Rule variations

Miscellaneous – Charleston

Charleston is typically used in the modern American rules. As the deal starts, players exchange tiles with each other. First the player who is East (dealer) exchanges three tiles with West, then South exchanges three tiles with North, after which East exchanges with South, and West with North. Finally East exchanges with North, and West with Sound. Each player passes the total of nine tiles. Jokers, if they are used cannot be passed (though it is unlikely that anybody would even want to try this).

Sometimes the rule of Charleston is accompanied by the rule of Ding Dong. According to this rule, a further exchange of tiles can be done at East's request. This time each player passes only one tile to each of the other players. Ding Dong can be repeated up to three times during the deal. To request additional exchange of tiles, choose Ding Dong on the Game menu while it is your turn (the command is enabled only if you are the dealer, i.e., East). Note that Ding Dong can be used together with the rule of Ready (both obligatory and voluntary), but no further Ding Dong requests are allowed if any of the players has already declared ready.

To enable Charleston and/or Ding Dong:

Choose Preferences on the File menu.
From the Rule Presets list, choose a customized rule preset.
Choose General under the Rules section of the category tree.
Check the Charleston box to enable the Charleston rule. This makes Charleston to be used on all rounds of the game.
To modify the rule and specify rules for using the Ding Dong, click the Advanced button to open the Options for Charleston dialog box. Here you can specify, whether Charleston and/or Ding Dong are used on every round or only on the last round, and whether one or the other is used at all (e.g., you could enable Ding Dong but disable Charleston). You can also specify a maximum number of Ding Dong requests allowed during the deal.

Note: Some rules allow blind passes, where a player is allowed to pass back one or more of the tiles that were initially handed by another player (and appear face down on the board until the exchange is complete). Four Winds does not support this rule. In Four Winds players always choose their discards from 13 tiles in the hand (except East, who has 14 tiles) and the player who starts the exchange for each turn, receives the tiles handed by another player face-up. Allowing blind passes would put players initiating the exchange in unfair position, since they need to hand over 3 tiles out of 13 (instead of 3 tiles out of 13 + 3 tiles appearing face-down).