Stich-Meister is a trick-taking game in which the players alter the rules before each round of play. The game consists of two decks of cards: One deck of 60 cards with four suits of cards numbered 1 to 15, and one deck of 60 rule cards.

Each player has three rule cards, and at the start of a round, each player plays one of these cards. The rule cards played determine the rules for that round. There are three types of rule cards:

Trump cards, which determine the trump suit;

Scoring cards, which determine how many points a trick is worth;

Basic rule cards, which affect the way cards may be played.

Now, a trick-taking game is played with the 60-card deck. One player leads a card and others need to follow suit, if possible (unless this has been changed by the rule cards). The winner of a trick leads the next trick. At the end of the round each trick is worth one point, modified by the scoring cards.

After a number of rounds equal to the number of players, the game ends, and the player with the most points wins.