House rule: draw two cards, choose one
Turns Candy Land and Sorry from pure luck into a small decision — and cuts the meltdowns.
eric has done this
Candy Land has no decisions in it. You draw a card, you move where the card says. A four-year-old draws the plumb-tree card on the second-to-last square, slides back to the start, and the game is emotionally over even though it will continue for eleven more minutes.
There's nothing to learn from it and nothing to feel except luck happening to you.
What you need
- Any draw-a-card-and-move game — Candy Land, Sorry, Trouble, Chutes and Ladders.
- Nothing else. This is a rule, not a purchase.
Do this
- Announce it as the house rule before the game starts, for everyone including adults. It's not a handicap for the youngest player.
- On your turn, draw two cards face up.
- Choose one and play it.
- Put the unused card on the bottom of the deck.
- That's it. Everything else about the game is unchanged.
What changes
Every turn now contains a real decision, and a kid who slides backward chose the lesser of two bad cards instead of having it done to them. Games get shorter, and the losing player is still engaged at the end.
You'll notice the difference in about three turns — the table gets quieter and kids start narrating their reasoning out loud, which is the actual point.
From Grandma Fox, who has been playing Sorry this way for decades.
