Talk:President (game)

Does Wikipedia have guidelines for dealing with variations in rules to games? This is obviously describing something very similar to the (dozen or so variations on the) game I know exclusively as Asshole, but is just different enough that explaining the differences will be difficult. Lousy drunk people can't remember the rules from one time to the next... Tuf-Kat

There aren't any guidelines that I'm aware of. The most popular ruleset should be the main one given in the article, but any optional rules should also be given. If there are substantial differences and disagreement, I guess that there could be multiple pages for the same game.

Realistically, I don't think there's much hope of stating the "most popular" ruleset. Perhaps a simple, general description of the game's mechanics would be better, and leave all of the optional rules to the optional rules section. I like the way the optional rules are currently presented. I'm also having my doubts at describing a children's card game as "usually a drinking game" :) Dze27 22:04 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

I've never heard of it as a children's game. It's probably the most common drinking game, in my experience, in the greater DC area. Tuf-Kat 22:25, Nov 15, 2003 (UTC)

Interesting. The reason I said "children's game" earlier was just that it relies on some trust with the passing of cards. I don't think it wouldn't make a very good gambling game, for instance. Dze27 05:08, Nov 16, 2003 (UTC)

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The Great Dalmuti is not a President variant. It's a commercial game based upon the same principle as President, but with a special deck.

Hm, I'd say children's game. I learned to play it when I was 13, and played every day at school since. We played 3's high, and cards had to be the same "combination" (I dont know how to word this hence I didn't put it in the article) ie, if someone played a pair, all cards except 2's and 3's had to be in pairs etc... four 4's couldnt beat 2 5's etc.

I do accept that 3's high is a rare mutation that was specific to the group of people I played with though, even the people at the next lunch table over played 2's high.

Warlords and Scumbags

I first knew the game to be called "Warlords and Scumbags". I haven't added this alias to the article in case it is a rare variant, but if others have heard of the name then go ahead and add the alias. Whoever does should also link an article titled "Warlords and Scumbags" to this one. I hail from Brisbane, Qld, Australia (could be useful in determining the spread of this alternate name). Midg3t 06:40, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In Victoria, it can go by that name too. I think it's the dominant name here in Mildura, and at least some people know it by that name in Melbourne. It's a good gender neutral and relatively polite name. matturn 11:40, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That name sounds familiar to me too (Sydney, Australia). I also know the game by the name Prince or Pauper. MyNameIsNotBob 07:22, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

I went looking for Warlords and Scumbags and had to Google it before I found this page. I'm from Adelaide, and I'd never heard it called anything but W&S. I learnt it (the game) from a group of people who possibly learnt it while they were in Canberra or Sydney... Alphax ^τεχ 09:31, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Changes

I just made a bunch of changes to the article, my goal being to simply some of the earlier paragraphs, add to some of the later sections, and all the while illustrate how the game can vary. The variants of this game present a difficulty: since its most common incarnation is as a drinking game, the rules vary almost from party to party. I don't think there is any "most popular" version of this game. There seem to be a few different categories of variants. The first, of course, is whether the game is played for points or drinks. The second category of variants involves how a round ends: using the joker to clear the round, using the 2 to clear the round, and not having any card that can clear the round; all three of those agree that the round should be cleared when nobody can beat a player's cards. Then there's the issue of the rank of the cards. Those are rather complex, and they involve variations where the 2s have a certain power (when they're not a "clear" card), and where only higher ranked cards can be played, regardless of pairs, etc. I hope I didn't mess up the descriptions of those variants too much. I also added in more info on optional Presidential powers and rules, which in my experience are generally only relevant to the drinking game version, but if people know of Presidential powers that are used in the children's game version, that would be a good addition. Like some others here, I'm not at all familiar with the children's game variant, but I'll trust that it exists. It might be worth noting how this game fits into drinking culture, and how the drinking game's rules are fluid and vary from community to community (or even party to party). -Eisnel 19:14, 3 May 2005 (UTC)