Mystical Angels

Do regular tarot cards work for playing French tarot games?

I want to buy a pack of tarot cards to play "jeu de tarot" but I'm not sure which ones to buy. Can I play the game with one of those divinist kind of tarot cards or are the packs different? Where can I buy the French tarot cards anyway? (Does anyone have any specific brand that they like?)

Public Comments

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_tarot Looks like you use a traditional deck... 78 cards which include four suits, each with 10 "pip" cards and four "court" cards (pages, knights, queens, kings) and then 22 Major Arcana cards (the Empress, Death, The Sun etc) The tarot suits go as follows: Swords are Spades Wands are Clubs Cups are Hearts Pentacles/Disks/Coins are Diamonds Almost any modernly produced tarot decks (the ones produced for diviners like myself) will probably do if it's just games you want to play. A good deck if you arn't overly concerned with divination, is the oldest known illustrations... a reproduction of the Visconti tarot available from Los Scarabeo. (these were commisioned by a renaissance italian family specifically for card games and featured gold leafing)... they have no real 'pictures' on the "pip" cards... just beautiful renderings of the suits in their numbers as pips. Be aware that most, if not all, modernly produced tarot decks will number the major arcana by roman numeral instead of the more familiar numbering system, so if you are worried that you won't be able to understand the roman numeral system in reguards to the game, then you may need a specialty deck. The most traditional deck for using for divination would be the Rider Waite tarot... but I find the artwork ugly and if you're not a diviner, then they probably would hold little interest for you. Otherwise, just find a deck you find beautiful... if you're going to play with cards, why not pick something where the images are appealing to you? Stick with things that claim to be based mostly on the Rider Wait system, however, otherwise you might find the names of the Major Aracana cards confusing when trying to learn the game (sometimes they change them... Death becomes "Transition" or the World becomes "The Aeon" and occasionally a card is added or dropped or the names of the court cards are shifted around etc...) Best of luck and have fun! -Scarlet