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[Morgrim7]

What are some of the most crazy house rules you can think of? Here are a couple to start off...
- + $X means you gain that amount of treasure. (+$2 means gain a silver, when you play Mandarin you gain a Gold)
- Play with all the Victory cards instead of eight, and all the curses instead of ten.

[barsooma]

No three pile ending.. there was a guy seriously advocating for this on the BGG forums.
EDIT: Actually I think maybe it was "Play until all the victory cards have been bought."

[jsh357]

At the tournament I went to recently the organizer wanted us to play until somebody buys 8 Provinces out of an infinite supply for the final round. That would have taken a while...

[Davio]

When I just started playing I've often played with an accidental house rule: All cards (not just the kingdom cards) have an extra "randomizer" card (with the blue border). This meant we've probably played quite a few games with 13 Provinces.

[Kuildeous]

The owner of our group's original Dominion set thought that Gardens was a basic card and included it in every game. Since we were newbies that didn't realize the merit of trimming our decks, you can guess which pile emptied first.

Not exactly a crazy house rule, but it's one that actually happened.

[yudantaiteki]

When I first played the game I read the entire Rules subforum on BGG to make sure I wasn't making any mistakes; these are some of the (mostly accidental) house rules I saw there:

- If you cannot do everything on a card, you cannot play it (i.e. if you do not have 2 actions in your hand, you can't play Village)
- You must use up all of your buys every turn. You must use all of your actions if you are able to.
- "+1 action" means "Play another action card right now."
- You can buy a curse during your buy phase and put it in another person's deck.
- At the beginning of your turn, either draw to 5 cards or discard down to 5.
- Break ties by counting the total treasure in decks.
- Everyone plays their actions, then everyone buys, then everyone cleans up.
- If a card gives you (say) +2 money, that money cannot be combined with any other source of money to buy things.
- If a card gives you +2 money, you take a Silver card (and so on).
- If a card gives you (say) +2 money, that gives +2 money per buy you have that turn.
- If a card says "reaction", it automatically blocks an attack in addition to whatever other powers it might have.
- After you use a reaction card once, discard it.

Some of the people declared their intention to keep playing with the wrong rules when they were pointed out, usually because they were beginners who couldn't really see how it would negatively affect the overall game.  I wonder if they ever switched to normal.

[Papa Luigi]

When I just started playing I've often played with an accidental house rule: All cards (not just the kingdom cards) have an extra "randomizer" card (with the blue border). This meant we've probably played quite a few games with 13 Provinces.

Yeah, the first few times I played the game I didn't read the rules closely enough and ended up putting all the randomizer cards in and playing with every victory card and curse card. So 13 Provinces, 11 of each kingdom card, and who knows how many Estates and Curses.

The other thing we did (and this was only maybe the first 1-2 games I played) was whenever someone played Moat, it would stop the attack and they would discard it and draw 2 cards.

[Kuildeous]

- If a card gives you (say) +2 money, that money cannot be combined with any other source of money to buy things.
...
- If a card says "reaction", it automatically blocks an attack in addition to whatever other powers it might have.

Ooh, or related to that, when you play a Workshop, you can gain a card costing more than 4 as long as you pay the difference.

Though, I've seen that more as a misinterpretation of the rules than a house rule.

I blame Moat for the reaction misunderstanding. When Intrigue came out, people in my group assumed that Secret Chamber stopped attacks because the other Reaction card did just that. I had a fight on my hands with that one.

[Avin]

Anytime a card says +N cards, you may immediately gain N new cards from the supply, regardless of cost. Including Colonies.

[Insomniac]

When my girlfriend and I started playing I properly selected the right number of green cards and 10 random kingdom cards (When we started I only had the Big Box [Base, Prosperity, Alchemy]) However, we played with all the curses. The first game with familiar in which I bought out the familiar stack almost made her quit dominion. Lucky for me she's about as competitive as me so she kept playing and when we learned the correct rules had a chuckle.

[Kirian]

Anytime a card says +N cards, you may immediately gain N new cards from the supply, regardless of cost. Including Colonies.

Wow.

[Morgrim7]

Anytime a card says +N cards, you may immediately gain N new cards from the supply, regardless of cost. Including Colonies.

Wow.

I'll play an Embassy.

[Grujah]

Open Pearl Diver/Apprentice.
Get a province, trash a province, get 8 Colonies.

[Morgrim7]

Imagine what could be dome with KC here! KC Apprentice, trash three colonies, gain five colonies, eight provinces, eight duchies, eight silk roads,  four dukes.

[Scott]

"BM is boring, so you must have at least four non-basic money cards in your deck at the end of the game to win"

[theory]

Captain_Frisk mentioned that the PAX East Dominion tournament a couple of years ago was determined by highest cumulative score.  The winners were all players who had played at the same table and mutually agreed to empty every pile in the game to fatten up everyone's decks for massive Gardens scores.

[Atto]

Once i played with a friend who embargoed important cards. First i was confused. Then i realized he thought the embargo markers would be removed if someone buys a card from that pile and gains the corresponding number of curses.

[jonts26]

I had a game on iso where my oppoent didnt realize embargo gave everyone curses, not just his opponents. He was in for a surprise when he bought the 4x embargoed province.

[yudantaiteki]

The unfortunate situations are when people use house rules to cover what they perceive as flaws in the game, when it's really just flaws in their strategy.  (I have friends who are compulsive house-rulers; as soon as they see something they think is broken, it's time for a banning or house rule.  Sometimes house rules are added before the first game is even over).

I've seen a few people declare their intent to keep playing with the "you must use buys" rule even after they know it's wrong.  The rationale seems to be that they're still in the pre-BM phase of "buy as many actions as you can", and they see this rule as a way to nerf action chains.  Also one person said that it added nuance to the "obvious" choice of always buying the most expensive stuff you can afford, since that will often mean having to take coppers.

Obviously this rule completely throws off the balance and costs of the cards -- if you were forced to use your buys, I'm not sure I would buy Market at $2, much less $5 (outside of a Gardens game).  And the unfortunate thing is that playing with these house rules prevents the players from improving their play.

Same goes for the "throw curse in another player's discard pile", which greatly increases the value of extra buys, slows down every game, makes Witch nowhere near a $5 cost card, etc.  This partly seems to stem from beginners who mainly view curse as "-1 VP" and aren't fully aware of the bigger drawback of the card, clogging your deck.

[yuma]

Same goes for the "throw curse in another player's discard pile", which greatly increases the value of extra buys, slows down every game, makes Witch nowhere near a $5 cost card, etc.  This partly seems to stem from beginners who mainly view curse as "-1 VP" and aren't fully aware of the bigger drawback of the card, clogging your deck.

When we first started we also played that curses could be given to other players after drawing them from your own deck... Weird accidental "house" rule. It ended up making Witch very weak because if someone bought it and gave out curses all those other curses would come flying back at them once the opponent's decks were reshuffled.  This was especially compounded as we would play 5-6 player game. Good times...

[eHalcyon]

Same goes for the "throw curse in another player's discard pile", which greatly increases the value of extra buys, slows down every game, makes Witch nowhere near a $5 cost card, etc.  This partly seems to stem from beginners who mainly view curse as "-1 VP" and aren't fully aware of the bigger drawback of the card, clogging your deck.

Clearly you should also add the house rule that Curses are kept separate from the deck and only counted at the end of the game.

[BJ Penn]

I play base Dominion sometimes at family gatherings at my uncle's house (the place I was introduced to Dominion).

We all sit around and choose the ten cards we want to play with every time.... Nobody else wants to play with any attack card of any kind ever.    Some big money variant almost always is the best strategy.

I really need to find some better people to play with IRL.