My friends Ed and Mel gave me The Last Night on Earth when I was at PAX. I had to ship home everything I got there (only two boxes, because I was restrained this year) and it arrived yesterday.
Nolan and I played it after dinner last night, and we both enjoyed it a lot. I think he’d have had more fun if he hadn’t been plagued by disastrous rolls (a statistically improbable run of 1s and 2s) but we both liked it enough to play it again tonight.
However, there were several times during the game that I could feel his frustration so much, it threatened to make the game not fun for both of us. I helped him get through it with an appropriate balance of humor and empathy, but if he’d been just a few years younger, it would have been a disaster for us both and he’d never want to play it again.
So this morning, I thought of a way to help GeekDads and GeekMoms who encounter this with their own kids. It’s a variation on something my friends and I call Rule 17a.
Rule 17a is a house rule we invoke when we’re learning a new game. It basically states that, at any time, a player can say, “You know, I just realized that I did this stupid thing that I wouldn’t have done if I had a little more experience in the game. I’d like a do-over.” If the majority of the players agree (and we always do) then we just back up a little bit, and play on. It reduces the risk of doing something bone-headed that you can’t ever recover from, and it keeps the game fun.
As a parent, particularly when my kids were small, I was always looking for teachable moments, where I could take an experience they’d just had and use it to apply some kind of life lesson about basic values, like being honest or kind, doing the right thing when it wasn’t the easy thing, and being a good sport. Gaming presents tons of opportunities for parents to teach their kids about all of these things, as well some other important values: life isn’t fair, and when things don’t go the way you want them to, it’s not the end of the world. Never sacrifice the journey for the destination. Always do your best. It’s just a game.
But when your child has just rolled his third or fourth critical failure, and is wondering why he’s even playing the game instead of . . . well, instead of doing anything else, all that goes out the window. We want our kids to have fun when they play games, after all, and we all know that nothing ruins a game experience faster than totally horrible dice rolls, especially for kids.
Enter Rule 17b:
Depending on your kid, the game, and some X factor that I leave to you as a parent, you could give your child up to three “roll again” markers, like poker chips or glass beads or whatever, that she can use at any time to re-roll a particularly bad dice roll. They can use it whenever they want to, but once the marker it used, it’s gone for the rest of the game, so your child will have to choose very carefully about when she’s going to use it. This would be especially great with a couple of smaller kids, because the parent isn’t put in the position of awarding do overs and giving the appearance of favoritism (raise your hand if you’ve ever had to untangle that Gordian Knot.)
I wouldn’t suggest this with more traditional board games of the Monopoly variety, but I think it would work well in games like Settlers of Catan, Descent, or Talisman. It gives children a little bit more control than they’d otherwise have, so they’re not at the mercy of the dice as much as they would be without it. They have a little bit of a safety net, even when they get unlucky.
You’d still get those teachable moments about enjoying the journey and being a good sport, and when the markers run out, they’ll still see that life isn’t always fair, but by invoking Rule 17b, your child’s (and your) gaming experience is less susceptible to the fickle whims of chance. Your son or daughter is empowered at a time when they’d feel helpless and frustrated. Everyone has more fun, which is the whole point of gaming in the first place, and you may just add a gamer to the world.
Purists will say that this unbalances games. I’m not entirely sure I agree with that, because if you’re playing with small kids the older kids and adults have inherently unbalanced the game (unless they take it easy on the kids, which I never do, because once the figure out that you’re doing that, it’s a huge insult to them. Kids want to win, but they want to win on their own, especially when they’re playing with a parent.)
I want to hear from my fellow Geek and Gamer parents: what do you think of this idea?
Updated to add: Several people have suggested that all the players, including parents, get Mulligan Markers (or whatever you want to call them) so that everyone is on equal footing. Parents, of course, don’t have to use them, but at least they’re there. I think this is a super idea, and I wish I’d thought of it.
I’m not a parent but I’ve played with much younger siblings and even for games like Sorry! or Monopoly, Rule 17a and 17b can be very useful.
I vote yes.
Hey Wil,
Long Time….First time here. I fully agree with your proposed ‘A’ and ‘B’ rules. As a reformed weekend gamer that would endure marathon sessions of D&D, usually whomever was DM (we switched off to keep the game fresh) literally handed out 2 Poker chips as ‘do-overs’ on a hideous roll at a critical moment.
I can’t tell you how many times I would roll a ‘one’ at the worst moment possible resulting in me slipping on an invisible pebble leaving the orcs I was supposed to attack laughing hysterically as I searched for my dropped weapon.
Humiliation endures even in our geeky solitude.
Keep Rule 17B handy next time you play.
As far as rule 17A, all I can say is that I wish I had that rule when I was a dwarven fighter and I charged an 80-foot tall dinosaur with just a spear handy a-la Jeff Goldblum Jurassic Park (IAN FREEZE!). All that was left of me was broken armor and a really frustrated DM who kept asking me “So you wanted to charge this gigantic dinosaur alone with a spear instead of waiting to see what happens…Are your SURE???!!??” Yeh, it was my 2nd or 3rd time ever playing but man I never lived that one down.
Does anyone know of any ONLINE D&D sessions I can jump in on? I dont know anyone locally here in FL.
Keep up the good writings, Wil. Don’t ever lose that Gamers’ edge.
Cool idea, Wil. My own kids are pretty spaced out (like their dad, har har har) so on any given weekend, I could be playing Risk with my oldest, Uno with the middle, and Eat Random Stuff with the baby. I’ve certainly been known to back down on chance games, especially when things go badly for the kids, and of course, you can’t let them /know/ you’re doing it. Having a marker is also a good system; you’re released from the onus of being the Bad Guy. We’ve already used something like this for other Parental Challenges — using a kitchen timer to limit TV time, for example. It’s hard for a kid to rant about unfairness to a clock.
Any system that gives power to the kid — like 17b — is a good thing. It still lets the kids make mistakes (hello! teaching moment) but still gives them an out so they don’t break out in tears the next time you suggest playing. I like it.
My oldest is just getting to the age where he should be getting into more “serious” games like Catan, and I personally can’t wait. He’s a neat kid, and damnably lucky, and something like 17b would give him a little hope that I’m not just trying to beat up on him in-game.
I need a similar system when ke’s kicking my ass on the Playstation.
We seem to use a group cooperative approach to playing games that are new to someone, even when they aren’t a kid: e.g. show us all of your cards so we can help you get the best hand possible (and the least amount of points against you!).
Now obviously this doesn’t work for every game, but showing someone what other combinations of cards they can play (whether it’s Poker or Quiddler) also allows them the opportunity to learn the game. Much more fun for everyone to see who can come up with the best combo of cards in a given set as well.
I agree with the token idea. Whether you are an adult or a child, a devastating series of setbacks that depend only on randomness can really destroy the fun of a game. That’s why DMs roll behind a screen and describe the results! I think the only difference between kids and adults in this case is that adults are usually more socialized to handle the disappointment maturely and put it in perspective.
Well, let me put it this way. When my kids are a little older and ready to start gaming, I’m a-gonna steal rule 17b. (My group already has a house rule of 17a, and I’ll probably keep that as well.)
Rerolls are often built in to the game mechanics of Games Workshop games. In Blood Bowl, for example, you HAVE to start your team with rerolls or you’re screwed.
Then there’s the expansion to Settlers of Catan I just bought that replaces the dice roll with event cards that spread the dice rolls out to their statistical frequencies.
So yeah – good idea. A good game should never be ruined by bad dice rolls. “Randomness” is probably the most hated thing by the snobs over at boardgamegeek.com.
My gaming group actually used variations of both 17a and 17b when we had our first session of 4th edition D&D this summer, and we are in our 30s…ok, late 30s to early 40s…really helped with learning the new system.
I like the formalized version of 17b. It teaches a bit of extra strategy (“Are you SURE you want to use your Mulligan now?”) and gives the kid more control over the game.
I’m reminded of a scene in Card’s novel LOST BOYS, in which one character mentions that his parents gave each kid one free “I don’t want to go to school today” a year, no questions asked. He said that most years, he didn’t even use it — just knowing he had it was enough.
Kids have so little control over their environment that anything you can do to ameliorate that feeling of helplessness is all to the good, IMO.
I’m in two separate game groups right now, and one of them uses a “luck token” system. There’s a pool of luck tokens equal to the number of players in the group.
If a player has either a particularly timely awesome roll or a particularly untimely awful roll, AND there’s an unclaimed token in the pool, they’re rewarded with a luck token–good for a re-roll of any die roll, be it an attack, dodge, parry, what have you. It works really well.
Reading of your method got me thinking about it and thought I’d share.
I understand your reasoning Wil. Seriously, I do.
From following your blog over the years it’s clear you’re a great parent and role model.
But the fact is life is rarely fair. So to keep things as fair as possible everyone has to get roll-again chips.
My guy is still small enough that so far he’s only shown interest in losing my frakking dice. But I remember learning to game, and even at 20 those rules would have been useful.
I think both rules are great. As a parent myself, I can see where they would be handy to keep the game fun rather then a drag.
I wish my parents had had a rule 17b. Then again they grew up in an ers of crystal radio sets, 64 scanning line experimental TVs, and Victrolas. So I forgive them.
Will, this is freakin’ brilliant! I will be using this as my daughter gets older, and I think it will help her with the frustration I still remember having as a kid with a bad roll of the dice in a complex game.
Wil,
I haven’t posted comments before but I have been reading your blog for a couple years. What a brilliant idea. It was so good I had to log on to tell you. My wife and I are planning on kids in the very near future and i’ve always talked about gaming with them, and this is a fantastic way to keep them interested and have a lot of fun with them.
Giving players some control over their own destinies is a very nice direction in roleplaying games. For example, Spirit of the Century’s fate point mechanic lets you spend fate points for either a reroll or a flat +2 to the die roll. You’ve got a limited supply but can slowly acquire more in play. In the long run, it balances out.
I blogged some random game design thoughts on a hero point system a while back, but I haven’t quite found my way back to expanding on them further. There might be something useful here though.
http://codrus.livejournal.com/241312.html
Esoterrorists and a couple of other games remove randomness from certain parts of the game, mostly clue-finding. If you want a better clue, you just pay the hero points — no die rolls, or no rerolls allowed. I did a mini-review that also wandered into similar point-spending territory.
http://codrus.livejournal.com/237177.html
Based on your post, one thought that sticks out is that I’d have no real problem giving a younger child more hero points to spend. It still teaches the basic concepts to the of resource management (which is what I consider this this), but they can learn it gradually. I don’t see that as being different from say, a handicap in Go.
Speaking as both a “GeekDad” and a “GeekHusband”, I can empathize with your “reading your son” and realizing the fun was about to be spoiled. Just as a good DM must read the moods and level of involvement of his players and tweak the narrative to ensure every player has fun and remains interested in the game so, too, must the GeekDad read the mood and level of involvement when gaming with his children.
My children are 9, 14 and 16 and the whole family enjoys what we call “epic Settlers” – an all day game of Settlers of Catan with all the expansions, many of the variants and a whole slew of house rules (house rules, I might add, which tend to change with each playing). More often than not, I find it is my wife who requires the “do-over.” As long as everyone can agree to said do-overs and the fun of the game is maintained without shifting the current victory point standings, I see no reason to limit them.
I see similar patterns in the two PnP D&D campaigns I run. My oldest has just joined one of these campaigns as a player, but in his first session, it was one of the oldest players at the table who requested a do-over. It seems this “old-timer” misunderstood a certain feat and had he known how it would work in-game, he would have chosen another. I saw no reason to not let him go ahead and swap it out.
So what am I trying to say? While I agree with the intent of Rule 17B, I personally see no reason to formalize it into my gaming. Of course, should my current leniency in such matters prove my undoing in the future, perhaps I will reconsider and adopt Rule 17B myself as an “etched-in-stone” rule.
Yes, I think both of those are excellent ‘rules’. Really are they rules? I’d say they are more positive attitudes to gaming, knowing that it’s not all about winning, it’s also about having fun.
Mine’s only 2, so we haven’t even bothered with rules yet. She’s got one game where you stack elephants. There are rules for the order and you roll and die to see if you stack an elephant or a ‘special’. Umm, ya, as if. They get stacked & then knocked down.
As a lot of folks have said, these would be good even to use with adults – it all depends on the ‘seriousness’ of your group. But I do like the tokens – mostly because it’s a solid visual reminder, like a ‘get out of Jail Free’ card. I’ve played 2 different D&D characters witht he ‘Luck’ ability (reroll any die once per ‘day’) and I *always* forget to use it. Now if I had a counter, I just might remember.
Excellent parenting tip!
Actually, I agree with this, not for the “life isn’t fair” part, but because it falls in with the “kids get offended if you’re letting them off easy” part Wil mentioned in post.
If everyone has roll-again chips, it not only makes it a fair rule (and not just a handicap), it’s another chance to teach by example — how the seasoned players mete out their chips can teach a lot of valuable lessons about strategy, when to use your advantages, and when to take hits for now to save an ace for later.
That is brilliant. It’s funny, I’ve loved reading your stuff about interacting with your kids and all the things you’ve tried to (and succeeded in) teach them. My husband and I just decided that we’re having a kid next year. Now I’m taking notes. 🙂
I say you should just crush them at the game and make them cry. Do a big victory dance and point at them and say “Looooooseeeeerrrrr” over and over. < /just kidding>
As a child, I would sit in front of my Vic 20 after entering in a bunch of things, taking what seemed like forever, only to press play on tape, and let the tape machine run (I still remember how it sounds) only to be met with something like a “syntax error” or even if the tape was loading for an hour, it would say at the end “please load tape” or something like that.
Rule 17b would have saved a lot of frustrated moments in my childhood, moments that didn’t teach me a thing. Just wasted a lot of time, and when you’re a child, you just don’t get why things don’t work the way their supposed to.
Perhaps Bill Gates could use this formula for Vista?
Those sound like pretty good rules. The number of reroll tokens you get would of course depend on the handicap level the player needs. If they are always winning then they get fewer tokens next time.
The James Bond RPG had “Hero Points”. You could spend a hero point at any time to turn any dice role into an automatic maximum success role. Then you got hero points for exceptional role playing and for completing missions.
Villains had hero points too. Jaws got 10 hero points every time he survived an encounted with the players (ever wonder how Jaws survived at the end of Moonraker?)
I’m going to join in the adulation of Rule 17b. In particular because it reminds me of the ranking system of Go and how it translates into a game handicapping system.
For rule 17b, each member of the household gets a rank, the difference of your rank to the best rank playing the game determines the number of do-over chips you get. As people get better, you can make a big deal about them increasing their rank. I think it works very well.
I’m not a parent but I do like the sound of rule 17a+b, it sounds like a good idea.
Now I don’t know about you but if I have a die or dice that keep rolling poor rolls then I trade out dice and those evil cursed dice get set aside to allow the curse to wear off. If all else fails you need to break out the sacred never fail blessed dice of rolling or worst case scenario it’s time to hit the store and purchase new lucky dice. This has always been my way of dealing with cursed dice.
Personally, when I’m trying to teach my younger cousins or kids of fellow gamers, we always invoke either the team rule where they are partnered with somebody older (maybe a parent or even an older sibling) who doesn’t play their game for them, but merely points out all the options they may have missed so they get a complete picture of strategies they might employ.
As I’ve found out in some pretty heavy games (Agricola and In the Year of the Dragon) there are some kids who are naturally talented at strategy and long-term planning, and don’t need much coaching at all.
As far as the do-overs go, we pretty much play by the standard that everyone can take back a move as long as it was an honest oversight and not gamer’s remorse at a bad tactic.
As far as dice, I tend to avoid games which employ heavy use of them like the plague. LOL I guess that makes me elitist, but once you play games that are almost all open-information, it’s hard to reacclimate yourself to games which rely on a heavy component of chance.
I’m not a parent but oh do I wish I’d known about this rule when we were trying to introduce my brother’s girlfriend to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming. Three sessions of the dice absolutely hating her and she just gave up trying to enjoy the game.
Maybe I’ll have to adopt these rules and see if I can’t get her to try again in a few months once the pain of the sucktastic-ness wears off.
I really like that. I didn’t learn how to play D & D until grad school b/c die hard gamers could not dumb it down for me w/o me wrecking the game. The friend that taught me had a modified 17B that was basically a way of making sure I didn’t die 10 minutes into the game.
Purists would probably recognize this as similar to the Savage Worlds ‘benny’ concept, and applaud it.
Wil, I couldn’t agree more! Aas a parent of an 8 year old boy and a 10 year old girl, my kids LOVE when we implement these kind of rules.
We play a lot of games: board games, video games, made up “dress in black and run around the yard at night being ninja” games, and I LOVE IT. So do they. But I do have to remind myself that at their age, expectations are different. Lessons are needing to be learned, and the kind of “Rules for Beginners” that you’re talking about are vital to those lessons.
Also -a very great side effect I discovered via my 10 year old: as they get older, the time will come when THEY decide to discard the “beginner rules”, and it’s a wonderful step in their self-esteem.
Love the blog, Wil – thanks!
I’m not a parent yet but I think those are really great rules, even for adults. Personally I, too, can get a little on edge when I’m playing a new game and I’m the only one who doesn’t quite get it. Taking a step back to go, “You know, I screwed up. Let’s take it again?” makes me feel a lot better. I know it’s all rooted in my fear of sucking and/or looking like a doofus and I should get over it but still, good rule.
And, heck, I’d love to institute 17b for my rpg & board games with other adults. (I agree with GaryinMiami that I think everyone in the game should get tokens. Adults/more skilled players don’t have to use them but even as a kid I would have felt patronized if only I was giving do over tokens.) Why play a game if the dice keep sucking? I like following rules but, dude, games are not serious business. Games are about having fun with your family and friends and maybe about honing critical thinking and logic skills (depending on the game).
Thank you for this post. I’ll be filing it away in my “good parenting ideas” folder for future use.
dude. i need to get me some kids.
I’m not a kid, nor a parent — just horrendously unlucky. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the mechanics of Exalted, but suffice it to say by my third botch of the day I’m generally pretty discouraged myself; my gaming group has resorted to giving me pinch-rollers and random free rerolls because my luck is just that bad, after studying my dicerolls vs. statistical averages. I like both the rules.
Agreed.
Personal pet peeve = adults that are so competitive that they actively try to beat kids at games.
Huh? What’s to proven here again? 17a & 17b, for me.
//H
First timer, occasional reader. Frankly, I’m so thrilled to see that someone else on this planet is playing Talisman, I just had to comment. I frickin’ *love* that game, and I can never get anyone else to play. (Come on! With all the expansion boards and the Dragon’s Tower, it’s only going to take 6 to 10 hours to complete a game! That’s nothing!)
As for 17a & 17b, I’ll add the tips to my parental arsenal – my pipsqueak is too young yet for gaming, but the time is coming soon!
I regularly play games with my kids. We allow “do overs” regularly (17a), particularly with young or new players – anyone still learning (that game, or just game playing in general) gets pretty free access to the do-over.
But rule 17b is wonderful. We’ve done something like that in a few games where there’s an easy way to implement it, but being able to do it as a general rule would be great.
I may make up some roll-again chips of some kind that we can keep in the game box, so we can give them out. Maybe we’ll do something like “everyone gets one, and then the kids get two more, and the youngest gets an extra one”, or something similar.
Well, I’m not a parent, but I started playing tabletop games like D&D when I was a kid, and I agree with both rules, as starting to play something you’ve never done before can be endlessly frustrating.
Yeah – I like 17b, gives you extra strategy, and feels like it would teach a bit of budgeting too. Some games aren’t going to work with either of your rule 17s though – Peurto Rico is one where it’d be pretty hard to back up far enough for you to have a meaningful change of the game, for instance…
Meanwhile, I know you’re a huge music fan – Over in the UK BBC Radio 1 have just had a ‘minimix’ (five mins of tunes, no more) from the Chemical Brothers – well worth a listen [actually, just subscribe – it’s usually entertaining!]:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/r1mix/
K
Great idea. My son is 4, and all the games geared towards him are very very dice dependent. So I often give him do-overs. But I like making the do-overs part of the game.
I just wish I could find some more interesting games for this age level, ones that were more than just lessons in chance. Any suggestions?
Wil, This is awesome. I completely agree that you shouldn’t let kids win by not playing well. It drives me nuts when I see my kids’ grandparents do that with them. But I also get why that is. They are just playing and don’t want any bad emotions associated with playing with them. It is a lot of fun to see kids get excited when they win. But if they catch you doing it, it steals that joy from them because they realize they didn’t earn the victory the way they thought they did.
I think that losing, messing up, stumbling, failing, makes you a better gamer and better at life. Its all about the experiment with the world that we’re always running – test this behavior or that action to see how the world reacts. Learn where you messed up and do better the next time.
I’ve always told my sons that the best that they can hope to do in tic-tac-toe is to tie me. My 4 year old beat me fair and square last night (I’m still trying to figure out what I could’ve done differently). But it was so much sweeter for him because neither he nor is 8 year old brother had ever done it before.
Having said all that, you’re right. It is also about the fun of the journey, and not just the life lessons. My uncle calls these do-overs “mulligans” – I believe from golf – and handing out tokens for do-overs gives them an advantage that they have to decide when to use (preserving the teaching moment) but keeps it fun. I love it.
What a brilliant idea! We’ve been thinking of how to ease our son into gaming and 17b will certainly make things more fun for everyone!
I’ll add my voice to the chorus of “Wil, those rules are GREAT ideas!”
I’m tempted to Photoshop them up and print little 17a/17b stickers to be affixed onto the myriad printed rule booklets around the house…
I’ve not DM’d in, oh gods, forever, but when I did I always used a “brownie point” rule. Character do something clever? Turned up a very important plot point way early in the game? Got me a coke without being asked? Get a brownie point! Then, as situations warrant, the player could use one to make a natural 1 a 2, or make a “missed it by one” into a “barely got him!” It helped balance out those sometimes diabolical runs of bad luck we all got, and it helped lighten the mood when the slogging got tough.
I have to say I’ve really come to admire your parenting skills–For the longest time I was terrified of trying to introduce my thirteen year old daughter to AD&D, for fear of my wreaking some sort of horrific mental disturbance upon her (“…and what happened after your father put you up against two ancient black dragons?”) so I’d put it off and hoped that her interest in books would slake that thirst.
You’ve given me hope that I can game with my teenager and not destroy everthing. Thank you. *s*
I’ve never heard it put that way, Wil, but when I used to play with my younger brothers (this is going back around the time Dragon Magazine published the first Ninja Class…ooooh i nearly creamed my shorts when that came out) *tangent* ..
Anyways, i used to allow mulligans when some of the rolls were epic fails, just to keep them in the game.
No i don’t believe it took away from the game, because the game, to us, was about the story, and when i wrote modules for the game (cuz we were too poor to actually buy module – we spent all we had on Player’s handbooks, DM Guide and Monster Manuals, and I got lucky and my mom bought my first DM Screen for my bday one year .. SCORE) I made certain that the puzzles within the game were difficult enough to keep things interesting making the module a virtual Chess Match. So when playing with a kid who’s 9 or above, we allowed Mulligans ..
Calling it Rule 17b is AWESOME!! And i fully subscribe to this.
Glad to you see you’re shaping Nolan’s gaming skills.. You definitely made the a Critical d20 roll on being an awesome Dad!
Which reminds me – i have to dust off my LOTR minis and set up the board so my son and I can have a great epic Goblins vs. Heroes battle! 🙂
Happy Gaming Wil & Nolan.
We started doing something like this when we were playing Arkham Horror and realized we were doing it wrong, but constantly redoing would mean we never actually got anywhere… and it sort of metastasized to other games. The informal of B is that if the dice fall off the table or land lopsided on something, we yell ‘cocked!’ and re-roll. Or sometimes if we don’t like someone else’s roll, we yell it anyway…
also, i found this: http://abstrusegoose.com/21
~;)
I am parent of a 3 year old. My son is just starting to want to play games. Thanks for telling me about rule 17b. I think it will come in handy when trying to teach him about playing without frustrating him.
~~TARA~~
It’s definitely not just for kids. Ever since I (okay, my character…) got killed in a game of AD&D on my birthday (my REAL birthday, that is-it was just a regular session of our group that happened to be on my birthday), we’ve played with some variation of hero points, luck points, or-which is actually part of the game- possibilities (i.e. TORG). It’s just too sad to see something go pear shaped just because of a stupid dice roll that *should* have worked, and it’s not just kids that get grumpy…
…as you can see, I’m still telling that story of my ruined birthday, and that was my 27th birthday. Nine years ago. Had we had rule 17b back then for AD&D, I wouldn’t be telling this sad tale again and again…
Long time reader, first time poster–as a GeekMom who is trying to get her 5-year-old son into board games, the idea of tokens for Do Overs is great. Giving them to all players makes it part of the game and not just a handicap. It’s also something that could easily be removed once all the players have balanced skills or adapted to various skill levels.
I think you need a disclaimer on 17b, which would say: “You may only use your freebie if you are behaving in a sporting manner.” We had to stop playing games with one of my sisters because she always insisted on some rule that ended up allowing her to win the game, like no one else could have Boardwalk or Park Place. Now she’s married and her hubby doesn’t put up with that, but she ran all over us non-confrontational types. Sometimes it was the randomness of the dice that kept it fair.