What a merry time folks would have playing! Shihpai--or poem blocks--were originally used in verse-making games by Tang and Sung dynasty literati. When literary friends got together, they'd each pick squares with characters carved in them and use them as the basis for writing their own poems.
而詩牌原是一種典型的文人遊戲，唐宋文人喜歡在木板上刻上詩韻為戲具，文友聚會時每人抽一張牌，根據抽中的文字為韻腳做詩。