Beutelschneider

Description

In the trick-taking game Beutelschneider, players compete to gather as much gold as they can, but the gold is on the lowest-valued cards in the game, so you can rarely win with your own gold and instead need to grab it from others. The deck includes 36 cards in four colors, as well as nine trump cards in a fifth color. On a turn, someone leads a card, and players must follow suit if possible. For each Beutelschneider (cutpurse) you collect, you must subtract 20 points from your score for the round, which could put you in the red; the Beutelschneider is the highest ranked card in each of the non-trump suits, though, so ideally it will allow you to collect the 10-point gold sacks that rank far above the cards worth 1-4 coins. Many of the trump cards in Beutelschneider have special powers, and the deck even includes a bunch of violet special cards that can be added to gameplay if desired. To do this, shuffle the deck of special cards separately, then give each player one before dealing out the other cards like normal.