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The bonus points are in addition to all other standard rules for earning points. The basic idea here is to incentivize longer words. Many skilled Scrabble players have gotten really good at laying down extremely short (2-4 letter) words, often using only 1-2 new tiles. But that makes it hard for other
players to build off of. By awarding extra points for laying down more tiles at once, players have an incentive for making longer words.
A simple method would be to award a fixed number of points per tile laid down, say 5 or 10. This will dominate the standard points awarded for most tiles, and for most locations except very high multiplier squares. A slightly more complex way which even more strongly incentivizes longer words is to give N*N bonus points when you lay down N tiles: 1 tile gives you 1 bonus point, 5 gets you 25, and using all 7 tiles at once gives you 49.
The bonus points could be separate from all other scoring mechanisms, or perhaps could be combined with double or triple word score bonuses to give an extra incentive to reach those using longer words.
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Statistically, using more tiles is its own reward. It improves your chances of winning without changing the scoring rules. |
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Well, you might think that a1, but I read an article by a gamer who said their journey went from trying to get long words to going for shorter words. Because if he went for a long word, his wife would be able to get the double word tile, or whatever. So their game went to shorter words played strategically.
And I think that's true at high level as well. The best players can win scrabble competitions in other languages, all they have to do is learn a restricted dictionary of scabble power words. |
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// you might think that // |
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I do. I might have read an analysis a long time ago on John Chew’s web site or seen it mentioned in Stefan Fatsis’ book “Word Freak” - but I also believe it from my own tournament play. Not dismissing the importance of short words, but in a large data set the odds favor the player who plays the most tiles. |
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//is its own reward//
Yes, but only linearly. I think the idea proposes to make that reward non-linear. I suspect that the same players would still win, but weaker players would experience less frustration, because they could still put down something each turn without so much agonising. |
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//and using all 7 tiles at once gives you 49.// |
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But... but you already get an extra 50 points for using all seven letters. We'd be losing the whole point! |
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When my wife and I were younger we took our first trip to Mexico. An all inclusive hotel with no extra money for many excursions so we spent quite a bit of time at the swim-up bars.
We brought travel-scrabble with us and made a tequila shot drinking game of using all of our letters.
We very soon had to change that to every two times.
A couple more trips into the future and we eventually abandoned that particular drinking game altogether because we got to where we were each using all of our letters upwards of four or five times a game. |
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Once got QUIXOTIC across two triple-word scores, but that's another story. |
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//QUIXOTIC across two triple-word scores// |
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[2f], have you ever played in tournaments? |
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No tournaments, and we don't strictly play by the rules.
We're both a bit dyslexic so the way we play is you have to know the word you want to play but can then look it up in the scrabble dictionary before playing it, and we help each other when stumped because it's just for fun so we try to see if we can top past high scores.
I would totally bomb in a real game even though one of us usually edges on or breaks five hundred points. |
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As long as you're not playing by the rules, you could make up your own for even higher scores. Both of you could lay all of your tiles on the table, work together to make the best words from the pooled set, or even type them in to a computer to let the machine pick your best option. |
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We don't cheat, we just both suck at spelling but have decently large vocabularies.
Using the dictionary is only to ensure that the words are spelled properly so that neither of us forfeit a turn. |
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It has helped immensely and we both spell much more gooder now. |
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"We don't cheat, we just don't play by the rules." |
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If you enjoy it, have agreed to play that way, and it helps you play better, that's fine. It's how a lot of people learn the game. |
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(the devil on my other shoulder had a rude joke about playing with yourself, but I suppressed it). |
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That must have been quite the internal mass debate. |
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Well, it is a multi-verse. I'm sure that in at least one of them you let it rip. |
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Admirable restrain in this one. |
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//I think the idea proposes to make that reward non-linear. I suspect that the same players would still win, but weaker players would experience less frustration, because they could still put down something each turn without so much agonising.// |
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pertinax has basically captured my inspiration here |
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//you already get an extra 50 points for using all seven letters// |
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I forgot about that, 2 fries. So I guess the squaring algorithm would basically replace that, but give some lesser (but increasing) reward for using less than 7 as well. Of course, this is really a nerdy way of doing it; the simpler method of just adding 10 points for each tile laid down gives you 70 for 7 instead of 50, and again some reward for less than 7 as well. |
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// that makes it hard for other players to build off of |
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This is part of the game's strategy. |
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//This is part of the game's strategy//
And getting mugged is part of life in a big city. |
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