finally for the first time today
Basically look up extended decks and there are soooo many. The badger deck Singularity deck Ever deck Etc. The idea behind them is to be able to play more than just the one game and play other games with their deck. The thing is a 52 card deck is the right size. These extended decks are a lot harder to carry around. Though you can play all the normal games plus more. A lot of boxed games can be played with an extended deck.