History tells us that tarot was first popular as a card game. I happen to believe that it was also created to be a card game, but that the creator "got into it" enough to leave behind a wonderful symbolic system with many other uses. I think the game was intended to depict the powers of the cosmos and to be a "true" vision (at least in the poetic sense) of the basic ways of heaven and earth. If that is true, then the game creator's vision may be reflected in the rules of play, not just in the pictures that were placed on the cards.
If you haven't ever played the game of tarot, it is worth some time to learn. I've posted rules for a very easy-to-learn version (faithful to the original game, as far as we can know): Play the Game.
I taught the game to my almost-4-year-old daughter. (Well, she doesn't quite get the "strategy", but she knows how to follow suit and what to do with trump cards when she gets them). Together, we taught mommy how to play. ("No mom, that's not a sword! You know it's a trump!")
Here are some reflections on the game, seen as a microcosm of the world.
Among the trumps, only the World, the Bagatto (Magician), and the Fool are worth points. Most of the counting cards are court cards! So even though the trumps are more powerful, they're not worth much at the end of the day. Perhaps there is a wry commentary on medieval and renaissance life here. The royal families have the wealth. Even though they fall before the great allegorical forces of life, it is their material power that matters in this world! Capturing a king is worth something. Capturing Love or Justice is well, just its own reward, I guess.
There are only two cards that, if you receive them in deal, you know cannot be taken from you: The Fool and the World. Both are counting cards! So it is a great comfort to see either come up in your hand. You can easily identify with them. This is especially true of the Fool. You don't even need to let him out of your hand. You can just show him to the others, and hand over a worthless card in his place.
It is "natural" that most of the trumps should triumph over the kings and queens of the court. Most, after all, are either archetypal forces like Death and the Wheel of Fortune, or else terrestrial big shots like the Emperor and Pope. The only trump that seems, at first glance, like it has no right to take a king is the Bagatto (Magician). What is the meaning of this impertinence? I think the Bagatto is a con artist, so this is a reminder that even the rich, famous, and powerful can be taken in by a clever opportunist. Remarkably, the rules of the game seem to reinforce this. The Bagatto is a counting card, but is the lowest ranked trump! You don't want to lose those points by playing him incautiously. So you have to be sure there are no other trumps around, and then pounce on a court card with the Bagatto! Very sneaky work, and not altogether virtuous. I'm sure that Bagatto has been the object of more curses from centuries of tarot players than any other card.
Because one must follow suit if possible, only playing a trump when you have no proper suit card, the game tends to follow an interesting progression. At the very beginning, one sees mostly pip cards, and perhaps a king or queen played in confidence that there will be no trumps played this trick. As the suit cards start to run dry, the trumps come out, in hopes of capturing a hapless royal out on its own. There is thus a progression from the mundane to the spiritual in the course of a round.
The game is really very delicately designed. If the court cards were a little more powerful, the game would involve little risk, and just depend on the luck of the deal. Likewise, if they were less powerful, they could never be played with confidence, and again the game would reduce to the luck of the draw. But the fact that the court cards beat all the pips, but fall to trumps--and that the trumps cannot be played until suit cards run out, all this makes for a game of skill, in which one must often very carefully consider which card to play to any given trick.
A final observation. In the usual way of counting points, the total number of points won by all players in a three-handed game is precisely 78. Anyone who thinks the tarot designers could not possibly have been bothered to "play games with numbers" in deciding how many cards there should be, and how they should be ordered, ought to reflect on this bit of numerical cleverness built into the game from the outset.
The game is smart.