# European playing cards (GuanoLad, Coldfire, anyone)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-playing-cards-guanolad-coldfire-anyone/11803>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [December 3, 1999, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-playing-cards-guanolad-coldfire-anyone/11803 "1999-12-03T19:33:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 1999, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-playing-cards-guanolad-coldfire-anyone/11803/21 "1999-12-07T19:54:00Z")

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So what kind of different two decks do you need for “Cripple Mr. Onion?” Decks with different faces, or decks with different backs?

In any games shop (and sometimes even drugstores), you can buy decks with different “faces”.

For example, I have a “great scientists” deck where each card has a picture of a scientist, a “warner brothers” deck where each card has a WB character, an actors deck, black history deck, etc… The cards also show in the corner the correct suit, e.g. seven of diamonds, but in the middle is a picture. I use those when gambling with friends, e.g. “Extra 25 cents for the person that has Marvin the Martian” or “side pot goes to the person with the earliest picasso painting” for the art deck.

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La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.  
H. de Livry

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**Author:** ![Flypsyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@Flypsyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flypsyde)\
**Post date:** [December 7, 1999, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-playing-cards-guanolad-coldfire-anyone/11803/22 "1999-12-07T20:30:00Z")

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Decks with different suits. The game requires all the suits, with special rules for some cards not in the four standard American suits. Ideally, they’ll have the same backs; if not, you could look at the card backs the other had and determine the chances they’ll pull out some special card (the variants have some of the face cards doing things like swapping places with other cards, or being wild). Plus, it just looks better if all the backs are the same; the deck we played with before had red Bicycle backs and yellow Tazmanian Devil backs, which was annoying to look at.

In addition, it was nervewracking trying to remember which suit in the Taz deck corresponded to which suit for the Spanish deck. “So, are Taz hearts coins or cups?”

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“Bodie, I noticed you stopped stuttering.”  
“I’ve been giving myself shock treatments.”  
“Up the voltage.”  
-_Real Genius_

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 1999, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-playing-cards-guanolad-coldfire-anyone/11803/23 "1999-12-08T01:49:00Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Arnold, Cripple Mr. Onion is a game mentioned often in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books. Honestly, I don’t think he’s come up with the rules, but he has a rabid fan base who’ve come up with rules themselves.

Here’s the rules: not Pratchett devised, but apparently Pratchett approved: [Cripple Mr. Onion](http://jump.to/cmo)

your humble TubaDiva

[Note: This message has been edited by TubaDiva]

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