Mensch ärgere Dich nicht (1910)

Overview

"Mensch ärgere Dich nicht" is a very well known German board game, developed by Josef Friedrich Schmidt in 1907/1908. The game was issued in 1914 and sold about 70 million copies. It is similar to Parcheesi, but has several considerably different rules.

In the most recent Mensch ärgere Dich nicht: - You only roll with one die, not two. There are therefore no bonuses (which often give you choices in Parcheesi) and penalties for rolling doublets. Instead, you roll the die again if you rolled a 6. - You start the game with a pawn on your enter space. - It is much harder to enter a pawn after the beginning of the game. This happens on a 6 and it is compulsory. The probability is 16.67%, whereas the probability in Parcheesi to roll a 5 on one of two dice or with both dice together is considerably higher at 41.67%. So it is much less likely that you have more than one movable pawn which would present you with choices when you roll. - There are no bonuses for capturing opponent's pawns or for reaching home. - There are no safe places where you can't be captured by an opponent, not even your own enter space. - You have to move any pawn off your enter space first chance you get unless there are no more pawns in waiting to enter as well. Which also reduces the number of decisions you can make. - Blockades with two pawns of the same colour on a space aren't possible under the standard rules, they are only an optional variant. - The board is somewhat different, particularly there is no home path leading up to a home square.

These differences are based on the rule PDFs of the Mensch ärgere dich nicht rules by Schmidt Spiele and the Parcheesi rules by Hasbro (version from 2001).

Expansions

Mensch ärgere Dich nicht: Kick oder Karte