Droggn

Droggn, sometimes called French Tarock () is an extinct card game of the Tarock family for three players that was played in the Stubai valley in Tyrol, Austria until the 1980s. ''Droggn'' is originally local dialect for "to play Tarock" (in standard German usually "tarockieren"), but it has become the proper name of this specific Tarock variant. An unusual feature of the game compared with other Tarock games is the use of a 66-card deck and that, until recently, there was no record in the literature of a 66-card game and no current manufacturers of such a deck. The structure of the game strongly indicates that it is descended from the later version of Tarok l'Hombre, a 78-card Tarock game popular in 19th-century Austria and Germany, but with the subsequent addition of two higher bids.

History

During his research into ''The Game of Tarot'', Michael Dummett learned that 66-card Tarock packs had been made during the 19th century in the Tyrol, but could find no record of any games played with 66 cards. Equally curious was that Piatnik had continued to manufacture 78-card packs into the 1980s, even though Austrian literature suggested that games played with more than 54 cards had died out in the early part of the 19th century. In 1992, card game researcher, Remigius Geiser, found out from Piatnik that, towards the end, 78-card packs had been sold exclusively in the Stubai valley near Innsbruck. In their follow-up work, Geiser and McLeod tracked down a number of players who had played the game of Droggn in the past and were able to demonstrate its rules. Some of the players called it French Tarock (''Französisches Tarock'').

Droggn players were divided over whether the game was introduced to the Tyrol by French soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars at the time of Andreas Hofer or was imported to the area from northern Italy. The game has a number of features in common with older forms of French Tarot and with Tarok l'Hombre, an Austrian descendant of the Italian game of Taroc 'Ombre. McLeod and Geiser conclude that "Stubai Droggn clearly belongs within the family of Tarok l'Hombre games which were current in the 19th century", but go on to acknowledge that there is "a strong possibility" that it was derived from a French game played by Napoleonic soldiers from eastern France.

Aim

To win the 37 of the 74 card points available as the declarer or 38 as the defending team.

Players

The game is played with three players. Four can play if the dealer "takes a holiday" (''er feiert'') i.e. when it is their turn players deal but do not participate in that hand.
at www.pagat.com. Retrieved 24 Jun 2018.

Cards

The game is played with a 66-card French-suited Tarock card deck. In more recent times, players used a 78-card variant of the Industrie und Glück pattern deck and stripped out the lowest 3 cards of each suit. These packs are no longer made, but alternatives include the French Tarot Nouveau

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