Guest Author - Lynn Little

When friends come over, we like to play a fun, simple card game called The Great Dalmuti. The Great Dalmuti is a Richard Garfield game. Garfield is probably best known for his hugely popular collectible card game Magic the Gathering.

Great Dalmuti is best played with 6 to 10 people. All cards are dealt to the players. There are 80 cards in a deck and consists of 12 different types of rank. The rank of the card is inspired by medieval times and the lower the rank the better the card. The first person to get rid of all of their cards is the Great Dalmuti. Where you sit at the table depends on your status. You have the Great Dalmuti, The Lesser Dalmuti, Merchants, Lesser Peon, Greater Peon. After each round players switch positions to the new status quo. There are two jesters in the deck. When played by themselves they have a rank of 13 but if played with another card they take on that rank.

The Great Dalmuti begins play. He does this by playing however many cards from his hands as long as they are the same rank. He might lay down 5 Knights. The next player must lay down 5 better ranked cards. The better ranked cards in this case would have to be lower than a rank of 5. If he doesn’t have any or doesn’t want to play them at this time he can pass. The round ends when everyone passes once. The Greater Peon is in charge if clearing all of the cards from the area of play. The person who played the best sets leads off on the next round. Play continues until everyone gets rid of all of their cards. The first player to go out is the Great Dalmuti; the second will be the new Lesser Dalmuti and so forth.

A couple of other rules for the Great Dalmuti is that the Greater Peon must give his two best cards to the Great Dalmuti while the Great Dalmuti passes any two cards to the Greater Peon. The Lesser Peon exchanges one card with the Lesser Dalmuti. Merchants can trade cards but only if the Great Dalmuti agrees to it.

Hats are a nice prop to have with this game. We have a crown for the Great Dalmuti as well as a silly cap for the Greater Peon. Since this game is all about social class, it is fun to get into the spirit of the character especially when you are the Great Dalmuti and have some influence in the game. You should enjoy it while you can because you can go from the Great Dalmuti to the Greater Peon in a blink of an eye.

The Great Dalmuti is most likely to be found at your local hobby shop. If not, many places sell The Great Dalmuti online as well. This highly addictive game retails for under 10 dollars.