Save Your Board Games from Extinction with House Rules

some house rules can save a board game from a certain Extinction or they can polish it to the point where your friends will beg you to play it every single board game night a lot of people are against house rules as it's not their job to fix other people's designs hello Yiannis hello people watching imagine you're you three years ago okay 65 okay yeah what do you think about house rules Hest feels like I'm doing somebody else's work for them that's exactly what I said ever since you bought the board game and placed it in your shelf it became your board game so you better make sure you enjoy playing it and I'll show you that making them better is actually much easier than you think this is how it's going to work I'm going to show you one of my games then I'll show you the house rules I use for it and then I will tell you how you could use those same house rules for your games even if you don't own the same game games that I do you still can use these house rules for the games in your collection King of Tokyo power right out of the gate the whole point of this game is to be the last monster standing or to be the first one to 20 victory points by throwing Dice and smacking your friends around simple right well here's the problem the most exhilarating part of the game those crazy superpowers usually show up late just as the game is winding down it's like finally getting to know that you're a wizard hurry but realizing it's already bedtime time and you should well go to bed so here's a simple house rule start the game with superpowers give each player a starting ability of equal volue or let them pick between two boom right out of the gate you've got a unique feel for your Monster and the excitement kicks in right from turn one the same rule might apply to similar games in your collection take a glance at your shelves and see if any of your games could use a little power up pun intended wingspan draft those birds now let's fly over to wingspan in wingspan you're trying to build the most badass Avary in the history of Avary building it's like Pokemon but with birds the only problem the start of the game can feel as slow as watching a show on Netflix and forgetting to skip the intro I've seen this million times but the remote is so far oh your first few turns are usually just about scraping together resources nothing's really happening so here's the fix for it start with one more resource it won't break the game at all cuz all of you get one more resource and add drafting before the game starts have each player pick up five Birds they keep one and pass the rest of them around the table keep repeating this process until all five cards have been picked suddenly you've got strategy right from the start of the game avoiding that Dreadful bad hand and trust me it kicks the pace up on Notch drafting is a great mechanism that you can Implement in almost any board game that gives you some random cards at the beginning of the game Elder horror down with the downtime the Beast of a game that is the reason why I'm even making this video I've been playing this monster for 10 years and trust me I've collected enough house rules to fill a Necronomicon necronom necro Necronomicon in this game you as a team will fight cthulu and all other monsters that live under your bed by collecting Clues and then throwing them at all your problems the biggest issue is downtime and no you cannot throw Clues at this problem I've tried you sit there twiddling your thumbs while other players take their turns but here's a simple fix simultaneous turns at the start of every round plan as a team then everyone takes their actions and encounters at the same time unless the order is crucial after that retell what happened in your own words not only it will cut your game time in half but it adds fresh spin each time I read the encounter card about seeing a cat in a dreamlands a 100 times but when my friends describes how he narrowly escaped the furry demon it feels like a brand new adventure speaking of house rules of for Elish horror 3 years ago I wrote a script about all the best house rules and never published it because I thought no one would really care would you like to see it if this video gets 500 likes we'll make that happen kazone the right time to pick a tile next up kazone where you are all building a landscape with roads and cities one tile at a time and the best planner who also sometimes is the sneakiest player will win the game I enjoy this tile laying classic as much as the next person but the official rules of drawing the tile at the beginning of your turn is very much a WIP killer it's like going to a road trip but you have to pump gas every 5 minutes so here's a quick fix pick up your trial at the end of your turn now you have other players turns to think about your turn it's Snappy it's less downtime and it literally changes nothing about the game Nemesis less noisy the tension the strategy the sheer Terror it's all there except when it's not in this game you play characters with secret agendas in an alien fested spaceship you want to avoid these creatures for all costs but that will be difficult as your movement creates noise a lot of noise and it's great suspenseful mechanism except when it gets frustrating you need just a little bit of Hope and that's it and this house rule can make sure you have it it goes like this each round the first player can remove one noise token from a room with no characters in it it might not sound epic but it's the perfect solution to give a bit more control to the players but not ruin the balance of the game this small tweak helps to keep the tension without the headache of constant noise building up and even if you never plan to play Nemesis ever you still can learn from this tip just look at your favorite games and if there is one small thing that annoys you or other players remove the mechanism Al together give some resources to avoid it play around it and find the best solution for your game deck building Market Mayhem and speaking of the spare any game with a card market like Star Wars deck building can get cloged up with useless cards faster than your kitchen sink after a family event to fix this give each player a token that you can flip once per game to wipe out the whole market and refresh it with new new cards simple but it keeps the game from grinding to a halt when all you can see are duds similarly you can use another house rule in games like June Imperium where duplicates can flood the market stack them this keeps the table fresh and full of unique options in Harry Potter and bottle of hogart if you don't buy any cards or deal any damage you can remove all the cards from the market and refill it very simple rule that they introduced in the expansions but should be there right from the gecko in the base game as well there are multiple ways how you can improve your deck building options see which one fits best for your taste remove them cards let's face it some Evan cards in games are just buzzkills spe tyland Nemesis Robinson cruzo just to name a few they all have those cards that make you question why did you even set down to play the game get rid of them you paid for the game you better make sure you have fun playing it it rarely changed anything about the game balance and you can even dive into some forums to to see which cards other players have removed and see if you would like to do the same it's silly time while Gathering some info for this video I stumbled upon just some silly ones so I thought I'll share those ones as well in quacks of quadlin BG make everyone cackle like a witch at the start of each round sorry to bother you again yianis no you're not but uh hi but this is like life and that question okay okay how would witches giggle yeah yeah yeah yeah great do that it might be awkward but for some gaming groups it for sure will add to the game or in Seven Wonders duel the only way to win a military Victory Is by yelling this is spart and only then you can push the token to the last spot on the board is it ridiculous yes does it make the game indefinitely better also yes section number nine who is the loser now finally here's one rule to govern your entire game night whoever loses the last game gets to pick the next one it adds an extra layer of fun and suddenly even losing feels like a strategic move sure I lost wingspan but now we're playing Cosmic encounters you fools and that's it for today hopefully these house rules will give you some inspiration to shake things up and breathe new life into your board game collection what house rules do you use and remember if this video gets 500 likes I'll dust off the Elish horror house rule video and make it happen so smash the like button if you want to see it and don't forget to subscribe for more board game tips and tricks and other Shenanigans until next time happy gaming