When I design card games, I design them with one particular constraint in my mind when I go in: 50 cards. This number is convenient for a couple of reasons. First, 50 is exactly half of a pack of the card sleeves (KMC brand) that I use to prototype games. Second, 50 is very close to the common number of cards people are used to working with, which is of course 52. It’s also similar to the number of cards in your typical CCG deck, and I can be confident that nobody will not know how to shuffle 50 cards.

When I pitched Mock the Vote and Satori at Origins, I was asked why I stuck with this restriction. After all, wouldn’t it be better to choose the perfect number of cards for the game in question? I responded somewhat lamely that it turned out to be a good, close number for both games. And indeed it is; but upon reflection, I have a better answer.

Designing a game is in many ways an artistic process, like writing a poem. There are so many variables, so many things to change, that it helps to have a structure to fit your work into. It gives you a place to start, a place to end, and a clear look at every part of it . For instance, a sonnet is 14 lines long and has a particular meter and rhyme scheme (iambic pentameter and ABABCDCDEFEFGG, if you don’t remember from English class.).

Speaking of English class, in A Wrinkle in Time Mrs. Whatsit also brings up the form of a sonnet as being liberating, rather than restricting, although in that context it is used as an analogy to a person’s life, not game design!

So why did all of Shakespeare’s sonnets have 14 lines? Is there not one that could have been improved by adding or removing a couplet? Is there something magical about the number 14? Of course not; but by choosing this particular framework to work within, he was able to focus on the rest of the poem, the imagery and wordplay and metaphor, and make it the best it could be. Without that structure, how could he ever know it was done?

Note, of course, that I’m not so bold as to claim my games are as good as Shakespeare’s sonnets! And, alas, they certainly haven’t been as effective at picking up lovers.

So why do Bridge, Poker, Hearts, Spades, Oh Hell, Cribbage, Skat, and a host of other games all use a deck of 52 cards? Is it because 52 cards is the perfect number of cards for each of those games? Not necessarily. But it works fine as a structure that they’re all designed under. Now, some games need fewer cards, like Euchre, or a different deck, like Pinochle. When you play trick-taking games three-handed you need to leave a card out. Likewise, sometimes a line of a poem works better if you fudge the rhyme or meter.

So, 50 cards? It’s convenient, it’s familiar, and because I like it I’m using it for my form and structure. Someday I’ll probably end up with a game that just won’t be right without more cards, or fewer, and then I’ll certainly switch; but I’ll know I have a good reason to fudge the form or choose a different one entirely.