Redrym
Redrym is the tavern game of the world, played with tiles rather than cards, because tiles mix face down on a table and cards do not. A set is thirteen: one Breaker, and three each of Personal, Family, Station, and City. Three to six players, and four is the table everybody means.
The stakes
Everybody takes the same number of tokens and antes one into the pot each round. Run out and you are finished. Eight rounds make an evening, and whoever has the most at the end takes the pot. In a Therplae the tokens are worth coin; at a kitchen table they are worth nothing at all, and the evening is no less bad-tempered for it.
A round
- The deal
- The dealer sets out the Breaker and one ordinary tile for each player, mixes them face down with both palms, and everyone takes one. One tile is left over, face down and unturned. So the Breaker is in somebody's hand four rounds in five, and once in a while it is lying under the dealer's hand and the whole table is hunting a man who is not there.
- The claims
- Going round, each player says what he holds, and is expected to look at somebody while he says it. Anybody may lie and nearly everybody does, and with three tiles of each Aspect two players claiming Family proves nothing. A man holding the Breaker must claim something, and whatever he says is a lie he has to sell.
- The accusation
- Made by everybody at once, on a count. Nobody may abstain. If the fingers land on the Breaker, he pays the pot and it is divided among those who pointed at him. If he is missed, he takes the pot entire. If they land on an innocent, that man is paid a token by every person who pointed at him, out of their own tokens — which is why nobody points at random. If the Breaker was never dealt, everybody who pointed pays the man they pointed at, the pot stays, and the next round's ante is doubled. Anyone the fingers land on turns his tile face up.
- Keeping a tile
- A player who was not accused may keep his tile, face up in front of him, for the next round. Personal lets him look at somebody else's tile before the claims. Family lets him put his own back unseen and take another. Station lets him claim last. City lets him see the leftover tile, so he knows one thing nobody is holding. The tile goes back at the end of that round whether used or not, and while it sits there everyone knows he was not the Breaker and knows exactly what he is about to be able to do. A good many players hand it back rather than be read that clearly.
What it is
There is nothing in Redrym to count. Nothing rewards arithmetic and everything rewards knowing what the person across from you is doing, which is a skill the world already prizes, and this is where most people practice it. What the game does to a person over years is the interesting part: a man who tells the truth about his tiles builds a reputation, and the round he holds the Breaker he spends it and takes the pot, and every honest thing he says afterward is read through it. A man who lies constantly is caught constantly. The player who wins over a lifetime is the one whose habits never settle into anything anybody can name — which the philosophers have pointed out is precisely what the Oathbond asks a person never to be. The essays exist. The game is played anyway. A quiet player with a plain face and thirty years of practice takes money off clever young men every Stil evening in every city in the world.