Runaround

by Jonathan Leistiko

Goal

Be the first player to get 5 “runs” by passing a piece over your starting space 5 times.

You Need

A Runaround board
A six-sided die
Two sets of five homogeneous pawns

Setup

Pick one set of pawns. Put one next to the “1” on the scoring track. Put the rest of them in your home.
Pick a player to go first.

Play

At the start of your turn, roll the die. If the result is less than or equal to the number of pawns in your home, move one to your starting space.
Move one of your pawns that’s not in your home the number you rolled. If you have no pawns on the board, your turn is over.
When you move, move in the direction of the arrows that match your home’s color and shading.You must use your full movement on only one pawn.
If you land on an opponent’s pawn, bump your opponent’s pawn over a wall. If your opponent’s piece lands in an occupied space, send the piece that was in that space home.
Exception: If you land on an opponent’s pawn and that pawn is on a space that has no wall to bump over (A starting space or the two adjacent spaces.), your piece goes home.
If you land across the wall from an opponent, swap places.
If you land on one of your pieces, take another turn with that piece.
If you cross over your starting space, move your score marker ahead one space on the scoring track.

Once you’ve resolved your move, your turn is over.

Ending the Game & Winning

When your score marker reaches the fifth space on the scoring track, you win the game.

Origin & Credits

I created the board for Runaround on 7/16/04. I wanted to make a Parcheesi-like roll-and-move game, but I couldn’t quite think of the right rules for it. On 12/29/06, I was at Spider House with Alex, John, and Sharon, reviewing files and notes for incomplete games. I found the Runaround board and, after a bit of thinking and reminiscing, wrote these rules. Actually, the rules I wrote had both players going in the same direction. Sharon realized that this was not fair to the yellow player and John suggested that having players move in opposite directions would resolve the problem (which it did).

Thanks to John Kraemer and Sharon Cichelli for play testing and suggestions for improving the game. Thanks to Frank Swehosky for play testing the second version.