[spoon-discuss] Mao

[Zarpint <athena@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 1 Jul 2004, Daniel Lepage wrote:

>
> On Jul 1, 2004, at 10.46 PM, Craig wrote:
>
> >> The best is when you play with players who have no idea what the game
> >> is,
> >> and when they ask any questions, you hit them with a two-card penalty
> >> for talking about the rules.
> >
> > What? Only two cards? Rules questions are worth three under many
> > circumstances...
>
> You must play a very different version of Mao than the one I learned...
> the Mao I was taught has very simple rules, which are as follows:
> 1) At the beginning of each round, each player is dealt 5 cards; the
> top card of the draw pile is flipped, and the player to the dealer's
> left begins playing by playing a card if e can and drawing otherwise.
> Play continues in that direction.
> 2) A play is legal if and only if ____
> 3) If a player breaks a rule, e receives any cards e played to break it
> back, plus one penalty card.
> 4) The round ends when one player runs out of cards; that player wins
> the round. E then becomes the dealer for the next round, and gets to
> create a single rule that will be in effect for all subsequent rounds.
> E doesn't tell any of the other players what the new rule is, so they
> must figure it out for themselves.

That's essentially the game I played, but players could add more than one
rule when they won, and also change other things, e.g., adding another
pile with a different rule for play, so that cards had to be played into
the right pile to be played.

>
> Rule two can change depending on who you play with; I've often seen a
> vaguely Uno-like setup, but in fact there need not be a rule at all (as
> in mini-mao).
>
> Some people also include a rule 5, which states either that questions
> cannot be asked, or that speaking at all is prohibited.

And the player asking gets an N-card penalty.



> I'm not sure I'd really call Mao a variant on Eleusis, though...
> Eleusis has but one secret rule, and a lot of complicated yet known
> rules used to deduce the secret rule.

As far as I know, Eleusis is almost the same as what you called the
first round of mini-Mao, with minor differences in penalties.

Zarpint

-- 
Zarpint Jeremy Cook    "All thy toiling only breeds new dreams, new dreams;
mcfoufou@xxxxxxxxx         there is no truth saving in thine own heart."
dynamicwind.com               --W.B. Yeats, The Song of the Happy Shepherd
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