New Rules for Classic Games
The shelf life of your favorite board games just got longer. R. Wayne Schmittberger--game inventor and frequent contributor toGamesmagazine--has canonized the house rules and variations of a plethora of games in this fascinating book. Imagine playingToric Scrabble, where words can go off the right side of the board and "wraparound" to  the left. Or how about a round ofTactical Nuclear Risk, where each player is given a couple of bombs to lob at enemy territory?And if changing the rules isn't enough for you, you can change the object of the game, as inExtinction Chess, which is played exactly like normal chess except you lose if your opponent captures all of your pieces of a single type. Losing your king will still cost you the game, but so will losing your queen, your two rooks, or even all eight pawns!Schmittberger has long been considered an expert of games, and he lives up to his title in this engrossing volume.New Rules for Classic Gamescontains not only clever twists on popular board games but also the rules for  dozens of pastimes playable with common equipment, and even a section devoted to games that can be played with nothing more than a pencil and paper.  This book is great in its own right, and it will give those board games that you have lurking in the closet a  new lease on life.--Matthew Baldwin