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There's a card game called Bastard's Fool. It features in Tempest Rising, Book 3 of Skull & Shackles. (The adventure doesn't actually list the rules of the game, though.)
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Mills is a good example of a historical game.
Three Dragon Ante is from D&D. It's a card game.
Here's some more historical board games.
Hope that helps!
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Some people say poker is the best card game in the world. I say they are F+$+ING *WRONG.*
The best card game, and one that really really needs more play, is called Napoleon. (Problem is, Earth's the only place that HAD a Napoleon, but don't you worry, the game's also alternately called Nap.) Though traditionally played as a five-card game, I prefer the seven-card variant which I'll talk about below.
You get one deck of cards minus the jokers and a total of five people (you can play Nap with three to six people, but five works best.) Everybody gets seven cards. The player immediately to your left gets the first chance to bid.
HOW BIDDING WORKS: You look at your cards and bid based on how many tricks you think you can win. The bids, from lowest to highest, are:
Four - You try to win four tricks. If you do, everyone pays you four gold pieces. If you do not, you pay everyone four gold pieces each.
Five (or "Nap") - You try to win five tricks. If you do, everyone pays you ten gold pieces. If you do not, you pay everyone five gold pieces each.
Misere - You think your hand sucks, so you're gonna play this game to lose. If you lose all seven tricks, everyone pays you ten gold pieces. If you take one trick, you owe everyone five gold pieces.
Six - You try to win six tricks. If you do, everyone pays you eighteen gold pieces. If you do not, you pay everyone nine gold pieces each.
Seven (or "the lot") - You think you have a real boss hand and think you can win all seven tricks. If you're right, everyone at the table pays you 24 gold pieces. If you're wrong, you pay everyone twelve gold pieces each.
Wellington (or "the double," because the Duke of Wellington was never on Golarion) - You can only call this bid if someone bids seven. A Wellington bid is you saying your hand can totally take all seven tricks and is better than everyone else's. If you win all seven tricks, everyone owes you 48 gold pieces. If you lose one trick, you pay everyone 24 gold pieces.
Blucher (or "the redouble," as again, Gebhard Leberecht van Blucher was only on one planet) - You can only call this bid if someone bids Wellington. A Blucher bid is you saying that a) You have the best seven cards in the deck and can totally win seven tricks, and b) You are a deranged lunatic. If you actually win all seven tricks, everyone owes you 96(!) gold pieces. If you don't win all seven tricks, you owe everyone 48 gold pieces (and will probably get brutally beaten if you can't pay up because you're only a first-level adventurer.)
Starting from the dealer's left, everyone gets a chance to bid or pass. Once everyone has a chance to bid, whoever had the highest bid has the honor of playing the first card. The first card's suit is the trump suit for the entire round (unless you bid Misere, in which case there's no trump suit) and everyone has to follow the suit, just like in Hearts.
Play continues until the bidder makes his contract or becomes unable to. Everyone pays up, the cards get gathered and shuffled, and a new round begins.
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All right lads, here's another nice and easy card game before I head to work. It's called Newmarket (it's also called Chicago and Michigan; Newmarket sounds more fantasy-ish, so let's go with that.)
You need one full deck of cards (minus the jokers, of course) and four cards from another deck: one jack, one queen, one king, and one ace, each of a different suit. (Traditionally, I've seen the Jack of Clubs, Queen of Diamonds, King of Spades, and Ace of Hearts, but so long as you have those four ranks and those four suits, you're good to go.) You put the four spare cards down in the middle of the table.
Everybody has to wager five gold pieces: One goes into the central ante, and the other four go on the four spare cards we just placed in the center of the table. You can wager those four GP however you want, whether all four on one card, or one on each, or two each on two cards.
The dealer then shuffles, cuts, and deals every card out. One extra hand, called the "widow" or "dead hand," is also dealt; this is not played (or even looked at) but will be important in a few minutes. This may mean someone gets less cards than the others. That's fine.
The player to the dealer's left gets the first play. He can play any suit he wants, so long as it's the LOWEST rank he holds. (If I have the eight and six of clubs, I have to play the six.) Whoever holds the next highest rank plays that, and so on. If nobody is holding the next card, whoever played the last card gets the honor of leading the next run. (Again, he can play any suit so long as he starts with the lowest rank he has.)
If anybody plays one of the four cards with coins we put in the middle of the table, they win the coins on it. Whoever empties their hand first wins the center ante. Any coins still on the cards after the ante is won are left there for the next deal.
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Towers, using the Harrow deck published by Paizo.
3 Dragon Ante has already been mentioned.
Chess and draughts would both work.
Go also.
Various dice games have been popular the world over and are surely played in Golarion.
There's also a myriad of games in the mancala family that you could look up which might make for good games to adapt.
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Cheat seems like the kind of game that would be really fun with sleight of hand and some cantrip level spells. Actually, I would love to see some wizards take on some rogues at Cheat.
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Okay, I have a third actual played-on-Earth card game that should be more popular. It's called Trente et Quarante, or "Thirty and Forty" in Roman Catholic.
First, you get six decks of cards, toss the jokers out (notice a theme going on with these games?) and shuffle them all together really well. Then the players place their bets. There are four possible bets in this game:
Rouge: You're betting that the row marked "red" will be closer to 30.
Noir: You're betting that the row marked "black" will be closer to 30.
Couleur: You're betting that the first card in the winning row is the same color as the winning row (a heart or diamond for Rouge, a club or spade for Noir.)
Inverse: You're betting that the first card in the winning row is the same color as the losing row (a club or spade for Rouge, a heart or diamond for Noir.)
All four bets pay even money.
You can also buy insurance against a refait; that costs you 1% of your wager, to a minimum of 5 gold pieces. What's a refait? You'll find out in a minute.
Once everyone makes their bets, the dealer starts dealing cards out to Noir (aces count as 1, face cards count as 10.) Once he exceeds 30 points, he then starts dealing to Rouge. Again, he stops once Rouge has more than 30 points.
Whichever row is the closest to 30 after going over wins for that color. (If Noir has 35 and Rouge has 34, Rouge wins.) If the first card in the winning row is the same color as the winning row, Couleur wins. If not, Inverse wins.
If both hands tie, that's a push. There is one exception to this: Un apres thirty-one.
Refait: If a refait happens, you have two choices here: You can withdraw half your wager and forfeit the rest to the house, or you can just grin, bear it, and leave your wager on the table for the next hand. (If you paid for insurance on the refait, you get even money on the insurance. Unlike blackjack, where insurance is a step above just giving a ten dollar bill to the dealer, refait insurance is a legitimately reasonable offer, considering a refait happens about once every thirty-eight games.)
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One final nice card game here. One with absurdly high stakes (No. Seriously. Caesar's Entertainment lists profit/loss from this on their quarterly financial reports. I am not making this up.) One that is the preferred card game of international superspies everywhere[1].
Tonight, we're talking about baccarat. Specifically, Chemin de Fer, the way 007 plays it.
Get six decks of cards, ditch the jokers as per usual. Shuffle them well. (To quote Casino Royale, "there's absolutely no chance of tampering with the shoe. The cards are shuffled by the croupier and cut by one of the players and put into the shoe in full view of the table.")
One player, starting from what we'll call Seat Number One, is offered the chance to be the banker. If he declines the bank, the opportunity goes clockwise around the table. Once somebody accepts the bank, he makes his wager. We'll call him the Banker, and the other players seated at the table the Punters. Starting from the Banker's left, each Punter has the opportunity to match the Banker's wager; this is called "going bank," and only one Punter is allowed to do this.
If nobody goes bank, each Punter is allowed to wager as he or she desires starting from the Banker's left. If the Punters collectively wager less than the Banker, the Banker can either remove his excess from the table, or the observers watching the game can stake the difference. (This being a casino game, you can be sure people will gather 'round the table to watch.) If the Punters' stake exceeds the Banker's, he can either increase his wager or the croupier can refund the Punters' bets (starting from the Banker's right) until the two stakes match.
Once the two stakes are even, the Banker deals two cards to himself and two cards to the Punters as a whole. The Punter who has the highest stake is chosen to look at the two cards. (If two or more made the same bet, the Punter closest to the Banker's left looks at the cards.) If they add up to 8 or 9, he declares this and reveals the cards. The Banker reveals his at this point. If the Punters' cards are closer to 9, they win. If not, the Banker wins. Ties are played again.
If the cards don't add up to 8 or 9, the Punter does one of the following:
The Punter is, like in any other game, free to accept or decline a third card as he wishes, but considering he's literally playing with other peoples' money, they'd be very cross if his screwing around with betting convention lost the hand, and most social circles would force him to repay the other Punters. (If he went bank, he can do as he pleases. It's his money, after all.)
In case you're wondering, aces count as 1, tens and court cards count as 0, and 2 through 9 count as the value printed on the card. If the value of the cards you have add up to more than 10, you drop the tens digit; holding a 9 and a 7 means you have a total of 6, and would stand.
Once the Punter either has his third card or not, the Banker gets to play. If his initial two cards add up to 8 or 9, he turns them over and wins. If he does not have an 8 or 9 total, he can accept or decline a third card as he sees fit. (Again, to quote Casino Royale, "Otherwise, he is faced with the same problems as I was. But he is helped in his decision to draw or not to draw a third card by my actions. If I have stood, he must assume that I have a five, six, or seven; if I have drawn, he will know that I had something less than a six and I may have improved my hand or not with the card he gave me. And this card was dealt face up. On its face value and a knowledge of the odds, he will know whether to take another card or stand on his own.
"So he has a very slight advantage over me. He has a tiny help over his decision to draw or to stand. But there is always one problem card in this game-- shall one draw or stand on a five, and what will your opponent do with a five?")
Once the dealer makes his decision, the cards are revealed. If the Punters' hand is closer to 9 than the Banker's hand, the Punters each receive their wager back and the same amount from the Banker's stake, and the player to his left becomes the new Banker. If the Banker's hand is closer to 9, he adds the Punters' money to his bank and remains the Banker. He can withdraw at any time, in which case the player to his left is the new Banker.
[1]Look, as much as Casino Royale is my second-favorite Bond movie and as much as I understand why they did this, they really should have kept the baccarat in instead of changing it to poker.