After some good natured complaining about a couple of games where luck has played a large factor, (I got exactly the tiles I needed many times), I’m thinking of proposing a true-skill game. In a 2-player game we’d turn all 100 tiles face up, pick each tile alternately at the start and then proceed as normal with the following exceptions.
No exchanging more than 2 tiles
After playing you may pick the first 2 replacement tiles you like, any more gets alternated with your opponent’s choice.
No 50-point bonus for the first player’s first turn.
All tiles in both player’s hands and the bank remain face up at all times.
Any big problems or suggestions? This would just be a one-off fun game, not a proposal for changing the way we play.
1 - Whoever picks first, plays second.
2 - Either no blanks, or no blanks in the first (n) turns. The only problem I see with no blanks, period, as a rule is it eliminates double-z words completely
I believe he means all 100 tiles would be face-up before any drawing took place. So if you pick first and really want the Q for your opening play, you get to take it. Your opponent then decides if he also wants a premium tile (perhaps the Z to block you from trying for QUETZAL without having to employ a blank), wishes to try to stockpile the S’s, or whatever.
Sorry I think you’ve misread my post. It is ambiguous when I look back at it. I wasn’t proposing to play on SDMB, I was just looking for advice on whether I’d missed any glaring problems.
A somewhat similar idea I’ve been thinking about, which would work with more than 2 players:
You start with a Scrabble board with a game in progress, 3 or 4 moves in. Enough to have set up some places to play, etc.
Then everyone stares at the board for 5 minutes and comes up with the highest scoring play they can, using any of the remaining tiles. Everyone reveals their play simultaneously. Everyone adds the score their play was worth to their score. Then whichever play was actually the best is put onto the board, and you repeat.
There’s an argument to be made for playing this version without the bingo bonus, as it’s probably more satisfying to come up with a 70 point play that involves getting the J 4 times one way and 2 times the other way, then just spelling a bingo somewhere that there’s open space.
Each player gets 2 racks side by side and fills them to full capacity
words can extend off the playing field onto the table. In fact you don’t need a board at all.
words can read up, down, and also left or right
we DO allow abbreviations, proper nouns, and foreign words that are in the dictionary (whichever edition is nearby) Also hyphenated words or phrases
you can lay a new word adjacent to existing tiles without having to have them be words as well
The result is a game with lots of interesting long words
Oh, and we don’t bother to keep score, that’s for nerds. The fun is in the search and the many long words.
(BTW, though I may be the best-known Scrabble player around these parts, I’m definitely not the best – Mad The Swine is my guru and he can beat the pants off me without even trying.)