Try as they may, none can top Koopa the Trick.
One of the most common types of multi-player card games, and a genre about as old as the start of the second millennium. Trick-taking games involve players choosing a card from their finite hand. Once each player has a turn to play, whoever laid the highest card takes those cards, but does not add them to their hand. A trick is one round of play out of however many cards are in the players' hands.
Players score points based on the tricks they take. This can be executed in one of three ways. The first is to simply award points based on the total number of tricks taken. Whist, for example, awards one point for each trick taken in a hand after the sixth. Alternately, points may be awarded based on the cards taken in each trick. In Hearts, players gain one point for every heart in the tricks they take, and thirteen points whenever they take the queen of spades. Finally, there are conditional points, which may or may not overlap with the first two. In Euchre, for example, pairs are awarded one point if they take three of the five tricks, but can score extra if they get all five, or take three despite their opponents choosing the trump suit.
Though many games encourage you to take as many tricks as possible, there's also variations where you want to avoid tricks, or only take a predetermined amount. Overall, these games tend to reward a combination of luck, skill, and mind games. Though predominantly played with cards, a few games opt instead for tiles, while otherwise having similar mechanics, and still qualify as this trope.
While trick-taking games vary wildly in their game mechanics, they tend to have several common elements. Bear in mind that Tropes Are Flexible - a game need not have all, or even any of the below elements, provided players choose their cards and high cards take the trick. However, a game having many of these elements is usually a good indicator it belongs in this family.
- Turn Order: Play usually starts left of the dealer and goes counterclockwise. If a player takes a trick, they lead the next one. The role of dealer usually goes counterclockwise or follows the player who lost the previous hand.
- Following Suit: Outside a few games where the suit doesn't matter, it is a nigh universal rule that cards played in a trick must match the suit of the first card played, if possible. This rewards players for taking tricks, as it allows them to control which cards the other players may use. Breaking this rule is called "reneging," and is often met with a steep penalty.
- Trump Suit: One suit has more value than the others. If a card of the trump suit is played in a trick, it will automatically beat any non-trump. Such games are called Triumph games.note To offset this, some games require trump to be "broken", i.e. you can't lead with a trump card unless trump has already been played (or there's no other options). Depending on the game, trump may be a fixed suit or determined before each hand.
- Bidding: After cards are dealt, but before they are played, players bid in-game points on how many tricks they expect to take, the trump suit, or both. This need not (and usually does not) involve real life currency.
- Card Trading: Before any cards are played, players may trade some of their cards with either the draw pile (sometimes called the "kitty") or each other. This may be compulsory, depending on the title.
- Death or Glory Attack: Most games will have some kind of high-risk, high-reward maneuver that can be attempted if a player feels confident enough in their hand. This often takes the form of a designated rule with a special name.
- Partnership: Games played in groups of four will often be 2 vs. 2 where players across from each other share a team. They are typically forbidden from sharing the contents of their hands, but can use information from bidding and already-played cards to determine how to help each other out.
- No Unified Ruleset: As many trick taking games have been around for a long time and are played offline, the rules tend to be quite mutable.
Tarot Cards were originally made for trick-taking games with the unsuited cards (aka "major arcana") acting as trumps. Records of trick-taking games in China date to the early second millennium, making the genre Older Than Print.
Subtrope of Card Games.
Examples:
- 22: The object of the game is not to take the final trick of each hand. To do this, players play one or more cards of the same rank, which subsequent players must beat or match, lest they be forced to play their lowest cards. Whoever plays the highest card on the final trick adds it to their score, going bust if their score reaches 22.
- 42: Uses dominoes instead of cards, but is still about trick-taking. The suit is the higher number on the domino led, the rank is the other number (e.g. leading 3-1 is beaten by 4-3), with trump counting as the highest suit, and doubles counting as the highest rank within their suit (e.g. leading 3-3 is not beaten by 4-3). Each trick gives 1 point, plus 5 for each domino with 5 pips (5-0, 4-1, 3-2), plus 10 for each one with 10 (6-4, 5-5), for a total of 42 per round. Played in pairs, with bidding starting at 30 points and the top bidder declaring trump; winner is the first team to win 7 rounds (either making their bid or making the other team miss theirs).
- Archie Bunker's Card Game was a proprietary-deck game published by Milton Bradley, as an All in the Family tie-in. Players secretly dialed in their bids on a tally wheel, revealing them only after all had bid; the object was then to take exactly the number of tricks bid, no more, no less. Players who exactly meet their bids score ten points, otherwise none (and it is entirely possible for all players, or none of them, to end up scoring in the same hand).
- Bridge: Usually played in pairs, players bid on a trump suit and the number of cards they will take as a pair, before playing 13 tricks. Partnerships are rewarded for making their bids and penalized for falling short.
- Both The Crew games are cooperative trick-taking games where the players try to coordinate their plays so that they fulfil the tasks assigned to them, which can be something like "win exactly 2 tricks" or "don't get any yellow cards". This is made more difficult by strict communication limits.
- ECK: This Solo Trick-Taking Card Game requires taking an even number of tricks (or 13) to collect a trick card, and the player needs to collect four to win the game. The "AI" player wins if the trick taking is stalled, or if it matches an unclaimed trick card twice.
- Euchre: Aces, Faces, 9s, and 10s are shuffled and dealt to four players (in teams of two) so each player has five cards. Players then bid on the trump suit, with the option to go without their partner for extra points. Of the cards played in a trick, the one to take the trick is as follows: Right Bower (Jack of Trump), Left Bower (Jack matching trump's color), Ace to 9 of Trump, Ace to 9 of suit led.
- The Fox In The Forest is a 2-player trick taking game, where some cards have a special effect, played to 21 points. Players gain points for scoring enough tricks, but being too greedy causes the opponent to receive the points instead.
- Hearts: The highest card of the suit lead takes each trick, starting off the next hand. Players seek to avoid taking hearts (1 pt. each) or the Queen of Spades (13 pts.), unless one of the players Shoots the Moon by collecting the entire set. Whoever has the lowest score when someone breaks 100 points wins the game. There is no trump suit, but hearts must be "broken."
- "King" is a trick-taking card game popular in Russia, which consists of two stages broken into several rounds. In the first stage, each round has its own rule for which tricks penalize you (for example: -2 points for any trick or -4 for Queens or -16 for the King of Hearts). In the second round, the rules are the same, but the goal is reversed and taking the corresponding tricks gives you points instead of taking them away.
- Mario Party 9: The minigame "Card Smarts" is a variation on this concept. Players have five seconds to choose one card from their finite hand, where whoever plays the highest (or tied for highest) each round gets a point, and the first player(s) to three points wins. This minigame is unusual for trick taking games, as players start with the same cards, hands are open, and all plays are made simultaneously, making this minigame mostly revolve around mind games.
- Oh Hell has players individually claim how many tricks they will win in a round - but the dealer can't pick an amount that would allow all players to win. Scoring points requires an exact number of tricks, although some versions permit limited scoring even if the guess is off. Gameplay follows normally with a semi-random trump. Across multiple rounds, the hand size counts down from 10 to 1, and then counts back up.
- Papayoo is a much more brutal variant of the aforementioned game of Hearts, playing from 3 to 8 players with the aim of having the least amount of points by the end of the game. It is played in several rounds with a custom deck of colourful cards in five suits: the four usual suits (Spades, Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds) with cards from 1 to 10, and a fifth suit named the "Payoo" which goes from 1 to 20. There are several key differences between the Papayoo and the game of Hearts : First, before each round, each player gives a certain number of cards from their hand to their neighbor. Second, while 39 of the 40 "regular" cards are worth nothing, the Payoos are worth their number in points instead of just one point each... and then a randomly selected 7 out of the regular cards is declared the Papayoo which is worth a whopping 40 points, meaning that each rounds there are 250 points to be distributed amongst the players. The catch is that the Papayoo changes each round and is selected after the players pass their cards to one another.
- Pinochle: A cross between a melding card game (like Gin Rummy) and a trick-taking card game, Pinochle uses two sets of Aces, Faces, 10s, and 9s, shuffled and dealt to each of four players. After a bid (of how many points their hand could win), there's a melding phase where the players reveal cards in specific configurations ("100 Aces" means an Ace of each suit and scores 100 points in classic scoring), then a trick-taking phase, after which points are scored based on the cards taken (in classic scoring, Aces are worth 11, tens 10, Kings 4, Queens 3, and Jacks 2). If the bidder gets as many points as he bid, he wins the contract; otherwise the value of the bid is subtracted from his team's score.
- Pitch: There's a family of games called pitch, in which there are a fixed number of cards with points — high, low, jack and game. Points are earned each round based on how many point cards the bidder collects (and whether they achieved their bid), not on how many tricks they'd taken. There's generally one round of bidding (although some variants allow for a second round of cards to be dealt, with a second round of bidding.)
- Preferans: In a standard hand, the highest bidder declares the number of tricks they intend to take and the trump suit. The other two players may declare whist or pass, siting out the round in case of the latter. If both players declare whist, they try to stop the declarer from reaching their bid. If only player passes, the whister plays both hands. If both players pass, the declarer simply claims bonus points an d the game moves along. There are also unusual hands, in which one or all players try to avoid taking tricks, and the titular Preferans, where a player has to take every trick without the aid of a trump suit.
- Rook uses a specialized deck,note although it could be played with standard cards. Some cards are removed, player hands are dealt plus a five-card "nest" in the center. Players then bid, with the winning bid getting the nest (which he can then exchange with his own cards) and the right to name the trump suit. Points are tallied based on certain card values (5s are worth 5, 10s & 14s are worth 10, the rook is worth 20) rather than number of tricks taken.
- Schafkopf: Related to Skat below. Normally played with a German-Bavarian card set, but can be played wth the French/international one as well. 32 cards, 7 to Ace are dealt to four players. Uppers (Queens), Unders (Jacks) and all Hearts are trump. Players then announce whether they want to declare a game. There are two types of games, normal games and solos (with solos taking precedence over normal games). In a normal game, the declarer picks a non-Trump Ace; whoever has that Ace is their partner. Note that the partner is not revealed immediately, but instead only through play. There are officially two types of solo, a suit solo, where the solo player may switch out Heart for another suit as Trump (or not), and the Wenz, where only Unders (Jacks) are trump. Each card has a point value, and the declarer's party must take 61 of 120 points to win.
- Skat: Related to Schafkopf above. 32 cards, 7 to Ace, are dealt to three players with two leftover. Players then bid on how valuable a given deal will be in terms of game points, with the highest bidder (hereafter the declarer) being allowed to trade out one or two cards from the leftovers. From there, the declarer chooses one of three options - one suit + jacks as trump, jacks alone as trump, or null (the declarer has to lose all tricks instead of getting 61 points). Each card has a point value, and the declarer must take 61 of 120 card points (including the leftovers) and must have the game value reach the bid to win.
- Spades: Players sit across from their partner. 52 cards are dealt, with each player bidding on the number of tricks they believe they can take, out of 13 - points are scored only for getting this many tricks, and there is a penalty for getting too many. After bidding, players then play one card at a time, play starting left of the dealer, then being lead by whoever takes the trick. Within each trick, players must follow suit, if possible, and cannot lead spades unless spades have already been played. Spades are always the trump suit, hence the name.
- Tricky Little Death combines trick taking with a hidden traitor mechanic. The lost souls need to collect as many contracts as possible, and prevent Death from claiming too many. These contracts are obtained by completing tricks subject to restrictions, based on which contract card is revealed. If contracts run out without a determinate winner, players will vote on who they think is Death as the last attempt to win.
- Whist is one of the simplest examples of a trick-taking game. Played in teams of two, thirteen cards are dealt to each player, with aces counting high. In some rules variants, the trump suit is the last card dealt, which belongs to the dealer and stays on the table until it's the dealer's turn to play; in others, the trump suit follows a pre-set pattern: hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, none, repeat. Regardless, in each hand, pairs claim one point for each trick taken after the sixth, playing to a predetermined stopping point (generally 5, 7, 9, or 10).
- Wizard is a trick-taking game similar to Oh Hell, using a specialized deck with colors instead of suits, and with cards numbered 1 through 13 in each color. The deck also contains 4 Wizard cards, which automatically take the trick, and 4 Jester cards, which automatically lose the current trick. Players must follow the color led if possible, except that Wizard and Jester cards can be played regardless of whether a player has the color led.
