Editing Mahjong (section)

==Into the types of Mahjong==
Like all card games, there's more than one way to play Mahjong. Here are the most played variations.

*Japanese Riichi: Arguably, the most popular form of Mahjong (at least, among basement-dwelling weeaboos). Mainly due to its [[manga|mango]] influence. This variation is very clinical compared to the other versions. For example: Whereas in Chinese mahjong, where the discard pile is shared among players, and tiles are simply tossed in, in Japanese mahjong, due to the addition of the furiten rule and it's importance in the game, each player has their own neatly arranged discard pile.

There is also the 'dora', or a bonus tile which gives an extra point per each you have in your winning hand. The dora is one number after the dora indicator, which is flipped in the dead wall. 4 pin for the dora indicator means 5 pin for the dora, so on.

The main difference between other forms and riichi is the "riichi rule". Riichi (Or "reach" among amerifats) is when a player is one tile away from winning the round, has not called any tile (concealed hand), and decides to place a bet of 1000 points on the table, while slamming a tile on the table and proclaiming loudly: 'Riichi'. The player cannot alter his hand any further after this. You don't have to do this; but keep in mind that a hand has to adhere to specific criteria in order for it to be a qualified hand, and riichi is one of them. 

If you think declaring your ass Riichi sounds too risky; the easiest qualified hands are: A triplet of dragons, your seat wind or east wind. With these, you only need to collect a set of the non-numbered tiles and not worry about what your other runs look like.

Both furiten and riichi are especially important since with the exception of self draw wins, the one who feeds the winner pays in full, and thus 'defending' or 'folding' by playing tiles that you know the opponent cannot win on is an essential part of the game. Riichi'd players are easier to defend against due to the fact that you know they're about to win, and they can't change their waits.

*Washizu: This is a variation riichi from the [[Manga|Arawak indian stick and pantomime theatre show]] Akagi, which uses a special Washizu set of mahjong tiles. What makes it special is the fact that 3/4 of the tiles are transparent, so players are able to see each-others' hands. Because of this transparency, walls are not made but, instead, tiles are drawn from a pouch, while wearing leather gloves so the players are unable to feel the tile value. Whether you want to play this with the blood machine or not is up to the group.

*Hong Kong: Tiles are tossed in the center willy-nilly and the furiten rule is absent. Everyone pays even if they are not the one to feed the winner, which means being passive will lead you to bleeding out. Having a hand that actually scores points is optional for declaring a win. It can also be played with straight discards.

*American: Same as classic, but contains flower as well as "joker tiles". Joker tiles act as wild cards, because "muh poker". Was a huge, huge hit in the 1920s (the fact that the post-deal tile passing -- similar to Hearts -- is called a "Charleston" should tell you something). This form of mahjong, due to the joker tiles, contains all kinds of madness like quints and sextuplets as well as moronic combinations based on American culture i.e. "Civil War": 18611865 NNN SSS. Due to some odd twist of fate, the majority of American Mahjong players are old Jewish women. I'm not even joking.

*Jankiryuu: Hoo boy, this form makes standard Riichi look as unorganized and chaotic as Hong Kong. Jankiryuu is the mahjong equivalent of only playing Fox on Final Destination in Smash Bros without items. But seriously, this variant attempts to remove the <s>fun</s> luck from mahjong and replace it with pure strategy. The creator, Sakurai Shouichi, thought normal mahjong was a horrible unfair mess, so he wanted to reign in the bullshit. The main rules are: 

 * You cannot discard dora unless you are in tenpai
 * You cannot discard an honor tile on the first turn
 * You cannot betaori (completely folding by discarding safe tiles)
 * Do not break the rhythm of the game (instant discards, don't spend more than a second on your turn)
 * No suji-cut riichi (135p shape, throw out 5p to wait on 2p)
 * No hell wait riichi (waiting on a single tile of which 3 are already discarded)
 * No tanki riichi except for chiitoitsu (7 pairs)
 * Play according to the situation.

*Shanghai: The Solitaire/Patience equivalent : basically unplayable with real tiles (as opposed to a computer - this mode is named after the video game released in 1986) since you know where the pairs are as you are building the tower. If you bought a damn tile set just to play this, then you are [[Heresy|beyond saving and must be dealt with accordingly]]. No, but really, a great way to render a mahjong player into a raging, blood-crazed lunatic is by uttering the following: "How do you play mahjong with other people? I thought it was a single player game on Windows." A nice time-killer if nothing else, but do at least try to branch out and give the other modes a spin, for fuck's sake.

===Mahjong clients===
*[http://tenhou.net/3/ Riichi mahjong client], with an [https://gitlab.com/zefiris/tenhou-english-ui english UI] in the high likelihood that you're not fluent in Japanese. Only works in .html, unfortunately.
*[https://mahjongsoul.game.yo-star.com/ Mahjong Soul], a fully English mahjong client with the kind of "entry-level weeb" presentation sure to appeal to the widest possible audience, provided you're not already super-interested in Mahjong to begin with. It is quite functional, all that said.
*[[Final Fantasy]] XIV, believe it or not, there were people who signed up for the unlimited free trial of the game just to play Mahjong because a decent online client had not existed before Mahjong Soul came into the picture.

===Strategy Guides===
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20190214211235/http://riichi.dynaman.net/RiichiBooks/RiichiBook1.pdf A basic mahjong strategy for gaijins]. Lots of interesting tidbits if you're interested in the real meat of the game.
*[https://repo.riichi.moe/guides/newfren-readme.html#howplay A list of beginner guides from /vg/]

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