From: Charles S Smith JUNO COM> Date: 14 feb 1997 Subject: New Rules for Classic Games (R. Wayne Schmittberger) On Fri, 14 Feb 1997 08:58:22 GMT R J Hare TATTOO ED AC UK> writes: >I wonder if you could post full details of this book [New Rules for Classic Games] please? I haven't heard of it before - sounds good. > >Thanks. > >RH > I have included the back cover of the book, and the Preface. I hope they will be of interest to people. There's not much on Shogi in there, but there are several variations listed that could also be applicable to Shogi. The rules to Chu Shogi are VERY clear in this book. I guarantee no rule arguments. The book is priced for $9.95 (US Dollars) Back cover: "An essential book for anyone interested in gameplay." --GAMES magazine If rules are made to be broken, then dust off those old games lying dormant in your closet, because your game playing just got a lot more exciting! New Rules for Classic Games, by games expert R. Wayne Schmittberger, is a complete guide to hundreds of new twists and variations guaranteed to expand and enliven your game repertoire. How about: Wraparound Scrabble: Words can run off an edge of te board and be continued on the other side. Another variation allows words to be spelled backwards! Extinction Chess: Think of every type of piece as a species; your goal is to prevent extinction of any of these species. Trivial Tic-Tac-Toe: An entertaining and challenging cross between Trivial Pursuit and tic-tac-toe. Auction Monopoly: Every property, no matter who lands on it, is sold to the highest bidder. You'll find these and other exciting new challenges for card and dice games, chess, checkers, party games, and popular board games such as Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, Parcheesi, Boggle, Othello, and Trivial Pursuit. And to make sure your game playing never gets stale, New Rules for Classic Games gives you rules for little-known games that can be played with equipment you already have and tips for doing your own rule writing! R. WAYNE SCHMITTBERGER, considered the American master of games and gamesmanship, is a former editor and longtime contributor to Games magazine. He has invented scores of board games and puzzles, and is the author of The Original Trivia Treasury and Test Your Baseball Literacy. Featured here are his selection of te best and most popular games variations from over a decade of collecting. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Professional, Reference and Trade Group 605 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10158-0012 New York • Chichester • Brisbane • Toronto • Singapore Preface: No matter how good a game is, chances are that it can be improved upon, or at least varied in an interesting way. By experimenting with the rules of a game, players can create new challenges, add excitement, and customize the game to meet their own needs and tastes. Players should not view the rules that come in a game box as inviolate. Game inventors, by necessity, make many arbitrary decisions in choosing their final set of rules. How many cards should each player be dealt? In which directions should pieces be allowed to move? How much money should players start with? Game inventors cannot possibly test every possible combination of rules--and even if they could, they might end up having to choose between variations in which the "best" one is just a matter of taste. Inventors can always use help from you, the player, to refine their games. Sometimes a game variation becomes so popular that it replaces the original game. Many of today's best-known games have evolved this way, such as backgammon from Tabula, contract bridge from Whist, and modern chess from Shatranj. Sports organizations are very aware of te advantages of critically reviewing old rules and testing new ones. Every year, rule changes are made in sports at all levels, ranging from minor technical adjustments to major overhauls. As a result, what amount to new variations of baseball, football, and basketball are played each year. Some rules changes prove unpopular and are rescinded, but many are found to improve the game. Sometimes there is no clear consensus and varying rules survive, such as the conflicting designated hitter rules in baseball's two major leagues and the many rule differences between college and professional football. Often, one rules may not be better than another in any objective sense, but simply different--leading to interesting changes in strategy and tactics when the game is played. In my years of experience as a player, reviewer, and inventor of games, I have created many games variations, and tested and collected rules for hundreds of others--far more than could fit in any one volume. In this book, I have attempted to present a selection of my favorite variations for as wide a variety of games as possible--board games ranging from Monopoly to checkers; games played with cards, dice, paper and pencil, or no equipment at all; and even outdoor games such as croquet. Also, in an attempt to broaden the theme of "finding new uses for old game equipment," the book presents rules for a number of little-known games that can be played with equipment from other games that readers are likely already to have, such as playing cards or a checkers set, or equipment that can easily be improvised. Finally, the book gives tips on how to go about changing game rules to suit your own tastes, to cure a flaw in a game, to alter the playing time or number of players, to allow a game to be played by mail even when it involves a random element such as rolling dice, or simply to provide a new form of entertainment. I hope that the material in this book will provide you with countless hours of entertainment. R. Wayne Schmittberger BTW, the copyright date on my book is 1992. Hope this helps. --Chuck Personally, I come back to this book for reference as well as when I want to create my own games. Good luck w/ finding it to all who try.