The Great Dalmuti

The game is sold in a box containing two 40-card decks[1]^: 4 consisting of twelve 12s, eleven 11s, ten 10s, nine 9s, eight 8s, seven 7s, six 6s, five 5s, four 4s, three 3s, two 2s, one 1, and two Jesters. (One Jester played by itself counts as a 13. If played in conjunction with another card, the Jester takes on the value of the other card as a wild card.)[2]

Each card in Dalmuti has a medieval name. Each rank is represented by an equal number of cards to its rank, except for the two Jesters.

Each player draws a card and reveals its rank. (For purposes of the draw, the Jester counts as the highest card.) The players then seat themselves around the table in clockwise order from lowest card to highest. The person who drew the lowest card is the Greater Dalmuti, the player to the left of the Greater Dalmuti is the Lesser Dalmuti, the player to the right of the Greater Dalmuti (the player who drew the highest card) is the Greater Peon, and the person to the right of the Greater Peon is the Lesser Peon. All other players are Merchants.[2]

1. Deal: The Greater Peon shuffles the cards and deals out the entire deck to the players until it is exhausted, even if this means some players get more cards than others.
2. Taxes: The Greater Peon must give the Greater Dalmuti the lowest two cards in their hand, and in exchange, the Greater Dalmuti gives the Greater Peon any two cards from their hand. The Lesser Dalmuti likewise gives any one card in their hand to the Lesser Peon, and receives in exchange the Lesser Peon's lowest card. However, if a player has two Jesters, they may call for an end to taxation (called a "revolution"). If the player with two Jesters is the Greater Peon, then it is a "Greater Revolution", and all players are reseated in reverse order – The Greater Dalmuti becomes the Greater Peon, the Lesser Dalmuti becomes the Lesser Peon, and so on.
3. First round: The Greater Dalmuti plays a set of one or more cards of the same rank from their hand, such as four 12s or two 9s or one 7. Plays then proceeds clockwise. The next player can either play the same number of cards but lower in rank than those played, or pass. The player can substitute a Jester as a wild card in order to make a set. Example: In a 5-player game, the Greater Dalmuti plays two 9s. The player to the left plays two 7s. The third player can now play two cards lower than 7, and having one 6 and one Jester, plays them as a pair of 6s. The fourth player has four 5s, but chooses to hold on to them as a set rather than losing two of them and passes. The fifth player does not have a pair of cards lower than 6 and passes. Play moves back to the Greater Dalmuti, and so on.
4. Subsequent rounds: Once everyone has passed, the round is finished. The last person able to play a card leads a card or set of cards to start another round.
5. Going out: When a player successfully sheds all their cards, the player sits out the rest of that hand, and play continues with players who still have cards.
6. End of the hand: When all players but one have successfully gotten rid of all their cards, the hand ends.
7. Reseating for the next hand: For the next hand, players are reseated according to the order in which they successfully got rid of their cards: the first person to have done so becomes the Greater Dalmuti, and all other players are seated clockwise in the order that they shed all their cards; the last player, who did not get rid of all their cards, becomes the Greater Peon, seated to the right of the Greater Dalmuti. The Greater Peon then shuffles and deals the cards to start another hand.[2]

There are no victory conditions. Play continues until the players end the game by mutual consent, or an agreed-to time limit is reached.[3]