Modern Royalty

Modern Royalty is a trick-taking game for exactly six players using a standard 52-card deck plus two jokers.

In each hand the deck is dealt out and the players then bid; bids can be 1-36 in a suit or 1-25 in "anarchy."

If the winning bid is in a suit, that suit is trump and cards are ranked normally, except that aces are special and jokers are the lowest members of the trump suit. Play is fairly standard (must follow suit, not required to trump) except that the aces in the non-trump suits are assassins which kill trump cards, and the trump ace is a guard which stops one assassin.

If the winning bid is in anarchy, there is no trump suit and cards are ranked ace high to ten low, with the face cards being equal below the ten; the jokers form their own "pariah" suit. If a pariah is led to a trick no one wins it.

Scoring depends on whether the play was in a suit or in anarchy, and if in a suit each player's score depends in part on what is taken by three of the other five players. The player who won the bid must always achieve their bid in points or be penalized; if the bid was in a suit then other players who last bid that suit must also do this.

Play is to 626 points.

There is an optional rule for an extra "knife" bid which basically means that the knifing player(s) work deliberately against the winning bidder.