Published to BoardGameGeek, DriveThruCards, and several other similar print on demand board game resource websites, the Everdeck is a specialised deck of cards created by the designer efofecks to perform well at a variety of card games and even cartomancy divination systems, which normally would not be compatible with each other, due to requiring different numbers and styles of cards.

The Everdeck accommodates Tarot easily and Lenormand with little additional fuss. It facilitates the usual range of Poker, Gin, Rummy, Bridge, and other similar games that use the traditional card suits, but it also works for Hanafuda, Memory Match, Scrabble, and Ultimate Werewolf, along with several dozen other games with systems related to these.

The Everdeck has eight suits, sorted into four colour groups: Moons and Stars are blue, Coins and Crowns are yellow, Spades and Clubs are black, and Hearts and Diamonds are red. Every suit has fifteen ranks, with the following names, in ascending order of their value: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, X, J, Q, K, A. Note that the Ace and the 1 are separate cards from each other, and that the tenth value is denoted not by the digits 10, but by the Roman numeral X. Ace and X are considered "face cards" within the Everdeck system. Because there are five face cards, five odd digits, and five even digits, this numeration system can easily serve as a way to select a random value among three values, in the style of a d3.

The Everdeck works very well as a substitute for most polyhedral dice used in tabletop games. The four colours work as a d4. The eight suits work as a d8. The upper righthand corner of every card gives the card a unique number, ranging from 00 to 119, with the final digit acting as a d10 (ranging 0 to 9), and the first digit or pair of digits acting as a d12 (ranging from 0 to 11). Any two cards together can provide a d100 (d%) roll, by treating one of their 0-9 values as the ones place of the roll, and the other as the tens place. A d2 is attainable by dividing traditional suits (reds and blacks) from non-traditional suits (blues and yellows). A d6 takes a little extra finagling, but is achievable by consulting both the d3 value (odds, evens, or face cards) and then the suit's "pointed or round" status: hearts, clubs, coins, and moons have rounded tops, while diamonds, spades, crowns, and stars have pointed tops. Even round can mean 2, even pointed 4, etc. as one pleases.

Unfortunately, the Everdeck does not have a d20 "baked in," which seems to me a peculiar oversight, since the cards are 120 in number, easily divisible into batches that can indicate for d20. The round-and-pointed method unfortunately won't work for d20, due to how the face cards are numbered, and I still have not devised a satisfactory and easy-to-remember way of indicating the result of a d20, for my own use, independent of the designer's intention. I confess I find this frustrating, because otherwise I really love this deck.

Every card depicts an animal illustrated in a stylised and rather elegant fashion. Sixty animals, each with a double elsewhere in the deck, provide for Memory Match games. Every card also has a keyword at the bottom, beginning with an enlarged letter of the alphabet. The distribution of first letters complies with Scrabble letter frequency for the English language. These keywords also serve for story prompts, character generation ideas, and as the actual names for Tarot cards.

A similar deck, for those interested in elaborate and esoteric multi-system decks, is the 160 card Heckadeck by Travis Nichols. The Pixie Cards by JSB Enterprises are a Tarot-based extended deck of six suits, able to serve as polyhedral dice and tabletop game prompts. The Dicecards (note the spelling - all one word!) likewise accommodate many features of a board game, even poker chip values and different straw lengths for drawing straws. Many other multi-game decks exist, but so far in my own searching, these named here have the most diverse and well-designed approaches to accommodating many types of gameplay. They are especially useful on long car rides, because they allow dice rolls to take place without the logistical difficulty of actual physical dice flying around one's vehicle. The only real drawback, as I see it, is that paper is less durable than most dice, so frequent use will eventually impair the randomness of these decks, the same as any other deck of cards made from paper and not plastic.

More about the Everdeck can be read here on the author's own blog on Wordpress.


Iron Noder 2024, 17/30

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