Introduction

Mini Mao is a simple but rapidly-complicating card game for two or(ideally) more players, in which the winner of each round is allowed toadd a new rule to the game. All such rules are secret, and their effectsmust be deduced by the other players through observation andexperimentation.

Mao (or Mau) is a card game of the shedding family. The aim is to get rid of all of the cards in hand without breaking certain unspoken rules which tend to vary by venue. The game is from a subset of the Stops family and is similar in structure to the card game Uno or Crazy Eights.

Mini Mao is a cut-down version of Mao - it'sa lot friendlier to new players, without losing much of themystery, superstition, deduction or paranoia. The basic game idea isvery easy to remember, and you can teach a group to play in a couple ofminutes. (Concerned Mao veterans should be assured that this page doesnot give away any of the significant rules of Mao. I'll explain later.)

Setting up

To play Mini Mao, you'll need a regular deck of poker cards. Keep the jokers in if you've got them, but it's playable without.Decks with a couple of cards missing or bent arefine.

You can also play the game with a Tarot deck, a pile of Magic theGathering cards, some (varied) business cards, or any collection of distinctcards. If you're using something particularly unusual, agree amongyourselves on a few elements of the cards which will count during the game (eg. 'person'sname and the first city listed, on business cards'), and which should be ignored.

Basic Rules

• Mao is the greatest card game in existence. To play Mao, you need a group of awesome people and one deck of cards per 3-4 people in the group (a minimum of two decks). The goal of Mao is to get rid of all of your cards. To play a card, it must match the suit or rank of the active card (the last card played).
• Ending the game: A player who only holds one card in his hand must announce “Last card” as he plays his second-to-last card. Upon playing the last card held in his hand, the player must say 'Mao,' unless he plays a jack, in which case he has to say 'Mao Mao.' The first person to play all of his cards wins the game.

To begin; shuffle the deck, and deal five cards to each player. Place the leftover cards face-down in the middle of the table - this is the draw pile.

Select a player to make up the secret rule for the first round. You can choose the person randomly, or go with the first player to think of one. (In a two player game, both players make up a secret rule.) Secret rules take the form of simple restrictions, side-effects or alterations to play.

Example rules

• 'You can't play a face card onto a face card.'
• 'Each card has to follow either the value or suit of the previous one.'
• 'Anyone playing a five must draw a card.'
• 'If someone plays an eight, everyone must pass their hand to the right.'
• 'Players can play ascending runs of consecutive number cards all in one go.'
• 'When playing a ten, start an additional discard pile with it at the top.'
• 'If you have four aces in your hand, reveal them to win instantly.'

When a secret rule has been invented, everyone picks their hands of cards up. The top card of the draw pile is flipped face-up onto the table, to form the discard pile.

Starting with the player on the rule inventor's left (or with a random player in a two-player game), players take turns one after another, proceeding clockwise, and each turn they must either:-

• Play a card - They choose a card from their hand and put it on top of the discard pile, face up.
• Pass - They draw one card from the top of the draw pile. (Usually you only pass if you can't play a card.)

If a player plays a card which breaks somebody's secret rule, thatrule's creator informs them that they have done so, but does notexplain the rule. The offender takes back their illegal play, and drawsa penalty card from the draw pile. (If they broke more than one ruleat once, they should be told this, but only get one penalty card in total.) This ends their turn.

If a rule has a trigger effect (eg. 'after playing a two, the nextplayer draws 2 cards' or 'after playing a four, move it to the bottom ofthe discard pile'), the rule creator should wait until the move is confirmed aslegal under everyone else's rules, and then step in and apply orannounce the effect without further explanation.(If two triggers clash, process them according to the clockwiseorder of their creators, from the active player.)

The first player to empty their hand wins the round. The deck isshuffled back together for a new round, and the winner gets to make up anew secret rule. This new rule operates in addition tothe secret rules from all previous rounds - the game gets more and morecomplicated as it progresses.

The game continues until it locks up - eventually the secret rules willmesh in an unexpected way meaning that no card can be legally played ontop of the discard pile, or that it is clearly impossible for any player toever empty their hand. At this point, declare the game over.

Good Secret Rules

When inventing a secret rule, keep in mind that rules are always harderto guess than you'd expect them to be. As a benchmark, something as simple as 'can't playa heart onto a club' is about right to open a game with. An excessively complicated rule ('You can't play an even red card on anodd black one, unless the second-previous card was of the same suit, orthe turn number is prime') won't ever be guessed, and you'll slowthe game down having to carefully check everyplay. And a blatantly abusive rule ('The creator of this ruleautomatically wins every round! And everyone has to give themmoney!') just means that your friends won't want to play Mini Maowith you again.

It helps a lot if players come up with a piece of jargon to describe eachof their rules - a verb or a noun to use when the rule isbroken or invoked. ('You can't play a three, that's offside!') This is useful for clarifying which particular rulehas been broken, when a player has won several rounds and has more thanone rule in effect. This removes one advantage that allows leading playersto get even further ahead - if I've won my second round and youhaven't worked out my first rule, it's now much harder for you to deduceeither of them, because you don't know which rule a given play is breaking.

Jargon is also useful for keeping the game intact - you might call agronk by mistake, and a third player (who's also worked out what a gronkis, and doesn't think that was one) will be able to question that, rather than assuming that adifferent rule has been broken. Jargon can be chosen to give a hint ofthe clue's nature - perhaps playing face cards onto one another is 'intrigue' -or can be deliberately misleading.

Jargon also impresses or confuses an external audience. An evolving Mao game islargely indistinguishable from a mysterious, elaborate card game.

Example Game

Bull, Gogol and de Worms are playing a new game of Mini Mao. It has been decided that Gogol will invent the first rule. (And that whenever they speak in bold, it means they're playing a card.)

Gogol : [thinks] 'Okay, I've got one.'

[ Gogol flips the top card of the draw pile - it's the three of diamonds - and everyone picks up their hands. ]

De Worms : 'Right. The eight of hearts.'

Bull : 'King of spades.'

Gogol : 'Five of clubs.'

De Worms : 'Two of diamonds.'

Gogol : 'Sorry, that's a Pip, you can't do that.'

[ De Worms grumbles, takes back the two of diamonds, and draws a penalty card. The top card is 'five of clubs' again, and it's Bull's go. ]

Bull : [tentatively playing a card] 'Is the two of clubs alright?'

Gogol : 'Sorry, no.'

[ Bull takes back his card and draws a penalty. ]

Gogol : [pleased] 'Nine of spades.'

De Worms : 'Three of hearts?'

Gogol : [deciding to be generous and give de Worms a clue] 'No, too low, you're Pipping again.'

[ De Worms takes back the card and draws a penalty. ]

Bull : 'I think I've got it. Ten of hearts?'

Gogol : 'That's fine. King of hearts.'

De Worms : 'Eight of hearts...?'

Gogol : [silent nod]

Game Of Mao

Bull : [triumphant] 'Nine of clubs!'

Gogol : [despairing at his cards] 'I pass.'

Jokers and Aces

If your deck includes any cards which don't comfortably fit the usual criteria of other cards, you can refer to them as jokers (perhaps they are jokers) - they can be played as if they were a copy of any other card from the deck; the player calls a card when they play it. Jokers are very useful to have in the game,as they can save situations where only a handful of cards are legal plays, and may alreadybe buried in the discard pile.

If you're playing with a poker deck, be sure to agree whether aces are high or low; ideally before the game. You can make their highness or lowness part of the secret rules ('Number cards cannot be played onto higher number cards, and aces are low for the purposes of this rule.'), but it can get confusing if two rules treat them differently.

Background

Mini Mao began when I was killing time with some friends and a deckof poker cards in 2002, and, on the subject of games with hidden rules,I vaguely recalled Mao - but only that it was a Bartokvariant, with secret rules and no initial ones (not even suitprogression). We played a dozen or so games of it like that, starting anew batch of rules whenever we got bored, and it worked.

Checking for 'official' Mao rules online when I got back near acomputer, though, I found that they were actually quite elaborate -standard Mao can be regarded as an already-begun game of MiniMao, where the game so far has already been played for a dozen or sorounds by some Californians you don't know. It forces you to play acertain type of game, with suit progression and number-effects, anddoesn't encourage restarting when the game locks.

Mao Card Game Online

Mini Mao is just a crystallisation of the rule-making, rule-breakingand rule-meshing aspects, putting the initial rule-maker only one rungabove everyone else, and making the game a lot more personal for thoseplaying it. It's a much kinder game to introduce to new people,particularly if you're the only one who's played it before. The worldneeds more games that you can explain in three minutes and play forhours, with a single deck of any old cards.