The French Tarot

Tarot cards were not created for “divination,” but to play games. Some people dispute this, claiming that the trump cards of a tarot deck (called the “Major Arcana”) can be traced back to Jewish Cabbalism or ancient Egyptian mysticism.

“Fool” (click to enlarge)

This is the worst kind of pseudo-history, and yet another example of new agers inventing ancient “sources” for modern practices in order to give them a patina of credibility. There is no evidence at all that the Trumps were adapted for fortune-telling purposes before the 18th century, while the cards themselves date back at least several hundred years earlier. Any person or source that claims otherwise is just making things up.

That’s not to say that the more familiar “Major Arcana” images used for the Trumps do not have an historical or philosophical aspect. Carl Jung wrote extensively about their meaning and relevance to analytical psychology, tying them to his theory of archetypes. Catholic mystic Valentin Tomberg wrote an entire book, Meditations on the Tarot, that used their symbols as a point of departure for a series of meditations on Christianity. This is because symbols have power, and the images used in the Major Arcana evolved from a Catholic culture that was rich in symbolism. The Major Arcana are clearly derived from a mixture of folklore, courtly culture, and Christianity, and thus offer a kind of cross-section of the secular and religious world of the 15th century.

The word “tarot” comes from the Italian version of the cards, which are called “tarocchi.” This in turn may be a reference to the Taro River, or may be derived from an Arabic word. The decks vary from region to region, but the most common deck consists of 78 cards: four suits numbered 1 to 10, 4 court cards in each suit, 1 fool, and the  21 illustrated trump cards.

Valet and Dame (click to enlarge)

These trumps, plus the fool, were later adapted as the “Major Arcana,” but in gaming they function as permanent trump cards valued from 1 to 21. Our current standard decks dropped this trump suit, but kept the idea of assigning one of the standard suits as a “trump” for trick taking games.

Deck design can vary greatly, and as I begin rolling out a series on the French Tarot, you’ll see just how the images were adapted for various times and cultures. The deck I plan to post is a standard Ducale French Tarot set, which are a complete departure from the more traditional Italian tarot. Based on the clothing and the utter lack of religious symbolism, these particular designs date from the 19th century or later. (Post-revolutionary France made a concerted effort to expunge religious symbolism from the culture. Oddly enough, they kept the courtly symbolism.)

Thus, the images on the Trumps are not the more familiar Arcana, but rather scenes taken from everyday life, showing peasants, laborers, members of the middle and upper classes, military, and typical bucolic scenes. I’m starting with the court cards today, but I’ll post some art of the Trumps over the next few days.

Cavalier and King (click to enlarge)

Sword & Poker Series is Available Again

A couple months ago, I learned that the wonderful Sword & Poker games (which I review here) had kinda sorta disappeared from the App Store. I checked, and they hadn’t actually vanished: you were simply unable to complete a purchase.

Then they vanished.

Now they’re back.

My understanding was that the company that made them, GAIA Co., had gone under and that was that.

These games may not be around for long, so grab ’em while you can. They really are a lot of fun.

And, yes, the App O’ The Mornin’ will return soon. As I mentioned, I did over 100 app reviews in a very very short period of time, and then my brain went pfffft. I just needed an app break. Also, the flow of apps that allowed for me to say interesting (or at least amusing) things kind of slackened after the Christmas release blitz. I’ll be back at it again soon.

The FCC: Stuck in Neutral (Maximum PC, March 2011)

This month’s “Game Theory” column for Maximum PC has generated some wider interest, but it is not yet on the magazine’s site. Since I’ve been asked to make it available, Max PC has allowed to me to publish a slightly longer version here. 

“FCC seeks internet control” was one of the main themes of tech reporting in 2010. The first thing that surprised me was that an agency created in the 1930s to regulate the radio spectrum was attempting to exert their nonexistent authority over the entire internet.

The second thing that surprised me was that the FCC continues to exist at all. Like the Federal Reserve and the Departments of Education, Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Health & Human Services, it’s a useless, self-perpetuating bureaucracy that does more harm than good. The courts have already told the FCC where to step off, but the Obama administration won’t let it rest.

This is no place to hash out the arguments for and against so-called “net neutrality.” Simply put: I’m agin’ it. It’s one of those things that sounds perfectly reasonable (we need to protect open access to the internet!), but in fact addresses a nonexistent problem.

Worse, it just let’s the camel’s nose under the tent. In this case, the nose is the FCC and their regulatory power, and the tent is the entire internet. If you think the 5 appointed political hacks on the Commission are just the people to tame the wild internet, then your naïveté is kind of sweet. It’s also infantile.

But how does any of this impact gaming, you may ask?

Well, online gamers may well be targeted as “bandwidth hogs” as ISPs try to accommodate growing demands for bandwidth. The rapidly increasing demands for streaming video and online gaming are certainly going to require a better infrastructure. Free enterprise will realize there is a buck to be made, and step in to increase that capacity, or restructure their fees so that people who use more pay more.

I’m fine with that. I don’t see why my parents’ household (which uses their internet access mostly to forward chain letters and long-debunked urban legends) should pay exactly the same fees as mine (which regularly hoovers up a couple hours of Netflix and a few more of online gaming per day).

In truth, games aren’t a vast bandwidth drain. Some estimates put World of Warcraft, for example, at less than 5MB per hour, and a little higher when more characters are involved in an event. A shooter, however, might eat anywhere from 40MB to 300MB per hour, depending on the game, size of the session, and other factors.

Government regulation cannot increase the bandwidth we need for our games. Only private industry can do that, and the one thing guaranteed to slow that growth is more regulation.