[rubychill]

The variant of this game I have always played allows for playing multiple cards on your turn as part of a set, so 3 queens for example.

We also played with the general rule that you can do anything outside the rules and as long as you can get through your turn without anyone calling you out in it you're in the clear. Playing more cards than you call is a pretty common cheat and it's always pure chaos when it happens and gets called out.

It can be a real friendship stressor so you have to have the right group of players for it, but it's always fun sharing the stupid cheats that people pulled off afterwards.

[nkrisc]

This was basically the same variant I played. The rules core rules were simple and basically anything that wasn't covered by those rules was allowed. Any kind of trickery or sleight of hand to dump your cards was completely fair game.

Dropping more cards than you called was common, but even secretly putting cards on the pile even when it wasn't your turn was common, if your sleight of hand was good enough and misdirection was good enough.

If you got up to go to the bathroom you could be certain that the remain players all put half their hands in the pile and covered for each other.

Very, very fun game.

[charcircuit]

>you could be certain that the remain players all put half their hands in the pile

Then just call them out for cheating and they have to split the deck.

[turboponyy]

This is the variant that I've played - with the constraint that you must play at least one card, of course. We also included an endgame for the players that had managed to get rid of all their cards, though: they had to successfully guess whether the person sitting beside them was bluffing or not three times in a row in order to win, and had to pick up some cards and resume play if they didn't.

E: Since this was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the variant I played only allows for the next player to challenge.