Section 6: Variants & House Rules
Clue has appeared in many editions with different boards, card names, special spaces, and extra mechanics. Use the instructions packaged with a specialized edition for its unique components. The following optional rules work well with a classic-style set when everyone agrees to them before setup.
Common House Rules
- Stay and investigate: A player who starts a turn in a room may make a suggestion there without first leaving and re-entering. Afterward, the turn ends.
- Exact-roll optional: Players may stop before using the full roll. This keeps doorways accessible and reduces disputes over excess movement.
- Accuse from the room: An accusation may name a room only when the accusing player is inside it. This adds movement risk and slows the final deduction.
- One final guess: When only one active investigator remains, allow a single accusation. If it is wrong, reveal the solution and record the mystery as unsolved.
- Open doorway etiquette: A player may not deliberately stop on a doorway or corridor space solely to trap another player when another legal stopping space is available.
Two-Player Deduction Variant
For two players, prepare the solution normally. After shuffling the remaining deck, place four cards face down beside the board as neutral evidence, then deal the rest evenly. Whenever a suggestion goes completely undisproved, privately reveal one neutral card to both players, if any remain. Return it face down after both have recorded it. This preserves uncertainty while giving undisproved suggestions useful consequences.
Team Play
Divide players into two teams and alternate individual turns. Teammates may share one score sheet and quietly discuss deductions, but they may not show cards to each other unless those cards are revealed through the normal disproof process. A team makes only one accusation for the entire game; a wrong accusation eliminates that team from active play.
Fast Game
Before dealing, remove one additional random card from each category and place those three cards face up for everyone to eliminate. Then create the hidden solution from the remaining category piles and continue normally. With fewer live possibilities, the mystery resolves more quickly without changing the basic deduction process.
Advanced Notes
Players seeking a deeper puzzle may track not only cards they have seen but also groups of possibilities. If an opponent disproves “Scarlet, Candlestick, Kitchen” without revealing the card to you, note that the opponent owns at least one of those three cards. Later evidence may reduce that group to a single certain card.
Agree in advance whether players may take written notes about who answered each suggestion, whether suggestions may be repeated word for word, and whether accidental public revelations remain public information. Consistent decisions keep the mystery competitive and friendly.