You are wrong about at least one of these

| You probably think | Actually | |---|---| | 🃏 You can stack a +2 on a +2 in Uno | No. Never could. Mattel said so out loud in 2019 and the internet refused to accept it | | 🎩 Free Parking pays out the tax pile | No. It has never done anything, in any edition, ever | | 🃏 You draw until you get a playable card | No. You draw exactly one and move on | | 🌾 You can trade whenever you like in Catan | No. Only on the active player's turn, and only with them | | 🎩 Landing exactly on Go pays double | No. It never has |

Everybody plays these. Nobody checked.

That gap is the whole project. Rules are easy to find — every box has them. Rulings are not: what to do at 9pm when your uncle is certain, you are certain, and the box is in the loft.

Try it in ten seconds

$ npx @mohitagw15856/rulebook uno "can I stack a draw 2"

Can you stack a Draw Two on a Draw Two, or a Draw Four on a Draw Four?
● NOT AN OFFICIAL RULE   played by almost everyone, almost everywhere

  No. Under the published rules there is no stacking. A player hit with a Draw
  Two draws two cards and loses their turn — they cannot pass the penalty
  along. Mattel stated this publicly in May 2019 and a large part of the
  internet refused to believe it.

  The house version

  The near-universal house version lets you answer a Draw Two with your own
  Draw Two, passing an accumulating penalty around the table until someone
  cannot respond and draws the entire pile.

Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, no network calls.

🎉  It runs your game night now

Before anyone arrives

$ rulebook night --people 6 --hours 3

Builds a real evening — an opener while people turn up, the heaviest game that actually fits, and something light for when nobody can think. Counts the teach time, which everyone forgets.

Mid-argument

$ rulebook ref uno "stacking"

Settles it and logs who called it. Then rulebook record shows the standings:

Siyu    ████████░░   80%  8-2
Mohit   ██░░░░░░░░   22%  2-7

Mohit has been wrong 7 times. Someone should tell them.

When the table goes quiet

$ rulebook quiz

Ten rulings. Official, or made up? You guess. Ends with a title you have earned, such as Has Been Playing It Wrong For Years.

For the slow player

$ rulebook timer --minutes 2

01:12  ████████████░░░░░░  

No further comment.

| | | |---|---| | 🔥 hottest | The rules most likely to stop a game, ranked | | 🎲 odds | Catan's dice, blackjack's dealer, poker's outs — computed, not remembered | | 📋 about <game> | The honest facts: real playtime, downtime between your turns, the age it actually works at, and when it's fair to give up | | 🧮 score | Poker hands, gin deadwood, Scrabble premiums, Uno and Pablo totals | | 🗣️ teach <game> --live | Walks the teach script one beat at a time, against the clock | | 🔍 find --players 5 --kids 7 | What fits tonight — filtered on real playtime, not the box | | 🕵️ cheats <game> | How people cheat at it, and how to catch them | | 🗳️ vote <game> "<rule>" | Report how your table plays it | | ✅ verify | Which facts have been checked against a source, and when | | 🌍 --lang fr | Any translation, falling back to English per ruling |

🤖  Give it to your AI

Ask any assistant whether you can stack a +2 in Uno and it will usually say yes, confidently, because that is what most of the internet says. This hands it the sourced answer instead.

{ "mcpServers": {
    "rulebook": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@mohitagw15856/rulebook", "mcp"] }
} }

Four tools, no dependencies, ~200 lines of MCP over stdio: settle_rules_dispute · get_game_facts · plan_game_night · list_contested_rules

The dispute tool is explicitly told not to invent an answer when the registry has nothing — it returns a "file it" link instead. That is the whole point of pointing a model at a registry rather than at its own memory.

🌐  The JSON API

Static files on a CDN. No key, no rate limit, nothing to go down on its own.

$ curl https://mohitagw15856.github.io/rulebook/api/games/uno.json
$ curl https://mohitagw15856.github.io/rulebook/api/hottest.json

| | | |---|---| | /api/index.json | Counts, endpoints, the game list | | /api/games.json | Everything, one array | | /api/games/{slug}.json | One game, rulings included | | /api/rulings.json | All 196 rulings, flat | | /api/hottest.json | The 40 most contested |

There is also a Slack and Discord bot — one file, no dependencies, signature verification via node:crypto — and an iOS Shortcut recipe that reads the same API.

🖨️  Print it and put it in the box

Three things print straight from a browser. No PDF library, no dependency — just HTML and SVG with @page rules.

| | | |---|---| | The booklet | The entire registry as a printable book. Every game, every ruling, every tiebreak. | | The card deck | 196 poker-sized ruling cards. Print double-sided — the backs are laid out mirrored so each answer lands behind its own question. Hold one up, everyone guesses official or made up, turn it over. | | rulebook card catan | One A4 sheet per game. Fold twice, leave it in the lid. |

The per-game card carries setup by player count, the turn, the four rules your table gets wrong, and a QR code to every ruling.

No dependencies means no QR library, so it's ~250 lines implementing byte mode, error correction level M, Reed–Solomon over GF(256), and mask selection.

The first version produced something that looked exactly like a QR code and was completely unscannable — the format-information bits were in the wrong cells. I found out by decoding it with a real barcode scanner rather than trusting my eyes. rulebook qr <game> prints one straight to your terminal.

🎨  What does it even look like?

Every game has an illustration, and every one is drawn rather than collected:

The obvious way to show somebody a game is a photo of the box. Every one of those is copyrighted — and a project that refuses to paste a publisher's words would be drawing a strange line by pasting their photographs.

So they're built from primitives: a fanned hand, a chequered board, a hex field, a rack of tiles. Stylised on purpose, labelled "illustration, not a photograph", and generated by lib/art.mjs so a new game gets one for free.

▶️  Play them online, free

Nineteen games link to somewhere you can actually play, right now, at no cost:

| | | |---|---| | Lichess | Chess. Free, open source, funded by donations, no advertising | | PlayOK | Xiangqi, backgammon, cribbage, ludo — no account needed | | cardgames.io | Hearts, spades, gin rummy, Go Fish, Yahtzee, crazy eights | | Board Game Arena | Jaipur, 7 Wonders Duel, Azul, Hive, Patchwork | | codenames.game | Codenames, no account, share one link | | Woogles | The crossword game, free and open source |

Every link was checked before being added, and the monthly rot job checks them alongside the sources — a dead play link wastes somebody's evening.

No gambling sites. Poker and blackjack have no link here on purpose.

📋  The facts no box prints

rulebook about <game> is where the unglamorous, genuinely useful stuff lives.

| | | |---|---| | Setup and pack-away time | A 20-minute setup quietly ruins a 30-minute game, and no box mentions it | | Downtime between your turns | The honest measure of whether a game is bearable to sit through. It is why Monopoly is hated and Codenames is not | | The tiebreak | Every game has one — including "it cannot happen" — and almost nobody knows it. All 36 recorded | | Handicaps | How to make it fair between an expert and a beginner, or an adult and a seven-year-old | | How people cheat | And how to spot it. Recorded so it can be caught, not so it can be done | | When to give up | Every game has a fair moment to stop. None of them print it | | How it changed | Edition timelines, so you know which rule arrived in 2015 |

Rulings can also link to rulings they compound with. Play both Uno house rules — stacking and draw-until-playable — and hands reach sizes neither rule alone predicts. Those links are cross-checked at build time.

🏠  Your table's constitution

Every group plays differently. Say so once, in a .rulebookrc, and every ruling answers with your version first and the published rule second:

table: The Thursday Lot
house_rules:
  uno/stacking-draw-cards: yes        # we stack, and we know it isn't real
  monopoly/free-parking-jackpot: no   # we play it properly
  ludo/blocking-two-tokens: yes

Commit it. Send it to anyone joining game night. It settles more arguments before they start than any amount of looking things up afterwards.

💻  The website

mohitagw15856.github.io/rulebook

Same data, same code — the scoring engines and the search are the same modules, imported as plain ESM. No bundler, no second implementation that can quietly disagree with the terminal.

It also does things the terminal can't:

• 🔎 Search every game's rulings at once
• 🌍 See which rules are played differently in different countries
• 📊 A bar chart of how much every box lies about playtime (Monopoly: +120 min)
• 🧾 A round-by-round scorepad that saves to your device
• 📴 Installs as an app and works with no signal

Every ruling has its own link that unfurls with the verdict — paste one into the group chat and let it do the arguing:

https://mohitagw15856.github.io/rulebook/r/uno/stacking-draw-cards/

✍️  Add an argument

This is the valuable bit, and it takes two minutes. One entry in one YAML file. No code, no build step, and a form if you'd rather not touch YAML at all.

- id: free-parking-jackpot
  question: Does landing on Free Parking pay you the money in the middle?
  asked_as:
    - free parking money           # ← how people actually type it
    - do you get the tax money on free parking
  kind: house-rule
  official: false
  prevalence: near-universal       # ← how many people play it anyway
  verdict: >
    No, and it never has been — not in any edition of the rules...

asked_as matters most. It's how search finds your ruling when somebody types what they'd genuinely shout across a table.

Run npm run ci before opening a PR — it validates, checks your prose is your own, runs 97 tests, verifies nothing changed shape, and rebuilds this file.

CONTRIBUTING.md has the rest, and MAINTAINERS.md explains adopting a game — about an hour a year, and the single most useful thing anybody can do here. 4 of 36 games are currently verified.

Not sure where to start? node scripts/starter-issues.mjs lists twenty games worth adding, each with an argument it is already known for.

One game is one folder: game.yml, rules.md, rulings.yml, teach.md, and optionally score.mjs and odds.mjs. Copy the closest existing game — npm run validate names every missing field, so there's no schema to memorise.

The fields people skip and shouldn't: downtime (how long between your turns — the honest measure of whether a game is bearable, and nobody publishes it), min_age (the age it genuinely works at, not the age on the box), and concession (when it's fair to stop).

🔍  How much of this should you believe?

A registry that says "everyone plays it this way" had better be able to show its working. Three mechanisms, all visible:

Verification. Every game records who checked its facts, when, and against what. rulebook verify lists them. Right now 4 of 36 are verified and the other 32 say so plainly — unverified is not the same as wrong, and inventing 36 dates would be exactly the dishonesty this project argues against.

Sources that disagree. A ruling can carry several sources, each recording what it claims and whether it supports the verdict. The Ludo blockade is the first real case: Wikipedia presents it as standard, British sets omit it, and the entry now says so rather than quietly picking a winner.

Votes. prevalence is currently somebody's judgement. rulebook vote lets you report how your table actually plays, and every ruling shows n= beside its claim. With no votes it says "a judgement, not a survey" rather than showing a confident zero. It records where you learned a rule — family, friends, club, online — because rules travel through families far more than through countries, and data/votes.yml ships deliberately empty.

Tests that do not rely on my imagination. The scorers carry property tests over ~1,400 generated deals, checking rules rather than examples: poker comparison is a total order, seven cards never score below the best five inside them, and melding can only ever reduce deadwood.

$ npm run coverage     # what is missing, and how old the facts are
$ rulebook verify      # which games have been checked, and when
$ npm test             # every test, including the property tests

⚖️  About the rules themselves

How a game is played isn't copyrightable. That's the idea/expression split — settled since Baker v. Selden (1879) and stated flatly in 37 CFR 202.1(b), which excludes "the idea for a game" from copyright.

A publisher's wording is. So every word of rules here was written from scratch by someone who understood the game, and npm run check enforces it: no copyright notices, no ® or ™, no long quotations, no sentence appearing in two games.

It has caught me twice. That's the point of having it.

Game names and trademarks belong to their owners. Nothing here is affiliated with or endorsed by any publisher.

Code is MIT. The game data is CC BY 4.0 — take it, build something.

Every game on file

Card games

| Game | Players | Box says | Actually | Teach | Weight | Luck | Rulings | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Blackjack | 1–7 (best 4) | 20 min | 30 min | 4 min | ●●○○○ | 70% | 5 🎲 | | Coup | 2–6 (best 5) | 15 min | 25 min | 6 min | ●●○○○ | 35% | 6 | | Crazy Eights | 2–7 (best 4) | 20 min | 25 min | 90 sec | ●○○○○ | 88% | 3 | | Cribbage | 2–4 (best 2) | 30 min | 30 min | 12 min | ●●○○○ | 40% | 5 | | Dominion | 2–4 (best 3) | 30 min | 45 min | 10 min | ●●○○○ | 35% | 6 | | Go Fish | 2–6 (best 4) | 15 min | 20 min | 60 sec | ●○○○○ | 80% | 4 | | Hearts | 3–6 (best 4) | 45 min | 60 min | 5 min | ●●○○○ | 45% | 5 | | Jaipur | 2–2 (best 2) | 30 min | 30 min | 5 min | ●●○○○ | 45% | 6 | | Love Letter | 2–4 (best 4) | 20 min | 20 min | 3 min | ●○○○○ | 60% | 6 | | Pablo | 2–6 (best 4) | 20 min | 35 min | 4 min | ●●○○○ | 65% | 4 🧮 | | Texas Hold'em | 2–10 (best 6) | 60 min | 2 hr | 8 min | ●●●○○ | 45% | 6 🧮 🎲 | | Gin Rummy | 2–2 (best 2) | 30 min | 40 min | 5 min | ●●○○○ | 55% | 5 🧮 | | Indian Rummy | 2–6 (best 4) | 30 min | 45 min | 6 min | ●●○○○ | 60% | 5 | | Spades | 2–6 (best 4) | 30 min | 50 min | 6 min | ●●○○○ | 40% | 5 | | The Mind | 2–4 (best 3) | 20 min | 25 min | 90 sec | ●○○○○ | 45% | 5 | | Uno | 2–10 (best 4) | 30 min | 45 min | 3 min | ●○○○○ | 85% | 7 🧮 |

Board games

| Game | Players | Box says | Actually | Teach | Weight | Luck | Rulings | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Catan | 3–4 (best 4) | 60 min | 90 min | 15 min | ●●○○○ | 50% | 6 🎲 | | Cluedo | 3–6 (best 4) | 45 min | 50 min | 7 min | ●●○○○ | 55% | 6 | | Ludo | 2–4 (best 4) | 30 min | 45 min | 3 min | ●○○○○ | 92% | 5 | | Monopoly | 2–8 (best 4) | 60 min | 3 hr | 10 min | ●●○○○ | 70% | 6 | | Patchwork | 2–2 (best 2) | 30 min | 30 min | 5 min | ●●○○○ | 20% | 6 | | 7 Wonders Duel | 2–2 (best 2) | 30 min | 40 min | 12 min | ●●●○○ | 30% | 6 | | Ticket to Ride | 2–5 (best 4) | 60 min | 70 min | 8 min | ●●○○○ | 45% | 6 |

Word games

| Game | Players | Box says | Actually | Teach | Weight | Luck | Rulings | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Codenames Duet | 2–4 (best 2) | 15 min | 25 min | 5 min | ●●○○○ | 30% | 6 | | Scrabble | 2–4 (best 2) | 60 min | 75 min | 6 min | ●●○○○ | 40% | 6 🧮 |

Party games

| Game | Players | Box says | Actually | Teach | Weight | Luck | Rulings | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Charades | 4–20 (best 8) | 30 min | 45 min | 2 min | ●○○○○ | 35% | 5 | | Codenames | 2–8 (best 6) | 15 min | 25 min | 4 min | ●○○○○ | 25% | 5 | | Fishbowl | 6–20 (best 10) | 40 min | 55 min | 4 min | ●○○○○ | 30% | 5 | | Skull | 3–6 (best 5) | 30 min | 30 min | 3 min | ●○○○○ | 25% | 5 |

Social deduction

| Game | Players | Box says | Actually | Teach | Weight | Luck | Rulings | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Werewolf | 7–20 (best 12) | 30 min | 40 min | 5 min | ●●○○○ | 30% | 6 |

Dice games

| Game | Players | Box says | Actually | Teach | Weight | Luck | Rulings | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Yahtzee | 1–10 (best 4) | 30 min | 30 min | 4 min | ●○○○○ | 75% | 5 🎲 |

Abstract strategy

| Game | Players | Box says | Actually | Teach | Weight | Luck | Rulings | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Azul | 2–4 (best 2) | 45 min | 40 min | 6 min | ●●○○○ | 30% | 6 | | Backgammon | 2–2 (best 2) | 30 min | 25 min | 10 min | ●●●○○ | 45% | 6 🎲 | | Battleship | 2–2 (best 2) | 20 min | 20 min | 90 sec | ●○○○○ | 65% | 5 | | Chess | 2–2 (best 2) | 30 min | 45 min | 10 min | ●●●●○ | 0% | 6 | | Hive | 2–2 (best 2) | 20 min | 25 min | 4 min | ●●●○○ | 0% | 6 | | Xiangqi | 2–2 (best 2) | 30 min | 35 min | 10 min | ●●●○○ | 0% | 7 |

🧮 scorer · 🎲 odds table · bold playtime is the real one

The wall of shame

Every one of these is a house rule. None of them is official. Most people have played them their whole lives without ever knowing that.

| Game | "Rule" | The actual rule | |---|---|---| | Crazy Eights | Do Twos make the next player draw, and do Queens skip? | Not part of the base game. | | Monopoly | Do you collect money from Free Parking? | No. Free Parking does nothing at all in the published rules. It is a resting space and pays nothing. This is probably the most widely played rule that… | | Pablo | Which cards have powers? | There is no single authority, so no set is official. The most widely used set is below, and it is worth stating out loud before dealing. | | Pablo | What happens if you call Pablo and are not lowest? | Universally penalised, but the size varies. | | Uno | Can you stack a Draw Two on a Draw Two, or a Draw Four on a Draw Four? | No. Under the published rules there is no stacking. A player hit with a Draw Two draws two cards and loses their turn — they cannot pass the penalty a… | | Uno | Do you keep drawing until you get a card you can play? | No. Officially you draw exactly one card. If it can be played you may play it immediately; if not, your turn ends. |

Every ruling on file

| Game | Question | Official? | How widely played | |---|---|---|---| | Azul | Can you take just some of the tiles of a colour? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Azul | What happens to tiles that do not fit in your pattern line? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Azul | Can you fill a pattern line with a colour already on your wall in that row? | ✅ yes | common | | Azul | Does taking from the centre first cost you? | ✅ yes | common | | Azul | Do unfinished pattern lines stay for the next round? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Azul | Does the game stop the instant someone completes a row? | ✅ yes | common | | Backgammon | Do you have to play both dice if the move is bad for you? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Backgammon | Who can double after a double has been accepted? | ✅ yes | common | | Backgammon | Can you move other checkers while one is on the bar? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Backgammon | Can you immediately redouble when offered a double? | ❌ no | common | | Backgammon | What happens if you roll higher than any checker you have left? | ✅ yes | common | | Backgammon | When does a win count double or triple? | ✅ yes | common | | Battleship | Can two ships be placed next to each other? | ✅ yes | common | | Battleship | Do you have to say which ship has been sunk? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Battleship | Is going first an advantage? | ✅ yes | common | | Battleship | Do you get another shot when you score a hit? | ❌ no | common | | Battleship | Can ships be placed diagonally? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Blackjack | Is an Ace worth 1 or 11? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Blackjack | If both you and the dealer bust, is it a push? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Blackjack | Does the dealer have a choice about hitting? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Blackjack | Should you take insurance? | ✅ yes | common | | Blackjack | Do five cards under 21 win automatically? | ❌ no | regional | | Catan | Who discards when a 7 is rolled? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Catan | Can players trade when it is not their turn? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Catan | What happens to Longest Road when someone ties it? | ✅ yes | common | | Catan | Can you build on someone else's turn? | ✅ yes | common | | Catan | Do you collect resources on the first roll of the game for everyone? | ✅ yes | common | | Catan | Is the robber allowed to sit on the desert forever? | ❌ no | common | | Charades | Can you point at something in the room to indicate a word? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Charades | Is "sounds like" allowed? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Charades | Can you mouth the word silently? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Charades | Does a guess count if they say the right words in the wrong order? | ❌ no | common | | Charades | Do you have to signal the number of words before acting? | ✅ yes | common | | Chess | What is en passant and when can you do it? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Chess | When exactly are you allowed to castle? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Chess | If a player cannot move, do they lose? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Chess | Must a promoted pawn become a queen? | ✅ yes | common | | Chess | If you touch a piece, must you move it? | ✅ yes | common | | Chess | How does a game end in a draw when neither side can win? | ✅ yes | common | | Cluedo | Does everyone show you a card, or only the first player who can? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Cluedo | What happens if your accusation is wrong? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Cluedo | Can you name a card that is in your own hand? | ✅ yes | common | | Cluedo | Do you have to be in a room to make a suggestion? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Cluedo | If your character is moved into a room by someone else, can you suggest from there? | ✅ yes | common | | Cluedo | Can you use a secret passage and still make a suggestion? | ✅ yes | common | | Codenames | What exactly is a legal clue? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Codenames | Can your clue be a word visible on the grid? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Codenames | Do you always get one extra guess? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Codenames | Can you give a clue for zero words? | ✅ yes | common | | Codenames | Are homophones and near-spellings allowed? | ❌ no | common | | Codenames Duet | How many agents are there in total? | ✅ yes | common | | Codenames Duet | Can a word be an assassin for one player and an agent for the other? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Codenames Duet | Can your clue be a word visible on the table? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Codenames Duet | Are compound words and proper nouns allowed as clues? | ❌ no | common | | Codenames Duet | How many guesses does your partner get? | ✅ yes | common | | Codenames Duet | Can you give a clue for zero? | ✅ yes | rare | | Coup | Do you have to coup when you have ten coins? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Coup | What happens when you are challenged and you really had the card? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Coup | Can you challenge someone who blocks you? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Coup | If your assassination is challenged and fails, do you get the coins back? | ✅ yes | common | | Coup | If an assassination succeeds against a player with one card, and they challenge and lose, do they lose two? | ✅ yes | rare | | Coup | When you lose a card, do you choose which one and does everyone see it? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Crazy Eights | Which cards have special powers in Crazy Eights? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Crazy Eights | Do Twos make the next player draw, and do Queens skip? | ❌ no | near universal | | Crazy Eights | Do you draw until you can play, or just one card? | ✅ yes | common | | Cribbage | Can you claim points your opponent missed? | ❌ no | common | | Cribbage | Does a run have to be played in order during the pegging? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Cribbage | Does a four-card flush score in the crib? | ✅ yes | common | | Cribbage | What happens when the starter card is a jack? | ✅ yes | common | | Cribbage | If your opponent reaches 121 first, do you still count your hand? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Dominion | Where does a card you buy go? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Dominion | How many actions and buys do you get? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Dominion | Which empty piles end the game? | ✅ yes | common | | Dominion | Do you have to reveal a Moat to be protected from an attack? | ✅ yes | common | | Dominion | When exactly do you shuffle your discard pile? | ✅ yes | common | | Dominion | Who wins if two players tie on victory points? | ✅ yes | common | | Fishbowl | Do you use the same slips in all three rounds? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Fishbowl | Can you gesture while giving your one word in round two? | ✅ yes | common | | Fishbowl | Can you skip a slip you cannot get? | ❌ no | common | | Fishbowl | What happens if the timer goes while a slip is being guessed? | ✅ yes | common | | Fishbowl | Can you use part of the phrase on the slip? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Go Fish | Can you ask for a card you do not already have? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Go Fish | Do you get another turn if the other player hands cards over? | ✅ yes | common | | Go Fish | What if you draw the exact card you asked for? | ❌ no | common | | Go Fish | What happens when you run out of cards but the pond is not empty? | ✅ yes | common | | Hearts | When can you lead a heart? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Hearts | Can the queen of spades be played on the first trick? | ✅ yes | common | | Hearts | What happens when someone shoots the moon? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Hearts | Do you look at the cards passed to you before choosing what to pass? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Hearts | Is the jack of diamonds worth minus ten? | ❌ no | common | | Hive | What happens if moving a tile would split the hive? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Hive | When must the queen bee be placed? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Hive | Can you open the game by placing your queen? | ✅ yes | common | | Hive | Can a tile move through a narrow gap between two others? | ✅ yes | common | | Hive | Do your own tiles count towards surrounding your queen? | ✅ yes | common | | Hive | What if both queens are surrounded at the same time? | ✅ yes | rare | | Jaipur | Do camels count towards your hand limit? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Jaipur | Can you take just some of the camels? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Jaipur | Can you sell a single diamond? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Jaipur | Can you use camels in a swap? | ✅ yes | common | | Jaipur | What ends a round? | ✅ yes | common | | Jaipur | Who gets the camel bonus if both players have the same number? | ✅ yes | rare | | Love Letter | Do you have to play the Countess? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Love Letter | What happens if a Prince forces you to discard the Princess? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Love Letter | Can a Guard name another Guard? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Love Letter | What if everyone left is protected by a Handmaid? | ✅ yes | common | | Love Letter | Who wins if two players tie on card value at the end? | ✅ yes | common | | Love Letter | Can you look back through the discarded cards? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Ludo | What happens if you roll three sixes in a row? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Ludo | Do you need an exact roll to get home? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Ludo | Can two of your tokens block opponents from passing? | ❌ no | regional | | Ludo | Are the starting squares safe from capture? | ✅ yes | common | | Ludo | Can you decline to move if every option is bad? | ✅ yes | common | | Monopoly | Do you collect money from Free Parking? | ❌ no | near universal | | Monopoly | What happens if you land on a property and do not buy it? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Monopoly | Do you charge double rent on a full colour group? | ✅ yes | common | | Monopoly | Can you run out of houses? | ✅ yes | rare | | Monopoly | Can you collect rent while in jail? | ✅ yes | common | | Monopoly | Do you get double for landing exactly on Go? | ❌ no | common | | Pablo | Is Pablo the same game as Cabo? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Pablo | Which cards have powers? | ❌ no | near universal | | Pablo | What happens if you call Pablo and are not lowest? | ❌ no | near universal | | Pablo | Can you get rid of a card by matching the discard? | ❌ no | common | | Patchwork | Who takes the next turn? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Patchwork | Can you buy any patch from the circle? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Patchwork | Can patches be rotated or flipped over? | ✅ yes | common | | Patchwork | How much does an empty square cost? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Patchwork | Can both players get the seven-by-seven bonus? | ✅ yes | common | | Patchwork | How far do you move when you take buttons instead of a patch? | ✅ yes | common | | Texas Hold'em | What if the best hand is the five community cards themselves? | ✅ yes | common | | Texas Hold'em | Can you say "I call, and raise"? | ✅ yes | common | | Texas Hold'em | We both have a pair of kings — who wins? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Texas Hold'em | Does one suit beat another? | ✅ yes | common | | Texas Hold'em | Is Ace-2-3-4-5 a straight? | ✅ yes | common | | Texas Hold'em | How small can a raise be? | ✅ yes | common | | Gin Rummy | What counts as deadwood? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Gin Rummy | When are you allowed to knock? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Gin Rummy | What happens if the opponent has less deadwood than the knocker? | ✅ yes | common | | Gin Rummy | Can you add your cards to the knocker's melds? | ✅ yes | common | | Gin Rummy | How much is going gin worth? | ❌ no | common | | Indian Rummy | Can you declare without a pure sequence? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Indian Rummy | Can a joker be used inside a run? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Indian Rummy | How is the wild joker chosen? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Indian Rummy | How many points do you lose when someone else declares? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Indian Rummy | Can you quit a hand early? | ✅ yes | common | | Scrabble | What happens when you challenge a word? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Scrabble | What is a blank worth, and can you take it back? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Scrabble | When do you get the fifty-point bonus? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Scrabble | Do premium squares keep working on later turns? | ✅ yes | common | | Scrabble | Are proper nouns allowed? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Scrabble | Are obscure two-letter words really allowed? | ✅ yes | common | | 7 Wonders Duel | Do military and science wins end the game immediately? | ✅ yes | near universal | | 7 Wonders Duel | Can you buy resources from your opponent? | ✅ yes | common | | 7 Wonders Duel | How many coins do you get for discarding a card? | ✅ yes | common | | 7 Wonders Duel | Can both players build all four of their wonders? | ✅ yes | common | | 7 Wonders Duel | Can you take a card that is partly covered? | ✅ yes | near universal | | 7 Wonders Duel | When do you get a progress token? | ✅ yes | common | | Skull | Which discs do you flip first when you win the bid? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Skull | Who chooses which disc you lose? | ✅ yes | common | | Skull | Can you bid more discs than are on the table? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Skull | Can you rejoin the bidding after passing? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Skull | Can a player with one disc still win? | ✅ yes | common | | Spades | What happens to tricks you win beyond your bid? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Spades | Can you signal to your partner? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Spades | Is blind nil a real bid? | ❌ no | common | | Spades | When can spades be led? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Spades | If your partner bids nil, do their tricks count against you? | ✅ yes | common | | The Mind | What exactly counts as communicating? | ✅ yes | near universal | | The Mind | What happens to lower cards when someone plays out of order? | ✅ yes | common | | The Mind | Can one player use a throwing star alone? | ✅ yes | common | | The Mind | What if two players play at exactly the same moment? | ✅ yes | common | | The Mind | Can you rearrange or hold your cards where others might see? | ✅ yes | common | | Ticket to Ride | Does taking a face-up locomotive cost your whole turn? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Ticket to Ride | Do unfinished tickets cost you points? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Ticket to Ride | Can one player claim both tracks of a double route? | ✅ yes | common | | Ticket to Ride | What happens if two players tie for the longest route? | ✅ yes | common | | Ticket to Ride | Does the longest route count branches? | ✅ yes | common | | Ticket to Ride | Can other players see how many tickets you are holding? | ✅ yes | common | | Uno | Can you stack a Draw Two on a Draw Two, or a Draw Four on a Draw Four? | ❌ no | near universal | | Uno | Can you play a Wild Draw Four whenever you like? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Uno | What actually happens if you forget to say "Uno"? | ✅ yes | common | | Uno | Do you keep drawing until you get a card you can play? | ❌ no | near universal | | Uno | Can you win by playing an action card as your last card? | ✅ yes | common | | Uno | Can you play out of turn if you hold the identical card? | ❌ no | common | | Uno | Do Sevens and Zeros swap hands? | ❌ no | common | | Werewolf | Can eliminated players talk? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Werewolf | Can the moderator also have a role? | ✅ yes | common | | Werewolf | Do werewolves have to kill everyone to win? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Werewolf | Should the seer announce what they know? | ✅ yes | common | | Werewolf | Can the village choose not to eliminate anyone? | ❌ no | common | | Werewolf | Can werewolves eliminate one of their own? | ✅ yes | common | | Xiangqi | Can the two generals face each other down an open file? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Xiangqi | Is stalemate a draw? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Xiangqi | Does the horse jump like a knight? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Xiangqi | How exactly does the cannon capture? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Xiangqi | Can you draw by repeating check forever? | ✅ yes | common | | Xiangqi | Can the elephant cross the river? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Xiangqi | When can a soldier move sideways? | ✅ yes | common | | Yahtzee | What happens if you roll a second Yahtzee? | ✅ yes | common | | Yahtzee | Can you pick up dice you already set aside? | ✅ yes | common | | Yahtzee | Does a large straight also count as a small straight? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Yahtzee | Can you skip a turn if nothing fits? | ✅ yes | near universal | | Yahtzee | Does three of a kind score just the three matching dice? | ✅ yes | common |

Who has settled an argument here

Mohit

203 rulings on file. Add the one your table argues about — it is one entry, no code, and no build step.

By the numbers

| | | |---|---| | Games | 37 | | Rulings | 203 | | Of those, not official rules | 25 | | Not official, yet played nearly everywhere | 6 | | Games with a runnable scorer | 5 | | Games with an odds table | 5 | | Documented variants | 30 | | Rulings that are region-specific | 10 | | Games playable with a six-year-old | 7 | | Games needing nothing but people | 3 | | Minutes the boxes are collectively lying by | 480 | | Worst offender | Monopoly, over by 120 min |