I am not trying to write a guide on how to play caravan in FNV, the following is a proposed modified rule set for playing in real life.

I have not been around in a while, and I know before I left we had a topic going on this issue but I wanted to revisit it so we can clear things up once and for all. Its pitiful Bethesda has still not published a proper caravan guide rather just points to the IGN guide linked on the Bethesda blog. Come on guys, you invented the freekin game, how about you write a damn guide for your customers. I remember you saying at E3 Bethesda would release the game in flash format so people could play online, but I doubt that will ever happen as at this point we can't seem to even get a stable game w/o bugs. The following proposed rule set is not entirely my own, rather was taken from several guides online which have been combined. Its been a work in progress for several weeks and I am sorry I no longer have the links from where I obtained the information. Thank you to the (sorry, but for now its nameless) people who typed up the original guides.

Playing caravan in real life is a lot different then playing in game. In the modern world you can throw a rock in any direction and hit a place that sells a deck of cards. Not only are cards abundant, but they are cheep as hell. In FNV cards are rare and thus the rule where you can not use two of the same cards from the same deck works. In real life however, for about $10 I can go pick up five decks of cards and then stack my play deck where I know exactly what cards are which, by the face of the card. For example, all the face cards are red bicycle, all my numbered cards, blue bicycle, etc. If I really wanted to go overboard I can make it all the queens are one card design, jacks another, so on and so forth. By doing this I know exactly what kind of card I am about to draw from my pile. Personally I feel this is total cheese BS, and nothing less then metagaming.

Secondly, as stated above I have seen a bunch of game guides that have different win conditions. This is due to several bugs in the caravan card game. I have addressed these in my proposed rule set with explanations at the bottom. What I am looking for is people to read this over and provide feedback. I want us to be able to come to a general agreement on how to play this game IRL so that if I ever run into someone at a convention, we are on the same page. Once we agree on things, I will retype it up and design a printable "cheat sheet" people can carry on them to reference. I know in the next patch they say they will fix some of the bugs in this game, but with out a real change log or an official rule set, there is no way to know whats going to change. As of now the manual that came with the game says you cant discard in the initial round, but the game lets you anyway. It only makes sense too. What would happen if you don't draw a number card in your first 8 cards? Do you just loose? Who knows.

Again, I am not trying to write a guide on how to play caravan in FNV, the following is a proposed modified rule set for playing IRL. Suggestions and feedback wanted.


Caravan Card Game

Deck Rules:
Minimum Size - 30 Cards
Maximum Size - 108 Cards (Two Decks)

You can only make your play deck out of a maximum of two different decks of cards, thus the max number of any type of card will be eight, with the acceptation of Jokers, which would be four. This means you can only have two of the exact same card (same value/suit). You must use the same style (size, color, design) cards for your play deck so that you can not tell which cards are which by looking at the card design. This prevents someone from having face cards one style and number cards another thus preventing a player from knowing what's coming up in their deck.

Objective:
Build 3 piles of cards that are not too light (under 21) or overburdened (over 26). You win when two (or more) of your Caravan bids trump your opponents. In the event of a tie, the game continues until a player can sell all their Caravans (get them between 21 and 26) and two (or more) out bid your opponents. If you run out of cards to play before meeting the winning conditions, your opponent automatically wins.

Starting the Game:
Each player draws 8 cards from their deck. They lay down three numerical (Ace, 2-10) cards to start off their Caravans. You may also discard a card from your hand to draw a new card from your deck, though this is considered a full turn after which you can not play a card till your next turn.

Game Play:
After this initial round you have three options:
1) Play a card and draw a new card from your deck
2) Discard a card from your hand to draw a new card from your deck
3) Disband a Caravan you have in play (this removes all cards played in one of the three rows).

Bidding on a Caravan:
Once you have played your first card, you determined the suit. The second card played in the bid sets the direction (either ascending or descending depending on the cards). All follow cards must either: Continue the numerical direction or match the suit of the previous card. No matter the circumstance, you cannot play two sequential cards of the same value (so you playing two 10's of any suit in a row on the bid). Any numerical cards can be placed your bid rows. Most Face and Jokers are played on specific cards for their effects (you place them on the right-side of the card).

Card Values and Effects:
Ace: Value of 1

2 - 10: Card's Face Value

Jack: Play on Ace, 2 - 10.
Removes that card, along with any face cards attached to it.

Queen: Play on Bid
Reverses the current direction of the bid and changes the suit to the Queen's suit. Multiple Queens can be played on the same card
Ex. A Queen of Clubs played on a Bid of 10 of Hearts, 4 of Spades, 3 of Clubs, allows you to play any number cards higher than 3 or cards from the Clubs suit.

King: Play on Ace, 2 - 10.
Doubles the value of the card it is played on. Multiple Kings can be played on the same card.
Ex. A King played on a 5 will give it a value of 10. A second King played on the same card will double the present value, giving it a total of 20.

Joker: Play on Ace, 2 - 10
The effects of the Joker vary depending on the card it is played on. This card will be spared.
Number Card: Removes all other cards of the same value from play
Ace: Removes all other cards of the same suit from play.

Alternative Rules: (Agreed upon by both players before the game starts)
"Polite" Caravan consists of the rules above accept the only card that can be played on an opponents caravans is a Jack. Polite caravan is designed for faster games that require less keeping track of card values and is ideal for playing on the go without counters.

"Limited" You can only make your play deck using cards from out of one set of normal playing cards. By doing this, you will only have a maximum of one of each card/suit (IE One king of hearts) and two jokers.

"Tournament" Same as the base rules above but face cards can only be played on a number card of the same suit. This includes both your cards and your opponents. Hence, if you used a Jack to remove your or an opponents card (and any face card attached) you must play the Jack that has a suit that matches the suit of the number card you plan on playing it on. For example, a Jack of Clubs could be played on a Nine of Clubs, but not on a Nine of Hearts. Both strategic play and desk builds become much more important.


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Changes from the Fallout video game:
Fallout NV has a lot of bugs that at the time of this write up have not been fixed; caravan is no acceptation. The official rules state you can not discard during the initial stage of the game, though it allows you to do so anyway. In the event a player can not play a card during this initial stage, discarding a card is the only play option other then forfeiting the game. This is why I have allowed discarding in the initial round, like the bug allows.

Second, the game says you must use different kinds of play cards, no two alike. In FNV cards are rare, but in the real world they are abundant. Players can stack their decks so they know exactly what a card is based on the style of the cards face. This can potentially cause major cheating and unfair game play. I have removed the rule that states a player must use different kinds of cards, and made it so you HAVE TO use the same kind/style/type of cards. Again, this is the exact opposite of the FNV game.

The game does not specify what happens when players run out of cards before winning. This needs to be taken into consideration, thus a rule was added.

Opponents in FNV seem to play using the "Polite" alternative rules above. I have played many hands and never seen a NPC use a King, Queen, or Joker on my piles. I got the idea for this optional alternative rule from the NPC's in FNV after getting tired of going through 50k sticky notes. We usually play while drinking (or drunk) and doing math on top of remembering caravan values became tedious and obnoxious. Dice work well for counters, but carrying around a bunch of dice on top of a deck of cards gets to be annoying. You still can use Jacks to "attack" another player but the game becomes more about making your caravans quickly, which keeps the game moving and far more interesting then having to stop and add things up every round. In "Polite" caravan there is less changing of card values, thus less math involved, this way you do not need to use counters, sticky notes, or add up values every round. When many face cards are in play changing values every turn gets tedious and slows the game to a crawl. When we don't use this rule, games go on for ever with both players doing nothing more then "attacking" each other with face cards over and over till you run out of cards. It gets old really quick.

Lastly, there is a bug in FNV where if a player is beating an opponent in two caravans, but tied in the third, the game does not end. This has caused major inconsistencies in game rule guides I have found online. Per the rules in the manual, a player must have three caravans between 21 and 26, and two of which that out bid their opponents opposite facing caravans. This "two or better" means that if you have two, the last (third) tied caravan should not matter, but the game is currently bugged and will not end till that last caravan is raised or lowered as not to be tied with your opponent. This bug should be ignored and only two caravans beating your opponents are required to win, as long as all three are between 21 and 26.

I think the game would be more practical if you couldn't mix decks at all. Choose 30 to 54 cards from one deck for each player. This way you can play any card game without spending an hour sorting, and it eliminates cheese (IE only keeping 7s, 9s, and 10s in your deck).

Thats a good suggestion. What i did was modify the post above to reflect the following changes. You can only use two decks max in the normal rules (before it was not limited) and the alternative rule "Limited" now is where you agree only to use a single deck.

A bunch of us who play all the time ALWAYS limit our play decks to be made with a max of two decks. We do not like the cheese factor that comes from stacking decks with a bunch of the same cards as you pointed out. Also, in FNV you are somewhat limited to the number of decks there are in the world, where again IRL playing cards are abundant; the two deck max as part of the base rule set works. We all just bought two decks of cards and made our own decks so there is never "sorting" that goes on being our decks are pre-made but become useless for anything but caravan.

I defiantly think your suggestion is a great one though, and when you want to play w/o having to make a deck (or having one pre-made) this would be the alternative rule to use. If you use it, you also automatically used the closed rule as a single deck of cards should have the same type/face/style anyway.

I also removed the alternative rule "closed" which stated players needed to use the same type/design of cards. This should be a base rule to prevent cheating/cheese/metagaming.

Thanks for the suggestion, again rules above modified to reflect the changes.

"Tournament"

Last night I was sitting around the ambulance bay [I am a medic] playing with people and we were explaining the game to a guy who did not know how to play. He got confused and thought that face cards could only be played on a number card if they matched its suit. We explained it was not the case, but it got me thinking, so we tried a few rounds playing that way. It was much more challenging; a lot of fun. The way it worked was that you could play a face card on both your or your opponents cards as normal, but you had to match the suit if you were going to play the card. Hence, if you used a Jack to remove your or an opponents card (and any face card attached) you must play a face card that had a suit that matched the number card. For example, a Jack of Clubs could be played on a Nine of Clubs, but not on a Nine of Hearts. This made the game much more strategic and made well throughout deck builds much more important. Because this style of play almost requires a planned deck build, and because it requires a lot more planning and thought, we dubbed it "Tournament" style caravan.

I have added it to the alternative rules above; give it a shot and let me know what you think. One of the guys argued that the maximum number of decks in "Tournament" should be increased to three, but it seemed to go well enough with two deck builds, and the fear of increasing it to three was that we would be back to the point were the entire game revolved around "attacks" on your opponent rather then solid strategic play. This is exactly what we were trying to avoid. By limiting face cards to suits, we were able to add back the level of play that we lost by using the "Polite" alternative rule set (listed above), while avoiding the inevitable all out "screw your opponent" style of game play that always seems to happen in caravan when playing base rules.

Caravan is very simple with this strategy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AorCJkgie_s

LOL! What an exploit. Yeah, play caravan like that strictly for getting the achievement, or if you just want to cheese yourself to wealth. That takes all the fun out of it, but wow is it effective.

Its a bug. You are not suppose to be able to discard in the opening round.

Second, this discussion is for those of us who play in real life. The game is actually fun to play sitting around with people. We got tired of poker every week, and have worn out every drinking game known to man. This is just something new that has become a fun past time. The reason for this discussion is to get a rule set clarified so people can play out side of the Fallout NV game. With all the bugs in FNV (including in the caravan game itself) as well as not having a very precise rule set, I wanted to open the discussion to the community for us to make a standard of real life play. Bethesda invented the game but we still do not have a a set of rules that works. What happens if you cant play a card after the draw? According the the rules you can't discard in the first round, even though the game is bugged and lets you discard an unlimited amount of cards. Also, per the rules you have to make three piles of caravans between 21 and 26, two of which beat your opponents opposite facing caravans. This is pretty self explanatory the problem is there is a bug that if you do this, but the third hand matches your opponents, the game does not end. This is a bug and makes no sense. Its ok if your opponent beats you on that third hand, as long as all three are between 21 and 26, and you beat them on the other two, you will win, but if that third one is tied the game will not end. Again its a documented bug that some people have written into their guides as if its part of the rules. This is not the case, its a BUG. All of this would not be a problem if Bethesda got off their backside and took 10 minutes to write us a rule book for this game instead of pointing us to a 3rd party (IGN) website that has only a basic guide on how to play. Again, all of these guides are based on the currently bugged game in FNV. This is why if you Google Caravan rules FNV you will find several guides, all of which say different things!

We need a common set of rules that allows us to play this in real life as well as in game. Thats the point of this discussion thread.

If you look above I have rewritten the rules to include fixes for the bugs in the spirit of how they seem to have wanted the game to play. The 360 patch is not out yet so I can't tell you what has changed, but they said caravan is part of the patch. Hopefully we can get a rule set that not only works for the game, but in real life. As I said above, forcing people to use different decks of cards works in the game but not real life. Hence, the rules changes I have made above for real life play.

Great topic, though I don't play cards IRL.

But I like Caravan and would love to play it online, hopefully one day it'll be possible.