Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

In my family, we play a variation that makes the game much more skillful. I'm not sure how common it is. But my grandmother's claim to fame is that she played in college with the inventor of Scrabble, before it was commercialized (the rules were different). These are the variations we play:

1) a dictionary can be used whenever you want, to look up a specific word in mind only (you cannot leaf through it for ideas)

2) When it is your turn, before playing your letters, you may swap a letter in your hand, for a letter on the board. This can be done as much as you like, but only one letter at a time, and each letter must make a new, valid word. No points are scored when swapping.

The result is that turns can take 10 minutes or more, but bingos are very common and individual scores get into 5-600 points often. There is much more skill and very little luck- as you are not limited by the letters you draw- rather, you can use just about any letter that's on the board, if you can get it! Likewise, if you draw the X you are not "lucky" because the X will likely get used again and again over the course of the game by multiple players.

I'm not sure how common this variation is, but I like it, and it's well-suited for serious players.

With the swapping, this sounds more similar to Bananagrams! I also like that it places less emphasis on memorizing words that are helpful in scrabble but not real life.

Do you happen to remember how the rules were different? I'm very curious. I also want to try your variation of the rules, swapping letters already on the board adds a whole new dimension, very intriguing.

When I play I generally allow both players are allowed to use the dictionary whenever they want (whether or not it is your turn), for whatever reason. You can combine this rule with time controls (there are a few possibilities for time controls, one way is to use chess clocks); if you take too long to look up the word while it is your turn, you are penalized by the time controls.

That swapping rule look like a interesting variant. A variant I have though of is that you can change the meaning of blanks on the board at any time during your turn as long as they are still valid words (valid both before and after your play, with the same letter being represented in both cases); this avoids having to remember what letter it is supposed to be. Another variant allows you to rearrange the letters of words you extend; if that changes words you cross, you score for the new words it makes. The mention in the article of removing bingo also can be a variant.

My family's modified rule was the ability to play off of used multiplier tiles, leading to fun with super high scores. Always a thrill to have a word take up one entire edge of the board while reaping the extra multiplier(s).

The letter swapping sounds fun!

   a dictionary can be used whenever you want, to look up a specific word in mind only (you cannot leaf through it for ideas)

I really dislike this idea. It turns the human into a mere mechanical Turk, searching through the dictionary. Fails to reward those who have built up a large vocabulary and draws out turns agonizingly.

I would argue that it makes it much less "skillful".

Horrible ;)

> searching through the dictionary.

Sounds like they explicitly forbid this.

> Fails to reward those who have built up a large vocabulary

You need to know the word exists to search for it, and larger vocabs will still be an advantage.

I did not say searching through the _entire_ dictionary. It is still removing one of the skills that Scrabble traditionally rewards: knowing how to spell.

He said...

...to look up a specific word in mind only (you cannot leaf through it for ideas)

So you wouldn't be a mechanical turk searching through it under his ruleset.

So just searching through a smaller space in the dictionary rather than the entire dictionary. It's still turning a feat of human skill and memory (remembering what words exist and how they are spelled) into a mere sideshow.

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