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.
This build also recognises two special hands:
- Seven Pairs
- All Triplets (碰碰胡)
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.
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.