Game: Phantom Rummy

Thread: Re: Unfulfilled Potential

Verkisto — 2008-02-01T01:32:54+00:00

I'll second the "Mhing isn't that difficult" sentiment. It takes a few hands to get the scoring combinations, but once you get them, you remember them. And I made up a handy-dandy two-page summary that includes the different types of scoring combinations....

Thread: Re: Scoring

Peter The Rat — 2007-08-23T09:18:17+00:00

Hi Maik,
any news on your variants?
I find it rather intriguing that you are investing this time on this game!
I found it a nice and pleasant game to play with my niece and nephew! Also my sister, who doesn't play boardgames, but likes cardgames likes this game well. You did a very good job in explaining this game, as I found it difficult at times to explain it. I'd like to try your houserules too. I felt it too, that it might be the simplest and most effective strategy to just go for one set to fullfill the prerequisite for closing the round.
I never did a review myself of this game, because I always played it with the basic rules, which I found complicated enough for my fellow Non-gamers I was playing this game with.

Bye by Peter

Thread: Re: Rule Questions

elSchwabo — 2006-10-05T11:52:03+00:00

Hi Peter,

thank your very much for your help. This clarified everything.

Thread: Re: Rule Questions

Peter The Rat — 2006-10-04T10:19:48+00:00

Hi,
I try to answer to your questions!

1. You can only play 1 set on your turn! Only If you decide to finish the game you can play "exactly" 2 big sets and 1 small set.
2. You can play only play a small set to finish the game! But you can't play a small set during the game.
3. You don't get points for the small set! (not sure on this one)
4. No
5. Only the player who finishes the round gets points, therefor he has no cards in his hand left and can't get any points for them! :-)

Thread: Rule Questions

elSchwabo — 2006-09-28T10:11:54+00:00

Hi,

I have some Problems with the rules. Perhaps someone can answer my questions

1. How many sets can I play when it's my turn? Only one or as many as I want?
2. Can I only play a small set after I have played a big set?
3. Do I get a point for a small set? Otherwise it would be senseless to play small sets before I finish.
4. Can I add a card to a small set to make it a big set? I think not, but I'm not sure.
5. Do I get bonuspoints for every card that matches the top card of the pile, including the cards I have on my hand and which I didn't need to fulfil my goal hand?

The rules are a little bit confusing.

Thanks for your help

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:37:39+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:37:35+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:37:28+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:37:22+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:31:04+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:31:00+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:30:51+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:30:44+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:30:40+00:00

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onedayyou — 2006-09-18T13:30:36+00:00

Thread: Re: Unfulfilled Potential

msaari — 2006-01-31T15:53:45+00:00

Mhing isn't that difficult, actually. Most of the scoring options are fairly unusual, so the players don't have to know them by heart. Knowing stuff like "less suits is better" and "similar sequences of cards are good" goes a long way, as long as there's one player who knows the game and does the scoring.

Thread: Scoring

Maik — 2006-01-31T15:41:33+00:00

As I’ve noted in my review, I think that Phantom Rummy needs a scoring fix to improve balance and introduce some real strategy into the game. Such a fix should, in my opinion, fulfill the following criteria:

a) The decision between finishing fast and finishing with a lot of points should be meaningful
b) Scoring should stay simple
c) The fix should work for any number of players

Here are two of the ideas I’ve had so far – I deem one of them good enough to warrant trying it out in a game, but I’d love to get a discussion going on this.

Every player scores a point for each of his opened sets
This is the idea I rejected more or less directly, since instead of making the strategy more interesting, it waters it down. Probably the game would be even more automatic than it is now.

The winner of a round subtracts a point for each of his opponents‘ opened sets
This seems rather promising and might actually accomplish something, but it clearly does not scale well with the number of players – with four players you might easily get to a point where winning a round will net you negative points. But it could be refined into ...

The winner of a round subtracts a point for each opened set of his opponent with the most open sets
While this is beginning to violate point b), I hope that it does at least nudge the game in the right direction. I’ll try it out as soon as I can and will post the results here.

Cheerio,
Maik

Update on February 27th: With two players, this works very nicely and makes for a lot more interesting games. We've implemented another small change after noticing that only the conditional points on the 3s and 5s (+2 for three open sets) were ever scored: conditions only apply to your opened sets, not to your goal hand. This appears to make the 4s (+5 for all sets in one color) viable, but not overpowered. More news as we try these house rules with three or four.

Thread: Re: Unfulfilled Potential

Maik — 2006-01-31T15:40:01+00:00

Thanks for the kind words, and thanks to Mikko for mentioning Mhing - I can see how scoring points on an exponential scale would help to make finishing late a lot more worthwhile. And I’ll certainly hold my eyes open for a copy of this at the Spiel’06 or game stores round here.

I am, however, not quite ready to give up on Phantom Rummy, since Mhing with its 18 scoring options does appear to be a bit less immediately accessible. Since I’ve written the review, I pondered the possible solution to the scoring dilemma a bit more. I’ve placed some untested ideas in the Variants folder in the hopes of striking up a discussion that might, eventually, lead to a workable fix.

Cheerio,
Maik

Thread: Re: Unfulfilled Potential

msaari — 2006-01-31T05:42:20+00:00

Nice review, and I agree with what you said. It's a nice game, but I'll probably rather play Mhing, where the balance between finishing quick and the big scoring hands is way better. So if that's what you're looking for, try Mhing.

It's out of print, but as it's basically a card version of Mahjong, it's easy to find Mahjong cards (there are some you can print off the web, for example) and the score hands are available at the Geek (they are a very good simplification of Mahjong, much like Phantom Rummy).

Thread: Re: red 1/7 bonus condition

msaari — 2006-01-31T05:38:26+00:00

I'd say former. That's a common bonus score in Mahjong, using terminals (ones and nines in Mahjong) in evey combination. If you need only one one or seven, it's way too easy.

Thread: Re: Unfulfilled Potential

AlexBrown — 2006-01-31T00:10:19+00:00

Thank you for the indepth and well done review. As a fellow fan of Fairy Tale and Masquerade, I was looking forward to this as well.

Thread: Unfulfilled Potential

Maik — 2006-01-30T19:54:17+00:00

Fairy Tale by Yuhodo Games was one of the surprise hits of the Essen Spiel’04, and it also became a favorite at our place – my profile information here on the Geek tells me that I played no game more often in 2005 than Fairy Tale. I also like Fairy Tale‘s elder (and considerably uglier) stepbrother Masquerade quite a bit, although fewer folks share that enthusiasm. With such a track record, it is no surprise that Phantom Rummy, Yuhodo’s latest offering, was one of the games that I actively sought out at the Spiel’05. Read on to find out how my great expectations were neither dashed nor quite fulfilled ...

Oooh, shiny - confusing, though
At first glance, there are a lot of similarities between Fairy Tale and Phantom Rummy: both are card games with exactly 100 cards, both have a fantasy theme and – the best news – both are graced with illustrations by Yoko Nachigami. Since the illustrations get more elbow room on Phantom Rummy’s cards and the layout is a bit less cluttered, looks have even improved a bit from the already beautiful Fairy Tale.

Sadly, once you want to learn what to do with this extraordinarily nice pack of cards, you’re in for a bad surprise: instead of providing rules in both Japanese and English languages, the rulebook offers Japanese and gibberish. By now, a corrected translation is up on the publisher‘s website, but I won’t deny that the catastrophic original rules and the frustrating attempts to extract some kind of working game from them did not endear me towards Phantom Rummy, to say the least. I’m reasonably sure that what is presented below is the way the game is supposed to be played, but I would not bet my life on it.

The rules, I guess
There are three main suits of cards (red, blue and yellow), each of which has four copies of the values from 1 to 7. The cards depict personages from three fantasy factions: blue for the undead, red for men and yellow for the angels. In addition, there are the item cards: four copies each of book, crown, sword and ... a bouquet. The last one puzzled me quite a bit, too.

Anyway, what you are trying to do is building sets of these cards, and there are only three possibly kinds of set: a Small Set with two cards of a kind (e.g. Red 4, Red 4) and Big Sets with either three of a kind or a run of three (e.g. Blue 2, Blue 3, Blue 4). Since the item cards are not numbered, they can never be used in a run of three, which makes it a bit harder to construct sets with them. Armed with this knowledge, let’s see how a round of the game plays out:

Each player is dealt a hand of seven cards. In addition, a pool of (x+1) cards are placed face-up on the table, x being the number of players. The player sitting left to the dealer picks one card from the pool and then may play a Big Set in front of him. If he does, he draws to cards from the stack to refill his hand back to seven cards. If he doesn’t, he has to discard one card face-up in front of him to, again leaving him with a hand of seven cards. A discarded card may be used by another player to immediately build a Big Set with it (in combination with two cards from that players hand, obviously). If several players make a grab for it, the one sitting closest to the left of the active player gets the discarded card. Otherwise it stays in the personal discard pile of that player, which is should openly display all cards placed in it during a game.

Once everybody’s hand is refilled to seven, the next player takes his turn in the same manner, and when the cards in the pool are depleted, it is refilled to (x+1) cards. This means that the player who can pick the first card from a fresh pool will also be the one to take the last card, which is not necessarily a good thing.

This is how it works, so I should explain how it ends: the Big Sets played out during the game will score points, but only for the player who manages to finish the game with the inventively named Goal Hand. This Goal Hand consists of two Big Sets and a Small Set (in case you wondered what they were good for), and if you are the one to complete it, every Big Set you played will gain you one point at least. Everybody else will get nothing, zero, nada – no matter how impressive the number of Sets they played might be.

More about scoring a bit further down, but before I’ll go into that, one last rule: if you should only be one card away from a Goal Hand at the end of your turn (at which point you should have exactly seven cards in your hand, unless something went awry), you may say „Ready“. Or something else that you and your gaming buddies can agree upon, like „Check“ or „Nonkertompf“. Declaring your „readiness“ has, like most things in life or gaming, a good and a bad side. It’s good because you may use a discarded card to complete your Goal Hand, even if somebody else would like to use it to biuld a Big Set. It’s bad because you may not change your hand anymore: if the card you draw during your turn is not one of those you needed to build your Goal Hand, you have to discard it right away.

Scoring and how it does not work
The exact number of points a completed Goal Hand is worth is the main difference between the basic and the advanced rules of Phantom Rummy. In both cases, each Big Set you played during the game scores one point. In addition, you may turn over the first card on the draw pile and see whether it matches a card in your played Big Sets or your Goal Hand. If it does, you score a point and may turn over another card. Obviously, this will work out better if you played a large number of sets. Less obviously, three of a kind will score far worse in these bonus draws than runs of three will.

Lastly, one copy of each card has its number printed in red instead of black – in the basic game, these cards in your sets or your Goal Hand will score an additional point each. The item cards are printed in red, which makes them rather attractive in spite of being a bit more difficult to play. In the advanced game, you only get bonus points for these cards if you fulfill certain conditions (such as „no 1s or 7s in your cards“), but then you get more than just a single point.

As might be gleaned from this summary of the rules, the central decision in the game is either going for small and safe points by setting up your Goal Hand as soon as possible, or going for big and risky points by playing a lot of sets before trying to still finish first. This is good; I love it when a game cajoles me into greediness and then punishes me for giving in. I’m strange that way. My sad and so far unsurmountable problem with Phantom Rummy is that the balance between the fast and the risky approach is completely out of whack: since you completely deny victory points to all your opponents by finishing first, the only sensible strategy is to build a Goal Hand right after playing the one Big Set that is the other (and so far unmentioned) prerequisite to finishing a round.

The advanced game is only aggravating the problem, since the time you lose in trying to build a Goal Hand within the constraints imposed by the bonus conditions are simply not worth the points you might eventually gain by fulfilling them. Which is all rather frustrating, because I feel that Phantom Rummy is only one tiny step away from being a great game instead of the pleasant, but rather mindless short filler that it is now. And I’m pretty sure that the solution lies in the scoring, not the game itself. Which runs rather smoothly, and I really should mention that a lot of folks I introduced to the game liked it a lot and did not seem to see the same problems with it that I do.

So, if you want an undemanding, original and extraordinarily beautiful little card game, Phantom Rummy is wholly recommended. Leave out the advanced game, since it only adds a lot of chrome that the game can’t really carry. If, however, you are hoping for a unique set collection game with depth and real strategy, you will have to do as I do and watch this space in the hope that somebody will find the one trick that turns Phantom Rummy into that game.

Thread: red 1/7 bonus condition

rrpeter — 2006-01-16T04:46:24+00:00

The rules for the bonus condition for red 1/7 cards states:

"If you used one or more cards that are either numbered "1" or "7" or are an Item card in your opened sets and any sets in hand, gain 2 points."

Does this mean that each of your sets (in hand and opened) has to either have at least one 1 or 7, or consist of items?

Or, alternatively, does it mean that any of your sets can have a 1, 7, or item (without requiring that each of the sets have one)?

I assume that the former interpretation is correct, but we had one player who insisted on using the second interpretation.

Thread: Re: Rule question

RPardoe — 2005-12-17T04:22:46+00:00

Reading through the rules I was struck by the Mah-Jongg style of play and was pleased that my thoughts were confirmed when I reviewed the entry here. So what does all this have to do w/ Andreas' question?

Just to comment that Peter is correct. Especially in the advanced game where you are trying to make specific combinations for points, it is important to know what has been discarded (and hence unavailable).

This has a direct counterpart in Mah-Jongg where discarded tiles are all face up in the center so all players can track the information - not just those with better card (tile) counting skills.

Thread: Re: Rule question

msaari — 2005-11-08T09:56:59+00:00

Yeah, Peter's right - it's a good to know what's been discarded. But we played that wrong anyway, as we kept the discards in a pile, not spread out. It doesn't hurt the game, anyway, if you play on a light level and don't worry too much.

Thread: Re: Rule question

Peter The Rat — 2005-11-07T14:32:41+00:00

Hi there!
It is not entirely true that it isn't important to keep the discarded cards visible if you plan to play the basic game!
Each card is in the deck only 4 times and if it gets dropped twice into the discard pile it may not be possible to make a big set with the remaining cards!
So it is important to keep an eye on the discarded cards even in the basic game!

My 2 cents!

Thread: Re: Rule question

Gonzaga — 2005-11-05T07:42:28+00:00

I didn't even notice you should keep all cards visible, and that certainly has no significance in the basic game (you could do with a single discard pile, really).
Somebody else in his rule explanations here mentioned, that you place the discarded cards side by side in front of you. But maybe he was referring to some advanced rules - I'm not that far yet.

Thanks Mikko ... that was a great help ... now I'm ready to play my first game of Phantom Rummy.

Greetings ... Andreas.

Thread: Re: Rule question

msaari — 2005-11-05T06:05:11+00:00

Gonzaga wrote:
What's the meaning of having all of your discarded cards visible in front of you. As I understood you may only "gain" the just discarded card. Can you take any of the former discarded cards to fullfil you goal hand or is this also restricted to a card that was just discarded from another players hand?

Only the last card may be gained by someone else. I didn't even notice you should keep all cards visible, and that certainly has no significance in the basic game (you could do with a single discard pile, really). In advanced game, there are limitations on using cards you've already discarded during the round, that's why it's important to know who discarded what.

Maybe someone can clarify the situation between "Ready" and the goal hand once again.

Goal hand is two sets and a pair. Ready hand is a goal hand that's missing a single card. When you say you're ready, the only thing you can do on your turn is to draw and discard a card from the table, unless you win with that card. You can't open new sets or change your hand.

The reward for being ready is the ability to win the game from someone else's discard.

The ways to win the game: draw a winning card on the table, gain a winning card from someone else. First one doesn't need "ready" (but you can be), second one needs. In either case, you need to end up with a valid goal hand (two sets and a pair) and at least one open set on the table.

Thread: Rule question

Gonzaga — 2005-11-04T16:13:04+00:00

What's the meaning of having all of your discarded cards visible in front of you. As I understood you may only "gain" the just discarded card. Can you take any of the former discarded cards to fullfil you goal hand or is this also restricted to a card that was just discarded from another players hand?

Maybe someone can clarify the situation between "Ready" and the goal hand once again.

Thanks ... Andreas.

Thread: Phantom Rummy at Helcon

msaari — 2005-11-02T08:50:40+00:00

I thought I had figured out how to play the game, when I found out the English rules had some serious mistakes (in addition to being pretty badly written). Those corrections made it almost crystal-clear, so I was in good position to try the game at Helcon. I also corrected some guys, who I saw playing the game. It's a shame, when the rules are that faulty...

Anyway, the game was good. It's basically Mahjong: you try to form a hand of three three-card sets and a pair. However, in Phantom Rummy, you must meld one of the sets on table, and you can actually meld as many sets you want, as long as you have at least one melded set and two sets and a pair in your hand. Cards are not drawn from the deck, but from open cards on the table. You can take someone else's discards, but only to meld; if you've said ready (you're one card away from victory) you can take a discard to win the game.

Points are scored for melded sets and red-numbered cards (each card appears four times in deck, one has a red number), and only for the winner. There are advanced rules, which give more points if certain conditions are fulfilled, but we didn't use those. Reaping in the points was easy enough: Ali won three hands, with six, four and four points, winning the game. I got the biggest score, though, as I scored seven points on one hand.

Phantom Rummy is light, fun and looks great. It's a simplified take on Mahjong, and at least I found it fresh enough. Tommy commented that the game didn't quite inspire him, so maybe it's attraction isn't universal, but if you like Rummy or Mahjong, Phantom Rummy is a solid, little game.

Thread: Re: Official words from Yuhodo.Inc. regarding translation er

Sandman1973 — 2005-10-20T11:36:14+00:00

I've now confirmed the above goal interpretation is correct.

I've also checked the following.

Can you gain without first opening? YES.

Thread: Official words from Yuhodo.Inc. regarding translation errors

Sandman1973 — 2005-10-20T11:28:30+00:00

These will also be put up on their website soon (perhaps along with others).

DISCARD PILE

(Wrong)
4.Playng a Short Game
(3) If the active player does not open a set, they must choose one card in
their hand and place it face-down in front of them.

(Right)
4.Playng a Short Game
(3) If the active player does not open a set, they must choose one card in
their hand and place it face-up in front of them.

GOAL CONDITION

(Wrong)
6.Goal Conditions
A player may score a goal if they meet one of the following conditions:

(Right)
6.Goal Conditions
A player may score a goal if they meet all of the following conditions:

(Wrong)
6.Goal Conditions
(2)They have opened more than one set.

(Right)
6.Goal Conditions
(2)They have opened one or more sets.

I still think that this is unclear and this is my interpretation of the goal conditions.

A player may score a goal if they have opened/gained one or more sets and can complete a Goal hand from either:
a "take" on their own turn (ready or not ready)
or
a "discard" during anther players turn (must be ready).

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

Peter The Rat — 2005-10-19T10:08:22+00:00

@Lorna

Do you mean the cards that will be flipped up each round and remain in the middle of the table?
These cards can ONLY be taken by the player whose turn it is.
You can only "Gain" cards that are discarded by the other players.

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

lorna — 2005-10-18T18:02:22+00:00

Thanks for the answers Peter, what about the face up cards you flip over at the beginning of each turn? If someone has called ready can they take any card to go out?

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

Peter The Rat — 2005-10-18T10:54:33+00:00

Hi Lorna!

1. You can take the discarded card from any player, but if two player decide to "gain a card only the first player clockwise gets it.

2. I think you are right with your observation that the point is, someone has to play at least one set before he can score a Goal Hand! Otherwise the game could be over to quickly!

3. You can take players discard cards and use them to meet the Goal ONLY if you said "Ready" beforehand! In this case you can "jump" out of order and win.

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

lorna — 2005-10-18T07:39:39+00:00

Played this game at Essen at the Yuhudo booth and agree that the rules are very poorly written. I can add a few points I "think" are correct and I still have questions of my own.

Discards are definitely face up. You may take the top discard, only from the player to your right if you are going to play a set of 3 cards. If you take a discard I "think" the next player gets his choice of face up cards but you don't really miss a turn as it will come back to you. I "think" the next round still starts with the player left of the previous start player even if the round ended with that person.

I suspect that you can only meet the goal (end the game/hand) if you have played more than one set. ie) you cannot go out if you haven't played any cards yet as a set of 3. This will help prolong the game for players to build up more points per hand, otherwise everyone just rushes to go out ASAP for a measly 1 or 2 points.

It makes sense you cannot play any card from your own discard pile but I did not get the sense you could not use those discarded cards if available by another means (someone else discards or it is one of the face up piles)

My question is if you are going out to end that game/hand can you take any player's discard? Also if you are going out and it is not your turn can you jump out of order to take the winning card from the face up cards?

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

magicm — 2005-10-17T17:16:22+00:00

Thats helps a lot.
Thank you.
Markus

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

Maik — 2005-10-17T16:55:16+00:00

@Peter

Ah, thanks - this clears up the issue of face-up or face-down discards. I'm still not sure what the "more than one set opened" is supposed to mean, but I think I'll just go ahead and try both your solution and mine. Either way, Phantom Rummy is definitely a contender for the worst rules ever.

Cheerio,
Maik

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

Peter The Rat — 2005-10-17T15:51:24+00:00

@Maik

Hi there, I think I can clarify your doubts:
The written rules are not clear but I I think I know what is meant:

You can NOT fullfill the "victory condition" if you have not played AT LEAST ONE big set in front of yourself at the table.

Hopefully I remember it right!

So you need the following: a Goal hand, at least one open Set in front of yourself. You may take the last fitting card from an opponent, if you said "ready" before!

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

Peter The Rat — 2005-10-17T15:43:10+00:00

Hi there,
I realized that the game itself is not as easy to teach, as the other 3 games from Yuhodo!
I really had many questions, when I played the game at the booth at Essen!
Still I think, I can answer most of your questions:

First up:
Each player has his own discard pile and all card are played FACE UP on this discard pile that ALL cards in the piles remain visible.
A card may taken(GAINED) from an opponent only in the moment it is played into the discard pile. If another player has taken his turn it may not be taken anymore. To gain a card is NOT considered a turn and happens OUT OF TURN. So a player may well GAIN a card, play the set, draw the cards and THEN do his OWN turn.

Second:
There are two goals in the game: First, play as many sets as possible to score many points. Second, fullfill the victory condition as fast as possible as only the person who fullfills the victory condition scores points. All other player don't get ANY points.

Third:
First play the basic games a few times get used to the gameplay! Only after knowing the gameplay well start playing the advanced game. Otherwise there are too many things to think and to handle.

1. If the player is one card away from a Goal Hand at this time, they may announce this by saying "ready."

Once a player has said "ready," until the end of that Short Game, if they cannot score a goal with a card that they take, they must put the taken card directly in their discard pile without changing their hand. They also may not open a set.
Whats the advantage to say Ready?
If I remember correctly, the advantage is, that you can get also cards from the opponents discard pile to fullfill a victory condition. If you don't say "Ready" you must use the card from the middle of the table to fullfill your victory conditions.
You may still GAIN cards from your oponents and play big sets to score points when fullfilling the victory condition.

What means THEY ?
THEY are the players who need only one card for winning and therefore have said "READY" alaud!

After a player says "Ready" he may not play any cards if he can't fullfill the victory conditions. He MUST discard the drawn card into his discard pile.

2. Must the player had sayd READY befor he can takes the card from a discard pile?
No, but the player can get a card from the opponents discard pile and WIN the actual round only if he said "ready"!

Or the owner of that discard pile ?
No

Or both ?
No

3. Calculating Points

Count the red cards only in that category i make the goal ? If i have a Goal Hand, dose the red cards count only in the hand and not in the opend set that i have played befor ?
The red cards each count one point. Red cards also score when fullfilling the victory conditions. Normally only "Sets" played before finishing the round score points, the cards that are played to end the round and win the game don't score. The big exception for this are the red cards, that each of them score 1 point!

4. If you could make a Goal Hand with any of the cards in your own discard pile, then you may not "gain" another player's discard to score a goal. Cards that have been "gained" out of your discard pile by other players are not considered part of your discard pile.
Hehe, this one is quite tricky! This is the most complicated advanced rule: The point is: YOU MAY NOT use any cards to fullfill your victory condition that are equal to the cards that you have in your own discard pile. If someone takes a card from your discard pile, he frees this card again.
Hmm, here the written rules contradict what I have learned when playing the game. Ín my opinion you may NEVER use equal cards as in your discard pile to fullfill your victory condidtion.

Here comes an even more comlicated rule:
Consider this examples:
You have in your hand: red 3, red 4
Now you have a red 5 in your discard pile!
If you draw another red 5 OR EVEN a red 2 you may not use them to finish the set!
If you have two red 3 in´your hand and a red 3 in the discard pile you may NOT use the fourth red 3 to finish a big set.

Hope I could help you with my answers!

Important notice:
I learned the game by letting another player and the designer explain it to me! This is a much better way than learning by these written "english" rules!

Thread: Re: Rule Clarification

magicm — 2005-10-15T23:25:46+00:00

Hallo
@ Maik
I thing, it must be that the discardpile is FACE UP.

This Rule (Is it one ?) need a Clarification
There must be a good game in the box, but i have not found it as yet.

There are many things that must cleared. I think there are many translations errors in the Rules.
http://yuhodo.jp/english/phantomrummy/pr_rule_en.htm

1.

If the player is one card away from a Goal Hand at this time, they may announce this by saying "ready."

Once a player has said "ready," until the end of that Short Game, if they cannot score a goal with a card that they take, they must put the taken card directly in their discard pile without changing their hand. They also may not open a set.

Whats the advantage to say Ready.?
What means THEY ?
Count this( Once a player has said "ready," until the end of that Short Game, if they cannot score a goal with a card that they take, they must put the taken card directly in their discard pile without changing their hand. They also may not open a set.
) then for every player?

2.

6.Goal Conditions
A player may score a goal if they meet one of the following conditions:
(1) They have a Goal Hand.
(2) They have opened more than one set.
(3) They can score a goal with another player's discard, and they have already said "ready."

Must the player had sayd READY befor he can takes the card from a discard pile?
Or the owner of that discard pile ?
Or both ?.

3.

7. Calculating Points
When a player scores a goal, the receive the following points:
(1) One point for every opened set.
(2) One point for every red card in an opened set or in the player's hand. (This is different in the Advanced Rules.)

Count the red cards only in that category i make the goal ? If i have a Goal Hand, dose the red cards count only in the hand and not in the opend set that i have played befor ?

4.

2. If you could make a Goal Hand with any of the cards in your own discard pile, then you may not "gain" another player's discard to score a goal. Cards that have been "gained" out of your discard pile by other players are not considered part of your discard pile.

???????????????? I can not understand this ?

Markus

Thread: Rule Clarification

Maik — 2005-10-15T09:22:17+00:00

There's not much of an actual game when playing according to the rules, which is probably more due to a mistranslation than due to bad design.
My main problem is the second goal condition, which reads as follows:
A player may score a goal if they meet one of the following conditions:
(1) ...
(2) They have opened more than one set.
(3) ...

I strongly suspect that this should be "They have opened more than one set more than any other player ." - otherwise this is so easy to fulfill that nobody will ever reach one of the other conditions.

Furthermore, I'm not sure whether cards are discarded face-up or face-down; the rules say face-down, but that makes large parts of the game nonfunctional.

I feel that Phantom Rummy is only a few clarifications away from being a really good game - can anyone help?

Thanks,
Maik