Board Game Arena

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.

- Remove / Tweak some cards

Definitely some cards are overpowered. I can think of basic trasher openers which provide money (M, H, A, N) or new Horror H.
But Horror H requires 7c, and basic trashers lose value as the game progresses (they are best as openers but meh during mid-endgame).
Horror P, it is the cheapest basic remover source, but it's not at the level of 'brokenness' I guess.
The card provides only 2 points, and P does not mix well with other rare consonants.

However, I'm not certain how much tweaking is needed without tipping the balance.
Purchase/Play and Win/Purchase list similar to Agricola's would solve the problem, frankly it's a pipe dream though.

I thought of Dominion-like solution (ignoring feasibility):
Players may buy 1 copy of each card, and an offer card is removed when each player has bought 1 copy of them or by jailing.
Flush cannot override this restriction (thus flush may replace fewer than 7 cards) unless all players agree upon removing a certain card.


- More flushing

Not sure about this one. How many times does that situation happen after all?
Wouldn't that overlap with other flushing conditions frequently?


- Unfair starter decks

Everybody would agree on this one. Random starter cards need a fix to even the scales.
Draft seems to be a great idea, like draft 2 of 'player number x2' or '(player number+1) x2' (in 1~4p).
Mirror starter deck could be another alternative, but it is not physically possible irl (not enough components).

The worst with starter decks is when you draw 5 $-letters, buy a Y . . . and then see you already have a Y. (Or B, or what have you). We should at least see what our starter point cards before they get shuffled and your first hand is drawn.

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=43308

I think checking the deck before drawing opening hand is allowed. Even the developer agrees, but didn't implement this yet somehow.

Starter letters are:
OUDCMPGHYB

OUD Great to get
CMGP Ok to get
BHY Bad to get

Some sort of house rule that stops you getting games where players have an unfair allocation of these letters would be nice.

ufm wrote: ↑01 September 2021, 08:24 https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=43308

I think checking the deck before drawing opening hand is allowed. Even the developer agrees, but didn't implement this yet somehow.

This is now implemented. Thanks to the Developer!

In the 2nd edition of the game, the flushing rules got updated. Now if a player has not purchased a card on this turn, the oldest offer row card gets discarded and a new one added at the end of that players turn.

I've had plenty of game which have suffered from a stalemate / slow phase due to offer row only containing crap, and I think this rule was probably added with that in mind, and I can see how it improves the game for most players.

There are a couple of things however that I don't like about this rule:

- When I jail or trash an offer row card using the mystery genre ability, I think this should be considered sufficient to negate the "discard oldest card" rule if I make no purchase of a card, since you've already forced a new card into the offer row on your turn.
- When I spent my earnings on an advert, this should also negate the rule.


I'm interested to hear opinions from other players what they make of the updated flushing rule introduced in 2nd edition (and also what they make of my suggestions)

The goal of this rule is to change the offer row in some way so the next player always has at least one new choice. Therefore I agree that jailing or trashing a card should meet the requirement, but I do not agree about purchasing an advert.

I discussed this with the designer and have slightly modified the rules as you suggested. The oldest card in the offer row will only be discarded if the offer row remains unchanged during your turn. In other words, the oldest offer card is discarded when you do not 1) flush the offer row, and 2) do not jail/trash any cards from the offer row, and 3) do not purchase any cards from the offer row.

quietmint wrote: ↑18 March 2023, 08:12 I discussed this with the designer and have slightly modified the rules as you suggested. The oldest card in the offer row will only be discarded if the offer row remains unchanged during your turn. In other words, the oldest offer card is discarded when you do not 1) flush the offer row, and 2) do not jail/trash any cards from the offer row, and 3) do not purchase any cards from the offer row.

awesome! Thanks

I think this is the exact correct way to do it