Good game rule changes?

[MikeK]

Ditching "Buy a Vowel" early on was a good move. (Why did they even have it if you could buy a vowel at your discretion anyway?)

Hypothesis time...  Maybe the powers that be considered Buy a Vowel to be a quasi-penalty since a player had to forfeit $250 and pick a vowel.  (Imagine that someone is trying to fill in the last letter of the puzzle.  The person lands on Buy a Vowel and is forced to buy a U.  It's Lose a Turn and -$250.)  If the player had under $250, it was essentially a Lose a Turn.

For those who remember the Buy a Vowel era since, was the tone for "no more vowels" used and was the Buy a Vowel wedge removed, or at least considered null and void?

[Twentington]

For those who remember the Buy a Vowel era since, was the tone for "no more vowels" used and was the Buy a Vowel wedge removed, or at least considered null and void?

There was never a sound for "no more vowels" until they starte doing the "no more vowels" chyron in the late 2000s. The only vowel-related SFX back then would've been the beeps when nothing but vowels remained in the puzzle.

[pyrfan]

When it came to "Password Plus," it was no fun to watch them try to give four (or sometimes six, in earlier days) non-opposite clues for a word like SISTER.

Why is it fun for a team to retain control of the game by intoning "Brother" properly and swishing the layup?

Why is fun to watch a puzzle have to be thrown out on the fifth word because they couldn't give opposites as clues?

Besides, the player didn't always think of the opposite right away. In "Super Password," off the top of my head, I can think of instances where the player didn't use the opposite for STRONG, BOY, or LIGHT. By contrast, I've also seen instances where the perfect opposite was given and the player didn't respond with the right answer.

To me, the use of opposites was one of the things that signalled a good player who understood one of the basic  strategies of the game: first, does the opposite occur to you; two, will you know to say it with the proper intonation? I've seen players give the perfect opposite without using the proper inflection, and their partners usually didn't get the correct answer.

Again, to me, it's a good idea, but not in a puzzle format.


Brendan

[SRIV94]

Why is fun to watch a puzzle have to be thrown out on the fifth word because they couldn't give opposites as clues?

Ideally, the fifth word should not be a word that you need an opposite to get.  And going through and rewatching the 1979 P+ eps with my family, I don't think there's been one fifth word not guessed because they couldn't give an opposite.  There have been fifth words not guessed, but not because there was an obvious opposite that could've been used and wasn't.

Another good P+ rule change--whoever gets the password keeps the option (took effect with the Monty Hall/Janet Lennon week--and unlike the "no opposites" change, this one was made without any fanfare).

[That Don Guy]

For those who remember the Buy a Vowel era since, was the tone for "no more vowels" used and was the Buy a Vowel wedge removed, or at least considered null and void?

I don't remember there being any audible signal (except maybe Nancy Jones telling Chuck from offstage) when there were no more vowels.  I don't think the wedge could be "removed" any more than the "Bankrupt" wedges could.  I do remember a beeping signal in the early episodes after about 30 seconds into the "final spin of the day" round to indicate that you could start guessing vowels.

As for what rules changes I consider good:

Adding the bonus round for the day's winner on Wheel.

The Double Showcase Winner rule on TPIR.

The $100,000 Mystery Tune on mid-1970s syndicated Name That Tune.  (I was not as big a fan of the tournament format.)

On The Moneymaze, adding the "second tower" option and having all four players play the head-to-head rounds rather than leaving somebody in the maze.

On Las Vegas Gambit, switching from the prize board to the Big Numbers.  I would have considered this a bad change on the CBS version, but the NBC version didn't seem to have any good recurring prizes (for example, Anniversary Dinner - this week, it's Rome, Copenhagen, and (audience join in) Burbank!).

NBC Card Sharks - in addition to the push rule, allowing the player to change cards in the Money Cards at the beginning of each level rather than just at the start.

Pretty much everything on The Joker's Wild that led to the rules and bonus round most people remember.  (In the first two weeks, a triple was $150, and three jokers won the game automatically; also, after each win, you had to decide whether to stop and leave the show, or risk your cash winnings if you lost your next game.)

On Celebrity Sweepstakes, moving the starting amount from $20 to $50.  With $20, most players would start with a $5 bet as missing a $10 bet would force them to bet $2 on their next turn.

[calliaume]

With $ale, it annoyed me, but was forgivable because at least there, you could still hear enough of the question and just had to be fast enough*. I think what irritated me most about Jeopardy! was the fact that contestants buzzed in literally when the card flipped/monitor switched to the response, so you'd have Art/Alex say "This general..." (ding!)

Which is likely why the lockout to keep contestants from buzzing in until Alex finishes reading the question was instituted.  Toward the end of the original Jeopardy run )(especially in the syndicated episodes), contestants were buzzing in immediately upon the reveal, before they could possibly have read the question, much less Art Fleming.

[WarioBarker]

For those who remember the Buy a Vowel era since, was the tone for "no more vowels" used and was the Buy a Vowel wedge removed, or at least considered null and void?

I don't remember there being any audible signal (except maybe Nancy Jones telling Chuck from offstage) when there were no more vowels. I don't think the wedge could be "removed" any more than the "Bankrupt" wedges could. I do remember a beeping signal in the early episodes after about 30 seconds into the "final spin of the day" round to indicate that you could start guessing vowels.

Which leaves me wondering: did they even have an "only vowels remain" sound in the early days? Did they even have a Used Letter Board*? And if Buy A Vowel did change its rules later on, as the Milton-Bradley games claim, what did that mean in regard to "only vowels remain" (a rule not present in those games)?

(* I remember seeing a picture of Susan in front of a chalkboard that was clearly the lower part of the Used Letter Board, but none of the flip-up letters were present on top.)

Ditching "Buy a Vowel" early on was a good move. (Why did they even have it if you could buy a vowel at your discretion anyway?)

Hypothesis time... Maybe the powers that be considered Buy a Vowel to be a quasi-penalty since a player had to forfeit $250 and pick a vowel. (Imagine that someone is trying to fill in the last letter of the puzzle. The person lands on Buy a Vowel and is forced to buy a U. It's Lose a Turn and -$250.) If the player had under $250, it was essentially a Lose a Turn.

See, that's what I thought about the wedge -- a quasi-penalty that, keeping with the "shopping" theme of the first 14 years, I can only liken to the "impulse buy".

[Bobby B.]

With $ale, it annoyed me, but was forgivable because at least there, you could still hear enough of the question and just had to be fast enough*. I think what irritated me most about Jeopardy! was the fact that contestants buzzed in literally when the card flipped/monitor switched to the response, so you'd have Art/Alex say "This general..." (ding!)

Which is likely why the lockout to keep contestants from buzzing in until Alex finishes reading the question was instituted.  Toward the end of the original Jeopardy run )(especially in the syndicated episodes), contestants were buzzing in immediately upon the reveal, before they could possibly have read the question, much less Art Fleming.

I remember the first time I saw a first season Trebek episode, I actually thought the "ding" was a reveal sound for the clues at first.  Everyone was ringing in as soon as the monitor changed.

[alfonzos]

Shenanigans second season: Swapping out Auctioneer, which really wasn't an auction at all, for Haunted House.

[SamJ93]

Another good minor rule change in "Greed" towards the end of the run: dropping the qualifying round. It was very incongruous to the main game, and helped get more of the main game in each episode--desperately needed given the show's glacial pace.

[That Don Guy]

Another good minor rule change in "Greed" towards the end of the run: dropping the qualifying round. It was very incongruous to the main game, and helped get more of the main game in each episode--desperately needed given the show's glacial pace.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't that done just for the May (and possibly February) Sweeps promotions?  The three games with college players (Ivy League, Pac-10, and Big 10, wasn't it?) still had the qualifying round.

Speaking of Greed, there's another rule change I liked; allowing Terminator questions to be interrupted.

[calliaume]

What makes the Quickies version of Tattletales substantively different from Celebrity Newlywed Game?

It doesn't, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in my world.  The pacing was much improved--sometimes it took two minutes to get the story and the one or two-word clue.  And nine times out of ten, the "right" celebrity mate buzzed in.  And inevitably they'd have to repeat the question to get another couple to play.

At least with the all-quickie format, everyone played a minimum of four times.  And it allowed the mates who were "on" to stay (instead of having to turn their monitors off) as a part of the round and interact.

This is almost a separate point, but G-T's "comeback" was helped by taking ideas that were originally theirs - TPIR, Match Game, Tattletales (He Said, She Said) and infusing elements of shows that were doing great for other production companies - the minigames idea from Let's Make a Deal, the large group of celebrities doing comedy idea from Hollywood Squares, and the ask one spouse a question, then see if the other matches from Newlywed Game.  And since most of these originated well before their respective revival "inspirations," there was little threat of lawsuits.

Likewise, I would suspect the enhanced profile of Lacey Pemberton and Susannah Williams on the 1986-1989 Card Sharks was likely a direct response to Vanna White's popularity.  Heck, before that, I don't think G-T even miked the models/dealers/assistants.

[Unrealtor]

Likewise, I would suspect the enhanced profile of Lacey Pemberton and Susannah Williams on the 1986-1989 Card Sharks was likely a direct response to Vanna White's popularity.  Heck, before that, I don't think G-T even miked the models/dealers/assistants.

I tend to think of Barker and his Beauties as well. When did that start relative to CS86 and the rise of Vanna?