House rules
scrabbleTracker treats rules as data, not behaviour. Pick a starting ruleset when you create a session and the app uses it for the entire game — including the way it scores, the way it handles challenges, and the way it ends.
The four built-ins
| Ruleset | Bingo bonus | Multi-word bonuses | Challenge penalty | Strict words |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casual Standard | 50 | 3W: +5 · 4W: +10 · 5W: +20 | none (free challenges) | yes |
| House Rules | configurable | configurable | configurable | configurable |
| International Tournament | 50 | none | 5-point penalty for a wrong challenge | yes |
| North American Tournament | 50 | none | turn loss for a wrong challenge | yes |
Casual Standard is what most home tables play. The two tournament rulesets match the formal challenge rules used by NASPA and WGPO; see Tournament rule variants for which to pick.
What each rule controls
A ruleset is a small JSON document with a few knobs:
bingo_bonus— points added when a player uses all seven tiles on a single turn. Standard is 50.multi_word_bonuses— extra points when a play forms many words at once. The Casual Standard adds small bonuses; tournament rulesets don’t.challenge— penalty type (points,turn_loss, ornone), loser_penalty, winner_bonus, and whether challenges are “free” (always no penalty). Detailed in Tournament rule variants.end_game_unused_tiles_penalty— whether the leftover-tile adjustment applies at game end. Standard is yes.first_word_must_cross_center— whether the first play must cover the centre square. Standard is yes.strict_words— whether words must be in the dictionary to be entered. See Dictionaries for advisory vs enforced.
Saving your own house rules
The new-session form’s House Rules card lets you toggle any rule mid-form. When you start the game with custom settings, the app offers to save them as a preset — give it a name (e.g., “Smith Tuesdays”), and it appears in the ruleset picker for future sessions.
Custom rulesets live alongside the built-ins in the picker. Setting one as the default for new games will be available from the Settings page when it lands.
Rulesets are immutable per game
Once a game starts, its ruleset is snapshotted onto the game record. Editing the preset later — bumping the bingo bonus, switching the challenge penalty — won’t rescore the game. This is the load-bearing guarantee that historical records stay honest: you can read any past game and the score it shows is the score it had on the day it ended.