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German influencer Palina Rojinski celebrates the 50th anniversary of Uno with her own collection of the classic – among other things, she promotes it with this picture on Instagram (@palinski).
– dismissing a house rule that had meanwhile become the best-known one in the world and was widely ac- cepted. But the Internet community quickly agreed that this rule breach makes for much more malicious joy at the table and adds the right spice to this simple card game. In 1999, this rule was explicitly included in the American (not the German) version of Uno Fun. The argument is that Uno actually became such a success because of this house rule.
I Deliberate rule breaches
But let‘s move away from the unintentional variants and get to the deliberate rule breaches: In the vast ma- jority of cases, the motivation behind a house rule is that a game is attributed with a weakness, as players conceive it. Similar to a software update, this patch is supposed to mend or correct something in order to make the experience more pleasant.
An example: In Agricola, by Uwe Rosenberg, the hand of cards play a role – if not even the crucial role for one‘s own strategy. Because of the extremely high variance of different card combinations, players of- ten consider the random distribution unfair and think that a weak starting hand is a clear disadvantage. At this point, a preceding drafting round provides an easy-to-implement and not-too-invasive tool in order to compensate for this shortcoming. The feel of play as well as all the other rules are not affected by this mod- ified preparation phase, but the luck factor is reduced significantly. This drafting variant for Agricola, first suggested by Stephan Valkyser in the readers‘ com- ments following the review of the game‘s first edition on www.hall9000.de, was even adopted by Lookout Games and included in the rules booklet as a variant later on.
The discussion about one of the current favorites on the game scene, Everdell, turns out to be a bit more difficult. Here also, the starting cards play a crucial role, since their random distribution can make for un- fair starting conditions. The difference is: Whereas the selection from your hand cards in Agricola remains unchanged, the cards in the forest of the critters in Everdell are much more in circulation and are to be understood as resources. Making the most of the limited possibilities and dealing with this short- coming is an integral part of the game concept. Many players think that the exchange of cards
that is allowed on a separate action space would
be debased by an additional drafting rule. This comparison shows that house rules should be
tried out in proper doses and only by making changes in small steps. The more complex and intermeshed the rules are, the more carefully should the adjustments be done.
Another argument for rules amendments that I‘ve often come upon in my research is to increase the ac- cessibility of a game so that it can be played also by children or beginners. But the reverse is not uncommon either: to make a simple game concept more strategic –
such as the one in Carcassonne. A very popular house rule for Klaus-Jürgen Wrede‘s classic tile-laying game allows all players to keep three tiles in their hand, in- stead of having to immediately place the just-drawn tile. This house rule reduces the element of luck and increases the planning capability and competition in building.
I Rescue from the flea market
Not always do house rules make something fairer or improve the balance. Sometimes, very extreme conse- quences are intentional and are deliberately taken into
account. Simone Volz, who has played far more than 600 games of Agricola, uses house rules to get new challenges and a new appeal. With her best friend, she now always plays an additional “zeroth“ round at Rosenberg‘s farm. “We play this round without the feeding phase – to be- gin with, this is quite more relaxing, of course, but it allows for considerably more complex and thrilling chain reactions later on,“ she en- thusiastically explains. This reminds me of the Monopoly anecdote about getting the jackpot when you land on “Free Parking.“ Just like my sons, the two players came up with new rules in order
to perceive their familiar favorite as new and fresh.
For some games, house rules are even the last resort to avoid a game‘s being taken to the flea market. In the current economy game Anno 1800 from Kosmos, there was a player group that couldn‘t cope at all with
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