Mahjong Group Assembled! Need Advice on Rules...
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2012 11:48 am
Okay, so after two months of scouring local gamestores, various local gaming discussion groups, etc. I've managed to find 12 interested people for a Riichi Mahjong club. We will have our first meeting at my house on 3-Nov-2012. My wife is kindly providing a Japanese menu, various oriental teas and some ambiance. I've got plenty of equipment but my main task that day will be to bring everyone up to speed on the Riichi rules. Two of us have 95% of the rules down. Another two have played the Mahjong mini-game in Yazuka 4 (PS3) and feel at least somewhat comfortable. Most of the rest have played some flavor of non-Japanese Mahjong in the past though 2 have not played any form of Mahjong at all.
I'm going to put together a Power Point presentation along with a single page Player Aid to get people up and running for the day. I'm going to reduce the rule-set for this first meeting - letting people know that I'm trimming some of the rules to make this more enjoyable for the group as a whole... we can introduce those additional rules in the future should this go well.
My current thoughts:
Teach them the basic shape of winning hands (4 sets and a pair or 7 pairs... I'll avoid 13 Orphans).
Teach them the basics of play - Draw, Discard, Pon, Chi, Kan (and for now I'll simply call the melds that those actions form: Pon, Chi, Kan though I understand that's not technically right), Ron and Tsumo. I'll try to avoid English here so they get used to the Japanese terms.
Teach them the basics of declaring Riichi/Reach. I think I'll simplify the Furiten rules slightly and say that you can't claim any tile in your discard pond and expand upon it later.
Teach them the basic Yaku and provide them a list of the more common Yaku for our first session. I'll skip Yakuman limit hands for now. I'm going to totally avoid mini-points - and just calculate every hand at 30fu.
Teach them about open and closed hands... and why keeping it closed can be good.
Teach them about dora and the concept of han/fan.
Teach them etiquette of building the wall, drawing, discarding, play rotation, continuances, etc. I'll skip teaching any defensive play or folding techniques so they can experience the fun of just "going for it". Hook em first.
I'll skip odd cases like 9-Tiles-9-Types and will not worry about any sort of Chombo penalties for this session.
We will be playing round-robin (after the tutorial) so we will mix up the tables throughout the day with a little discussion between games.
Any well-meaning suggestions or comments are welcome!
I'm going to put together a Power Point presentation along with a single page Player Aid to get people up and running for the day. I'm going to reduce the rule-set for this first meeting - letting people know that I'm trimming some of the rules to make this more enjoyable for the group as a whole... we can introduce those additional rules in the future should this go well.
My current thoughts:
Teach them the basic shape of winning hands (4 sets and a pair or 7 pairs... I'll avoid 13 Orphans).
Teach them the basics of play - Draw, Discard, Pon, Chi, Kan (and for now I'll simply call the melds that those actions form: Pon, Chi, Kan though I understand that's not technically right), Ron and Tsumo. I'll try to avoid English here so they get used to the Japanese terms.
Teach them the basics of declaring Riichi/Reach. I think I'll simplify the Furiten rules slightly and say that you can't claim any tile in your discard pond and expand upon it later.
Teach them the basic Yaku and provide them a list of the more common Yaku for our first session. I'll skip Yakuman limit hands for now. I'm going to totally avoid mini-points - and just calculate every hand at 30fu.
Teach them about open and closed hands... and why keeping it closed can be good.
Teach them about dora and the concept of han/fan.
Teach them etiquette of building the wall, drawing, discarding, play rotation, continuances, etc. I'll skip teaching any defensive play or folding techniques so they can experience the fun of just "going for it". Hook em first.
I'll skip odd cases like 9-Tiles-9-Types and will not worry about any sort of Chombo penalties for this session.
We will be playing round-robin (after the tutorial) so we will mix up the tables throughout the day with a little discussion between games.
Any well-meaning suggestions or comments are welcome!