Where’s this going - towards a game where players can choose to play cards they don’t have (essentially “playing a card face-down and saying what it was”, I suppose) and hope that they don’t get challenged?

I suppose so? It was based on the original game itself letting you name any card, and this is pretty open-ended. I’d like a direction where getting caught has such a large penalty that it keeps everyone honest but if it turns into a bluffing game that’s cool too.

don’t like where this might lead, sorry

I also thought breaking out plays encourages adding more - I wanted to add a third option that raises the stakes (‘puntare’?) but it was too hard to figure out how to do that in the game’s amorphous state.

The base structure allowing players to name any card was just necessity; if the rule said “play a card that’s in your hand”, it would be possible to make a ruleset-illegal move (possibly at the start of a very long game) potentially with nobody noticing.

Invalid cards as small bluffs or as game-invalidating rule breaches (where the Dealer can step in at any point to end a game where someone played a card they didn’t have, and has to verify a game at the end before scoring it) are bother interesting directions to take a game, I’d be happy to see either.

I honestly don’t like this becoming a bluffing game, and I don’t see how it won’t become one with how the plays are structured.

Imperial DEF on this one, up to the players what sort of basic game they want to play.

I agree with Jumble; I feel like this is more of a cribbage-style game than a cheat-style game. 

I’m not opposed to a bluffing mechanic but I’d like to come up with a simple game structure first

s/k