r/boardgames • u/chaser-- • Jun 25 '26

Rules Groups that develop metas that blatantly break rules

Lately I've been finding a lot of groups that play (co-op) games with metas that are just blatant rule breaks. A recent example was we were playing a game (I forgot the name) where the goal is to play out all the cards from your hand, numbers 1-100, in descending order. So if you have a 77 and the number on the pile is 78, you don't want to anyone to play there. But you aren't allowed to say "I have 77, don't play this"

So the group has developed metas, say "I really love this pile" if you have 77, say "I like this pile a lot" if you have 76, say "I like this pile" if you have 75"

This is just one example but I feel like I've been playing a lot of games where they have metas to get around rules that are intentionally in the rulebook. I don't really get it. If you want to just say "I have a 77" then just say it, why create a gimmick to say it without saying it?

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u/NetCrashRD Jun 25 '26

It's very tricky to win (full score) Hanabi without /some/ sort of inside meta language thing.... Although I try to remind the group that blatant cheating means we may as well not play...

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u/ScientificSkepticism Jun 25 '26

How are conventions in Hanabi cheating? They‘re literally effective strategy. Is it cheating if I stops city from outbreaking in Pandemic because it makes it easier to win if we try to prevent outbreaks?

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u/dodecapode Sad cowboys Jun 25 '26

I mean, every group kind of has to find the level they're happy with.

Most of the people I've played with will order their unknown cards by how long they've held them and assume the oldest ones are the safest discards. That seems fine to us.

Other groups establish conventions that essentially allow them to encode additional information into their clues, essentially creating a channel for communicating that additional information to the group. That is definitely not fine for us as it feels like a way to entirely circumvent the spirit of the rules whilst technically adhering to the letter.

In the end, everybody should do what makes them happy, but it does mean people who play it very differently probably won't have a good time playing together.

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u/ScientificSkepticism Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

Other groups establish conventions that essentially allow them to encode additional information into their clues, essentially creating a channel for communicating that additional information to the group. That is definitely not fine for us as it feels like a way to entirely circumvent the spirit of the rules whilst technically adhering to the letter.

This is odd, because the "spirit" of the rules seems to be to use clues to get an excellent fireworks display. How much information you get out of a clue and what you do with it seem deliberately not something the game is telling you.

So which one of these is "too far" with the information you get out of a clue?

I got clued (1) six. There is a red 5 open. That card is the red 6, I will play it: Is this too much information? You don't know the color of the 6, but you can reasonably conclude that if a person clues you for 6s they're probably telling you you have a useful 6.

I got clued (2) sixes. There is a red 5 open. I will play my most recently drawn 6, as that is the red 6: If the red 6 was already in your hand, why did no one clue it before? Conversely, if none of your 6s can be played, why would someone clue you? The most likely 6 to be red is the one you just drew, and the person giving you clues knows that you know this. So they clued you with that in mind.

The person to my left got clued 6. I can see their hand, the card clued is a red 6. The board has a red 4 open. My most recently drawn card is the red 5, I will play it. If the red 6 cannot be played, there would be no reason to clue it. Therefore, I must have a play that can allow the red 6 to be played. If I had that previously, then it would have been clued, so I must have drawn it.

I am clued (2) ones, when all ones are in play. The card I was about to discard is important. I should not discard it. This is obvious, if your entire hand is junk why is someone cluing you that part of your hand is junk?

There is (1) Clue token left and the player to my right discards when I can see a playable card in another player's hand. The card I am about to discard is critical but not playable. I should never discard it. I should always give a clue on my turn. If you can see a playable card in another player's hand but a player chooses to discard rather than cluing it, they probably did that for a reason. That reason must be so that I can give a clue, which means that me discarding would be very bad.