Snakes and Ladders Rules

The part nobody disagrees about

Everyone starts off the board rather than on square 1. On your turn you roll one six-sided die and move that many squares along the numbering, which runs left to right along the bottom row, then right to left along the row above it, alternating all the way up. If you finish on the foot of a ladder you climb it and your turn ends at the top. If you finish on the head of a snake you slide down it and your turn ends at the tail. Ladder tops and snake tails do nothing whatever – they are ordinary squares that happen to have something arriving at them. Then the next player rolls. The first token to reach square 100 wins, and there is no second place worth playing on for. At no point in any of that does anyone make a choice.

The ending is the one real disagreement

Two versions are both standard. In the strict version you must land on 100 exactly: if you roll more than the gap, the surplus is counted back down from 100, so from 98 a 5 takes you up two and back three and leaves you on 97. In the loose version any roll that gets you to 100 or beyond finishes the game. The boards here are set to the strict version and print which one is in force in a line under the grid, because it is the one thing about a game in progress that a board cannot show you by itself.

Which one you use changes the shape of the endgame completely, and it is easiest to see from a single square. Sitting on 98 under the strict rule, only a 2 wins. A 4 leaves you where you are, a 5 sends you to 97 and a 6 to 96 – but a 1 or a 3 both put you on 99, which on the standard layout is a snake head down to 80. One turn in three, waiting on 98 costs you eighteen squares. Under the loose rule the same square wins on anything except a 1. How much longer that makes a whole game is measured on the main board page.

Four house rules, and what each one actually does

A six lets you roll again. Very widely played, and not used here. It shortens games and gives a turn no fixed length, which is exactly why some people like it and others will not have it. A six to start, meaning nobody enters the board until they roll one, is the same idea used to punish rather than reward, and it can leave one player watching for several rounds; the boards here let any roll enter, so the first roll of the game always puts a token on the board. Landing on an occupied square sends the occupant back to the start at some tables; here two tokens simply share a square and the board offsets them so both stay visible. And when a snake tail is also a ladder foot, some tables stop there and others climb – the engine here follows the landing square wherever it leads and would climb, but on the layout these pages use no square is both, so it never comes up.

What is actually deciding the game

Nothing either player is doing. It is worth being blunt about that, because it is the reason the game survives being played by four-year-olds and the reason no amount of practice improves anybody at it. It also settles what every house rule above actually is. Rolling again on a six shortens the game. Entering only on a six lengthens it and makes one player sit and watch. Sending an occupant back to the start lengthens it. Climbing from a snake tail that is also a ladder foot shortens it. Not one of the four hands anybody a decision.

That is the test to apply when somebody proposes a house rule at the table. If it does not give a player a choice to make, it is a rule about how long you are all going to be sitting there, and it should be agreed on that basis before the first roll rather than defended as strategy after somebody has landed on 99.