>I'd simplify the rules regarding hand size to something on the lines of
>>"At the start of the game each player draws until they have 8 cards. At the start of the turn, the current player draws cards until they have a total of 9 cards among their played cards and their hand. At the end of the turn, the current player discards cards until they have 8 in total among their played cards and hand."
>It still needs some improvement, but I think it's a lot more concise than the current explanation for the hand rules.
I really don't see how it's better than the current explanation.
>Also, I'd personally do the grouping rules slightly differently:
>>"After drawing, the current player can play any 4 cards from their hand that form a valid group or instead add any amount of valid cards to a single group they own. After this, the player discards cards until they're left with 8 in their hand. The game ends when a player has 20 or more cards in play, and the winner is decided by the amount of points they scored"
Well that'd be a pretty different game altogether from what I had in mind. Which isn't necessarily bad, but I'm not eager to rethink everything after already testing and playing with my system, which I've grown to like. But I'll consider it, maybe test it too. I think you have a single round game in mind, which is why you suggested something that'd take a lot longer and give lots more points. I'm still thinking about mahjong, so I'm thinking about a multiple round game. After 3 or so rounds we finally know a winner. In my system only 1 player gains any points in any given round, in yours all players can gain some points. In mine you have to think whether you want to rush low paying sets, or risk gathering a harder one. In yours you think more long term about what you want to collect.
How (un)balanced your system is will only be apparent after some testing. So who knows.
>That would make the rules regarding hand size only consider the hand and not the board, while also making group size a bit more standard
I don't see how it makes them more standard when you yourself have said:
>player can play any 4 cards from their hand that form a valid group or instead add any amount of valid cards to a single group they own.
If anything it makes the groups less standard as now it'd be legal to gather any sets of 4 and up.
>I also have a proposal for loyal/devoted: >"Devoted monstergirls stay true to their master even when rejected. They can't be stolen from their owner's hand or discard pile"
Sounds pretty neat, I'll try it.
>Which would also be accompanied by a rule making players only able to steal the top card of any discard pile.
I'm pretty sure the rules I wrote already say that you can only take cards immediately after someone discards them.
>Also also, scoring rules could be simplified to "+1 point for each non-stolen card in a group" + bonuses for size and hard groupings.
Again, you're essentially thinking about a fundamentally different game. Both our ideas focus on gathering sets of waifus, but they result in completely different game dynamics and strategies.
>That would fix the stealing issue (which now doesn't need to be limited)
Stealing must be limited, otherwise it breaks the game, that became apparent in the very first test.
>while making recounts slightly easier
I don't know what you mean by "recounts".
Last thing, the "they". We can (and should) use "he" when referring to any player. Not like any woman is gonna play it, and even if, its a game made by men for men, so lets drop the "they". I know the deepl version uses newspeak, I missed it when proofreading, but let's not use it here.
Thanks for all the inputs.