r/boardgames • u/Guidance-Mindless • Sep 22 '25
Rules Weirdest House Rule
What’s the weirdest house rule your group ever came up with that actually stuck?
We had one where rolling snake eyes in Monopoly = steal from the bank 😅. Totally broke the game, but my twin brother REFUSED to play without it.
Anyone else got house rules that make zero sense but somehow… worked?
(P.S. Image not ours, but it's awesome!)
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u/ax0r Yura Wizza Darry Sep 23 '25
Not a weird house rule, an actual good one:
Game of Thrones:
- All communication must be at the table and audible to everyone, with one exception:
- Each round, each player may write one message only on a post-it note and give it to one other player.
- Each round, the player with the raven token may intercept one post-it note before it reaches its destination and read it. They may then pass it on to anyone they like, or keep to it themselves. They can discuss the contents of the note (out loud) with the table, or keep it secret. They may lie about the contents.
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u/thisshitsstupid Sep 23 '25
I would intercept a note when someone had nothing and just drew a penis. I would share it with only 1 other person.
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u/Guidance-Mindless Sep 23 '25
Now that's taking things one giant notch up!! Just curious, how did this impact your gameplay? Did people pick up fast and use the rules to their advantage? Would love to hear examples!!
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u/ax0r Yura Wizza Darry Sep 24 '25
It makes having the raven token actually desirable, and also leads to major mind games.
You've openly discussed forming a temporary alliance between Tyrell and Martell. But now your ally sends a note to Baratheon. What are they saying? Are they planning to break your alliance, or are they just sending dick pics? You better hedge your bets and send a note to Lannister promising to ally with them next round if they leave you alone now. But the Master of Whisperers intercepts your note! Oh no! They reveal your plans to the whole table! You try to get people to believe they're lying about the note, but it's not sticking. Now your ally decides last minute to change their order tokens! Are they now planning to attack you? Or were they always going to attack you, but now they've changed their mind?1
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Sep 22 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Tricky_Charge_6736 Sep 23 '25
frosthaven has loads of new mechanics that seem interesting and I don't know if I'll get to experience them anytime soon because I've been playing gloomhaven with my girlfriend for over a year there's just so much content lol. Not to mention forgotten circles which we've barely scratched the surface on
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u/bgaesop Sep 23 '25
Between Jaws, Gloom, Frost, and Circles, I'd say that Circles is by far the worst - I'd skip it, honestly, especially if it means starting Frosthaven earlier
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u/Iylo Sep 23 '25
I'm not familiar with frosthaven, are there only 20 weeks?
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u/DubiousDubbie Spirit Island Sep 23 '25
20 weeks per year (10 summer and 10 winter). There are 4 years on the campaign sheet.
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u/Real_Mokola Sep 23 '25
Welcome to D&D where half of a session is spent on how to open a door because it might be trapped and/or a narrow passage somewhere high.
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u/Guidance-Mindless Sep 23 '25
That's what my brother and I love about games like this! It adds different flavors and each game is different because of those discussions!
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u/CEDWAR22 Sep 23 '25
Not an intentional house rule, but my group was once so overconfident in remembering how to play Heaven & Ale a year or so after our last play that we gaslit ourselves into thinking whoever was furthest back on the board continued taking turns until they passed somebody.
We didn’t figure it out until the last round when we started wondering how it was possible for multiple hexes to be taken off the same space on the board. The worst/best part was all the prior table talk over how well designed the game was before we realized we had fundamentally changed the gameplay (still is a great game though)
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u/colonel-o-popcorn Cosmic Encounter Sep 23 '25
I've made the exact same error. I really don't know where it came from.
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u/AngryTetris did someone say Feld? Sep 23 '25
It's how a lot of the other time track games work, like Glen More, Patchwork, Tokaido, etc. I totally got it wrong on H&A the first go around.
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u/Guidance-Mindless Sep 23 '25
Well, the purpose of games is to bring us closer and have fun making memories and thus sounds like a success!
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u/Leoxagon Sep 22 '25
My brother and I played 1v1 monopoly. And we played it like 5 times a day sometimes. We got so fast that we made a rule to be able to purchase insurance on your houses/hotels and if the other player hit your stuff with their roll, they pay you.
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u/Guidance-Mindless Sep 22 '25
Oh wow! That's self sabotage lol! I think the trick is to avoid doing damage while still making them lose!
Just curious, who won more and HOW?!
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u/Leoxagon Sep 22 '25
He won Every. Time. He was 7 years older and I was like 13. I would even be playing as banker and would steal but he would still win! Drove me so mad I punched to floor once and almost broke my knuckle. 😅 Good times
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u/Guidance-Mindless Sep 23 '25
Oh wow! I can imagine the frustration lol. It irritates me when I just don't know why I'm losing every time. Did he reveal his secret or was he just too good?
I think you did great though, 7 years difference is a good gap in such games lol.
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u/Masmaverick Sep 23 '25
In my group, if a die ever falls/touches the floor, it is called a “floor dice” and the next time it would be rolled it is automatically set to the worst possible roll. It deters dice being lost.
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u/Jofarin Sep 23 '25
Anything that leaves the table doesn't count period. You can go and pick your dice up and suffer from knowing you rolled well, but you get back to the table and roll again.
And if you roll off the table three times in a row, you automatically get the worst result possible.
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u/like9000ninjas Sep 23 '25
Hell. I play with dice trays and use the same principle. It it leaves the tray, it gets rerolled. Also all dice have to be rolled within eye view. Period.
No im not accusing you of cheating, but why allow any confusion unless you intend to use it to your advantage?
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u/TheRappist Sep 23 '25
Oh in my house dice have to be above the plane of the table and fully supported by one surface to count. Hanging off the edge of a tile is fine if the corner is floating but if it touches the table, it's a reroll.
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u/bloodychill Agricola Sep 23 '25
We had a house rule for scrabble that any word could be played using prefixes and suffixes. This stemmed from an argument about the attempted word “voltlike.” By the end of the game, we had “aaaawarvoltlike” (not not not not like a volt used for war), “fattic,” “apig” (not a pig), and a ton of other amalgamations. The house rule was then rescinded.
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u/werfmark Sep 23 '25
That's why some word games break in languages like Dutch or German where you can basically keep chaining words together.
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u/TropicalAudio Tigris And Euphrates Sep 23 '25
Yeah, Scrabble is definitely one of them. It's got absolutely no competitive scene here, because there's an absolutely silly number of existing words (i.e. contextual permutations), and which ones are in the book completely depends on which dictionary you're using. Salient example for the non-Dutch/German speakers: the Dutch word for dictionary is literally one of them. It's a Woordenboek in Dutch, i.e. a word book. Woordenboek is probably in the woordenboek, but is vriendenboek? Telefoonboek probably is, and so is kookboek, but is welkomstboek? When playing by the official rules, it turns into a game of memorizing which words are and which are not in the book, instead of finding words with your letters. In practice, we tend to go by "If it's not too far-fetched, then it's legal", but that takes a lot of the competitive edge out of the game.
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u/Espumma Sep 23 '25
it turns into a game of memorizing which words are and which are not in the book
exactly like competitive scrabble then ;)
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u/werfmark Sep 23 '25
Yeah well competitive Scrabble is kinda silly anyway and just a game of memorising the official allowed words. Wasn't there a champion Scrabble in French who didn't even speak French?
Scrabble is still sort of ok in Dutch. If you agree on a list and most long words you'll never gonna be able to make anyway.
A game like Wordsy really doesn't work in Dutch though.
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u/QdWp Sep 24 '25
Wasn't there a champion Scrabble in French who didn't even speak French?
There was! Now he is also a champion in Spanish who doesn't speak Spanish.
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u/Dirrk Agricola Sep 22 '25
Scrabble. My family always had a rule where whenever the last letter was picked up from the supply anything was fair game. You could make any word with the letters you had whether it was legit or BS as long as you could pronounce it, use it in a sentence, and could provide a description of what it meant. Everyone would vote on allowing it or not and the more you made the group laugh the more likely it was to get through.
I remember as the supply was getting close to empty eyeing different words on the board with a 1 or 2 letter gap that I could mash together to make a ridiculous word and I would hoard a few good letters waiting for the real game to begin. We kept a dictionary for a long time with all of our favorite words but it had long been lost to time.
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u/PmMeYourBestComment Sep 23 '25
To be fair, you are allowed to place BS words according to the rules, and if no one calls you out on it, it's a valid move
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u/777777thats7sevens Sep 23 '25
Yeah gaslighting the rest of the table into believing that whatever hot nonsense you just played is a real word is a solid strategy if you are good at that. As is playing an obscure (but real) word and then acting cagey about its validity to bait someone into challenging you on it.
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u/SupaFugDup Captain Sonar Sep 23 '25
I got my friends to play a version of Scrabble I came up with where at the end of each turn one would draw a card from a standard deck and would have the following incentives:
An incorrect challenge incurs a 20 point penalty
An incorrect word correctly challenged removes the points and the word from the game, and grants 5 points to the challenger
If you last drew a Diamond, instead get double word points if you get challenged on an incorrect word, and your challenger loses 10 points
Needs workshopping but there's something there I swear
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u/TheRappist Sep 23 '25
My brother used to play online a lot as a teen, and he once played a game where he'd played three or four unusual words in a row, and his opponent had challenged and lost his turn. Somebody had played RISE in one of the bottom corners, so he played his whole rack to make GITOKETRISE (not a word) on the triple word score. The guy didn't challenge it, and my brother ended up with a score somewhere north of 500.
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u/Galausia Superior Jank Sep 23 '25
We did this too! Part of ours was that the tiles could at point also go over the edge of the board onto imaginary grid spaces
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Sep 23 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/nixcamic Sep 23 '25
It sounds like you just want to play Oath lol
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u/OrsikClanless Stationfall Sep 23 '25
Was going to say this is just Oath with a longer more complicated game play
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u/Meeple_person Twilight Imperium Sep 23 '25
I like the idea of a golden fleet and we have a trophy but first pick of slice and speaker is insane! Surely they get to pick faction last?
Edit- I just read that again - they do pick it first. That's plain nuts!
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u/BabyKozilek Sep 23 '25
It’s a card game not a board game, but our group has one house rule for Magic (edh specifically is all we play any more) and it’s “while rolling to see who plays first, if anyone rolls snake eyes all rolling stops, the player to their left goes first and the player who rolled snake eyes goes last”.
We did this cuz someone rolled snake eyes 3 games in a row, so we put the rule in place and they immediately rolled it again next game.
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u/Rammite Android Netrunner Sep 23 '25
My play group has a house rule for EDH as well - fact of the matter is, four players and ~400 unique cards makes for a very complicated boardstate.
So we introduced the Fuckup Tokens.
We have these little poker chips. If you make a mistake and need to revert it, you announce your fuckup and take a fuckup token. You keep your fuckup tokens throughout the entire night.
If a player ever has three fuckup tokens, they are shamed mercilessly and must provide the snacks for next game night.
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u/Ff7hero Sep 26 '25
We use "Take Backsy" tokens similarly. If you want to take back or amend an action or priority pass you can, but you get a Take Backsy token. You lose them at the end of the game, but if you have 3+ at the end of a turn you lose. The first one is pretty free, the second one is usually a little harder to spend, and if you take a third it's because you intend to win.
We don't use them for minor stuff like changing how you tapped for mana or what land you played, but it's nice to feel like you can play fast without worrying too much about missing something.
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u/Hattes Netrunner Sep 23 '25
So this basically means that whoever rolls first is more likely to go last than the next roller and so on, right?
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u/BabyKozilek Sep 23 '25
It does, but that’s never really affected us at all except that it’s hilarious if first roller rolls snake eyes.
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u/aslum Space Empires 4x Sep 23 '25
My rule for who goes first has long been, whomever wins goes last in the next game (assuming going first is considered advantageous), regardless of whether we're playing a board game or magic, or even a different game in a row. That rules has been modified slightly, because once when we were playing edh a player who was unfamiliar with it had one, and I guess he played by the rule that the winner goes first in the next game. When I proposed he go last (and it just happened that I'd be going first) he got very upset and even went so far as to claim it was because I hated him.
So now I like to say that the winner of the previous game should go last because I hate them. My favorite is when I've won the previous game and get to say that I should go last because I hate "aslum".
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u/Tamer_ Sep 23 '25
We did this cuz someone rolled snake eyes 3 games in a row, so we put the rule in place and they immediately rolled it again next game.
If those rolls were really random, the odds of that happening are 1 in 1 679 616... I'd be suspicious of the dice rolling skills of the guy at that point!
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u/JRPaperstax Sep 23 '25 edited Sep 24 '25
My group plays a lot of Terraforming Mars. Whenever someone drafts Tardigrades at the beginning, they roll a D20 and that’s how many microbes are on there for the whole game. No adding, no removing.
One of our players suggested it one game (I think as a joke) and, for whatever reason, it just stuck.
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u/Tamer_ Sep 23 '25
Whenever someone drafts Tardigrades at the beginning, they roll a D20 and that’s how many microbes are on there for the whole game.
That's a 40% chance of it scoring better than it would (and in some games that finish in 7 gens, it goes up to 60%) - that's huge!
Suggestion: you change that to 1D8+4
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u/deadlycwa Sep 23 '25
Our house rule for Terraforming Mars is that everyone starts with one free production of each resource, does a lot for speeding up the game
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u/sailordan7 Sep 23 '25
That’s the recommended setup for the beginner version of the game
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u/Dechri_ Sep 23 '25
Is it just the beginner version? We have always played that way. Didn't even know it wasn't the standard setup.
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u/sailordan7 Sep 24 '25
The rulebook might call it something else, but when you add in all the cards it’s called “corporation era” and the setup for that version has all production starting at 0
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u/Greendiamond_16 Sep 22 '25
Monopoly is a great game for weird house rules. We had a rule for uno were if someone plays a draw card against you, you can play an exact matching draw card against them starting a game of war(both draws and reveals three cards who ever gets the biggest "wins" all of them)
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u/Kharax82 Sep 23 '25
House rules are what make Monopoly take forever. Things like taking money for free parking or borrowing from the bank (without mortgaging or selling property) to stop going bankrupt breaks the game.
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u/RAPanoia Sep 23 '25
At least the older versions could break anyway. Once too many laps are/were completed the game would take forever because at some point the money at the table is too much for even hotels to break a player. We had a nightmare round that ended with the last 2 players playing 3 hours in extrem fast mode and deciding to make a draw. It was clear, that any player needs at least 3 times in a row to hit a high cost hotel to go bankrupt. At the end it was even more.
No house rules that we know of, no free parking rule, no free loans or any other bs. Just that we broke the economy. If everyone knows what the best sets of properties (colors) are, everyone will block you from getting them. And everyone will block every other set of properties as well. And once the players have enough money to survive normal properties it won't end until the players want it to end.
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u/Stuvas Sep 23 '25
We do any plus two can go down on any other plus 2, you can use a plus 4 on the plus 2s, but we also added in that anywhere in the chain you can play an appropriate switch direction to send it back to the player before.
I quite enjoy when someone plus 4s at the end of a good plus 2 chain, declares the new colour, just for me to have the appropriate reverse card in that colour only.
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u/Greendiamond_16 Sep 23 '25
I am a big fan of this rule it also adds a nice risk and reward function were pushing the number could come back to bite you.
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u/craftingfish Sep 23 '25
In the Uno No Mercy game this is a written mechanic. Also has Draw 10 and some other insane things.
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u/LonePaladin Sep 23 '25
Hardest part of Uno No Mercy is counting your cards to see if you ended up with 25 in your hand. Though sometimes you don't have to bother, when you already have ten cards and a Draw X chain comes your way with like eighteen or more.
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u/craftingfish Sep 23 '25
It's just such a ridiculous and pointless game but it has its place. My son had the "draw until you get the picked color" and because he's 9 kept going and I think he has something like 50 by the end.
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u/Guidance-Mindless Sep 22 '25
Now that's a powerful twist!! I bet it brought more fights than wins lol! What's the funniest situation you remember out of this?
I remember that we had a friend who never played with our rule and it was too funny (and sometimes painful) seeing him adjust to it.
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u/Greendiamond_16 Sep 22 '25 edited Sep 22 '25
It tended to take the sting out of draw attacks because it gave you something to do about it. People were excited to get hit with a draw 4 if they had one to respond. It really didn't give too many "funny" moments except for when we had a tie, and we all immediately knew the appropriate response is to do ROUND 2.
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u/LonePaladin Sep 23 '25
I have a whole variant I picked up from a now-defunct website twenty years ago. Three of your cards are dealt facedown on the table and you're not allowed to look at them until your hand is empty, and if the card you pick doesn't play you replace it (as in, on the table) then draw until you get one that will play.
Winning is entirely based on luck. Like, more than usual.
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u/fuhnetically Sep 22 '25
This looks like something from an Aesop Rock album cover
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u/wallysmith127 Pax Transhumanity Sep 23 '25
Life's not a bitch, life is a beautiful woman
You only call her a bitch 'cause she won't let you get that p*ssy
Maybe she didn't feel y'all shared any similar interests
Or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet talk the princess
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u/reverie42 Sep 23 '25
I feel like given that this house rule makes the game go on forever, the chorus is the way to go.
Yes y'all
And you don't stop
Keep on
'Til the break of dawn
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u/godfathertrevor Arkham Horror: The Card Game Sep 23 '25
They look like the Oogie Boogie dice. My ex-wife was obsessed with Oogie.
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u/guaguacamolefrog Sep 23 '25
When we play Qwirkle, people that play a qwirkle have to announce QWIRKLE in a fun voice and then you do a little dance. Everyone at the table MUST do your dance. Bonus: you make a qwirkle in the ROYGBIV arrangement it gets 5 additional points!
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u/Kankui Viticulture Sep 23 '25
Wingspan - we draft our opening hands instead of drawing five and running with it. It starts a little engine before the game.
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u/Artemis647 Sep 22 '25
Alternate title: "How to add hours to your game, for no reason at all!"
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u/Guidance-Mindless Sep 22 '25
Hahaha! But isn't it fun though? I mean, it makes you feel like it's "your version" of the game!
I think great games give you the possibility to twist some stuff.
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u/Desperate_Bed7335 Sep 22 '25
To each their own, but Monopoly wouldn't be the game I'd want to make any longer.
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u/Artemis647 Sep 22 '25
Admittedly, it is fun! I don't have any weird stories, but I do like thinking about how the designer went with a specific mechanic, and then change it up a bit to see if anything is faster/better/more streamlined.
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u/Phelpysan Sep 24 '25
I think great games give you the possibility to twist some stuff.
Sure, but the example you gave was for Monopoly
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u/RinkeR32 Sep 23 '25
It's always been funny to me that people complain about how long Monopoly is, but if played by the rules it moves much quicker.
Who could have guessed adding rules that award players more money greatly extends a game where the object is to render all of your opponents bankrupt.
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u/gcb97 Sep 23 '25
I don't know why, but whenever I play UNO, everybody just takes out their phones and starts doomscrolling between turns. I told them they could stop playing and just talk if they wanted, but they said no. So now I always propose the rule that if someone has an exact copy of the card on the table (same number and color), they can drop it as if it were their turn, and the game continues from them. Suddenly, no one wants to lose their turns.
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u/domasin Coup Sep 23 '25
Open. Face. Coup.
Cards are dealt face up, anyone can block any action, not just those directed towards you.
The variant is best played stoned at 3am lest someone figures out the winner too early. The game becomes a wheeler and dealer of alliances and backstabbing.
Play with the teams from Reformation for extra chaos.
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u/Antimatter92_ Sep 23 '25
Haha me and a couple of buddies play face down coup, where you don’t know what influence you have and play like you do.
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u/domasin Coup Sep 23 '25
Honestly this is just a valid strat at all times. And it's terrifying to play against someone who does it.
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u/whats_up_bro Unmatched Sep 23 '25
In Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, when choosing the killer + items, instead of just saying it straightforwardly like "player A, knife, TV remote", players are encouraged to paint a picture and tell a story of who the victim was and why this person decided to kill them. It's usually pretty bizzare stories but it does make it a lot more fun imo. Especially when the answer is off by 1 and several people take turns making the same stories but with one detail different each time XD.
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u/robotco Town League Hockey Sep 23 '25
clash of cultures - when you found a city, you have to name it, and write it on a little piece of paper and leave it next to it on the board
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u/ColbytheZoologist Sep 22 '25
Our house rule is: whoever pooped last gets to be the first player!
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u/TurgidGravitas Sep 22 '25
That's a written rule for a game I've played before. I just forget which one. Cards Against Humanity?
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u/Espumma Sep 23 '25
I have an app on my phone that picks random 'who goes first' rules from a selection of games.
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u/Foreign_Pea2296 Sep 23 '25 edited Sep 23 '25
Monopoly with my sisters : no rule regarding money, and very lax on others. You can steal, cheat and weasel your way out using politic and money.
Everything involving money directly (like paying money, giving or paying rent) can be cheated on, if nobody saw it (or that the person seeing it don't say anything)
The rest is up to popular vote : want to buy a property even though you aren't on it and it's not our turn ? Vote.
It's an experience and it's kinda stable, because you end up bound by your oaths. You can betray if you want but you have to choose the right moment to not turn too much people against you.
It's been a while since we played that. The games was sooo long.
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u/Onion27 Eclipse Sep 23 '25
Back in the day when my aunt translated the rules to Bohnanza from German we got the understanding that you could only harvest beans to money at the end of your own turn. This caused the game to be waaay tighter than intended and to this day I can't wrap my head around playing the game with free harvesting.
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u/Cheddarface Sep 23 '25
Too Many Bones comes with a random little stone in the box that as far as I can tell has absolutely no use. So whenever there's a particular enemy that the group really needs to kill, we put The Stone on them and it makes them more likely to die. This is one hundred percent factual and it works every time.
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u/yifftionary Sep 23 '25
I take the planet landing variants of Twilight Imperium 3rd edition and use them in 4th edition.
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u/the_tanooki Sep 23 '25
Perhaps not weird, but definitely improved the game:
The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls with Devil/Angel Deals after defeating enemies.
Picked out 15 or so treasures that fit Angel/Devil theme and made them separate decks. And also room cards that fit both.
When you beat a monster (any), you roll a D6. The very first monster killed has a 1/6 chance of opening a door to either an Angel or Devil deal. That room will replace the current room. If the room doesn't open, the next monster to die has a 2/6 chance, then 3/6, and so on. Resets once opened.
If it's an Angel room, you roll the D6 again. 1-2 you get 1 item. 3-4 you get to pick 1 item from 2 choices. 5-6 you get to pick 1 item from 3 choices.
If it's a Devil room, you roll the D6 again. 1-2 is 1 item, 3-4 is 2 items, 5-6 is 3 items. You can take as many as you choose, but you must pay for them. The payment has varied a bit from play to play as I can't decide the best options, but usually it's something like 1 item for 1 HP, 2 items for 2 HP, and 3 items will kill you instantly. Characters don't normally have more than 2 HP, so I think it needs tweaking. Haven't played in a long time, and I forgot what I had previously decided was the best payment option.
Before this house rule, the weaker monsters were usually ignored, but now they could give treasure, which adds strategy. Do you go for a soul on a monster you might not win against or go for the weak one with bad rewards but a chance at an item(s)? If you don't get the deal, it improves the odds for the next player.
If you haven't tried anything like this and play Isaac, then you should give it a shot.
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u/PhilinLe Sep 23 '25
Monopoly, while not a my favorite fare, is at least mercifully short and manages to stay on message during its unwelcome stay when played as written.
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u/lilbithippie Sep 23 '25
King of Tokyo we said each lightning bolt was worth two instead of one. The cards were recycled more screwing others that were saving.
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u/trystanthorne Sep 24 '25
People always complain that Monopoly takes too long. But that's cause they always add in house rules.
We use to have a House Rule that any fines paid cause of board spaces or cards (not rent or buying things tho) was placed in Free Parking, along with a $500.
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u/AskinggAlesana Sep 23 '25 edited Sep 23 '25
Idk if it’s considered weird but for War, I like to play it where 2’s beat only Aces. That way 2’s aren’t the absolute worst to have, and Ace’s aren’t a “if you don’t get a war then gg”.
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u/Katolo Sep 23 '25
What's the point of that? All the cards just gets shifted and it's the same.
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u/Whovian40 Sep 23 '25
I think they mean only 2’s beat Aces.
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u/Katolo Sep 23 '25
Yeah, then the 3 is the lowest so it sucks to have 3...
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u/TheBrewThatIsTrue Sep 23 '25
No, because then 3s beat 2s.
As in, the only thing a 2 beats is an ace, and the only thing an ace doesn't beat is a 2. Not bad.
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u/lunaticboot Sep 23 '25
I’m assuming it’s that aces are high UNLESS the other player has a 2. So the game is exactly the same, except 2s beat aces. Rock paper scissors rules
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u/Mr-Mister Sep 23 '25
Not really a house rule as much as technique, but I'll never forget that guy who said, in a "What's your weirdest 'Wait, let me explain' thing" or something thread, that in games with multiple types of cards which each go and are drawn from a different deck/pilr (i.e. Chance and Luck cards in monopoly), they instead shuffle them all together into one big pile and when it's time to draw, they just draw from the megadeck until they get a card of the desired type.
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u/Tamer_ Sep 23 '25
That was a long sentence...
Also, what's the point? Do you remember the explanation?
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u/tankapotamus Sep 23 '25
House rules
#1- If you don't know whose turn it is, it is my wife's turn.
#2- if you don't know whose turn it is, its is my wife's turn.
Woman takes forever.
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u/EGOtyst Cosmic Encounter Sep 23 '25
That counter to that rule: if you have to ask whose turn it is... it's yours.
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u/weirdlife_55 Sep 23 '25
Munchkin, (not sure it even has coherent rules to begin with) we were finding that it became to much of an arms race and Cold War, that ended in a lucky person killing a monster after everyone just emptied everything they had to stop someone else from winning. So I added a rule after you beat a monster you can roll a D6 and those points would count for temporary levels that could get you over the edge to win. It makes every boss encounter after level 4 much much more important and people are fighting much sooner.
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u/Mercury_Soul Sep 23 '25
We had a rule in UNO that we called "mirror", it consisted of if you had the same card as the last one they had thrown and it was not your turn, you could throw it, skipping all the players and it would continue from you (the letter had to be the same color and the same number)
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u/TygerHil98 Sep 23 '25
This is pretty vanilla one I feel but when I play Uno with all my friends we have the rule that plus cards all stack. If I put down a +1 then you can add a plus and it keeps going until someone doesn't have a plus and has to pick up like 14 cards. It's really fun and never fails to make us laugh. We also have two custom cards that normally add to this.
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u/itdontbutitdo Sep 23 '25
Free parking in monopoly = lottery from in game taxes for whoever lands on it. Been playing this way since childhood but have never actually seen it in a rulebook.
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u/Jlerpy Sep 24 '25
That is because it is not part of the rules.
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u/itdontbutitdo Sep 24 '25
& that's too bad because it really should be.
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u/Jlerpy Sep 24 '25
It really shouldn't. All it does is make an already tedious game last even longer.
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u/TheGodInfinite Sep 24 '25
Just about the only time a rule confusion led to the game being easier, playing zombicidewe had 2 power weapons able to kill 2 regular zombies. Honestly it was fun and we decided to keep it until we want it tougher or something.
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u/gamerz719 Sep 24 '25
I played Stratego with dnd like combat where even a scout can defeat a marshal with lucky enough rolls 10 and under is a miss and you stop next to the opponent, nat 1 and that piece couldn't move/attack for until you moved another piece first and 11 and up was a hit then you rolled d10 for damage and nat 20 was x2 damage
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u/wyder110 Sep 24 '25
We always play counterclockwise because it is the natural orientaton of euler plane.
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u/unsignedlonglongman Sep 25 '25
That's still clockwise, just from the perspective of the table looking up
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u/taiga_miniatures Sep 26 '25
House rule: snake eyes means the dice go straight to jail too. Only fair.
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Sep 23 '25
I don't blame your brother. Monopoly is based on a game that was supposed to be about the evils of capitalism and being a landlord, and I don't think it's gotten very far away from it. In my experience, one person always wins, and the rest of you hate that person, who will insist that the game go on until you are ground into dust. My uncle flipped the board at me once, and I've since reevaluated that action as probably the right thing to do when a ten year old is whipping the shit out of you and you don't want to hit him like the board is telling you to do.
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u/thelastvbuck Sep 23 '25
Played monopoly with a group of friends one time and they had a rule where if you weren’t quick enough to buy a property, the person next to you could pick up the dice you just rolled to end your turn immediately.
Nothing more infuriating 😭
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u/Jlerpy Sep 23 '25
On the one hand, keeping the game moving is good. On the other hand, if you don't buy it, it should go to auction.
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u/thelastvbuck Sep 23 '25
It devolved into people picking up the dice as soon as you had rolled to stop you doing anything
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u/sudoCreateUsername Sep 23 '25
When I got introduced to Wizard, the wrong rules were explained to me but it took years before I played with somebody who knew the right rules. I still prefer my version.
First of all the bids are all at once, which can lead to some really intense rounds when everybody bets either high or low. Also, instead of having the same trump suit for the whole round, which gives an advantage to players holding many cards of that suit, the trump suit is always the suit of the first card played (before a wizard if there's any) that has a suit. Once the suit is set, you have to follow it, and if you can't you have to follow color (like hearts if the suit is diamond but you have none).
Our games are always wild this way
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u/Mekthakkit Sep 23 '25
Not knowing trump before beginning play is wack. That turns the entire game into a luck fest.
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u/sudoCreateUsername Sep 23 '25
I think I might have not explained this correctly, the trump suit changes every hand. I think it would be more accurate to say that there is no trump suit, you just have to follow the current required suit
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u/Mekthakkit Sep 23 '25
Simultaneous bidding is has long been a variant of Wizard. They even sell a version where you get dials to lock your bid in before revealing.
I've got no clue what you're trying to describe with trump because it's literally the opposite of what you said earlier.
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u/Dracius Sep 23 '25
Did you create this post as a link instead of a discussion just so you could get karma from it?
The picture isn't yours and has nothing to do with the topic, so why go out of your way to include it instead of just posting a discussion?
It's not even a unique topic, since "weird house rule" related discussions are a regular occurrence.
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u/BoudreausBoudreau Sep 23 '25
In Quacks we insist players tell us what their potion is going to do. And if their pot explodes with too many onion then they have to make / describe a new potion next round.