What house rules have people thought of / played with IRL?
I think a popular house rule with some of the players on here would be the literary award scored independently of other players (i.e I score for my longest word even if another player got a word longer than that)
(By the way I am not requesting these be made, just asking out of curiosity)
Some other house rules I think that would improve the game:
Remove / Tweak some cards
The 2 that come to mind as being ridiculously overpowered at the Romance M which costs 2 and lets you dump, and the Horror P which costs 3 and gives you ink/eraser. I'd either make these letters which are less easy to use in words (like K or V), or increase the price to 5 for each of them
More flushing
If fewer than 5 distinct letters of the alphabet are available in the offer row, allow the user to flush. The existing rules on flushing are great, but one thing they don't solve is when the offer row has three Js and two Xs and nobody wants to buy anything.
Unfair starter decks
B and H as starter cards is crazy hard compared to D and O, for example. The latter pair are way more handy for building words. One idea to make this slightly better is to deal the additional start cards face up, and then in reverse turn order, the players each pick one card, and then in again in reverse turn order, the players pick a second card. For example.
- Alice (first player) Bob (2nd player) and Charlie (last player) start a game.
- DOUHBY dealt face up as the 6 starter cards (each player already has LATRINES in hand)
- Charlie chooses O
- Bob chooses U
- Alice chooses D
- Charlie chooses B
- Bob Chooses H
- Alice chooses Y
- Each player then shuffles their 10 card deck and draws 5, and the game starts with Alice.
I think a popular house rule with some of the players on here would be the literary award scored independently of other players (i.e I score for my longest word even if another player got a word longer than that)
(By the way I am not requesting these be made, just asking out of curiosity)
Some other house rules I think that would improve the game:
Remove / Tweak some cards
The 2 that come to mind as being ridiculously overpowered at the Romance M which costs 2 and lets you dump, and the Horror P which costs 3 and gives you ink/eraser. I'd either make these letters which are less easy to use in words (like K or V), or increase the price to 5 for each of them
More flushing
If fewer than 5 distinct letters of the alphabet are available in the offer row, allow the user to flush. The existing rules on flushing are great, but one thing they don't solve is when the offer row has three Js and two Xs and nobody wants to buy anything.
Unfair starter decks
B and H as starter cards is crazy hard compared to D and O, for example. The latter pair are way more handy for building words. One idea to make this slightly better is to deal the additional start cards face up, and then in reverse turn order, the players each pick one card, and then in again in reverse turn order, the players pick a second card. For example.
- Alice (first player) Bob (2nd player) and Charlie (last player) start a game.
- DOUHBY dealt face up as the 6 starter cards (each player already has LATRINES in hand)
- Charlie chooses O
- Bob chooses U
- Alice chooses D
- Charlie chooses B
- Bob Chooses H
- Alice chooses Y
- Each player then shuffles their 10 card deck and draws 5, and the game starts with Alice.