The rules
Mahjong Tale is a realistic 3D Mahjong practice table where four seats race through a 16-tile house variant by drawing, discarding, and claiming tiles. The rules are learnable; the tempo is what keeps you awake.
The tiles
A set has 144 tiles. Three suits run 1-9, four each: Dots (筒), Characters (萬), and Bamboo (條). Add the four Winds and three Dragons, four of each, plus 8 Flowers and Seasons.
Flowers are bonus tiles. When you draw one it is set aside automatically and you draw a replacement.
The goal
Your starting hand is 16 tiles. You win by forming 5 melds + 1 pair (17 tiles): five sets, each a triplet or a run, plus a matching pair.
Some household hands and bonuses add points on top of a normal win.
Special hands
Seven Pairs + one set
Seven matching pairs plus one triplet or run. It wins and adds 1 point.
Todo-pong
The household all-triplets hand: five triplets plus a pair. It wins and adds 1 point.
Escalera
A winning hand that contains 1 through 9 of one suit. It adds 1 point.
Bonuses
- Bunot: A self-draw win. Every opponent pays the winner 1 extra point.
- Kangs: Exposed and added kangs add 1 point from every opponent; secret kangs add 2.
- Flowers and Seasons: All four flowers or all four seasons add 1 point from every opponent.
- Rob the Kang: If an added kang would give another player a winning tile, that player wins automatically before the replacement draw.
A non-dealer win also gets 1 extra point from the dealer. If the dealer wins, every opponent pays the dealer 1 extra point.
A turn
Play moves counter-clockwise. On your turn you draw a tile, then discard one face-up. After a discard there is a short window where any player may call the discarded tile. Stay with the table or the chance is gone.
A hand draws when the live wall reaches the flower-wall reserve: 13 tiles, plus 1 more for each completed kang. Kangs and complete flower or season sets still settle on a drawn hand.
The calls
- Pong碰
- Claim a discard to complete a triplet.
- Chao吃
- Also: Chi / Chow
- Claim the previous player's discard for a sequence.
- Kang杠
- Also: Kong / Kan
- Complete a set of four; draw a replacement.
- Todas和
- Also: Hu / Mahjong
- Declare a winning hand.
A win (Todas) on another player's discard beats lower-priority calls like Pong or Chao for the same tile.
The lesson is the tempo.
Open the table, watch the discards, and let the calls start making sense.