Rules for Chaos Maid and Chaos Maid: Revelations

The following are the instructions on WBL's rules for "Chaos Maid", a house-rules variation on Old Maid.

OLD MAID RECAP

First, a recap on the rules of Old Maid... in Old Maid, a game traditionally for four players, you match pairs of cards in your hand and eliminate the pairs from your hand.  This game is played with a standard 52-card deck.  There is one card that cannot be paired, one of the Queens, dubbed the Old Maid (the rest of the queens are laid out of play.  Sometimes, people simply add a joker as the old maid.).  On your turn, you take one card from the person on your right.  If it matches a card in your hand, remove the pair.  If the person on your right has no cards, your turn is passed.  Play continues to the left.  When all the pairs are matched, the person who holds the Old Maid is the ultimate loser.

Chaos Maid changes the game to add an air of mystery.

CHAOS MAID SETUP

First of all, in Chaos Maid (meant for four people, but anywhere from two to thirteen can play), you can only match pairs of the same rank and the same color (IE: Seven of Hearts and Seven of Diamonds, or King of Spades and King of Clubs, but not Three of Spades and Three of Diamonds).  This essentially makes 26 distinct pairs.  Remove jokers from the deck.

Before you deal the cards out, take the top card from the deck.  DO NOT LOOK AT IT.  NOBODY IS TO LOOK AT THIS CARD.  Place this card, sight unseen, back in the card box or aside in a safe place.  Now, with that card permanently out of play, that leaves 25 pairs and one Chaos Maid (the pair of the card taken out of play).  However, considering nobody knows which pair is broken, nobody knows which card is the Chaos Maid.  This adds an extra air of mystery and urgency to the game, because instead of fretting and fearing when you get the Old Maid, nobody knows what the Chaos Maid is until it's too late.

CHAOS MAID PLAY

Play continues as per the rules of Old Maid.  The amount of cards dealt to everyone will be uneven, this is normal.  First off, immediately remove all pairs from your hand (remember, in Chaos Maid, matches MUST consist of the same rank AND color).  The dealer goes first, picking a card from the person to their right.  If the player has no cards, they still take one from the person to their right.  If the person to their right has no cards, the turn is skipped.  If the card matches a card in the player's hand, the player must discard the pair.  Play then continues with the person to the left, picking a card from the person who just picked a card.  Play continues until there is only one card left, the Chaos Maid.

After someone has been stuck with the Chaos Maid, that person reaches into the card box for the discarded card, just to double-check that this is indeed the Chaos Maid, and that there hasn't been a pairing error.  The person stuck with the Chaos Maid at the end loses.

CHAOS MAID SCORING

Scoring can be handled in several ways.  You can simply play game by game, awarding a new loser every game.  Or you can play for a set number of points... at the end of every round, every player except the Chaos Maid gets a point, and the first to hit a set amount of points, or the highest score after a set amount of rounds, wins.  Chaos Maid can also be used as a punishment game.

CHAOS MAID VARIANTS

MAIDS OF YESTERDAY: Point play rules apply.  However, in addition to getting a point at the end of every round if you don't have the Chaos Maid, you also get a point for matching either of the pair of Queens.  However, if a Black Queen ends up being the Chaos Maid, whoever got the Red Queen pair gets three points instead of just the one.  Conversely, if a Red Queen ends up being the Chaos Maid, whoever got the Black Queen pair ends up losing three points (potentially going into negative scores.).

MIRROR MAIDS: Played with a Canasta deck (two regular decks mixed together) instead of a regular deck.  In this variant, only exact matches are paired off, matching both suit and rank.  Recommended only for larger groups.

CHAOS MAID: REVELATIONS

A special super-high-stakes variation of Chaos Maid.  Scoring handled with the point system, one point for every round you complete without holding the Chaos Maid.  However, two jokers are added to the deck.  When someone matches the pair of Jokers, they immediately choose another card from their hand, any card in their hand, and place it in the middle of the table.  That card is the "Revelation".  The other players must immediately search their cards to see if they have its match.  

REVELATION: If indeed the Revelation is a normal card (and odds are it will be), and there is a match, whoever has the match immediately discards the card's match.  Gameplay continues as normal from the left of the person who played the pair of jokers.

ASCENSION: If nobody has the matching card, check the card box.  If the "Revelation" is the "Chaos Maid", then the person who exposed the Chaos Maid with the Revelation has become "Ascended".  Regardless of the scores, whoever is "Ascended" immediately wins the entire game.

IN EXILE: Under the rare circumstance that the Joker is the Chaos Maid, then the opposite of "Ascension" occurs.  If there is only one Joker, because the Joker is the Chaos Maid, then whoever ends up with the Chaos Maid at the end of the round is, for the rest of the game, "In Exile".  If a player is In Exile, at the end of every single round, this player's score always resets to 0.  This means that it is IMPOSSIBLE for a player In Exile to win the game on points, since a player In Exile can never get points.  The ONLY way a player In Exile can win the game, is by becoming "Ascended" (matching the Jokers, then having and playing the Chaos Maid for the "Revelation").

LOST TECHNOLOGY: You can only call a "Revelation" on a card in your hand after you match the Jokers to enact the "Revelation".  So what happens when the pair of Jokers are the only cards in your hand?  What if you have no cards to call the "Revelation" on?  This rare instance is called "Lost Technology".  Simply put, the "Revelation" is cancelled for that round.  There is no "Revelation", and gameplay continues as normal.