Card Games: Shedding / Stops

The gray morning has arrived, and the vampires of the ancient clans must now hurry back to their tombs. For the high and mighty this is easy, but the smaller, weaker vampires have the strength to do this only in groups. Thus, you as the vampire lord might want to play out several with low values together in order not to be surpassed. Whatever you do in Vampire Queen, though, be sure to rid yourself of an intrusive vampire hunter because no one wants to get stuck with that!

The deck consists of cards numbered 1-13, four vampire queens that have variable value, and two vampire hunters. Players start with a hand of 9-13 cards depending on the player count, and the start player for a round plays from their hand either a single card, multiple cards of the same value, or a vampire hunter. Vampire queens on their own (or in a pair, triplet, or quartet) are valued at 14, but they can be played with other cards and adopt the value of those cards. For a single card or a set of cards (e.g., three 6s), each other player in turn can either pass or play the same number of cards but of a higher value (e.g., three 9s). Whoever plays the highest card(s) wins the round and leads off the next round.

If the round's start player leads a vampire hunter, it counts as value 0 and each other player must play exactly one (non-vampire hunter) card of whatever value they want. Whoever plays the highest card takes all played cards into their hand, then leads off the next round, but they cannot lead with the same vampire hunter they just won.

When one or more players have emptied their hand at the end of a round, the round ends. Players then score points for all cards still in hand, with number cards being worth their face value, queens being 14, and vampire hunter cards being 15 or 20, as indicated. Players with vampire hunters in hand keep them, then shuffle all cards and deal new hands to all players, with the player who holds the 20 starting. After five rounds, whoever has scored the fewest points wins.

Gadget Builder is a family card game from designer Tom Lehmann that riffs on the core idea of Crazy Eights: match number or color to play your cards and try to empty your hand first.

The twist is that you can use cards from a fifth suit to build various gadgets that persist from hand to hand and help you get rid of your cards. Which gadgets do you build? When do you use them?

You can use only one gadget per turn, and to go out, you must have no cards in hand and no unused gadgets. If you empty your hand but haven't used all of your gadgets, you draw one card for each unused gadget, so don't build it unless you're going to use it!

Will the players put their cards in the discard pile or their own collection? This choice decides whether they will gain points, pressure the others into the direction you want, or impede their rival players’ strategy.

The latest edition of the Seers Catalog has everything you need for stopping werewolves. Can you limit yourself to the essentials in time to save the village?

Seers Catalog is an almost-shedding card game in which each player tries to get rid of almost all of the cards in their hand. Each round, players have a unique set of artifacts that give them asymmetric abilities to help manage their hand of cards. When one player runs out of cards, the round is scored: Each card is worth -1, but if you have five or fewer cards in your hand, the lowest value on those cards is worth positive points! However, once you have five or fewer cards, you can no longer voluntarily pass, so holding on to a high-value card near the end of the round hoping for a big payout can result in total failure.

Haggis is a climbing game in the same family as Zheng Fen and Big Two. It borrows and recombines elements from its parent games - card combinations, bombs, scoring for cards in hand, scoring for cards collected in tricks - and it mixes in equally distributed wild cards and betting that you'll be the first to empty your hand of cards.