Paternoster

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The standard game in a nutshell
3. Which card is higher?
4. Setup
5. Where may a card go?
6. Playing a turn
7. Talking
8. End of the game
9. Tips for beginners
10. Variants
11. The Tower campaign
12. Where the ideas come from

Overview

Paternoster is a cooperative card game: all players form one team and win or lose together. In the middle of the table there are four piles, like the cars of a paternoster lift: on two of them the cards must go up, on the other two down. Together you try to play all 104 cards onto these piles. The catch: you may talk and plan as much as you like, but you may never say which cards you hold.

• Players: 1–5 (6–8 in the Tower variant) – it also works as a solo game.
• You need: two standard 52-card decks (104 cards). The four jokers are not played, but they make good markers for the piles.

Paternoster is an original game written for this site; where its ideas come from is noted at the end of these rules.

The standard game in a nutshell

Only the standard game is needed to play. The variants, difficulty levels and the campaign further down are optional extras.

• Setup: four empty piles – two up, two down. Shuffle both decks; hands of 8 (solo), 7 (two players) or 6 (three to five). The rest is the draw pile.
• Cards: an up pile takes an equal or higher card, a down pile an equal or lower one. Ace is 1, King 13; equal ranks are ordered ♦ < ♥ < ♠ < ♣. One step back per turn is allowed: the same suit, exactly one rank the wrong way.
• Your turn: play at least two cards, then draw back up to your hand size.
• Talking: about the piles, yes; about ranks, suits or numbers, never.
• The end: all 104 cards played – perfect. Or someone can't play enough – count the cards left; the fewer, the better.

Which card is higher?

Everything in this game depends on one question: which of two cards is higher?

1. First compare the rank. The Ace counts as 1 and is the lowest rank, then 2, 3 … 10, Jack (11), Queen (12) and King (13), the highest.
2. Only if the ranks are equal, the suit decides: ♦ < ♥ < ♠ < ♣ (diamonds lowest, then hearts, spades and clubs highest – the order from Skat).
3. With two decks every card exists twice. The two identical cards (both 7♥, say) are equal.

So the deck forms one long ladder of 52 steps, with two identical cards on each step:

A♦ < A♥ < A♠ < A♣ < 2♦ < 2♥ < 2♠ < 2♣ < 3♦ < … < Q♣ < K♦ < K♥ < K♠ < K♣

Example: 7♠ is lower than 8♣ (the rank counts first). 8♦ < 8♥ < 8♠. The two 8♥ are equal.

Setup

1. Lay out the four jokers (or coins) in a row in the middle; the spaces next to them are the four piles. Agree which two are up piles and which two are down piles – say, two on the left go up, two on the right go down – and mark them: jokers upright for up piles, crosswise for down piles. At the start all four are empty.
2. Shuffle both decks together. Deal each player a hand, face down: - 1 player: 8 cards - 2 players: 7 cards each - 3–5 players: 6 cards each
3. Put the rest face down as the draw pile.
4. Look at your cards, but show them to nobody. The team decides who begins; after that, turns go clockwise.

Where may a card go?

• Up pile: the new card must be equal to or higher than the top card.
• Down pile: the new card must be equal to or lower than the top card.
• Empty pile: any card may start it.

Cards lie face up on top of each other; only the top card of a pile counts.

Example: An up pile shows 6♥. You may play the other 6♥, the 6♠, the 6♣, or any 7, 8 … K on it – but not 6♦ or anything of rank 5 or lower – except the step back described next (5♥).

The step back. One exception lets a pile move the "wrong" way:

• On an up pile you may play the card of the same suit, exactly one rank lower than the top card.
• On a down pile you may play the card of the same suit, exactly one rank higher than the top card.

One step back per turn. In each turn you may play at most one step back, on any pile. In the next turn – yours or another player's – the next step back is allowed, even on the same pile. It is the only way to "make room" on a pile.

Example: An up pile shows 10♥. Ben plays the 9♥ on it – same suit, one rank lower. That is his step back for this turn, so the 8♥ must wait: Carla may play it as the next step back in her turn. On a down pile showing 4♣, a 5♣ would be a step back.

The step back also crosses from number cards to face cards: 10♠ on an up pile showing J♠, J♥ on a down pile showing 10♥. There is none from an Ace on an up pile or a King on a down pile. A card on its twin (7♥ on 7♥) is a normal "equal" move, not a step back.

Playing a turn

1. Play at least two cards from your hand, one after the other, onto any piles. You may play more than two, even your whole hand.
2. Draw from the draw pile until you have your full hand again (8, 7 or 6 cards).
3. The next player to the left takes their turn.

Once the draw pile is empty, you only need to play at least one card and no longer draw; a player without cards is skipped. Solo works the same: two cards per turn, draw up to 8.

Example: Anna holds 4♦, 5♣, 8♥, 10♣, Q♠ and 3♥ (see the picture). She plays the 4♦ on the first up pile (equal – allowed), then the 5♣ on top (5 is higher than 4): her two cards. The 3♥ would fit on the down pile with 6♠, but would skip ranks 5 and 4, so she keeps it. She draws two cards.

Talking

Talk about the piles as much as you like: "Please don't play on this pile", "I can do something good here", "I'd rather not play a big jump". But never mention a rank, a suit or a number – no "I have the 9♥", no "I have a red one", no "I'm two steps away" – and don't show cards or point at a place on the ladder.

Step backs are the one exception: "I can help this pile" or "I have a step back on this pile" is allowed. It tells the others to leave that pile alone, even though it gives away a card – and it makes the step back a team move.

End of the game

The game ends when:

• all 104 cards have been played – the team has won perfectly; or
• the player whose turn it is cannot play the required number of cards (two, or one once the draw pile is empty). Then the game ends at once.

Count all cards that were not played: the cards in every hand plus the draw pile. The fewer, the better. Write the result down and try to beat it next time.

Example: Carla must play two cards but can place only one: the game ends. Carla holds 5 cards, Ben 6, Anna 6, and 11 remain in the draw pile – 28 left.

Tips for beginners

• Small steps. Every card you skip on the ladder is space lost. Two cards two steps apart are better than one card ten steps away.
• Twins are free. Playing a card on its identical twin costs nothing – do it whenever you can.
• Keep step backs open. If you hold the card exactly one rank below the top of an up pile in the same suit (or one above a down pile), say "I can help this pile". Then the others leave that pile alone until your turn – once anything covers it, your card no longer fits.
• Jump and step back. A step back can undo part of a jump: you hold 9♥ and 8♥, the up pile shows 7♣ – play the 9♥, then the 8♥ as your step back. The pile ends at 8♥ instead of 9♥.
• Don't play more than two cards unless each is a very small step – later turns need options too.
• Start low and high. Up piles should start with low cards, down piles with high ones.

Variants

Everything from here on is optional – agree before you start. The difficulty levels combine the variants, and the campaign strings twelve rides together.

Easier

• Short trip: one deck only (52 cards, no twins), 5 cards each (6 for one or two players). Great for a first game.
• First ride (for children): one deck, only one up pile and one down pile, 3 cards each, and you play at least one card per turn. On top of the normal rules, the same suit always fits: a heart on a heart, a spade on a spade, whatever the rank.
• Bigger hand: everyone gets one card more (solo 9, two players 8 each, otherwise 7).
• Emergency tokens (the fine adjustment): put out 1 to 4 coins; they belong to the team. The player whose turn it is may hand in one token per turn to either make a long step back – same suit, two or three ranks back, counting as your step back for the turn – or end the turn after only one card.
• Passing on: instead of one of your two required cards, you may once per turn give a hand card face down to another player. They add it to their hand, even beyond the full number, and draw again only once they are below it.

Harder

• Smaller hand: everyone gets one card fewer (solo 7, two players 6 each, otherwise 5).
• Steep: always play at least three cards per turn while the draw pile lasts.
• Two cars (two players, for experts): one deck, only one up pile and one down pile, 8 cards each.
• Silent lift: no talking at all during the game.
• Lift operator: only the player whose turn it is may talk; everyone else keeps quiet.
• Hourglass: each turn lasts at most 30 seconds. When time is up, your turn ends at once – without enough cards played, the game is over.
• Passengers (tasks): before dealing, turn up the top 3 cards and lay them face up in a row. They are out of the game; their twins must reach the piles in exactly this order (on any pile, by the normal rules). If a card turns up twice, replace the second. Playing a twin too early, or leaving a passenger undelivered at the end, loses the game. You may say "I can deliver the next passenger". With 4 or 5 passengers it gets harder.
• Fire: the hearts whose rank divides by 3 – 3♥, 6♥, 9♥ and Q♥ (12) from both decks, eight cards spread over the whole ladder – are burning. Whoever plays one hands on a problem: the next player who still has cards must cover it during their turn (with any card that may go on that pile; solo: you, in your next turn); if it is already covered by then, there is nothing to do. A burning card may cover it – it then becomes the next player's problem. If a burning card is still on top when that turn ends, the team has lost at once. Only the very last card of the game may stay burning.
• Commands: the face cards carry commands. Red face cards act at once when they are played; black face cards act as long as they lie on top of a pile. Commands light: only the Jacks and Queens carry commands; the Kings are normal cards.

Large groups

• Tower (6–8 players): three decks (156 cards – every card exists three times, all three are equal), three up piles and three down piles, 4 cards each. With 5 cards it gets much easier. The rating stays the same.

Two players who would rather race against each other: see Paternoster Duel – one deck, red against black.

Difficulty levels

The variants combine into a ladder. The table shows how a simple computer player did with two players – 4000 games per level. It never talks, so a real team does better: take the numbers as a comparison between the levels, not as your chances.

Silent lift, Lift operator and Hourglass make every level harder but don't show in the table. Three players find every level a bit harder than two, four about the same. Emergency tokens fine-tune any level: on Normal, each token adds roughly ten percentage points to the chance of playing all cards. Two cars is tough, the Tower with 4 cards too; with 5 cards it gets much easier.

The Tower campaign

The campaign brings it all together: twelve floors, each with its own rules, a goal and a few emergency tokens. Play them in order, from the Test ride up to the Penthouse, as often as you like. A floor is cleared when you reach its goal – at most the given number of cards left, all passengers delivered – and then you may go up. The Score tab keeps track: every floor with its stars, every ride with its result, several groups side by side.

Stars: ★ for reaching the goal, ★★ for at most half as many cards left as allowed, ★★★ when all cards are down (all three at once on floors with the goal 0). Replay cleared floors for more stars – 36 are possible.

The floors are meant for 1–5 players and tuned for two: the simulated computer cleared the Test ride in 79% of its attempts, the middle floors in 40–62%, the Precision ride in 25% and the Penthouse in 19%. Solo, the Lift operator is just a normal ride.

Where the ideas come from

Paternoster was inspired by The Game (Steffen Benndorf, Nürnberger-Spielkarten-Verlag, 2015). The hand sizes, the minimum of two cards per turn and the talking rule follow it; the card ladder, the twins and the step back are our own. First ride, Fire and Commands take up ideas from its spin-offs The Game: Quick & Easy, The Game on Fire and The Game: Extreme; the passengers are reminiscent of the tasks in The Crew (Thomas Sing, Kosmos, 2019). The Tower campaign, the emergency tokens and the other variants are our own. More about this under "Background & history".