The least intuitive boardgame of all time
>>96713666It's not a board hand, it's a card game. Think about it as a funny version of Bridge.
>>96713666Tile/card game. Not Board. Boards require a board be used for gameplay
>>96713686Bridge is already fun tho
Tiles go with same or adjacent to form groups of three, more rarely two or four. What is adjacent is immediately obvious if you can count and read Chinese numerals. You can steal tiles from other players' discards under some circumstances. Cool hand combinations are worth more.The only weird thing about it is the scoring in some variants.
>>96713711So don't play mahjong.If your mother-in-law isn't Chinese, there's no reason to.
>>96713666unironically a skill issue
>>96713741Yellow-fever bros are up to a rude awakening if they ever succeeds.
>>96713666only in tournament setting, casually you can even call on dead hands and get minimum points (if you even play on points)
>>96713829Hell I'd love to play mahjong with my MIL but I married into a look white family from the cornfield.
>>96713666It gave Hitler the Super Aryan, so for this alone it's alright in my book.
>>96713666I play it everyday, Pon~Nya
>>96713736>Actually, you also need Yaku to score>There's a certain composition your hand should be but actually, there's exception hands like the 13 orphans>Actually, there's a dealer with special rules attached>Actually, wind changes directions>Actually, there are multiple kinds of stealing, sometimes it skips the next player's turn (I think)>Actually, there's also the dora>Actually, you need to learn all the terms in 2-3 different languages to follow conversations>Actually, there are different rulesets for different countries>Actually, there are different rulesets WITHIN countriesAnd after all that convolution, it's still extremely luck based most of the time. It does seem like fun once you learn it, but I'm not sure there's anything more inelegant that's so popular
>>96713666my internal lore was that random chinese nobles kept making up reasons to why in reality they won the game and nobody could say anything
Just remember that when you achieve Tenpai without calling Chii, Pon, or Kan; you may declare the Riichi Yaku :)
>>96717187>>Actually, you also need Yaku to score>>Actually, there's also the doraOnly in Japanese mahjong>>There's a certain composition your hand should be but actually, there's exception hands like the 13 orphansThere are two exceptions, the other is Seven Pairs.>>Actually, there's a dealer with special rules attachedOnly matters for scoring.>>Actually, wind changes directionsLike the actual wind.>>Actually, there are multiple kinds of stealing, sometimes it skips the next player's turn (I think)Not aware of any variant that does this. If you call, the tile goes to you instead of drawing a tile from the wall, then you make a discard. Then the next player goes. You can skip players BEFORE you. >>Actually, you need to learn all the terms in 2-3 different languages to follow conversations>>Actually, there are different rulesets for different countries>>Actually, there are different rulesets WITHIN countriesThat stuff goes beyond intuition, and the differences are mostly available tiles and how scoring works.The basic mechanic of mahjong is still pretty intuitive, I'd say.
>>96713666>go to Chinatown>see a porch/street patio with a table every 30 to 40 feet filled with elderly chinese playing thisIs this like Fortnite for elderly asians?
I downloaded mahjong soul for the tutorial and I really did focus on getting pairs, triples, and straights; but the games always ended in exhaustion because I couldn't remember what the hell I needed to finish my hand. A game that would greatly benefit from having a reference sheet on the table.
>>96718253Yes. My mom is retired and plays two to three times a week with her friends. Wins or loses anywhere from $20 to 100 per session.
>>96718844Don't be dumb anon, there's a bottom for that in the upper right corner.
>>96719055well it wasn't obvious I could find the reference there!
>>96718133>yaku, dorayeah, but the concept of allowed winning hands/minimum hand value/bonus tiles that increase the value of a hand exist also in other variants>two exceptionskan/kung are handled a little differently, and bonus tiles (flowers/seasons/pei in some 3p japanese versions etc.) are set aside and a replacement tile is drawn.Also, don't ever look up American Mahjong rules - or keep a vomit bag nearby.Just joking, but they completely break with the usual patterns, and change them yearly.
See once you get the man Kung yaku dora Riichi Kon pon chii down it's pretty simple
>>96713666That's the point, dumbass
>>96717187It's not really an intuitive game because it's highly abstract. It's like saying poker is unintuitive, and you're right, but it's not exactly a criticism.
>>96718844A lot of hands are going to be richii hands with no other yaku. Just remember you need 4 sets of either a sequence or a triplet, and a pair.
>>96714516There's a lot of non-Chinese old women who play it.Here's a pretty interesting book on the topic of mahjong in the US:https://www.amazon.com/Mahjong-Chinese-Making-American-Culture/dp/0190081791But in my experience Chinese mothers-in-law are the only ones that will have their opinion of you appreciably changed if you pick up the game.
>>96726646Forgot picture
>>96713666We know, Satan. Mahjong causes great damage to the human spirit without a single benefit.
>>96713666I live in a super Chinese neighborhood. While outside walking one day some house had gotten rid of like four amazingly high quality Mahjong sets. Linking games I thought this was my chance to be interested in Mahjong. I thought myself the basic Hong Kong rules. The problem is I have no one to play with because most Asian people want to speak their mother tongue while playing and also there are like a million variants so I would be slow on the pick up.The core of the game is dumb enough to be casual but deep enough to have excitement. It really is an amazing gambling game. Really all I do is teach my other white friends how to play and then only get to play with them like once in a blue moon and have to re-teach them.
>>96713666What board games are intuitive?
>>96717187The only time you'll have insufficient Yaku to go out on a hand is if you open an already weak hand or mix terminals or non-scoring honor tiles into it. Almost any hand could go out if you were allowed to mix terminals and honors into it, and it would be even worse if it were possible on an open hand. Those rules exist specifically to prune out the most common cases. It's like if having only an out of suit pair in poker forced you to fold automatically.
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