This page is currently awaiting proper naming conventions; suggestions are always welcomed.
The game is played on a circular board with an 18x18 square grid with the corners cut off. In the center is a diamond shape divided in to four quarters with white and red at opposite corners. A Pai Sho board has 256 spaces on it. The board begins the game with no tiles placed on it. Tiles are placed on the intersections, or “points”, of the board.
Sitting- Two players sit across from one another. The drawn tip closest to you is called “the Home Port”. The tip closest to your opponent is called “the Foreign Port”. The other two tips are call “East” and “West” Ports. The “Sides” are divided by the line in the center.
Harmony
A harmony is right if it meets the following criteria:
- The two tiles are connected by any number of the lines in one cardinal direction (“aligned”).
- The two pieces are yours (except for possibly Dragons and Lotus's, see below).
- There are no tiles in between (which is called “disrupting a harmony”). There may still be flowers of neutral harmony and boats in between the two harmonious pieces.
Each player on their turn may make one of the following moves:
- Move a piece already in play ·
- Place a new piece
- Use a non-flower tile’s special ability
Play/Rules
Tiles
Each player gets 54 tiles, divided as below:
White Flowers (3 Unique Tiles, 18 Total) - Cannot land on red points. Can form harmonies.
Jasmine (6 Tiles)-When added to the board, these always start at Home Port. It can move 3 spaces at a time.
Harmony with Lily and Rhododendron. Disharmony with Rose.
Lily (6 Tiles)- When added to the board, these tiles start at the East or West Port. It moves 2 spaces in one direction, and 2 spaces in another direction, moving in the shape of an L.
Harmony with Jasmine and White Jade. Disharmony with Chrysanthemum.
White Jade (6 Tiles)- When added to the board, this tile starts in the very center. If any other tile is in the center, it cannot be put on the board. It can move 5 spaces, but it cannot use the boat (See Below).
Harmony with Lily and Rose. Disharmony with Rhododendron
Red Flowers (3 Unique Tiles, 18 Total)-Cannot land on white points. Can form harmonies.
Rose (6 Tiles)-When added to the board, this tile starts at The Foreign Port. It can move 3 spaces at a time.
Harmony with White Jade and Chrysanthemum. Disharmony with Jasmine.
Chrysanthemum (6 Tiles)-When added to the board, this tile starts at the east or west tip. It moves 2 spaces in one direction, and 2 spaces in another direction, moving in the shape of an L.
Harmony with Rose and Rhododendron. Disharmony with Lily.
Rhododendron (6 Tiles)-When added to the board, this tile starts in the very center. If any other tile is in the center, it cannot be put on the board. It can move 5 spaces, but it cannot use the boat (See Below).
Harmony with Chrysanthemum and Jasmine. Disharmony with White Jade.
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Harmonious?
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JASMINE
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LILY
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WHITE JADE
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ROSE
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CHRYSANTHEMUM
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RHODODENDRON
|
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JASMINE
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X
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YES
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Neutral
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NO
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Neutral
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YES
|
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LILY
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YES
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X
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YES
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Neutral
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NO
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Neutral
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WHITE JADE
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Neutral
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YES
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X
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YES
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Neutral
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NO
|
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ROSE
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NO
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Neutral
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YES
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X
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YES
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Neutral
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CHRYSANTHEMUM
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Neutral
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NO
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Neutral
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YES
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X
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YES
|
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RHODODENDRON
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YES
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Neutral
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NO
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Neutral
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YES
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X
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Non flowers (4 Unique Tiles, 12 Total) -These tiles may be removed by any piece, but the piece that lands on them is also removed. They can be put on the board only after the first turn(s). They cannot be part of harmonies, except for the boat.
Knotweed (Fire, 3 Tiles)Knotweed may be placed on any point. When you play knotweed, all pieces that are adjacent to knotweed are “drained” and may not be moved or form harmonies. Any piece that is played or finishes its movement next to a knotweed is also drained. Knotweed may not move, or be moved by other pieces. They can still be captured.
Wheel (Air, 3 Tiles) Wheels can be placed on any yellow space. Wheels may move all pieces adjacent to them in a clockwise or counterclockwise rotation (or, turn them around itself 'like a wheel'). It can move any number of spaces, but it cannot move it it decides to 'spin a piece'.
Boat (Water, 3 Tiles)The Boat may travel over other pieces. It may move up to 5 spaces at a time. Does not disrupt a harmony if it is between a pair of harmonious pieces. It can push any piece (yours or your opponents) one intersection away as long as the destination intersection is empty and the boat is a single intersection of distance from it.
Rock (Earth, 3 Tiles) May be placed on any space. May not be moved once it is placed. Disrupts all harmonies it lies between.
Special Tiles (2 Unique Tiles, 6 Total) - These pieces may land anywhere on the board, regardless of color. They can be put on the board only after the first three turns of each player.
White Dragon (Yin, 3 Tiles) – Must be placed on the opposing half of the board. Dragons can move up to 6 spaces each turn in a straight line. Dragons may capture enemy pieces.
White Lotus (Yang, 3 Tiles)- Lotus tiles may only move up to 2 spaces a turn. It must start on your side of the board (anywhere). A Lotus may take any tile off the board,
but it can also be removed by any other tile. Lotus are considered “blooming”, which means they may form a harmony with any other Flower (including those belonging to his or her opponent).
Removing Tiles - Landing on a tile may or may not remove it from the board. These rules follow:
1.) It must be an opposite (disharmonious) tile (a jasmine can take a rose, but not a Rhododendron).
2. ) It must be your opponent’s tile.
3.) The Dragon and Lotus rules still apply.
4.) All captured pieces are placed into The Pot.
Clarifications
- A piece may not end its movement on a point occupied by another piece if it is incapable of capturing it.
- Flowers may finish their movement on an intersection composed of both red and white spaces regardless of their color.
- A flower that is placed into an wrong color space by the boat is returned to a players reserve pile.
- A player can choose to not form a harmony with their opponent’s flowers when using a blooming Lotus or a Dragon.
The Pot
All captured pieces are put into a pile on the side of the board, which is called "The Pot". The Pot can be worth a certain number of points, but using it this way in a game is completely optional. It may be worth 20, 50, 100 points, or any other set value. Some players like to give the Pot points to the loser of the game when the game is over, to make the match seem closer or (if the points are high enough) to make the loser actually be the winner. Members of the Fire Nation like to gamble and put a money value on the Pot instead.
Ending the game
The game ends when any of three conditions are met:
1. A player forfeits and his or her opponent wins.
2. A player is left with three or less harmonious tiles.
3. If one opponent reaches a predetermined number of harmony points. (optional goal decided at the beginning of the game. A good number is 100)
Comments (Show all 59)
Michael said
at 9:49 pm on Aug 10, 2010
Now this might be a stupid question as it's probably answered somewhere on this site, but how do harmonies work exactly? Do you recieve points for your harmonies each turn and continue to as long as they remain uniterrupted? And can they be chained? For example 2 lilies 1 jasmine and 1 white jade in a like would form 4 harmonies? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to understand better ^_^
Brandon said
at 12:11 am on Aug 11, 2010
Jeremy: Possibly... My friends and I were also considering having the flowers skip over the space where the Rock is. We just decided that we wanted to keep it simple. In addition, there are some times when a person puts a rock on the WORST POSSIBLE SPACE EVER for you, and it's nice to be able to give it a nudge. I figured that it's fair because it would take a while to move the wheel into position (If the rock is not placed on a yellow square.). Again, your personal rules can be subject to change, so feel free to make it work any way you'd like.
Michael: Yes, Harmonies are recorded each turn, as long as they remain uninterrupted. And yes, they can be chained. In your example, you would get 4 harmonies, like you said (Lily1+Jasmine, Lily1+White Jade, Lily2+Jasmine, Lily2+White Jade). You have to be careful when doing this, and watch which tiles are neutral and disharmonious (Since harmonies pass through neutral tiles, but are blocked by disharmonious ones. I've been playing that the same flower tile [the two lilies in your example] act as neutral, as it isn't specified above.). Don't worry about asking questions; one good question can help lots of people.
Michael said
at 5:19 pm on Aug 11, 2010
Alright thanks ^_^ Also, since the pieces are placed on points, they move across the lines, so does that mean they can also move across the diagonal lines of the red and white triangles? I'm not sure if it's quite clear what I'm asking haha.
jiego said
at 3:44 am on Aug 12, 2010
are 2 tiles that are the same kind form harmonies or are they neutral?
Jeremy said
at 2:20 pm on Aug 13, 2010
I had a few more questions about the Pai Sho Rules on this page. When you first place a tile, can you capture an enemy's piece by placing it on an occupied space?(According to most game rules of this kind of games, the answer is no.) I only ask this because it is not mentioned in the rules that you cannot capture a piece when first placing it on the board, especially if all the other rules are followed(the tile is opposite of the capturing piece, etc.) Also, can two of the same tile form a harmony? This is also not mentioned in the above rules. Any opinions as to these two questions would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Brandon said
at 3:34 pm on Aug 13, 2010
Michael: Everything is cardinal directions. Up, down, left, right. Moving and harmonies doesn't happen along any diagonals.
Jiego: I've been playing that they are neutral.
Jeremy: I play that you can only place a new piece on an empty intersection. This blocks the douchebaggery that would happen if you put down, say, a White Lotus, and your opponent just puts a rock on top of it. Going back to Jiego's comment, the same tiles are neutral.
Jeremy said
at 6:40 am on Aug 15, 2010
Thanks very much for your suggestion!
Jeremy said
at 12:05 am on Aug 18, 2010
Okay, this is a really simple fact that apparently has been totally disregarded in the rules that I've seen. There's no explanation as to what the Yellow Spaces on the Pai Sho board mean. I've been playing that the Yellow Spaces are of Neutral alignment and that any tiles can be moved onto and out of a Yellow Space. Let me know what you think about this.
Caroline said
at 2:15 pm on Jun 25, 2011
I haven't been on this site in a really, really long time, but before when I was here there were different versions of the boards. One of them didn't even have the color yellow- it was all white and red. I would assume that yellow would still be considered to be white... or perhaps how you say, neutral.
Cyril said
at 10:11 am on Sep 11, 2011
When was that? *puzzled* When i singed up, there weren't such board designs. Anyway, i guess the yellow area is neutral, so both (or none of) the flower-colors can move in.
Yi Chen said
at 2:14 am on Aug 18, 2010
From what I can gather from game footage the yellow area seems an holding area for the pieces.
Osuji said
at 8:37 am on Aug 19, 2010
Sorry to disagree with you Yi Chen. If the yellow area was only used as a holding area then there wouldn't be a need to mark it with lines. The footage also shows tiles held off the board completely so why would you even need a separate holding area? It also seems odd to have so much unplayable space. The yellow squares make up almost 50% of the board. If it is only a holding area why even bother to make it part of the board? Why not just make a square board and a rule for entering tiles from the corners? It is a lot easier to make a square board than to make a round one. So there must be a reason it is round, and the yellow regions must be playable areas. Or at least it seems more likely to me.
Buddy said
at 1:28 pm on Aug 18, 2010
I made a board and tiles and a friend and I have played a few times now. The problem that we found with stacking points to a high value like it seems to be suggested here, (i.e. I have four harmonies this turn so thats four points and next turn I can move them and create different harmonies) is that players can just move the same tiles back and forth to rack up points. This gameplay struck us as too simplistic for what the game was suppose to be in the show, so rather than stack points we decided that we would go to a lower number (we've been using 15) but they must all be on the board at once (in harmony). If you move pieces out of harmony, you no longer have that point. We've found this adds a much greater deal of strategy and we think it seems to be more in line with the idea of playing in harmony. Just a thought of a different way to play, obviously there's no "right" way to do it. If you want to see my pai sho board I'm pretty proud of it. The first links the board, it's 2 ft across, the second link is to the light set of my tiles, the dark set can kind of be seen to the right.
http://giraffupus.deviantart.com/art/My-Pai-Sho-Board-175872159
http://giraffupus.deviantart.com/art/Pai-Sho-Tile-Colors-175872738
metsik said
at 8:28 am on Aug 29, 2010
Thats a good idea, but if you get a point by making a harmony and you keep the point by keeping the harmony then why not just play it so that it ends when both players have used all their peices and the player with the most harmonies wins. Or you could play until a player has achieved a certain number of harmonies. Oh, and I think the yellow space is neutral space where all tiles can be put. So if you put a red tile on a intersection that's surrounded by yellow squares then it would be the same as though you had put it on a red square. But if you put a white tile on a yellow intersection it would act like a white intersection.
metsik said
at 10:08 am on Aug 29, 2010
If the white flowers can't be put on red intersections, and both the home and the foreign port are made of red intersections, then how can you place white flower tiles on the board?
metsik said
at 3:04 am on Aug 30, 2010
You could name this version Simple Pai Sho, since it seems to be the most logical of all the variations.
Red Kutai said
at 5:26 am on Aug 30, 2010
Out of curiosity, why do you say that? When you say "all of", which variations are you including? Personally, I always found this version to require a little too much memorisation for my tastes (for each of 12 different tiles you have to memorise where it starts on the board, how it moves and what it harmonises and disharmonises with), but if it seems somehow more intuitive to you, I'd like to know why. I assume that "intuitive" is what you mean by "logical", as I probably would've edited-out any truly /illogical/ inclusions on the wiki, myself.
I do appreciate your suggestion for a name, though; I'm glad to see that people are paying attention to those requests...
metsik said
at 7:52 am on Sep 1, 2010
By all of, I mean all variations on this website.
By logical, I mean that Wiki Pai Sho seems to have the most straightforward goals of all the variations and therefore is the most simple of the variations, though you could also name it "Universal Pai Sho".
Cyril said
at 10:24 am on Mar 23, 2011
I would tend to something like "Original Pai Sho". I think the name should include that this is the main variation out of the ones here presented. But I have to say that I find "WikiPaiSho" very suiting; If you're on this site for the first time or just searching a rule set, it would be difficult to find the "main" rule set between all the others if it had another name
.
metsik said
at 7:53 am on Sep 1, 2010
I still don't understand how to play white flowers though.
Buddy said
at 10:04 pm on Sep 4, 2010
Metsik, the way my friends and I have been playing it is; you place the white flower tile, and it can stay in the home port (if we're talking a jasmine) until you move it out, after the initial leave the jasmine may no longer enter any red tiles.
Cyril said
at 10:19 am on Mar 23, 2011
I personally thought that the ports were considered neutral (as the yellow areas), even if there were coloured red.
Frank said
at 11:00 am on Sep 2, 2011
that's how i play too
Cyril said
at 11:39 am on Sep 3, 2011
We played the "international game" like this as well.
Anyway, what might interest you (and all others of course ^^) is that I'm working on a rule set myself which I'm gonna present on youTube. I'll post a link here.
Frank said
at 1:04 pm on Sep 3, 2011
cool. we'll be the only 2 in the world with pai sho vids (as far as i know).
Cyril said
at 3:05 pm on Sep 3, 2011
That's true. However, I'm not gonna make a video in the traditional way like you did, but use a powerpoint presentation to explain the rule set. I'm still refining the rules, but they're far too much to explain in one video of course (that's the case for every strategy game I know, btw), and I have 4 presentations complete by now (I'm through with the rules now, but I'll maybe make a fifth one with a little quiz about finding good moves and such as a kind of "final test" ^_^) . If you want, I can send you the presentations so that you can have a look. They need to be refined concerning grammar etc anyway.
Frank said
at 4:51 pm on Sep 11, 2011
cool. i'll be glad to help. i think i'll try to make a powerpoint of our game again. might be useful sometime.
Cyril said
at 1:43 am on Sep 12, 2011
Very well. I'll present them in the workgroup anyway, so you'll see them there. By the way, I'm mostly done organizing, we can start soon.
Frank said
at 7:48 pm on Sep 12, 2011
cool. powerpoint is working with me now, so i should be done by the end of this week.
Bryce said
at 1:41 am on Oct 20, 2011
With the harmonies not being blocked by neutral flowers, assuming it just has to be neutral with one of the 2 flowers in harmony to not block and assuming that flower tiles are neutral with their own other flower tiles e.g (jasmine with jasmine) then doesn't that make
all flowers not bock harmonies? Since harmonious flowers always have 2 neutral flowers each that are never the same. Also it doesn't really set in concrete here whether the white dragon harmonies or not? It kinda hints that it does the same as the white lotus but I prefer the idea of it just for capturing since for one its a dragon and also that would make it much better than the white lotus and I like how the game really is supposed to majorly revolve around your white lotus with all the white lotus gambit talk and such.
Frank said
at 10:34 am on Oct 20, 2011
The answer to that really depends on the harmony system used. using mine: say there are 3 tiles. lily, jade and jasmine in that order. the jade is neutral to the jasmine, but in harmony with the lily, therefore the jade acts as a connector fro the lily and jasmine, giving you 2 points. say there are another 3 tiles. lily, chrysanthemum, and jasmine in that order. if you include the option to play with disharmonies, then since the lily and chrys are opposites, you lose a point. the jasmine is neutral to the chrysanthemum so nothing happens in between them, and since the lily/chrys are opposites even though the chrys is neutral to the jasmine, the connection is broken. hope that helped
i used to play that the dragon could be in harmony with the rose or lily, but abandoned that rule. it was pointless and made it extremely powerful compared to any other tile.
Rodrigo said
at 7:42 pm on Jan 5, 2013
how to create a harmony? is created with a square in the middle, so you can bring a rock to block it? as block harmonies with rocks or wheels?
Rodrigo said
at 9:09 pm on Jan 5, 2013
http://paisho.pbworks.com/w/page/62422368/questions%20about%20the%20harmonies%20and%20function%20of%20the%20rock%20and%20wheels
Jared Russell said
at 3:48 pm on Dec 12, 2013
So do you play the tiles inside the squares or where the lines intersect?
Cyril said
at 9:21 am on Dec 13, 2013
As in most other rule systems, the tiles in this version are placed on the intersections. There is - in fact - only a very small number of variants where you can place tiles on the squares.
Cyril said
at 9:23 am on Dec 13, 2013
But if I read this correctly, it says right in the very first paragraph that tiles are placed on intersections.
JStar said
at 6:04 am on Jul 11, 2014
What about the beginning of the game? Is there a starting setup, or do the players just startplacing tiles? I read somewhere that the first 6 turns were used to place tiles anywhere on your side of the board (where it is legal to place them). Is this a real rule or not?
Cyril said
at 6:58 am on Jul 11, 2014
I don't think so, that might come from another ruleset. If I read the above correctly, then it doesn't say anything about a starting position. So the board is empty at the start of the game.
JStar said
at 8:19 am on Jul 11, 2014
How do you start a game? With the board empty. For last comment refer to this site (http://pai-sho.webs.com/rules.htm) interesting ideas.
Ofek Nagar said
at 10:15 am on Aug 19, 2015
Hi,
So listen... I know I'm something like 3 years late, BUT Pai Sho is really important to me. I've tried to improve the Wiki Pai Sho rules set by myself - but I couldn't do it alone.
I'm sure that by now you all probably have more important things to worry about, but if you have time PLEASE add a comment and let's build an appropriate rule set.
As I said - I REALLY want to make Pai Sho an appropriate game - and further - it should really be "more than just a game".
Since no one has visited this site for like 2 years, I will write this in several places so there will be a better chance for ANYONE to see that. Please, if you see this comment and you want to help me and write back - write in the front page (I wrote it there too) so I won't have to look for it everywhere.
PLEASE WRITE ME BACK IN THE FFRONT PAGE!!!
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