Summary
I’ve played a ton of board games over the years, and I’ll be the first to say it. Sometimes, not every board game rule makes the most sense. There are some rules that may be balanced even, but don’t necessarily make the game all that fun. But, luckily, with just a few tweaks here and there, it’s really easy to turn some board games from bad to good.
That’s why we’ve created this list. If you’re looking to spice up your next board game night, try taking one of these familiar favorites and changing the rules to create an entirely different game.
10Monopoly
One Monopoly To Start
Let’s face it, Monopoly is just an absurdly long game sometimes. Most of the time, when I play this game, I’m never able to finish it in a reasonable amount of time. However, there’s one very fun way to speed things up, in my opinion.
Shuffle the property cards face down and then hand each player one. Whatever color they get, hand the player the remaining property cards in their monopoly, giving each player one monopoly to start. This can prove devastating early on and knock players out much faster.
9Scrabble
Specific Words Only
We’ve all played a version of Scrabble like this before. Someone will suggest that you only use dirty words or phrases, for example. Personally, while I’m all for dirty Scrabble, I also like to shake things up every once in a while.
For this variant, every few rounds, you can change up the category or genre of words players must use. For example, you could say any word played needs to be an article or an adjective. This is also a good way to speed up the game if you play it with an elimination quota, if people can’t come up with words.
8Mysterium
Non-Cooperative
Mysterium is one of my personal favoritecooperative games out there. It’s so fun, and a little bit spooky, which always works for me,especially around Halloween. However, if you have more of a competitive spirit, this game is really easy to make non-cooperative.
All you have to do is turn the first few rounds of play into a race. Whoever completes all their visions first wins. Obviously, this cuts out the final round of the game, in which players vote on a secret final vision, but it does help speed the game up a bit, too.
7Settlers Of Catan
Change Numbers Around
If you want to keep yourgame of Catanfeeling a bit spicy, there’s a simple thing you can do to switch up the resource distribution in the game. Of course, hardcore strategy players won’t like the randomness of this, but it can prove hilariously chaotic.
At the start of the game, simply pick a number round by which the entire board will be switched around. You don’t have to move the tiles, just the number discs. This means that resource tiles that were once fruitful may end up being more barren than the desert tile.
6Betrayal At House On The Hill
Time Limit
One of the key flaws in certain versions of Betrayal at House on the Hill is that the Haunt can take forever to start. Depending on how much time you have, this can make the game nearly impossible to play sometimes.
So, similar to the above rule change regarding Catan, simply select a round by which the Haunt will automatically begin. This does two things. One, it means that you will know the Haunt Revealer from the get-go, which can prove fun, and it means that you know you have a limited time to gather resources. This can make the exploration phase feel a bit more high-stakes.
5One Night: Ultimate Werewolf
Oops, All Werewolves
At this point, One Night: Ultimate Werewolf has so many different teams that can be incorporated into a single game, there can sometimes be more monsters than there are villagers. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
For a truly chaotic game of One Night, try building a deck that has more Werewolves, Vampires, Aliens, and Super Villains than there are Villagers. Obviously, this requires a big group to play, but it can be incredibly fun if there are so many different teams and win conditions beyond just the standard two werewolves per game.
4Monikers
Work Backwards
In Monikers, you’re instructed to play through each round in a specific way. First, you’ll get to say whatever you want to give a clue, then one word only, and then finally, you’ll have to adhere to Charades rules. This is very fun, but at a certain point, the more you play, the more players tend to know the cards.
That’s why you should try reversing the order of operations when you’re playing with more advanced Monikers players. This can make the first round nearly endless, which is hilarious in its own right. And then chaotically fast during the last round. This gives the game a sort of breakneck accelerating pace that’s really fun.
3Kill Doctor Lucky
Multiple Variants
Kill Doctor Lucky is a really fantastic game that feels sort of akin to Clue, except you’re the murderer. However, not a lot of people know that this game has built-in variants that allow you to change the rules in fun and exciting ways.
My personal favorite is the ‘New Tricks’ variant, which requires you to include the Dog token in your play. In this variant, the dog can’t stop players from trying to Kill Doctor Lucky, but each attempt makes the dog angrier. Subsequently, you can collect the dog’s spite tokens to make your murder attempts even more powerful.
2Coup
Limit Coups
In Coup, you’re able to pay seven coins to ‘coup’ someone, potentially removing them from the game. While this is very fun, depending on some people’s loadouts, it can sometimes prove really easy for people to coup everyone out of the game very quickly, which isn’t always as fun as directly challenging someone.
There’s an easy way to fix this and make the game more stakes-y. you’re able to limit each player to one coup attempt throughout the game. You can also add a counter-coup move by paying seven coins to foil another person’s coup.
1Codenames
Add Extra Assassins
Last but not least, Codenames is a really fun game that has one very high-stakes element to it: the assassin card. This card is an auto-lose card that, should any team accidentally select it, will forfeit the game completely. Luckily, your chances of hitting this card are pretty low.
But, is that the most fun way to play Codenames? If you’re looking for an even more high-stakes situation, try adding more makeshift assassin cards to the board, meaning that each wrong guess could be potentially more fatal.
