Every number card in the Decktet has two suits, and no suit appears on two cards of the same numbered rank. Since the Decktet is meant to seem like the result of a folk tradition, rather than the result of a self-conscious modern game designer, the possible combinations of suits do not occur with equal frequency. For example: The combination Moon/Sun occurs on three different cards, but the combination Moon/Knot only occurs on one card.
Knowledge of suit combinations can be helpful in some of the Decktet games, but no so much as to make it essential. You can play most games pretty well without thinking about it.
I have a hand drawn chart of the suit combinations in an old notebook, but today I drew up a clean version on the computer. Again with the example, you can see that the Moon/Sun combination occurs on cards of rank 4, 8, and 9. Note also the three suit combinations that do not occur at all.
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Gizensha: Cool. I have played a bit with games using divinatory types (the distinction between personalities, locations, and event.) It actually played a central role in an early draft of my GDS Moving Day game, although less so in the final draft. I suspect there is a game to be made that uses it more extensively.
Jacynth (the Carcassonne-esque one) got on the table for a few games at Spielbany today. Although it needs some tuning, the frequency of suit combinations really doesn't become an issue. There were games in which it was important to keep track of whether there are (for example) any Sun cards left, but that can be determined just from the fact that there are ten Sun cards in all. It never become strategically important to know the exact combinations of what might go with a Sun.
Interesting. I appreciate the
Interesting. I appreciate the idea of the "folk tradition" angle, but I don't think I'd ever play a Decktet game unless I had enough interest to memorize the deck. It would be such an issue for me that if I bought the Decktet and opened it and saw the unequal frequency and/or the chart, I'd close it back up and try to sell it to someone.
Not saying it would be true for everyone, just speaking for myself, but it would definitely be a game-killer for me.
Hmm...
I should add that some games are not effected at all by the distribution of suit pairs. There are still exactly ten cards of each suit, distributed evenly across ten ranks.
Also: Given the number of cards, it is actually just impossible for the distribution of suit combinations to be perfectly even.
I am curious if other people share your sentiments, though.
Matter of Perspective
Well... there aren't really ten cards of each suit, at least not practically, right? If there were then there'd be 50 cards. I mean, when someone plays a double-suited card they've actually played, effectively, two cards, if you're counting that way, it seems. As such, if I've got the ace and [crown] of moons in my hand and the ace and [crown] of suns in my hand, there aren't 8 more moons and 8 more suns out there in the deck. There are 5 more non-sun moons and 5 more non-moon suns, and 3 sun/moons. Seems like I'd have to understand that to play nearly any game.
The double-suited nature of
The double-suited nature of the decktet adds an element of confusion reguarding things like that, yes, but I'm not sure how important suit combination frequencies are to most games. Most of the ones, it seems more important to know the frequency that other cards in the suit it is have occurred than suit combo frequencies, glancing at the rules of them. The fact that there are three wood/water cards seems significantly less useful, for example, than the fact that once one of them are played, that card's been removed from both suits, which in a trick taking game in the case of the 8 of wood/water, could turn two sevens into stops in two different suits, at least in the games who's rules I can recall (Although the Carcassonne-esque one with the claiming of territories and the 5x5 grid might be an exception). [Actually, the way the Decktet can mean one card becomes a stop in one suit and a liable trick-loser in another makes it quite interesting for trick taking games, even ignoring the 'follow suit and trump with the same card' concept (which is where knowledge of suit combos could come in handy, probably), I feel.]
...To add a further layer of complexity, there is a feature of all decktet cards other than aces which is only advertised in the fortune telling section of the decktet's site - That of type - All non-ace cards are one of personality, location or event (except for the three that are both locations and events).
...Without taking into account suit and/or rank, however, there doesn't seem to be anything immediately obvious in the rummy family regarding a set of all three types, though - Too frequent to be able to play a hand on deals, I feel, or in the case of the three and ace requirement, too frequent. Though I only tested with 3 and 6 cards per hand and aces wild, along with 4 cards per hand and needing one of each... But it's too frequent for the same reason that 'one of each suit, rank doesn't matter' in a regular set of cards isn't a requirement in (m)any games.
Obvious, now I think of it, but the lure of the thematic aspect of that was just too great to resist trying it. (Yeah, that's the experiment I mentioned earlier that I was going to run but haven't commented on since)
Still want to do something using that aspect of the decktet, but it would need to be linked to another aspect (rather than using that aspect for playing the cards, and the other two aspects for scoring as my original intent was) - The decktet is a deck of cards which are comparable in three dimensions rather than the two [No, colour doesn't count, it's simply a pair of suits, and one-eyed-jack or moustached cards don't count in my mind either] a regular deck of cards is, and it would be interesting if that third dimension of it could be used in a game rather than just the two dimensions which are present on regular playing cards. (And yet, it seems a waste, at this stage in the decktet's life, to not use the double-suited aspect, since that's the big difference it offers over the normal deck of cards)