The bonus points are in addition to all other standard rules for earning points. The basic idea here is to incentivize longer words. Many skilled Scrabble players have gotten really good at laying down extremely short (2-4 letter) words, often using only 1-2 new tiles. But that makes it hard for other players to build off of. By awarding extra points for laying down more tiles at once, players have an incentive for making longer words.

A simple method would be to award a fixed number of points per tile laid down, say 5 or 10. This will dominate the standard points awarded for most tiles, and for most locations except very high multiplier squares. A slightly more complex way which even more strongly incentivizes longer words is to give N*N bonus points when you lay down N tiles: 1 tile gives you 1 bonus point, 5 gets you 25, and using all 7 tiles at once gives you 49.

The bonus points could be separate from all other scoring mechanisms, or perhaps could be combined with double or triple word score bonuses to give an extra incentive to reach those using longer words.
-- scottinmn, Jun 18 2023

Well, you might think that a1, but I read an article by a gamer who said their journey went from trying to get long words to going for shorter words. Because if he went for a long word, his wife would be able to get the double word tile, or whatever. So their game went to shorter words played strategically.
And I think that's true at high level as well. The best players can win scrabble competitions in other languages, all they have to do is learn a restricted dictionary of scabble power words.
-- Loris, Jun 18 2023


//is its own reward// Yes, but only linearly. I think the idea proposes to make that reward non-linear. I suspect that the same players would still win, but weaker players would experience less frustration, because they could still put down something each turn without so much agonising.
-- pertinax, Jun 18 2023


//and using all 7 tiles at once gives you 49.//

But... but you already get an extra 50 points for using all seven letters. We'd be losing the whole point!

<side story>

When my wife and I were younger we took our first trip to Mexico. An all inclusive hotel with no extra money for many excursions so we spent quite a bit of time at the swim-up bars.
We brought travel-scrabble with us and made a tequila shot drinking game of using all of our letters.
We very soon had to change that to every two times.
A couple more trips into the future and we eventually abandoned that particular drinking game altogether because we got to where we were each using all of our letters upwards of four or five times a game.

Once got QUIXOTIC across two triple-word scores, but that's another story.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 19 2023


//QUIXOTIC across two triple-word scores//

Respect.
-- pertinax, Jun 19 2023


No tournaments, and we don't strictly play by the rules.
We're both a bit dyslexic so the way we play is you have to know the word you want to play but can then look it up in the scrabble dictionary before playing it, and we help each other when stumped because it's just for fun so we try to see if we can top past high scores.
I would totally bomb in a real game even though one of us usually edges on or breaks five hundred points.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 19 2023


We don't cheat, we just both suck at spelling but have decently large vocabularies.
Using the dictionary is only to ensure that the words are spelled properly so that neither of us forfeit a turn.

It has helped immensely and we both spell much more gooder now.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 20 2023


That must have been quite the internal mass debate.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 21 2023


Well, it is a multi-verse. I'm sure that in at least one of them you let it rip.

Admirable restrain in this one.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 22 2023


//I think the idea proposes to make that reward non-linear. I suspect that the same players would still win, but weaker players would experience less frustration, because they could still put down something each turn without so much agonising.//

pertinax has basically captured my inspiration here

//you already get an extra 50 points for using all seven letters//

I forgot about that, 2 fries. So I guess the squaring algorithm would basically replace that, but give some lesser (but increasing) reward for using less than 7 as well. Of course, this is really a nerdy way of doing it; the simpler method of just adding 10 points for each tile laid down gives you 70 for 7 instead of 50, and again some reward for less than 7 as well.
-- scottinmn, Jun 26 2023


// that makes it hard for other players to build off of

This is part of the game's strategy.
-- tatterdemalion, Jun 28 2023


//This is part of the game's strategy//

And getting mugged is part of life in a big city.
-- Voice, Jun 28 2023



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