Whenever I play a game with someone new, we quickly realize we have to clarify the rules we’re using beforehand, since so many people have their own varieties. What are some non-standard game rules that you/your family/friends follow?
I’ll start. My family has a rule where we’re not allowed to win on a Wild card. It adds a bit of challenge, and keeps someone from being unbeatable if they play by hoarding wild cards.
If you combine that rule with the ability to endlessly stack Draw 2 or Draw 4 cards, you have what I think may be the most evil version of Uno that can be played. We called it Thermo-Nuclear Uno (i.e. Mutually Assured Destruction) since you knew that dropping a Draw 4 would almost certainly lead to someone being buried in cards and it might even be you. Even if you manage to dodge the stack, payback is coming and you won’t get lucky every time. I can remember games that we would finally just quit after an hour since no one would ever be able lay down their last card. Merging two decks can make this even more brutal and cuts down on interplay shuffles too.
This is how we play… and it has resulted in some VERY long games.
Once we had some friends over and their 8 year old son was playing with us. He almost won a few times, but his dad did everything in his power to keep him from winning. It was close to midnight before that game ended and it was the first time I considered changing the house rules.
Adults cane be weirdly petty about kids winning games.
I barely beat my aunt and grandma at a game of scrabble when I was around 13 by playing the word “ulu,” a type of Alaskan knife. It let me triple word score and clear my rack. I had no idea it was a valid word, but it was and it pushed me to a win.
The whining and complaining about that win nearly ruined the whole night.
Yeah that was our awful step grandfather who would complain when anyone but him won. As a result, we never played games with him so we can celebrate whenever anyone wins. Unfortunately my idiot brother seems to have taken after my idiot step grandfather, so he doesn’t get to play games with us either.
My favorite Scrabble win was using ‘eBay’… before playing that word I looked at the instruction sheet and it specifically said that “words that begin with a capital” are not allowed. There were some sour grapes after that one.