Rare Triumphs 78 card deck

[shimmering]

Hi all, so you may remember I designed a deck of playing cards inspired by the style of the Tarot de Marseille (as well as English pattern playing cards). That deck is called Pike and Clover, and it was on Kickstarter at the end of last year. Well I have done a followup to this project. It is basically an extended edition of the deck: the addition of a 22 card trump suit (or 21 + fool) and four knights on horseback makes a 78 card deck. Again, the art style is related to the Tarot de Marseille, but the subjects of the trump cards wander a bit further from the typical Marseille pattern, drawing inspiration from various early historical tarots and related sources.

Here's a link if you want to check out the project:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/737088756/rare-triumphs-a-78-card-alternative-old-style-taro/

[Don Boyer]

One the one hand, I really do like the design - it's an attractive take on a popular deck style, the larger-than-International-Standard, game version of tarot.

But you might run in to some problems in terms of market expectations.

It's got a "major arcana" to it, more like the divination deck, so it doesn't have the traditional look of a tarot game deck.  But it has "major arcana/trump" cards that are different than the traditional ones found in a divination deck.  Will those expecting the game deck appreciate the divination-style nods in the design?  Will divination deck buyers appreciate the nods to the game version of the deck?  It's like you didn't really commit one way or the other way, leaving some people scratching their heads - it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but breathes water like a fish, so what the heck is it?  Then there's the "knight" cards - divination decks usually use a "page of [name your suit]" - but again, this isn't the divination deck, really; it's the game deck of tarot, it just looks like a divination deck.

I'm inclined to think that people who aren't totally married to the traditional game version tarot decks will appreciate and enjoy the design tweaks.  The divination market might be fussier, except perhaps for those who like to vary it up and use less traditional divination decks.

Good luck with your project!  I did like Pike and Clover when it came out but missed out on the funding stage - I can't go buying them all on my salary.

[shimmering]

Cheers Don. Yes it's certainly an alternative take in many regards.

One point is that that Tarot de Marseille style decks were used for gaming in France until relatively recently, even after the introduction of the French suited Tarot Nouveau. And this type of traditional imagery is still found on standard Italian tarocchi decks used for gameplay. So I don't think there's anything /that/ unusual about using a traditional(ish) design for gameplay.

I think the gaming tarot market is a tiny fraction of the whole, though. Probably most people in English speaking countries don't think of tarot as a game at all. I am not sure I had come across it before I lived in France. Nevertheless, I think playability is an important design consideration, for these as much as any of my other far-out decks.

So yes, then it comes down to the trump sequence and the significance of the illustrations on each of the cards. And you are right, they are not the same as the typical Marseille illustrations. But to get there I studied a lot of historical decks, each with its own take on the indvidual illustrations/ideas and on the sequence as a whole, and this is what I came up with. I guess it's my take and some people will like it and others won't.

The court cards are the same though between divination and gaming decks. They all have king, queen (or dame in French = lady), knight (on horseback, chevalier in French), and page or jack (both called valet in French). I don't know why in the Rider-Waite deck they decided to call the jacks pages, but they did, and it has stuck in such English language divination decks.

Hopefully enough people will like it. We shall see.

I can certainly sympathise with the can't buy em all sentiment!

[Don Boyer]

Cheers Don. Yes it's certainly an alternative take in many regards.

One point is that that Tarot de Marseille style decks were used for gaming in France until relatively recently, even after the introduction of the French suited Tarot Nouveau. And this type of traditional imagery is still found on standard Italian tarocchi decks used for gameplay. So I don't think there's anything /that/ unusual about using a traditional(ish) design for gameplay.

I think the gaming tarot market is a tiny fraction of the whole, though. Probably most people in English speaking countries don't think of tarot as a game at all. I am not sure I had come across it before I lived in France. Nevertheless, I think playability is an important design consideration, for these as much as any of my other far-out decks.

So yes, then it comes down to the trump sequence and the significance of the illustrations on each of the cards. And you are right, they are not the same as the typical Marseille illustrations. But to get there I studied a lot of historical decks, each with its own take on the indvidual illustrations/ideas and on the sequence as a whole, and this is what I came up with. I guess it's my take and some people will like it and others won't.

The court cards are the same though between divination and gaming decks. They all have king, queen (or dame in French = lady), knight (on horseback, chevalier in French), and page or jack (both called valet in French). I don't know why in the Rider-Waite deck they decided to call the jacks pages, but they did, and it has stuck in such English language divination decks.

Hopefully enough people will like it. We shall see.

I can certainly sympathise with the can't buy em all sentiment!

Well, it sounds like you did your homework on this project.  You're right in that the English-speaking world doesn't often run into the game version of tarot and more closely associate it with the divination decks.  That right there will make this campaign a bit of an uphill climb for you - but it's not insurmountable.

One possible consideration: I recently saw a successful pair of campaigns for Japanese-style hanafuda decks from the same studio.  They presented the cards with lovely artwork and were wise enough to include a complete rulebook as a reward - in each campaign, the rulebook was customized so the card images in the book matched the deck it was being rewarded with in that campaign.  It was made available in a very nice print edition as a large-format paperback, but also in a much more affordable e-book edition as well.  You would do well for your campaign to do something similar - include complete rules with custom art matching your deck as a reward option.  To do otherwise in a market that's not familiar with the game would be like selling a brand new board game in a town that's never played it before and not including a rule book - sure, some might look on the Internet, but many won't be bothered and will pass over the campaign, whereas including the rules, complete with art that the players will recognize on your deck, makes it more interesting as a package deal, something that people who love games but never heard of tarot as a game would be willing to try.

Good luck on the campaign!

[shimmering]

Cheers Don, yes it's an idea. I must admit I have thought about including a set of game rules somehow, and actually drafted a set. Only for one game though ... the French tarot I am most familiar with. I have to convince myself to leap into action on it though. So your post might help to convince me a bit.

I did actually back the Hanami Hanafuda project, and the fact that I was able to get that paperback book with all the rules was a major plus. So yeah. You might have a point!

[Don Boyer]

Cheers Don, yes it's an idea. I must admit I have thought about including a set of game rules somehow, and actually drafted a set. Only for one game though ... the French tarot I am most familiar with. I have to convince myself to leap into action on it though. So your post might help to convince me a bit.

I did actually back the Hanami Hanafuda project, and the fact that I was able to get that paperback book with all the rules was a major plus. So yeah. You might have a point!

If you fail to get it done in time for this campaign and the campaign doesn't succeed, go for a relaunch AFTER you've designed a really good book of rules to go with it, something comparable to the Hanami Hanafuda book - I think it would seriously boost your chances.  If you think you can't afford to print it, make printing it a stretch goal and settle at first for an e-book edition - e-books are as cheap as you can get, production-wise, and cost nothing to "ship" since they're sent via email or download.  With today's smartphones and tablets, equipped with high resolution and broad color range, you can really make a gorgeous book out of it.  (I don't know if e-books will ever be as convenient as plain old paper from the reader's perspective, other than fast to buy from anywhere and light/easy to carry, but we're getting closer by the year.)

For the e-book, use either the EPUB or PDF format - something that's commonly used and maybe even open source, nothing proprietary like Kindle or iBooks, unless you're seriously concerned about protecting copyright.  Even then, I think you can make protected PDF files - you'd have to invest in some Adobe software (most of which is by subscription these days), but you wouldn't have to worry about the book getting pirated.