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March 2nd, 2008

House Rules

Ah, games. I’m a fan of board games, as is Ryan. But we haven’t yet tackled the touchy subject of house rules. Sure, there’s the Free Parking rule for Monopoly – that’s a common one.

By far the most complex and complete set of house rules I’ve used is for Boggle, which Pinger Greg and I have been playing for about ten years. We use his house rules, which have evolved over time. I thought it would be worthwhile to document them here – not just for us but to also show you that it’s a bit complex.

  • You earn one point for each letter (“qu” is one as well.)
  • Plurals, tenses, and so forth only earn you the points on the modification of the word and not the root; these don’t have to be written down separately. Thus, if I wrote down “dog(s)”, I would earn a total of four points despite having two separate words.
  • Any word written down must be in the house dictionary.
  • Any word written down must be one you can define, and others can challenge a definition.

Needless to say, my wife hates these rules because they’re complex and deviate pretty wildly from the default rules – particularly the “you must define it” one. But once you’re in it and get used to house rules, they’re pretty great.

Fill me in on your house rules – maybe you’ve got a great new way to play Trouble.

Posted in Everyday Life

jk March 2, 2008, 6:20 pm

I think I should be able to use German words.

COD March 3, 2008, 2:18 am

Have you seen Web Boggle at http://www.wordsplay.net/ ?

Ryan March 3, 2008, 3:00 am

House rules for Trouble: what the Pop-O-Matic Bubble says, goes.

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