Ideas for a Steno Version of Scrabble

I’ve had this idea that I’m sure someone else has had before — steno scrabble.

Very simple — you play a standard dictionary, such as the Plover dictionary, and you play with raw steno as your scrabble pieces. Then, you score points according to their letter value in Scrabble.

Taken from “WordFind.com”:

• A is worth 1
• B is worth 3
• C is worth 3
• D is worth 2
• E is worth 1
• F is worth 4
• G is worth 2
• H is worth 4
• I is worth 1
• J is worth 8
• K is worth 5
• L is worth 1
• M is worth 3
• N is worth 1
• O is worth 1
• P is worth 3
• Q is worth 10
• R is worth 1
• S is worth 1
• T is worth 1
• U is worth 1
• V is worth 4
• W is worth 4
• X is worth 8
• Y is worth 4
• Z is worth 10

So if a player plays PHRAR, they get particular as a word, which is worth 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 13 points. Another player might play an “L” off that, and get particularly which is worth 18 points. I’m thinking that there should be no distinction between letters on both sides, and I’m not too sure how you would handle double or triple letter scores, because you don’t have the same concept of “letters”.

I’ve yet to determine the number of each letter in the game, or what you would get for spelling SKRABL, but there’s potential, is there not? This would be a fun game to show off your default dictionary knowledge and also as a learning tool for theory. Not to mention an awesome game to play because onlookers would be completely confused! Just wait until someone scores STPRAPBLG…

STKPWHRAOEUFRPBLGTSDZ...*? Eliminating doubles, you end up with blocks of STKPWHRAOEUFBLGDZ*. I guess you could use the asterisk at any point in the word. Like you could turn continue into Tennessee by adding an asterisk to the end of TPB. You could also play with the steno order… You could use TPR as from or for, and it would only become official once someone adds a vowel or other distinguishing letter. You score the highest of the ambiguous options.

Of course, you would only be able to score single stroke words, but I think that that’s fine, because fitting double strokes on the board could be very difficult, and the / key would be hard to use. That being said, maybe blanks could double as / for exceptional cases.

Well, this game’s not going to develop itself, what do you guys think?

Ted