Summoning Of Mezu ;-p, Tarot and game idea Options

I’s got this foolish idea, don’t blame me, blame the Fates, or the Muses, or demon’s and angels even…ah who cares blame me.

Now, this is a combo of many ideas floating around and one I have had for a while. But since Mezu is more into the business aspect of things (I have some knowledge of the printing business so I know where the level of importance is) I believe that knowledge is make or break.

I will enumerate the ideas.

Idea 1. be able to obtain tarot cards (in mini packs or some similar fashion) of differing decks cut to a uniform size and uniform backs.
Reason for the idea, some cards in some decks call to people more then others, uniformity would allow them mix and match at will.


foreseen problems, copyright issues, publisher issues, printing issues. These are all assumptions on my part, if anyone is willing (Mezu!!) to clear up any mistakes, I would appreciate it.

Copyright: Issue of artists willing for their work to be sold in parts (not as a complete work) and with none agreed backs.

Publisher issues: their willingness to publish in an unified fashion, and or deal with the ordeal of new contracts with artists.

Printing: currently cards are printed in mass, many decks only passing the press once, others might be run once a year or once every 2 years, the popular decks probably once a quarter to reduce storage requirements.
If printing deck on demand, it would require a change in concept and very different cost structure.
On cost alone of printing and shipping, factoring substrate (paper), and ink, coating, cutting, and such. About $12~$15 a deck in cost.

However with this and say you sell them at $35 because artists need to be paid and investment needs to be recouped, and profits are nice when running a business. Not to mention quality-printing paper is costing more and more each day, and you need a cushion for mess-ups, and cost overruns as far as maintenance and such or the presses, or that you contracted that out.

So you now have the ability to allow people to custom create their Decks on demand, and based on their wanting it in their hands quickly, shipping can go from $5 the norm to 2 days with $20 for a rush print and next day air.

You then have the option if this works as a business model to allow change contracts and allow people to paint their own decks off of line art templates…but that is way far down the line.

Anyway is there enough of a market for it to justify 500K ~ 1.5 Million in investment necessary to start such a venture?

This would allow the publishers to bring out some of the cult classics as well as go with more novelty/themed parts of their collection, at almost no extra cost to them.

Idea 2. also an idea brewing in the back of my head, but recently posted by others here…
Collectable card game using the Tarot.

I will rephrase because on principle I despise collectable card games. They trick you by starting at say $20 to play, but to have a competitive deck requires about $150~$200 for a deck that is out dated in 1 year.

I prefer the idea of Card Game (in the Magic the Gathering and Munchkin vein as opposed to the poker and rummy vein.)

I have several ideas for this, 2~4 player games requiring one deck, 2~6 players each with their own decks.

Ultimate goal of the game, amusement of the masses. Alternative goal, teach correspondences of the cards. astrology, kabala, archtypes, body parts, numerology anything else I missed.

Here is the question, should it be done? Is there enough of an age 15-35 demographic interested in tarot that would not take it as bad to play a game with their cards?

Are there enough people on this board interested in doing the research needed, and constructing 2-3 different games, from conception, model making, rough rules, on through to play testing with people who never played a card game in their lives and or never saw a real tarot deck to shoot for this?

If there are, my only goal on this be the game be published in a for pay download fashion or based on posts or some such…people seem read rules and play games they pay for, or earn, or in a sense steal, free games require one person to focus others alot more.

Requirements:

1~2 experts in Tarot, advise, point in the right direction, advise again, assist in research or offer material of magnitude.

1~4 game mechanic specialists, people who love games and figuring out how to make rules fit a theme, knowing when to limit something, or when to expand something.

1~2 writers, willing to translate a collection of rules and notes into something coherent, that anyone can read and is not bored to tears reading.

1~2 talented graphic artists who can do the visual instructions as well as any cover art.

1 organizer/pit boss maintain focus and motivation for the team, handle snags. Make the hard choices for the benefit of the project.

All these positions can be filled multiple ways by the same people, and can even be done by one person who is talented and obsessed enough.

But I am throwing this out there to see if there are any biters I am willing to participate on the game mechanics side, perhaps as pit boss should the idea gain the right level of steam. But I would prefer not to be…been there done that in these types of projects, but not this one, this one has been in the back of my head for over 4 years on some level or another.

On the flip side, does anyone know of any good games based on the Tarot deck? There has to be some? And for the life of me I can not find them.

Paxx

Hehe, some of your ideas sound like fun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

As for Tarot-based games, there's a huge boardgame based on the Rider-waite deck that I used to play when I worked psychic fairs and everyone was bored from lack of customers. I forget what it was called, though. Google should help.

As for other games, Tarocchi or Taroc is still played in southern Europe. It's the immediate ancestor of such games as bridge and whist. Most Taroc decks are published in German, French, or Italian, but if you look around you can find the rules in English. I have a book called The Game of Tarot by Michael Dummett. It's long out of print but worth looking around for. It has all the rules of the various Swiss, Italian, and Austrian variants of the game. Any Tarot deck can be used to play it, too.

This post has been edited by Darkmage: Oct 25 2007, 01:48 AM