Game pieces proposal

[J Andrew Lipscomb]

Here are some thoughts on the playing-card section:
(1) There are four traditional suit/court patterns in playing cards of 
the West: French (spade/heart/diamond/club, king/queen/jack), 
Italian/Spanish (sword/cup/coin/baton, king/knight/jack), German 
(leaf/heart/bell/acorn, king/overjack/underjack), and Swiss 
(shield/flower/bell/acorn, king/overjack/underjack, and a unique rank 
called the banner).

Should these four patterns be unified? Overjacks can be unified with 
knights, but queens cannot (since Tarot decks use both queens and 
knights). Similarly, the underjacks can be unified with just-plain 
jacks.

Each suit actually needs 16 or 17 cards--Australian decks often include 
pip cards up to 12 in the black suits and 13 in the red (these are used 
for the game of 500). It is also necessary to encode two jokers (the 
game of Bid Whist, for example, uses a Big Joker as its top trump and a 
Little Joker as its second). Finally, the 21 tarots should also be 
encoded.

Thus, my suggestion would be—if it is deemed appropriate to unify the 
four Western patterns—to encode first four 16-card rows consisting of 
four courts and number cards up to 12 in each suit. Then Little Joker, 
the tarots in ascending order, Big Joker, and finally the two red 
thirteens.

As for the bit about domino diagrams, it seems clear to me that a 
diagram is fancy text; for plain text, just the bones themselves will 
work (but halves should also be encoded, as a "suit" of dominos is a 
likely topic of plain text).