Questions tagged [house-rules]
Rule changes, additions and options proposed by players for players. This is not for officially sanctioned variations - use the [variants] tag instead.
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How do we assign Game of Thrones houses?
In Game of Thrones the assignment of each player to a house has a drastic impact on the way the game plays out.
What are the different ways to assign houses to players, and what are their ...
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How to combine Risk, Catan, and Monopoly? [closed]
So my group of friends play a lot of Catan. And we recently got a version of Risk. We ended up thinking about how relationship destroying a combined version of Risk, Catan, and Monopoly would be.
So ...
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Magic the Gathering for very young kids [closed]
I have a ton of MTG cards sitting around and an urge to use them again. I also have a 4 year old son.
I'm sure he won't appreciate my B/G infect deck or the rules of the game in general lol.
I'm ...
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Can the owner of the largest army move the robber every turn?
Someone told me that in catan the possessor of the largest army card can move the knight each time it is their turn. Is this a common house or tournament rule? I could find no such statement in the ...
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Ways to handicap in Magic the Gathering?
I play Magic the Gathering with my kids a bit. But, the games are often very one sided (in my favor) as they haven't mastered all the rules, and intricacies of game play. For most board games, I can ...
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How can I make Agricola vegetarian friendly?
Agricola is a great game, with good theming, and I'd like to introduce it to a couple of friends who are vegetarian.
The problem is they might feel uncomfortable with the 'eating your animals' ...
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How can I mitigate the luck factor of drawing destination tickets in Ticket To Ride?
I get the feeling that a big part of how well someone does in Ticket to Ride, is the drawing of their initial destination tickets, and the drawing of subsequent destination tickets, and how well they ...
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What should be taken into consideration when mixing Fluxx sets?
What should be taken into consideration when mixing fluxx sets?
I played a game of Stoner and Zombie fluxx mixed the other day, and I found it super fun. It add variance to the theming, and ...
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Are there any house rules for combining Munchkin and Fluxx? [closed]
It occurred to me that the Fluxx and Munchkin are quite similar games in that they are casual games that derive their fun from their theming.
Is it possible to combine the games?
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Castling when in check
Chess has a rule that forbids castling when in check. What is the practical value of this rule? How would chess without this rule compare to chess with this rule?
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Can two players tie for first place in Hearts?
At Pagat's website, it says game of Hearts (the card game) ends when a player reaches 100 points or more: http://www.pagat.com/reverse/hearts.html#scoring
This implies that the game ends even if two ...
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The sheep and the wolves
When I was a child, I was playing a game such as the following:
The game is played on a standard chessboard, but only on the black squares.
There are two players: the white player has a single white ...
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How to shorten Puerto Rico to fit one hour?
I do love Puerto Rico, it's mostly strategy oriented over random factors.
But this board game is so long to play, I would like to shorten the play time to fit one hour.
Do you have suggestions for ...
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How to encourage rolling two dice in Machi Koro?
I've played Machi Koro a number of times, most often with in a group of 3 players, sometimes 4. So far the prevailing strategy usually ends up being to roll only one die and to:
Buy as many ...
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Is there any good cure in Midway for Japan's lack of search capabilities?
In Midway, the Japanese player gets only three (airborne) searches per turn. What's worse, he only only gets to search "areas" within 12 zones of his ships, while the American's Midway based planes ...
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German Carcassonne fan expansions - available in English?
I was browsing the Hans im Glück website and found two 'official' fan-made expansions for Carcassonne.
The expansions are called:
Die Stadttore (The City Gates)
Der Osterhase (The Easter Bunny)
...
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Are there any fan-created campaigns for Shadows of Brimstone?
I'd like to get into Shadows of Brimstone, but I've heard that there's a part during setup where you configure how hard the adventure is going to be. I'm a little bit put off by that. I worry that, ...
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Can you play Dixit cooperatively with only 2 players? [closed]
My son (age 5) enjoys Dixit, but often it's just the two of us. I've come up with my own variant, below, but I want to hear more from the community.
We play with a hand of four cards, and we take ...
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What is proper order of resolving players actions?
In Jamaica each player selects a card with two actions on it. The left action is connected to the Morning die and the right one to the Evening die. So, basically there is somerhing that happens for ...
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How can we avoid big money in casual games?
My girlfriend and I have recently discovered the Big Money strategy in Dominion, and it's killing the game for us. We're not very competitive, so we don't want to spend a lot of time and effort trying ...
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Ticket to Ride house rule to help players with short destination tickets
The game balance in Ticket to Ride (in my social not highly competitive environment) seems to favour the person with the longest destination tickets and getting short tickets is almost automatically a ...
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Problem with lifelines in "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" board game
I have found an issue with playing the board game Who wants to be a millionaire 2nd edition, and the rules do not cater for the problematic scenario.
The rules can be downloaded from www.fgbradleys....
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How can I make a Crisis game go faster?
I've played a couple games of Crisis Mode from the Crisis Expansion (Pack 1) of the DC Comics Deck-Building Game with one, two, and three players. While we like the cooperative mode of it (it always ...
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How to balance Dixit?
The rules of Dixit that the game ends when the deck runs out (leaving players with full hands at the end). Every time I have played, the players have commented that this means that some players have ...
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How do I mitigate 'alpha playing' in Pandemic?
I don't quite like Pandemic for a simple reason.
Basically - because all players have the same knowledge, and same goal, I don't see the need to have multiple players; one person (the alpha player) ...
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Hex Hex card interactions (foretell, play only when hexed, maddening compulsion)
In the game of Hex-hex, our gaming group gets into some rather interesting debates as to how particular timing and effects. This is one of my favorite aspects to the game, though it can cause things ...
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How inappropriate is it to track semi-secret information using paper or other memory aids?
Many board games have information which is semi-secret, where it's possible to keep track of it, but not easy. For example, which resources you get and spend in Catan is public knowledge, but which ...
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Can you mix Warhammer Fantasy armies?
My wife is interested in playing Warhammer Fantasy. We've tried to work out what army she'd like to play (we went through all the pieces on the GW website, and she picked out these ones she likes the ...
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How to quantify first player advantage?
In playing a two player variant of sheepshead, the group I play with decided that it wasn't that much fun. So I simplified it, and taught it to my niece (5 years old) as a start to learning about ...
user12439
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How to play Risk for office fundraiser? [closed]
My office frequently raises money for charities holding lotteries or raffles. A coworker and I were considering more creative & entertaining ways to raise money, and we hit on the idea of playing ...
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Is there a real shift in balance if Blueprints players violate their blueprint?
After being taught how to play Blueprints, I was told that building your blueprint was completely optional, with the only downside that you would miss out on the 6-point bonus if you don't follow it. ...
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Who does the Warlord pay to -- the bank or the player who had their buildings destroyed?
In our family, we've always interpreted the rules as paying to the bank. We had friends over who had played by Warlord paying to the player whose buildings they got destroyed. To us, it seems like the ...
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How can I reduce the planar die "whiff factor" with house rules?
I like to play Planechase sometimes. Mostly this variant, which gives players some additional choices when planswalking.
However, the most annoying part of Planechase is that the planar die has such a ...
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How to stimulate more creative storytelling?
According to the blurb on the box,
Rory's Story Cubes® is a pocket-sized visual story generator that sparks the imagination of all ages.
You throw 9 dice and then create a story that connects ...
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How should we setup Settlers of Catan for three players?
Settlers of Catan for three players suffers slightly from too much space. I find the four player game much more enjoyable because of the tense competetion for places to settle.
It seems that this ...
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How would changing the timing of the "starter" affect strategy/tactics?
As we know, the non-dealer cuts for the "starter" before the play happens. Is there any strategic/tactical reason why you couldn't cut for the starter after the play?
Just before the play, the ...
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House rules to decrease luck factor in Boxcars
I just finished playing Boxcars for the first time. The game was enjoyable, but involved too much luck for my group (dice rolls determine start, movement, and destination) given the long play time.
...
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How should I modify Risk to play with 7 persons?
I am planning on creating my own version of Risk in such a way that we can play it with 7 persons. For this I am planning to create my own map with a local theme.
What kinds of ratios/parameters are ...
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Can the Russia no first turn attack rule be realistically extended for more turns?
This is a reference to the Classic edition of Axis and Allies. One "alternate" (house) rule is that Russia is not allowed to attack the first turn. (But she does get her "income" of,say, eight ...
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House rules to speed up Citadels play time?
I enjoy Citadels, but find the game can often quite a long time. Since players must draft their role card in sequence, there ends up being a lot of down time while other players make their selections. ...
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Casual trick taking penalties for illegal plays
I want to know if there is any standard penalty for when someone breaks a rule in a trick taking game, especially failing to follow suit when required. I know the penalty would depend on the game, ...
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How to make The Tower less of a pain in Carcassonne
I'm a big fan of Carcassonne and have a most of the expansions available in my language. One of the only expansions I don't play, at all, is The Tower. In my opinion, the ability to remove followers ...
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Is there a way to play Twilight Imperium's "age of empire" variant with Shattered Empire's strategy cards?
The third edition of Twilight Imperium has become one of the most-played games as of late, and we have finally begun to incorporate the first expansion into the game. In the core TI3 rules is an ...
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Can Sid Meier's Civilization (2010) be played cooperatively?
Is it possible to play Sid Meier's Civilization as a team game?
Are there some specific rules that must be thought about?
As I can see this:
play by normal rules.
two players will both win if one of ...
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Can we extend the game by playing Multiple Boards At Once?
I play Ticket To Ride with my gf and friends and we love it! So much so that we always reach the end thinking, 'this went too quickly!'. We've toyed with playing two maps simultaneously, has anyone ...
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Can you play a new player game of Carcassonne w/o farms?
I've taught Carcassonne to a number of new players (it's a great "gateway game")! However, the problem that I keep having is with the farmers. Players are able to quickly grasp the idea of putting ...
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Can you trump the first trick in Spades?
I just played a game of Spades with some family. The Ace of clubs was led on the first trick, and I was out of clubs. Needing quite a few tricks, I chose to trump. My fellow players instantly ...
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What's a fair handicap?
I really enjoy the Game-Of-Thrones board game. (We only own the first edition, so no ports or siege engines etc.). My wife and friends tend to enjoy it also, well they used to.
The problem is that ...
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Whats a good house rule to give the Rogue a chance at winning Dungeon? [closed]
I was playing the new release of Dungeon! by wotc with about 6 young players. Looking at the cards, I noticed that its nearly impossible for the Rogue to ever win.
What is the best way to give the ...
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When playing the Rumble in the South variant, what adjustments should be made to the neutral forts?
I'm playing the Game of Thrones board game in a group that only has four players. To fix some of the balance problems with the original four-player game, we tried using the Rumble in the South ...
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