Can anyone suggest an academic resource of the Tarot from before it was used for fortune-telling?

[Doktor_Zeus]

I'm aware that the Tarot Deck was used for playing card games before it became the standard cartomancer's tool, but I don't have any in-depth information about it, or the kind of games that were played with it. I have an interest in historic board, card and dice games, so it would be nice to add some authentic historical Tarot-based games to my library.

[akiva]

I don't know much about the history of the game tarot but here's a couple of ways to play it:

• French tarot 4-5 players

• Tarok 2 players

 

There's also a lot of YouTube videos on how to play 😊

[gregory]

You want to get hold of The Game of Tarot, by Michael Dummett.

 

Good luck with that.

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31525952596

 

When I die mine will be up for sale. Watch this space.

[Doktor_Zeus]

10 minutes ago, gregory said:

You want to get hold of The Game of Tarot, by Michael Dummett.

Thanks for the info, it looks really interesting but it's simply not worth £200 to me 🙂

 

I reckon I'll just live in hope of it being released on Kindle.

[gregory]

No chance, I fear. But libraries might have it ?

 

https://search.worldcat.org/title/1066098973

 

The Bodleian does, certainly, and the British Library will too. Here's a paper from a guy who discusses it.

 

Penco-2013-tarots.pdf

 

 

 

[Royalalbatross]

I have the book "Twelve Tarot Games" by Dummett. It's a good introduction. I have also studied both the games and the historical meanings of the cards (I was thinking about using it in a roleplaying game, maybe I will get around to finishing it one day).

 

Tarot games are trick-taking games, similar to bridge (and they may have influenced that game). The Major Arcana is the trump suit (trump comes from "triumph"). Unlike bridge, where each trick taken has the same value, tarot games always have different values per trick, depending on which cards you captured. Different rules, from e.g. France or Italy etc. differ in how "melds" (combinations of cards) are scored.

 

Here's a very old set of tarot rules from France, which is similar to a game still played today in Denmark (though today the Danes use the French "Jeu de Tarot" deck. Todays French tarot game is a bit different again):

https://www.pagat.com/tarot/marolles.html

 

Another interesting traditional game is Troccas, form Switzerland, which uses the well-known 1JJ Tarot deck.

[Doktor_Zeus]

12 hours ago, Royalalbatross said:

I have the book "Twelve Tarot Games" by Dummett. It's a good introduction. I have also studied both the games and the historical meanings of the cards (I was thinking about using it in a roleplaying game, maybe I will get around to finishing it one day).

 

I'm a fan of 'Everway' for that kind of thing myself. It has its own divination deck for resolving conflicts.

 

There are a few other RPGs around that use the Tarot directly too - like Querent, Anamnesis, Kult: Divinity Lost, Monarch's Gate... I think the first one I saw using actual Tarot Cards had a name like 'Swansong', and it has its own digital deck although I've only seen one of its cards and I don't think there's a physical version.

[Royalalbatross]

3 hours ago, Doktor_Zeus said:

 

I'm a fan of 'Everway' for that kind of thing myself. It has its own divination deck for resolving conflicts.

 

There are a few other RPGs around that use the Tarot directly too - like Querent, Anamnesis, Kult: Divinity Lost, Monarch's Gate... I think the first one I saw using actual Tarot Cards had a name like 'Swansong', and it has its own digital deck although I've only seen one of its cards and I don't think there's a physical version.

Thanks for the tip! I consider myself as fairly knowledgeable about non-D&D roleplaying, but Everway went under my radar apparently.

[Doktor_Zeus]

1 hour ago, Royalalbatross said:

Thanks for the tip! I consider myself as fairly knowledgeable about non-D&D roleplaying, but Everway went under my radar apparently.

Really? It was pretty infamous when it came out. Wizards of the Coast wanted to transfer some of the successful moneymaking elements of their popular TCGs to the RPG industry so came up with a format that allowed them to sell expansion packs of cards - used mostly for character inspiration, as the oracle deck it came with was not designed to be expanded.
 

It did not sell well and was a common feature in discount book stores a few years later. I think people were expecting D&D style gameplay but it was much more relaxed; many were put off by the lack of complex rules for combat and the fact that a lot of the interpretation was in the hands of the GM, plus of course it had no dice. It was an Indie storytelling game being sold to hardcore gamists at a time before the Indie rpg scene really existed. it was before its time.

 

Two years after its release, WotC bought out TSR and obtained the rights to actual Dungeons and Dragons, so Everway was pretty much forgotten. It’s a shame because Everway was one of the earliest Indie narrativist games to be published with mainstream production values.

 

Personally, I liked it *because* it did not lend itself well to combat. It allowed much more story-based games with much less chatter about rules and more time for actual role playing.

[Wooden_Nickel]

Dummett's sequel to The Game of Tarot, co-written with Michael Decker, is A Wicked Pack of Cards: Origins of the Occult Tarot (1996). Before it picks up with Court de Gebelin and cartomancy, it does spend a little time summarizing the conclusions of The Game of Tarot.  It's not the deep treatment represented by the first book, but it's still in print and considerably easier to obtain than its predecessor.

[Nisterius]

As said above, the original Work was

"The Game of Tarot: From Ferrara to Salt Lake City" by Dummett. It's ridiculously priced, but you can get it from interlibrary loan. It has a good history of a the cards, the iconography, and the evolution into the occult tarot: as the scholarship stood in 1980. It also has the rules for all known games at the time.

"A History of Games Played With the Tarot Pack: The Game of Triumphs" by Dummett and McLeod. Also available from library loan.  Much less history, but more up-to-date results of research into historic rules.

Those will be your best resources for 

Quote

 playing card games before it became the standard cartomancer's tool

 

If you're interested in games that are still played, you should do a search for "pagat tarot" - this is the website by McLeod (above) and has rules for all known actively played tarot games. Many of them you can even play online if you know where to look! (I'm in fact participating in a Hungarian tarot tournament this saturday.

 

[Mikeyc]

An excellent resource for the History of the Tarot and it's relation to popular culture of the time

A Cultural History of Tarot  by Helen Farley.  It's in some stores and on Amazon

[Pierre-Yves]

On 10/29/2024 at 4:09 PM, Mikeyc said:

An excellent resource for the History of the Tarot and it's relation to popular culture of the time

A Cultural History of Tarot  by Helen Farley.  It's in some stores and on Amazon

Helen Farley shared her text (PDF) on ResearchGate : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261876665_A_Cultural_History_of_Tarot_From_Entertainment_to_Esotericism

[Croat]

Bit of an older book, but The Encyclopedia of Tarot by Stuart R. Kaplan (1978) provides a good deal of historical information on Tarot.  Quickly found it available on Amazon for $48, but chances are you'll find it for lower prices if search around.  Purchased my copy at Powell's Books in Portland for $15.95.

[Mikeyc]

While I personally don't have the names of them this link  Is a short lecture on the subject and he  mentions the books referenced so you could look them up

 

 

[Croat]

Not an academic resource, per se, but for a successfully succinct version of tarot history you might give the book by Cynthia Giles a go.  It is called, The Tarot:  History, Mystery, and Lore and was originally published in 1992 by Simon and Schuster.

[gregory]

100% agree with Giles - she's VERY good and non-partisan. Farley, as referenced by @Pierre-Yves is also good.

[WhiteMoon]

I also recommend The Tarot by Richard Cavendish.