More Warthog Rules
Cool Rules
- SLO-MO CARD -- Pick a kind of card that has to be played in slow motion.
- Word Association -- Whenever a certain kind of card is played, the
player must give a new word from a list of possible words. Example
lists: countries, words that begin with Q, etc.
- Card swap -- A king is actually a queen, or the five of diamonds
is actually the seven of spades, or swap all hearts with clubs. This
can get confusing, with players either mixing up which card they are
allowed to play or referring to cards in an illegal manner. ("Okay,
I play the 5 of diamonds." "Penalty. That is the seven of spades.
Penalty. Illegal play.")
- Virtual Play -- Some event may cause players to virtually swap
positions. That is, they do not physically change seats, but they must
play as if they have changed seats. This causes great confusion when
direction of play seems to jump all around the table. Variation: a
player virtually moves between two other players and must play between
them. Thanks to Andrew Mitchell, Australia.
Rules that speed up game
When you find the game is getting too slow, pick a rule like these.
- Allow any player to jump into the game out of turn if they can play
the same card as is currently on the discard pile. This only works if
you're using multiple decks.
- Make one card "crazy", as in crazy eights
- Allow more cards to be played on each other, like allowing Queens to
be played on Kings regardless of suit.
Usually you don't need rules to slow down the game. Every additional
rule has potential to slow down the game, as players screw up with the
rule and get penalty cards.
Advanced Rules
- Require that all cards which have rules attached must be turned
facing out in the player's hand, so that other players can see (thanks
to dlundgre@ouray.cudenver.edu for this rule).
- If there are two Warthog games running, combine them! Andrew Over
of Australia, who learned the game at the Maths Olympiad training camps,
suggests a rule which causes a hand in one game to be exchanged with
a hand in another game. Or swap people into a game that they don't
know the rules for yet.
- Also from Andrew Over: Create a rule which leaves somebody out of
hearing what the new rule is.
- Turn Warthog into a trick-based game instead of a turn-based game
- Turn Warthog into Mao (essentially) by not allowing rules to be explained and by not allowing talking
- Make the game asynchronous: players can play whenever they are able to.
You can either make the game permanently asynchronous or temporarily.
- Have multiple discard piles. Choose rules to govern which discard
pile you must play to next. You can even have one discard pile per
player, then have rules that govern when discard piles are swapped and
where.
- Change from disallowing questions to disallowing statements. The more
frequent the change, the harder it is!
Honesty Rules
Many possible rules require honesty from players. For example, an
action could be taken when a certain card is picked up. I put these
rules separately, next to the "Bad Rules", because I know I couldn't use
honesty rules with my group of friends. One example:
- Lonely Card -- when this card is picked up, the player must pick up
another card immediately. This effect can also be used during dealing.
Bad Rules
Don't use these rules unless you want to screw up the game! Some of them
might be okay if you have really conscientious players.
- Cause players to trade hands (bad because a player can pick up a lot
of penalty cards and then just trade hands). This rule might be
improved by making the person switch with the player who has the most
cards, but I haven't tried out this suggestion yet. Another variation,
from Daniel Noll, is the "Marriage Rule": the player who plays a king
swaps hands with the last player to play a queen.
- Even cards can be played on odd cards, but odd cards can't be played
on even cards (can you believe we played this for 5 minutes before we
realized we would never finish?)
List'o'Rules
Lisa Lippert (To my Homepage)