word games
19 October 2004 08:57![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jrtomIn the process of playing one of those silly but highly enjoyable games that has about one rule, no scoring, and no point, I won some new shoes (sort of).
This got me to thinking about a variation (hey, there's another one!) on Scrabble: pick a letter (say, 'V', for instance). Every word that you put down has to include that letter at least once. To address the problem that there aren't enough of that letter to make this practical, allow people to use *any tile* as a proxy for the chosen letter; that tile then acts like a blank for the rest of the game (that is, it acts as the chosen letter and scores no points).
If you want to get really evil, don't allow a given word to be repeated. ;}
This presents some interesting challenges: first, you have to think of an appropriate word...and second, you have to get used to the idea that any of the tiles on your rack may be used as another letter.
And to generalize...let *any* tile be used as a blank. To make things more interesting, if you use a non-blank tile in this way, you get negative points for that letter rather than positive (so it's inadvisable to do this with Q, Z, J, or X unless you've got something really good lined up).
The inverse, of course, would be to restrict people from playing words that had a given letter (say, 'E'--La Disparition, anyone?), and treat that letter's tiles as blanks.
And just to round things out, an idea I had several years ago: allow people to play words in which the letters go up, or to the left, rather than down/right (which often tends to get the game cramped in the bottom right corner).
I may never play Scrabble the normal way again. :)
This got me to thinking about a variation (hey, there's another one!) on Scrabble: pick a letter (say, 'V', for instance). Every word that you put down has to include that letter at least once. To address the problem that there aren't enough of that letter to make this practical, allow people to use *any tile* as a proxy for the chosen letter; that tile then acts like a blank for the rest of the game (that is, it acts as the chosen letter and scores no points).
If you want to get really evil, don't allow a given word to be repeated. ;}
This presents some interesting challenges: first, you have to think of an appropriate word...and second, you have to get used to the idea that any of the tiles on your rack may be used as another letter.
And to generalize...let *any* tile be used as a blank. To make things more interesting, if you use a non-blank tile in this way, you get negative points for that letter rather than positive (so it's inadvisable to do this with Q, Z, J, or X unless you've got something really good lined up).
The inverse, of course, would be to restrict people from playing words that had a given letter (say, 'E'--La Disparition, anyone?), and treat that letter's tiles as blanks.
And just to round things out, an idea I had several years ago: allow people to play words in which the letters go up, or to the left, rather than down/right (which often tends to get the game cramped in the bottom right corner).
I may never play Scrabble the normal way again. :)
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Date: 19 October 2004 09:04 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 19 October 2004 12:47 (UTC)