Generic deck of 60 cards

As for the huge hurtle, I don't have a particular game in mind. I've been thinking more in the generic abstract. Create a hypothetical deck where each card/tile belongs to three different groups. When you think of it, a standard deck of 52 cards has each card belonging to two groups. One being a symbol (hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs) and the other being a value. All I'm saying is add 8 more cards and introduce another grouping symbol. As for games, I figure some could just be an adaption of most classic card games, but with a twist. Such a deck might lend itself to new generic games.

I have no direction to this train of thought. It's so trivial, I'm sure it's nothing new. I just liked the idea of a generic card/tile set that could be used for multiple purposes. And as I pointed out, it seems to mess well with dice mechanics and might be a segway into dice+card games.

I was trying to be generic about the creation of a 60 card deck using 3 groups of basic symbols. The first group containing 5 members, the second group with 4 members, and the third group with 3 members (ie: 5x4x3 = 60).

I gave an example of games involving a trump suite to describe how such a deck might introduce a new twist. Calling suite not only depicts the symbol but also how the cards will be grouped. As stated, normal playing cards are grouped 4x13. A 60 card deck would allow 4x15, as well as 3x20 and 5x12. The different groupings might change one's strategy since the probabilities would be different for all three groups.

My wife posed the question about cards of equal value. Say hearts was trump and someone laid a 4-circle-heart and someone else laid a 4-square-heart. Which card would have a higher value? My answer to that is the deck does not impose such determination. It's completely up to the rules of the game. One could say the first 4 played has the higher value, or the last 4 played wins. Once could also say that circles have a higher value than squares in a tie. Or, in this particular game, one could introduce the concept of primary trump and alternate trump.

Which brings me to my next thought. What would be appropriate for a generic deck? Should one grouping even contain the concept of denomination (ie: 1,2,3,4,5)? Or should all three groups have a ranking order as well as a ranking order between the groups. I suppose my answer to that is it depends on the deck being created. My fascination has been focused on 60. A large enough number for variety, yet small enough to mentally manage. And a number that appears to provide the most unique possibilities for grouping. As for how the cards relate to each other, that would be defined by the particular game.

Here's another example of creating a deck of 60 cards. This time with a theme. Just like a standard deck has four suites, let's say there's 4 factions (north, south, east, and west). Within each faction, there's 5 classes of people (ie: merchant, farmer, cleric, ...), and for each class, there's 3 resources (water, food, money). Maybe this is a bad example, but the idea was to remove the concept of value within each grouping. In doing so, it's easier to create more scenarios. A 12 sided die is rolled, North wind prevails (ie: trump). Next time the die is rolled, merchants are preferred, or water becomes the valued resource. Again, no particular game in mind, just a generalized example of how cards can be grouped.