Tarot games

When David, Ronda and I were recording our last episode of the Menage A Tarot podcast, we were discussing other fun uses of Tarot cards, besides Tarot card reading. The subject of Tarot Games came up and an idea just popped into my head. So here it is!

This Tarot game can be played with two or more players. It doesn’t matter if the players have prior knowledge about Tarot or not – anyone can play this game, as long as there’s a willingness to be creative and open minded!

The Rules

1) Each person chooses 7 cards from the deck (without looking at them!) If you are playing this with more than four players, you may want to choose only five. Don’t let other players see your cards!

2) The first person chooses someone at the table to “read”. This is done by picking one of their cards (which are laying facedown on the table in front of them). In two sentences or less, say something about them that they can confirm with a “yes” or a “no”. For example, if you draw The Hermit for your friend you might say “lately you’ve been craving time alone” and your friend can either say “no, not true” or “yes!”

3) If they say “yes” to your statement, then you get to keep that card – you will want to put it in a separate pile from your original 7 cards. This is your “treasure pile” and these cards won’t get circulated back into the game.

If they say “no”, then they keep that card. Your turn is up and now it’s the next person’s turn. The next person might choose to read for that same person or a different person. Just be sure that when it’s your turn to read that you don’t just keep reading the same person over and over again (unless there’s only two of you!).

4) Once all your cards are gone you may choose another 7 from the deck. All players will have two groups of cards – a stack of the cards they take from other players when they read them correctly (Treasure Pile) and their own cards that they should have fanned out in front of them for other players to choose.

5) The object of this game is to end up with the most cards in your Treasure Pile. You may play this game until all the cards are gone from the deck, or you may set a time limit of an hour or two and whoever has the most cards at the end wins.

Playing with non-Tarot readers

If you are playing with people who know nothing at all about Tarot, all the more fun! All they have to do is look at a card and pretend to read it for that person. You’d be surprised at how well this can work!

It’s sometimes helpful to try to just interpret the card literally. For example, look at The Fool – what is happening? A guy is about to step off a cliff. So you could say “you are about to jump off a cliff – metaphorically. Are you thinking of taking a risk right now?”

Or, in the case of Temperance, you might say “you have one foot into something and one foot out”

Alternatively, you may keep a Tarot card meanings book on hand and refer to it throughout the game if you need to. This isn’t cheating and it’s totally allowed in this game!

Some things to keep in mind

Alcoholic beverages and rowdiness are completely acceptable! Unlike when you do a regular Tarot reading, you don’t need to remain sober and mature for this one. Of course, this is entirely dependent on your preferences and the people you are playing with.

The point of this game is to have fun with the cards and play at guessing the meanings of the cards (if you are new to Tarot) and practice your reading skills if you are more experienced.

Should you use the same Tarot deck you use for readings?
If you have more than one deck, use a deck that you don’t usually read with. If you do use your one and only beloved Tarot deck, just make sure to energetically cleanse your deck before using it again for readings.

*Full Disclosure: I have yet to actually test out this Tarot game, mainly because I can’t find anyone whose interested in playing it! I know, I know, my friends are boring. So I may post some updates to this post once I do try it out.

Thoughts? Comments?

Did you try this game? How did it go? What do you think about using Tarot cards for games? Is it sacrilege or good clean fun? Tell me in the comments below – I’d love to hear from you!