Jewel Vault

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards and the jewels
3. The suit actions
4. Setup of a round
5. Playing a trick
6. End of a round
7. Winning the game
8. Two players
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants

Overview

Jewel Vault is a trick-taking game in which the tricks themselves are worth nothing. What counts are the jewels (chips) they bring you. In a trick, everybody plays one card and the highest card of the suit led wins them all. Each suit has an action that moves a jewel: into your vault, where it is safe and counts double; into your showroom, where it counts once but others can steal it; or from someone else's showroom into yours. You get an action when you win a trick, when you can't follow suit, and at the end of each round. After a fixed number of rounds, the player with the most points in jewels wins.

• Players: 2–6 (best with 3–5).
• You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and about 100 chips (or other tokens) – ideally some in a second colour worth 5. Each player also needs something to hide their vault: a cup, a small bag or a box.

Jewel Vault is our own adaptation for an ordinary deck, inspired by Diamonds (Mike Fitzgerald, Stronghold Games, 2014). It has not been playtested yet.

What differs from the original: the original's deck has 15 cards per suit (1 to 15) and plastic diamond crystals; here each suit has 13 cards, and chips take the place of the crystals. With 6 players, everyone gets 8 cards instead of 10, because one deck has only 52 cards. The suit actions, the play and the scoring are those of the original.

The cards and the jewels

The cards rank in each suit from Ace (lowest) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K (highest). There are no trumps.

Put all the chips in the middle as the supply. A chip is a jewel worth 1; a chip in the second colour is worth 5 – use them only to change five 1s into one 5 (all five from your vault, or all five from your showroom, never mixed). If you must move or lose just one jewel from a 5 chip, change it back into five 1s first.

Every player has two places for jewels:

• the showroom – the space on the table in front of you; everybody can see it, and others can steal from it;
• the vault – the cup, bag or box; keep it closed, and don't tell anyone how much is inside.

Everybody starts with 3 jewels in their showroom and none in the vault.

The suit actions

If an action can't be done – a ♠ action with an empty showroom, or a ♣ action when all the other showrooms are empty, or a ♦ or ♥ action when the supply has run out – nothing happens.

Setup of a round

1. Choose a dealer; after each round the deal passes to the left.
2. The dealer shuffles and deals 10 cards to each player (with 6 players: 8 cards each). The rest go aside face down, unseen, for this round.
3. Passing: the dealer looks at their cards and announces how many everyone passes: 1, 2 or 3. Everybody chooses that many cards and passes them face down to the left neighbour. Choose your cards before you look at the ones you get.

Playing a trick

The player to the dealer's left leads (plays the first card of) the first trick. Then, clockwise, everyone adds one card.

• Follow suit: if you have a card of the suit that was led, you must play one.
• Can't follow? Play any card – and at once take the action of the suit you played.
• The highest card of the suit led wins the trick. The winner takes the cards face down, takes the action of the suit led, and leads the next trick.

Example: Anna leads the 9♥. Ben follows with the 3♥. Carla has no hearts; she plays the 5♣ and at once takes a ♣ action: she takes a jewel from Ben's showroom into hers. Dan plays the Q♥ and wins the trick, so he gets the ♥ action: 1 jewel from the supply into his showroom.

Keep the cards you won so that you can count them by suit at the end of the round.

End of a round

After the last trick, everybody counts the cards they won in each suit. Then these actions happen, in this order:

1. Whoever has the most ♦ takes a ♦ action.
2. Whoever has the most ♥ takes a ♥ action.
3. Whoever has the most ♠ takes a ♠ action.
4. Whoever has the most ♣ takes a ♣ action.
5. Every player who won no trick takes two ♦ actions.

If two or more players tie for the most cards of a suit, nobody gets that suit's action.

Example: Anna and Ben both have four diamonds – a tie, so no ♦ action. Dan has the most hearts and moves a jewel from the supply into his showroom. Ben has the most spades and moves a jewel from his showroom into his vault. Carla has the most clubs and steals a jewel from Dan's showroom. Emil won no trick and puts two jewels from the supply into his vault.

Then gather and shuffle all 52 cards for the next round.

Winning the game

The number of rounds depends on the number of players:

After the last round, everybody opens their vault. Each jewel in your vault counts 2 points, each jewel in your showroom 1 point. The most points win; if tied, the player with more jewels in the vault wins; if that is also tied, you share the victory.

Example: Anna has 12 jewels in her vault and 4 in her showroom: 12 × 2 + 4 = 28 points.

Two players

Each of you plays two cards to every trick, one after the other: the leader, then the other player, then the leader again, then the other player. Each card that can't follow suit earns its action as usual, and the winner of the trick takes one action for the suit led. Everything else stays the same.

Example: Anna leads the 4♦ and Ben follows with the 3♦. Anna has no more diamonds, so she plays the 7♥ as her second card and takes a ♥ action. Ben plays the 8♦ and wins the trick: one ♦ action for him. Ben leads the next trick.

Tips for beginners

• Spades protect. Jewels in your showroom are a target for clubs; a spade action moves one to safety – and doubles its value.
• Being void is good. A suit you don't have lets you choose any action when it is led. Passing can help you get rid of a short suit.
• Low cards are not useless. Winning no trick at all earns two ♦ actions at the end – that's four points.
• Count the suits. Near the end of a round, check who leads in which suit; one more club can take away someone's ♣ action.
• Watch the biggest showroom. Steal from whoever shows the most – or from whoever is in the lead.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Partnerships (4 or 6 players): partners sit opposite each other and share one vault and one showroom. Cards are passed to your partner instead of to the left (no talking about which). At the end of a round, partners count their won cards together; a player who won no trick still takes two ♦ actions, even if their partner won some.
• Known deck (from the original, for perfect information): with 4 players, deal all 52 cards, 13 each. With 3 players, play with Ace to 9 only (36 cards), 12 each. With 2 players, Ace to 8 (32 cards), 16 each.