FRIGATEBIRD: THE RULES

USING SCRABBLE TILES MINUS THE BLANKS

Here are the rules:

All tiles except the blanks, which aren’t used, are placed upside down on the table and randomized. 

The dealer begins turning over tiles, and after each tile is turned, waits, until one gets the sense that everyone is ready for another tile. This forms the pool from which tiles can be drawn.

Words must be 4 or more letters (advanced players sometimes insist on 5 or more) and the usual Scrabble prohibitions are in place: no proper names, no contractions, etc.

Players may call out a new word AT ANY TIME. It’s speed that matters. The caller then moves the letters in from of him, and forms the word called, but facing the other players, upside down to the caller. That word  TEMPORARILY belongs to the caller. AT ANY TIME, another player can see how to take one or more tiles from the pool and take that word (or any other word already made) and call it out (as fast as possible. So words can be stolen back and forth, and it is important for players to protect their own words by making new words of them. 

   A new word made from an old word must always change the stem. Thus you can’t turn CHARM into CHARMING or CHARMED or CHARMS but you can turn it into MARCHING, or MARCHED.  

At the end of the game, words still possessed get scored. Our rule is 4-letter words count 4, no matter what letters compose them. Thus QUIT is only 4 points, but QUITE (or QUIET is 14–10 for the Q and 1 for each other letter.