Comments on: Just Curious: House Rules?

By: christa

christa — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:03:10 +0000

HEY! I told you (Nate) that you could only leave a comment if you followed it up with some glowing comment about your wife…. Who’s not playing by the rules now?

By: Nate

Nate — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:59:43 +0000

Ok, just a word in my “defense.” Our family played “speed UNO” all the time when I was growing up. Even the adults during Christmas get-togethers. That is where you can “stack” draw two’s, play multiple cards (as long as they were the same color and number) in one turn and even play out of turn if you had the same color / number as the last card played. However, as fun as they are, these house rules seem only to be a way to make the game more interesting and competitive. Strategies are different and more complicated. When teaching our kids, I only wanted to keep it “by the rules” because this is one of the first strategy games they’ve been exposed to. Besides, they’re extremely competitive anyway and playing by the rules tones it down a bit. Also, stacking draw two’s on a 4 year old seems a bit cruel, even if he did just say “UNO.”

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:08:38 +0000

I would tend to follow the printed rules, whatever they may be. Just don’t let them get in the way of having family time and fun. We tried to play Canasta with another couple and we had so many disagreements on the rules that we never tried it again. We use to play that all the time with my Grampa.

By: Beth B.

Beth B. — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:25:59 +0000

I think we played that you could use the wild cards anytime but other times I have played it and people said that I couldn’t use them anytime!!! My family was tough and then I married Roger and HIS family! Talk about cut throat!!! Now I try to just watch them play their games!

Regarding a prior post about your homeschool name…I think what you have come up with is awesome! The first time I homeschooled, I called our school “Rose Cottage Homeschool.”
(I was homeschooling only our girls so I could get away with that sissy name!) THIS time, I didn’t have a choice!! The state (the same state as yours….) decided that we are to be called The Bower Academy. I prefer the Rose Cottage name, myself! (We had been watching the Anne of Green Gables series when we came up with that one!)
I miss your mama’s email while she’s away!!!! Beth

By: Drew

Drew — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:44:39 +0000

It’s been awhile since I played Uno with my family, but I vaguely remember the following:

No stacking. However, if the person in front of me put down a Draw Two, I took my two cards, but I still got to play a card so I could then turn around and give the player after me a Draw Two. They would only have to pick two cards though.

Wild cards, of any size, can be played whenever. If they happened to be played in front of a person with an Uno, even better.

If you can’t play a card, you keep picking cards until you have one to play.

By: stacey

stacey — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:17:35 +0000

i don’t know if this will help your side of the dispute but i have never heard of stacking on someone. if the person before me lays a draw two, i draw two then my turn is done. the next person gets to go.

as for a wild card: if you have a regular wild card, you can play that at any time regardless if you’re out of a color or not. however, if you have a draw four, you can only play that if you are out of the color currently being played.

if you don’t have a playable card, you draw one. if you cannot play it, it is the next person’s turn.

so, i think i just agreed with nate on all of the rules, sorry about that. trevor and i used to play uno all of the time (before avery ) we even had the uno game where the little machine spits cards out at you. in order to eliminate any arguments on our end since we were very competitive, we read the rules very carefully. i think we might have taken a lot of the fun out of it

have fun, it is a great family game!!!!

By: Stacy

Stacy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:34:31 +0000

I’m just a passerby… but what a great time for me to pass by! I learned Uno while working in a daycare and we played it just like you do. The only thing is, we called it “Uno Trains” which was different from original Uno where there’s no stacking of the cards. So everytime we played, we voted on if we wanted to play Uno or Uno Trains which gave us some variety. Also in Uno Train, there’s the option to add in the rule that if you’re putting down a 4, for example, you can put down ALL your 4’s in that play, but that does confuse things a little.

Now having said all that, I started having my family play Uno on vacations and my mom makes us read the directions to everything. That’s when I found out that I was playing wrong! You really are supposed to only draw one if you don’t have a card you can play. My opinion? It’s much more fun the ‘wrong’ way! The wild card part, however, we never did. We play it whenever we want…. plus no one else should know what’s in your hand anyways to know if you’re out of the color card. Basically, I think you should keep playing it your way!