Murder in the House of Cards April 3, 2007
Posted by Ian in Actual Game.add a comment
This is just a simple little parlor game that struck me as potentially fun. It’s simple, it’s fast, and requires nothing more than a deck of cards and some friends.
The set-up: The Jack of Hearts has been murdered and his recently appointed successor must ferret out the guilty party. Unfortunately, everyone knows who the guilty party is. The Queen of Hearts had him beheaded when his investigation into his predecessor’s death forced him to implicate the Queen herself.
Before play begins, the Jack of Hearts is removed from the deck and handed to the player who will be playing him. The deck is then shuffled and the player to the left of the Jack draws one card face up and one card face down.
The face up card is the player’s character, the face down card their lead. The Jack interviews the player until they give up their lead. When this happens, the player discards their character and passes the lead to be played by the character on their left.
That player draws a card face down and the Jack interviews them for their lead. This repeats until the face down card turns out to be the Queen of Hearts. When she appears, the Jack is brought before the Queen on charges of framing the Queen and beheaded. The player who received the Queen card becomes the next Jack and play resumes.
Every player takes on the role of a royal card in turn, either a servant or fellow noble. Spades represent characters in charge of the gardens, Clubs represent characters in charge of defending the Queen, Diamonds represent her treasury, and Hearts her personal court of favorites.
Jacks are young male or female courtiers, Queens nervous sisters of the Queen of Hearts, and Kings the apathetic men beyond the power of the court and its queens. Any other card represents a ‘mere’ servant.
The Jack and the interviewee have equal narration rights over what their character sees and does, so may force each other into narrative corners just to watch them story their way to the interview’s conclusion.
Play until you are bored or have something else to do.
