Fellowship of Fools: The Game

Fellowship of Fools: The Game (or FoF) is a card game based on the Tarot for self-reflection, creativity and developing relationships with other players.

FoF is a game that gives players an opportunity to get to know themselves and others through emergent and situational gameplay. It is also a game about saying yes, no and maybe.

PDF Print-to-Play editions are FREE for all three available decks and you can browse all cards with our Online Card Browser. Development on new decks on Kink and Community and open-sourcing our production back-end for others to use will begin in 2021.

Content Note:

FoF is a game that asks players to explore Situations and Topics together. FoF asks players to be open and vulnerable with one another about their personal preferences, relationships and past. In these conversations it is possible that painful or difficult Situations and Topics may be explored. The romance and sexuality decks include some questions about non-normative ways of relating and non-normative sexual desires. We ask players to be kind to one another and adhere to the Code of Conduct included with the game.

Gameplay:

• 1+ Players
• 15 minutes+
• Single Player, Two-Player, and Multiplayer Modes

Game Components:

• A modified Tarot deck with Topic and Situation Prompts
  • 22 Situation Cards for 44 Situation Prompts (Major Arcana)
  • 56 Topic Cards for 112 Topic Prompts (Minor Arcana)
• Code of Conduct card
• 2 Multiplayer and 2 Single Player Gameplay Modes cards
• Gameplay Mods cards
• Player’s Manual booklet pdf file includes 12 Multiplayer and 12 Single Player Gameplay Modes
• Character Sheets (pdf or included in Medium box physical editions)
• Small tuck box and/or Medium hard box (physical editions only)

The Tarot card deck has been in use since the 14th century for games and since the 17th century for divination. The art for Fellowship of Fools dates back to 1761 to its creation in France by Nicolas Conver de Marseilles and is called the Tarot de Marseilles.

Today, Tarot cards are widely used  for game playing, creativity, divination and personal development. Our hope is that FoF can expand on and turn that inward reflection of the Tarot outward to help players develop relationships with other players.

We’ve split the Tarot deck into its two parts—-the Major Arcana for Situations and the Minor Arcana for Topics. On each card are two different prompts—-corresponding to the upright and the reversed meaning of the card. Numbers next to the prompts indicate their difficulty, possible experience points that can be gained or lost with the Feedback Mod when playing that prompt, as well as the number of Topic Prompts that can be played for that Situation Prompt.

Read more about the inspiration and design decisions in our book chapter “Designing Dating Games: (Re)Designing the “Oldest Game”.