I grew up in a card-playing family, and a lot of my friends do not know how to play the card games I enjoy, so I thought I would do a little tutorial! May I? is a game for 3-6 players, and you need two regular decks of playing cards. It's kind of like an extended variation on playing rummy. :)

My mom made these scoring sheets DECADES ago, and I still use them. :) It's a good way to remember where you are at in the game!

The goal is to get a different set of cards in each round, and to lay them down on the table once you have achieved the requirement for that round (you can only lay down on your turn). For the first three rounds, each player gets dealt 10 cards. On the first round, you need to get two three of a kinds before you can lay down.

As you play, you pick up a card from the draw pile OR the discard pile on your turn. You decide whether to keep it or discard it (or discard a different card) based on what sets of cards you are trying to get on that round. Once you have laid down, you still have to lay down the rest of your cards before you are done.

So say you are going for two threes of a kind in round one, and you have laid down three 4s for one set and three 5s for another set. You still have four cards you need to get rid of. You can do this by continuing to add to your sets, adding to the other players' sets once they have laid down, and only when it is your last card, discarding (because you have to keep drawing every turn).

If you see a card you want to take from the discard pile when it is not your turn, you can ask, "May I?" If that person does not want that discard for themselves, they say yes, and you have to take it plus a penalty card from the draw pile. They cannot say no unless they want to take that discard for themselves.

2s are wild cards and can be anything! When you are laying down the rest of your cards, you can replace 2s with the proper card and put the 2 elsewhere in that stack. So say your opponent laid down a run of 5,6,2,8 where the 2 is standing in for the 7. Your have a 7 in your hand, so on your next turn, you put it where the 2 is in that run and then put the 2 in the place of a 9 or a 4.

The end goal is to have the LEAST amount of points. So if you are the one who goes out first, you get -10 points. Everyone else has to add up what is still in their hand (not what they have laid down on the table). 2s are worth 20 points (you really don't want to be stuck having not laid down when someone else goes out!). Aces are 15 points, 10s and all face cards are 10 points and everything else is face value.

Here's what you are aiming for in every hand:

Rounds 1-3

• deal 10 cards to each player

round 1: two 3-of-a-kind
round 2: one 3-of-a-kind, one run of 4 cards (like, 6,7,8,9)
round 3: two runs of 4 cards

Rounds 4-6

• deal 14 cards to each player

round 4: three 3-of-a-kind
round 5: two 3-of-a-kind, one run of 4 cards
round 6: one 3-of-a-kind, two runs of 4 cards

Rounds 7-9

• deal 16 cards to each player

round 7: three runs of 4 cards
round 8: three 3-of-a-kind, one run of 4 cards
round 9: two 3-of-a-kind, two runs of 4 cards

Rounds 10-11

-deal 18 cards to each player

round 10: three runs of 5 cards
round 11: four runs of 4 cards

I hope this made sense! Let me know if you have any questions, and have fun! 😄