War (card game)

Lore & Background

War is played by dividing the deck evenly among players, each receiving a down stack. In unison, each player reveals the top card of their deck—a 'battle'—and the player with the higher card takes both cards and moves them to their stack. Aces are high, and suits are ignored. If the two cards played are of equal value, a 'war' occurs: both players place the next card from their pile face down and then another card face-up. The owner of the higher face-up card wins the war and adds all cards on the table to the bottom of their deck. If the face-up cards are again equal, the battle repeats with another set of face-down/up cards until one player's face-up card is higher.

Reader's Guide

Most descriptions of War are unclear about what happens if a player runs out of cards during a war. In some variants, that player immediately loses; in others, the player may play the last card in their deck as their face-up card for the remainder of the war or replay the game from the beginning. There also exists a variant where the player with a larger amount of cards must provide the cards to fight the war. War can also be played by multiple people: each player in a three-player game receives 17 cards, while each person in a four-player game receives 13. When a player runs out of cards, they are eliminated. Game designer Greg Costikyan has observed that since there are no choices in the game, and all outcomes are random, it cannot be considered a game by some definitions. However, the rules often do not specify in which order the cards should be returned to the deck; if they are returned in a non-random order, the decision of putting one card before another after a victory can change the overall outcome. The effects of such decisions are more visible with smaller decks.

Did You Know?

• War is also known as Battle in the United Kingdom.
• A German variant called Tod und Leben ('Death and Life') uses a 32-card Skat pack, with one player playing red suits and the other black suits.
• In the Prisoners of War variant, a winning player may take one of the opponent's cards as a 'prisoner' and later play it instead of drawing from their deck.
• Game designer Greg Costikyan argued that because War involves no player choices and all outcomes are random, it may not be considered a game by some definitions.

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