Classic Games: Variants as a Way of Life

Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while know that I have a weakness for classic games. Mah Jongg continues to be a favorite of mine (and of nearly everyone I've played it with).

A few weeks ago, while cleaning the apartment, I stumbled across one of my Rook decks. Rook is a game I used to play with my great-grandparents. I hadn't played in many years, so I took it to Game Night.

Only one other person there had played before. After a few seconds of discussion, I learned that we played it differently.  After referring to the rulebook, I discovered that neither of us played what is the default - "Tournament Rook."

See, when she played, the deck used all 57 cards, and the counters are 14, 10, 5, and the Rook itself. The Rook is considered to be the highest trump card.

In my family, we also used all 57 cards, the counters were 13, 10, 5 and the Rook itself. And the Rook was the lowest trump card.

In Tournament Rook, you remove 1-4 from the deck. The counters are 14, 10, 5, and the Rook (If the Rook is being used). If it's in play, the Rook is the high trump.

I wrote a few months ago about House Rules. I don't know that any of these could be considered house rules - they're more like regional variations. The "Tournament Rook" rules are "official," as handed down by Parker Brothers and Hasbro. The book included a number of common variants (not including the one I grew up playing).

So why are there so many variations?

My wife and I are reading The Westing Game together. More accurately, she's reading it to me as we drive home from work some evenings.  It's a book I loved growing up, and she's never read it. Even now, more than twenty years later, I'm enjoying it.

At one point in the book, there is a discussion about the phrase, "May God thy gold refine." The characters argue over whether it's Shakespeare or the Bible. At one point, a character goes to a library and talks to the librarian, where they discover that it's from the song "America the Beautiful." It's one of the central puzzles early in the book.

I stopped Stephanie when we reached that point.  "Wow," I said, "You can sure tell this was before Google." And it's true - if faced with a similar puzzle these days, I'd pull out my phone and Google it. The Heirs would have licked that puzzle in minutes rather than weeks.

The internet has very much changed a lot of things for us. I learned Rook from my great-grandparents in Grant's Pass, Oregon. They brought it with them from the Midwest.  Anyone that they taught to play uses the variant my family uses. Unless they forgot a rule or misremembered a rule, which could (and would) spark another variant.

This sort of confusion is no less common, today, but we also have more resources. The Rook cards come with a rulebook that is much clearer than it used to be. Boardgamegeek has thousands of folks handy with rules clarifications. Many manufacturers can (and will) respond to rules queries by e-mail. Wikipedia has dozens of game entries with rules summaries and occasional clarifications to common issues.

That's not to say we won't see regional variations, anymore. Another game I grew up playing is Pinochle. The part of my family that plays this game lives in rural Montana. Rural enough that, until three years ago there was no cellular service. There's still no reliable high-speed internet. And small-town Montana is not alone in this. But it means that this is an area where rules disputes have to go to whatever rulebook is on hand or whoever the local expert is.

I learned Pinochle from my grandparents. When I first went to play online, I was confused. Why was a ten chopped from the scores? How did I get more than two of a kind? Where is the nine? And - most of all - why couldn't I pass cards to my partner when we won the bid? I've since learned that the "standard" Pinochle game these days is double-deck, which doesn't use the nine, and the card-passing thing? I've only ever found one reference to it anywhere. But my grandparents used to play as part of the local Pinochle Club, which pulled fifty or so couples, all of whom used the same set of rules.

I have to wonder - is the gradual loss of regional variants a good thing? Or do we lose some of the richness and possible depth that many of these games contain?

Making It Your Game: House Rules

When I mentioned a few weeks ago that my friend Wade had tweaked the rules to octaNe for our game, it never occurred to me that anyone would consider changing rules to fit your specific group or needs would be odd or unusual.

And that, alone, needs thought.

I don't know that I've ever played in an RPG where there wasn't a house rule somewhere. They're not necessarily rules that make huge differences - sometimes, they soften a particularly unforgiving part of the game. Sometimes, they clarify a vague rule. And they're another way to fight munchkinism. And, lastly, they set expectations under our Social Contract.

I played in a GURPS game a few years ago that had so many house rules that they called it "CURPS." Chris, the GM, had been running it for so long he knew which advantages and disadvantages caused problems and in what combinations. And with which players.

To counter this, he had a long handout that we got at character generation. No attributes higher than 15. If you choose X, you cannot have Y. These weren't set in stone for everyone - he knew that not all players were equal problems - but they provided good guidelines, and we could negotiate if there was something on the list that we desperately needed.

Occasionally, I run into house rules for board games. Bounty, for example. The rules have some .... issues. They're poorly-translated and don't cover all eventualities, which leaves players to determine what to do in certain situations. And the rule for buying a second ship broke the game. We house-ruled it to prevent the purchase of a second boat.

There are also House Rules which aren't game-specific:

Dice
If you cannot stack another die of the same type on top of a possibly-cocked die without tipping it over, it's cocked and should be re-rolled.
If the cocked die is part of a pool of dice, re-roll the entire pool, not just the cocked die.
Dice which fall off of the table (or other rolling surface) should be re-rolled.
Don't touch anyone else's dice without permission.
Don't roll dice unless it's your turn.

Seating
The GM gets whatever seat they want. The host gets second pick. Everyone else gets to fight for their seat.

Food
The GM should never bear the burden of providing food and beverages.
If the host is providing food, a list should be made available to everyone else with the understanding that players who want something else should provide their own.
If you're not bringing food (and are not the GM or the Host), bring a couple of bucks to chip in for the food. Or provide food next time.

Table Talk
Is acceptable, provided it doesn't get in the way of the game - unless the GM says otherwise.
Don't tell the current player what to do unless they ask for help or advice.

I don't think it's that odd, by the way, that there are so many dice-related rules. In fact, the relationship of gamers to dice led to a book I'll be ordering on my next payday: The Bones: Us and Our Dice. It's from the same team behind Things We Think About Games, which was brilliant.

And remember how I keep telling people that Your Game Is Not Literature? In the next few weeks, I will be ordering Hamlet's Hit Points. It's by Robin Laws, who brought us Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering and Feng Shui.

Want me to buy a book? Get him to write it.

Tonight, I have a potluck to attend. My weekly game group is celebrating eight years of gaming together. I think I have a lot to say about that - but not yet. It'll keep for another week or two. Meanwhile, here is a Geeklist I put together last year, which lists all the games played in the first year of game night.

Blind Auctions and Anonymous Car Ownership for Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix.

... and now for some actual content:

I really enjoy playing Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix, but on our usual Game Nights, I generally spend part of my time running the store and helping customers.

I don't mind doing so, but it can pull me away from games for an extended period. This, as I'm sure you can imagine, can be frustrating for the other players unless you're involved in a game where long delays are part of play.

Another issue I run into is that when people know whose car is mine, they will actively single me out for defeat - I'm not the only one this happens to, but it's a frustrating feature of the game.

With that in mind, here is a variant which fixes these issues for me.

You will need:
1 Envelope Per Player
1 Player to serve as Auctioneer.

At the beginning - when cars are auctioned off - the auction becomes a silent auction.

Turn the first car up. Each racing player secretly places their bid into their envelopes, and hands the envelopes to the Auctioneer.

The auctioneer takes the envelopes to a private location and determines who has won the auction. He then removes that money from the envelope, places that car's Ten Movement Card into the envelope, and hands all envelopes back to the racing players. In the event of a tie, the Auctioneer will then declare that there has been a tie, and will hand envelopes back to the Racing players. All players will then have the ability to adjust their bids - if you are not involved in the tie, your bid will be ignored by the Auctioneer.

Repeat this for all six cars.

Players need to remember to conceal the contents of their envelopes. You don't want other players to know which car you have or how much you paid for it. You'll also want to bluff, even after you own your maximum number of cars.

The Auctioneer needs to keep track of who has purchased a car and who has not - remember: there are limits to the number of cars you can own if there are less than the full six players.

Determine randomly who the starting player is. Once the race starts, the Auctioneer is free to run the store or cook dinner or play another game.

The racing players can determine winnings for themselves after the race, and will not need the Auctioneer until time to bid for the next race.

A possible modification to this is to reveal all six cars first, and then each player bids a certain amount for each car in order - the Auctioneer then resolves the bids in order from first to sixth, stopping and handing bids back if there is a tie. This modification requires a piece of paper per player.