Les Cartes Noires Chaotiques
To Nina Nadu and to my children, Olivia and Henry, you all are my everything
L'introduction
| Condition | Value |
|---|---|
| Number of Players | 1 (but more are optional) |
| Complexity | Medium |
| Duration | Long |
Les Cartes Noires Chaotiques is all about storytelling and building the optimal story from the laid out set of cards. The game is inspired by Les Cartes Noires. One major departure form Les Cartes Noires is the element of chaos as derived from the roll of a die. Additionally, cards are not kept long on the table. Instead, story blurbs are made and a full story is constructed at the conclusion of the game. Finally, there is an optional multiplayer element. Regardless of the number of players, it is important to be considerate of all players and judgement free.
Les Règles du Jeu
Equipment
- 1 six-sided die.
- 1 standard 52-card deck of French-suited cards (clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades).
- Something to write with.
- Something to write on.
Set Up
Before play begins, remove all Jokers from the deck, if present. Next, remove all 2's through 6's and 9's from the deck. This leaves behind the Aces, 7's, 8's, 10's, and royal court ("face cards").
Shuffle the deck of cards and place it face down.
Game Flow
At the start of each turn, remove all face up cards on the table, roll the die, and place cards equal to the die roll, or what's left in the deck if there are not enough cards, face up. Next, order the cards however you please. Finally, from those cards build a story blurb from them. Play continues until the deck is exhausted or the player is finished. Once exhausted, and it's up the player, all cards may be shuffled and placed face down to form a new deck.
Card Interpretations
There are specific meanings behind each card face, drawn from the pips and the suit. Presented here are only one set of interpretations and the players are encouraged to determine their own prior to the start of the game. Also, feel free to publish your own interpretations that fit your setting and purpose!
For the pips, these are the interpretations as laid out by the myself:
- Kings and Queens make up the main characters
- Aces represent major plot points
- Jacks are doers of actions against the main characters
- 10's imply a relationship between the two touching cards
- 8's are non-main characters receiving action
- 7's are objects receiving action from some other character
For the suits, here are the meanings as determined by the Internet:
- Clubs - greed, envy, avarice
- Diamonds - ambition
- Hearts - passion
- Spades - misdemeanors, illegal actions, corruption
End of Game
Once the deck is exhausted enough times or the player is decidedly finished, all the story blurbs are assembled into a complete story in any order desired by the player. The entire story doesn't need to consist entirely of the story blurbs, but every story blurb needs inclusion!
Multiple Players
It's entirely possible for multiple players to play Les Cartes Noires Chaotiques. First, turn order must be established before play begins through some method, such as rolling the die. Next, each player keeps a record of their own story blurbs, judgement free, which is to say that no other player may influence the acting player's story blurb creation process. All story blurbs are valid. Once the game ends, each player will assemble their own story from all their blurbs.
If a player in a three or more player game is being unruly and inconsiderate, and upon agreement from most of the other players, the inconsiderate player may be ejected from the game.
Co-operative Players
A variant on the multiple players idea is co-operative players. The only real differences between "Multiple Players" and "Co-operative Players" is that instead of building their own story, players contribute to a common pool of story blurbs, and how inconsiderate players are handled. If there are inconsiderate players, the other players will need to find common ground to build out the story blurbs. The story created at the end will need to somehow include all story blurbs and without argument or judgement and in a constructive fashion.
Video Calls
If the mechanism that chosen is a video call, different rules apply a little. There are two approaches. In the first approach, one person is chosen as the "dealer", who both rolls the die and deals out the cards for a player. The player still chooses the order and placement of cards. Optionally, everyone could have their own deck of cards and die. In both approaches, the camera should be on the cards and die for fairness. Either of these approaches should minimize confusion during a video call.
Example
Suppose, for example, a die was rolled and four cards were drawn and laid out as below.
Example Placement for a Story Blurb
What kind of story can be constructed from it? It could be said that the Jack of Clubs is the envious sibling Charlotte. The 8 of Spades is the corrupt Mayor to whom she is romantically involved with (the 10 of Hearts) and the Ace of Clubs is the plot where they will attempt to acquire more wealth than Charlotte's older sibling.
Sweep those cards away because a story blurb was made!
This contrived example seems easy and it is! However, a player's own story blurbs might not be so easy to develop and might require a little more than quick thinking.