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Also, the trope does not include games to which every single rule has not been given. If the basic structure of the game is laid out it is not an example of '''Calvin Ball'''. After all these are fictional games which appear in some kind of narrative, and we should not expect a full manual of rules to interrupt the flow of the story.
Also see [[Pac-Man Fever]], where writers create Calvinball out of video games (intentionally or not) -- all we know is that most involve levels where you [[Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000|kill everyone]] with lots and lots of [[Button Mashing]] and joystick swinging -- ''far'' more than what a game should have. See [[
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo]]'' uses this as a ''fighting style''. Given, the point of the style is to [[Confusion Fu|confuse one's enemies into submission,]] so it does make a little more sense in context.
* ''[[Bleach]]'': In [[Filler|Episode 303]], the shinigami play a karuta card game. It's originally supposed to be based on a real game but [[Killer Rabbit|Yachiru]] doesn't bother explaining the rules. Players get ejected on the basis of made-up rules and things quickly degenerate into chaos with [[Functional Magic|kidou]] and [[Personality Powers|shikai]] being liberally thrown around. And then [[Finishing Move|bankai]] reduces everything to [[Law of Disproportionate Response|rubble]]...
* Duel Monsters from ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' is basically this, especially in the early story arcs before a more concrete set of rules was established; even then, new cards were constantly introduced that changed the existing rules, to the extent that the series was formerly the [[Trope Namer]] for [[New Rules as the Plot Demands]].
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* ''[[Nichijou]]'' brings us "Igo Soccer", a combination of Soccer and Go. The club's president Daiku started the Igo Soccer club not even realizing it was apparently a real game. When Daiku meets actual players and sees the game on display, he has no idea what's going on other than those involved striking very odd poses. It leaves even his [[Emotionless Girl]] partner Sekiguchi in open-mouthed shock and confusion.
== Comic Books ==
* [[The Sandman]]'s ''A Game of You'' and, perhaps, this trope in general may be summarized by the quotation prefacing the book:
{{quote|The distinguishing characteristic of a traditional folk game is that although it has rules they are not written. Nobody knows exactly what they are. The players have a tradition to guide them, but must settle among themselves the details of how to play a particular game.|From One Potato, Two Potato: The Secret Education of American Children, by Mary and Herbert Knapp}}
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*** Keep going until you run out of Pabst. Optionally, go back inside to enjoy a few bottles of good beer.
* The sport of smurfball in ''[[The Smurfs]]''.
== Fan Works ==
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The
** Episode 107 of the actual show plays with this as well. After a duel shifts to a dice game, it is declared that the roll of a die will alter each monster's strength. The protagonist declares that his roll doubles his power, while his opponent's...
{{quote|'''Nesbitt:''' A five! That must be good!
'''Duke:''' Actually, ''that'' cuts your monster's power in half.
'''Nesbitt:''' ''What?!?
* In [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4502785/6/Scordatura chapter 6] of ''Scordatura,'' an ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' fanfic by Davner, Urd is forced into an actual game of Calvinball against her sister Skuld in a sequence that parodies the Thunderdome sequence of ''[[Mad Max]]: Beyond Thunderdome''.
* The [[Trope Namer]] is frequently played in ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series]]''.
== Film ==
* In ''[[Fantastic Mr. Fox]]'', the animal school's official sport is Whackbat, an incomprehensible game similar to baseball and cricket played with a flaming pinecone. A sequence of the game in play features animals hitting the pinecone, running around in random directions and even spinning in place.
** "Basically, there's three grabbers, three taggers, five twig runners, and a player at Whackbat. Center tagger lights a pine cone and chucks it over the basket and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox. Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine."
*** "Hotbox!"
* From the [[Fun with Acronyms]] Department comes TEGWAR, or '''T'''he '''E'''xciting '''G'''ame '''W'''ithout '''A'''ny '''R'''ules. First seen in the movie ''Bang the Drum Slowly'', it is a game invented by professional baseball players for the sole purpose of winning money off of gullible fans (who, for the most part, are just happy to play a card game with pro baseball players).
* In the audio commentary for ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'', Dominic Monaghan describes Tig, a passtime that involved the various Hobbit actors tagging each other and saying nonsense words like "tig" and "tog." When Elijah Wood tried to join in, the other actors pretended that it was a real game with rules, and began making them up on the fly so that Elijah was always doing it wrong. Elijah never caught on. A year later, he asked the others why they never played Tig anymore, and they fessed up that it was all a prank.
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* In ''The Whoopee Boys'', the protagonists must not only learn the rules to "Cross Courts," but they must also master the sport only known to elite socialites.
* ''[[Baseketball]]'' arguably started this way - the protagonists invented rules on the fly to make it impossible to win for their competitors (obfuscating this through various "are you stupid? How could you not now this? Obviously it's ..."). Eventually however, rules are set and there are even national games.
== Literature ==
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** Discworld has also been mentioned as having its [[Cosmic Chess Game|Gods play games]] to which no one knows the rules, sometimes including the gods themselves.
*** We do know that they find [[Chess]] too complicated and don't have the patience.
*** The game they play with the lives of men appears to be a form of [[
** Actually, there are official rules for Cripple Mr. Onion lying around, and it appears to be perfectly playable. At least part of the challenge is compensating for the fact that Cripple Mr. Onion requires eight suits to play; the most common solution is to put together two decks with distinctive face designs, or relying on the other players' goodwill that they won't peek while you check if all your hearts are the same color on the back. If you can get hold of a European deck (or a Tarot Minor Arcana the same size as regular playing cards) you're solid.
** ''[[
* The Leary family in Anne Tyler's ''[[The Accidental Tourist]]'' invented a card game called "Vaccination", which after decades of refinements has become so convoluted that no outsider could possibly learn how to play it. Except for Julian, who marries into the family; when he learns the rules, lead character Macon Leary is so impressed he withdraws his objection to Julian marrying his sister.
* The [[Herman Hesse]] novel ''[[The Glass Bead Game]]'' (''Magister Ludi'' in early translations, ''Das Glasperlenspiel'' in its original German) revolves around an extraordinarily complex game whose rules are never explained—and its publication in 1943 makes this trope almost [[Older Than Television]]. It's implied, however, to be a kind of Liebnizian symbolic model of philosophy.
* Shent from [[Tad Williams]]' ''[[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]]'' is implied to be like this. Its complexity is increased by the fact that players aren't expected to play to win, but rather to create aesthetically pleasing situations.
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* ''[[The Enemy Papers]]'' includes a story from Talman where the teacher introduces as a learning aid some game where one of the moves is change of the rules. Of course, the pupils invariably turn it into a convoluted mess. The lesson would be a spoiler, but it's rather amusing, and makes a good point.
=== Periodicals ===
* The trope's first reported instance was in ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' back in the 60s, when they invented a college game called [http://www.madcoversite.com/quiz_olympics.html 43-man Squamish]. Details are sketchy, but when official gear includes a shepherd's crook and flippers, odds are the game wasn't meant to be played anyway. Still, apparently some actual teams were formed for a bit. An excerpt from the rules:
{{quote|''A Squamish team consists of 43 players: [[Long List|the left & right Inside Grouches, the left & right Outside Grouches, four Deep Brooders, four Shallow Brooders, five Wicket Men, three Offensive Niblings, four Quarter-Frummerts, two Half-Frummerts, one Full-Frummert, two Overblats, two Underblats, nine Back-Up Finks, two Leapers, and a Dummy]].''}}
** An earlier example from ''Mad'' is the late-fifties board game parody [http://erniekovacs.blogspot.com/2007/12/test.html Gringo].
** Another was the board game "Three-Cornered Pitney" in 1983, with similarly ridiculous rules, as it was designed by one of the creators of 43-Man Squamish.
* The Onion printed a sport called "Snøkåathlaan" for the 2010 Winter Olympics, complete with history, rules, and athletes to watch.
== Live
* ''[[Even Stevens]]'': In one episode Louis and Twitty play a game called "Sweaty Sock Ball" which the rules seem to change at will and depending what day it is and if you do a certain thing; very similar to the rule changes in the Trope Namer.
* The infamous "Kamoulox" invented by French comedians Kad and Olivier. It's a parody of ''[[Jeopardy!]]''-look-alike TV shows, whose habit of giving nicknames to their special rules can make them very obscure at first viewing. The game must have a referee and any number of players, giving special penalties to other players who have to answer with counter-penalties. These special rules are of course completely made up on the moment and must have the most stupid names possible. The referee decides if the counter-penalties work or not, based on other stupidly-named rules found in improvisation. He can also invoke rules of his own. The game ends whenever a player says "Kamoulox" (he wins then). The whole game is just an excuse to say stupid things.
** Example:
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* ''[[Star Trek]]'' has these by the assload, from the old-school three-dimensional chess to Dom-Jot, Dabo, and Tongo. A full list can be found [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Category:Recreation here].
** Kirk once used a game like this to occupy some guards until he, Spock and [[McCoy]] could make their escape.
* In ''[[The Monkees (TV Series)|The Monkees]]''
* The British show ''[[Green Wing]]'' gives us Guyball, which features all the quirks of jai alai, basketball, and Eton College's Wall Game. Plus a really funny hat.
** The one rule actually given was "curbing the Matterhorn", which entails insulting your opponent as much as possible.
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*** That's Numberwang!
**** Is it? [[Mind Screw|How can you tell?]]
* ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'' had Double Cranko, played with a poker deck, a chess board, dice, and [[There Are No Rules|no rules whatsoever.]] When Colonel Potter finally turns the tables on Hawkeye in it, Hawkeye proceeds to invent ''Triple'' Cranko. (An earlier episode had Hawkeye and Trapper playing a similar venue, but as a [[Drinking Game]].)
* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]],'' Ronon introduces Sheppard to a "traditional Satedan sport" that is a sparring session where the rules change with every round. After picking himself off the floor a few times, Sheppard complains that Ronon is just inventing this as an excuse to kick his ass. He good-naturedly indulges Ronon though, possibly because he's used to it by now (his teammate Teyla regularly kicks his butt while attempting to teach him her fighting technique).
* Okay, so technically, Counterfactuals from ''[[Big Bang Theory]]'' isn't a Calvinball game, since it has specific rules and cards, but "freestyling" it in RL would probably do. The game involves extrapolating an Alternate Universe from a certain concept and answering a bizarre question about it. For example, in the show, a question was, "[[In a World]] where mankind is ruled by beaver overlords, what food does not exist?" The answer? {{spoiler|Cheese Danishes}}. ([[It Makes Sense in Context|Watch the episode to learn why.]]) In the show, the answers are rigid (as befitting Sheldon's personality), but if you "freestyled" it, making up the questions, then the answers could be literally anything, as long as it could be explained.
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* ''[[The Middleman]]'' gave us Shabumi, an exceedingly complex card game played by high-class villainous types. Each player is given a full deck of cards, over 300 verbal and physical challenges are involved, and the price for losing or cheating is death. Oh, and live bunnies are involved somehow.
* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' featured the quiz show "It's A Living", the rules of which were so insanely convoluted and complex (but somehow revolving around what fees the BBC got) that by the time the presenter finished explaining them, the show had finished.
* In the 2004 [[
** Averted with the reboot show's game that uses the name "Pyramid:" a vaguely handball-like game played in a small court with three goals and for which the writers did, in fact, draft up a full set of rules.
** Somebody was either confused or being a smart-alec. In the original series, Triad was the handball-like game and Pyramid the card game.
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** But what about ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?|Whose Line Is It Anyway]]'', "The game where everything is made up, and the points don't matter"?
* ''[[Bottom]]'' has Eddie's card game "One Card Slam". In which Eddie flips out a random card from the pack, slams it on the table, and demands twelve quid from Richie.
* On one episode of ''[[The Burns and
** Ricky and Fred to a similar thing to Lucy with a fictitious version of golf on one episode of [[I Love Lucy]]. I dare not reveal what comes of it.
* An episode of ''[[The Bob Newhart Show]]'' features Bob and his poker buddies playing ever more outlandish card games such as Snee-Ho (where one wins if they draw the "King of Snee") and Klopsky (which calls for four packs of cards and a banana).
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* The British show ''Noel's House Party'' featured in a game in the 1992-93 series called "Open the cupboards" which had a running gag about the rules being complicated (and if you watched a playing of the game, it looks that way). "You throw a six to start, the referee's decision is final, and deuces are twice as valuable as a pair of spades in your hand."
* ''[[New Girl]]'' has "True American", a drinking game with Candyland elements, in which the floor is lava. The rules involve zones (some of which are crazy), yelling out the names of presidents, and alcohol (with cans of beer as Soldiers of the Secret Order, and a bottle of bourbon as King of the Castle). If you take a break to have sex with a beautiful woman, everyone else wins. And everything you hear in True American is a lie.
== Newspaper Comics ==
* [[Trope Namer|The name]], of course, comes from the anti-game invented by [[Calvin and Hobbes]], whose only consistent rule was that you couldn't play the game the same way twice (although no one was ever allowed to question the masks, either). Watterson mentioned in the tenth anniversary annotations that he constantly get fanmail asking for the rules, to which he commented they were simple: you make them up as you go along, allthough the main point seemed to be to make up whatever rules would cause your opponent the most defeat, humiliation and annoyance. Hobbes was very good at it, and Rosalyn picked it up quickly.
** Calvin seems to be fond of games with impossibly convoluted rules, even though he's not very good at regular baseball, let alone the variation with over two dozen bases spread out over half the neighborhood, entire "ghost" teams and usually ending in a [[Big Ball of Violence]] with Hobbes.
* ''[[Frazz]]'' had a week dedicated to [https://web.archive.org/web/20100822141721/http://comics.com/frazz/2006-05-01/ Bedlamball]. Not surprising, considering the Wild Mass Guessing that Frazz is, in fact, adult Calvin.
== Professional Wrestling ==
* At ''[[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] Backlash'' in 2001, William Regal challenged Chris Jericho to a Duchess of Queensbury rules match, which Jericho readily accepted, despite having no idea what "Duchess of Queensbury rules" entailed. It turned out that Duchess of Queensbury rules simply meant that Regal got to change the rules whenever Jericho was about to win. Jericho attempts to pin Regal? Oops, the match is divided into two rounds, and round one just ended. Jericho gets a submission? Oops, submissions aren't allowed!
** This wasn't the first time this kind of match was used; this one is a popular, albeit seldom used kind of [[Zany Scheme]] for heels in [[Professional Wrestling]].
*** And when the General Managers or Vince himself gets involved, their reason is automatically [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them]].
== Radio ==
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* [[Stephen Fry]]'s ''Saturday Night Fry'' gave us the game of "Kick The Frog", in which Hugh Laurie was the frog and had to answer questions. If he got the answers wrong, Jim Broadbent kicked him. If he got the answers ''right'', Phyllida Law kicked him. There was no mechanism to make someone else the frog.
** From the back of the box: "Kick The Frog is like life. It isn't fair." The rules were subsequently changed to become (in principle) fairer, first by becoming a democracy (in which only Stephen and Jim had the vote, and both voted Hugh should remain the frog, and neither he nor Phyllida should get a vote) and eventually into a pluralist social democracy (in which, after long discussion, almost everyone agrees it makes ''sense'' for Hugh to remain the frog). Eventually Hugh persuades them to stop playing altogether. So they just kick him instead.
*
* A new [[The BBC|BBC Radio 4]] panel show called ''It's Your Round'' requires the four guests to make up their own rounds for the others to play.
== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
* The ''[[Stella]]'' comedy group performs a sketch in which one of them suggests they play a "logic game" in which the players take turns saying one of two nonsense words in a unspecified pattern. The second member quickly grasps the pattern and is able to play along, but the third member always guesses wrong. It becomes increasingly obvious that the "pattern" is completely random, and the third member will be deemed wrong no matter what he says.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
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* ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' might fit the bill or subvert it, depending on how you see it. Basically the rulebook (often ignored) states that arguing rules is against the Big Orwellian Omniscient AI's will, and it can (and will) result in painful death for the players. Actually, GMs ''make'' the rules as long as they keep the game interesting.
** Arguing rules isn't ''directly'' prohibited, but most of the rulebook (basically everything besides setting description and character creation guide) is considered Ultraviolet security clearance. If you admit to knowing enough of the rules to think you ''can'' question them (and aren't already the highest possible rank in the complex), you're openly admitting to treason.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' has Gateway and The Games of Divinity. The first is for mortals, and has been shown in comics and illustrations, though the appearance may be different depending on the artist. The second is for the gods, is played in the Jade Pleasure Dome in Heaven, and is
* There's a whole class of games where the rules can be changed, such as Nomic (which simulates lawmaking, so voting an utter mess into existence is sort of the point), Bartok, and Dvorak. Depending on the group playing the game, the [http://www.agoranomic.org/ complication] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20101204061043/http://b.nomic.net/index.php/Main_Page absurdity] of the rules can quickly reach Calvinball-esque levels.
** Another, much less absurd game of Nomic, [http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/406032/nomic/play-by-forum Here]. Current rules are [https://web.archive.org/web/20141115065515/http://bggnomic.wikispaces.com/Current+Rules#Immutable%20Rules-----116 here]. New players can still join(Rules 305.3, 305.7.1) as long as they don't cheat(Rule 101). You can always quit if you decide you hate it(Rule 305.7.2), and there's no penalty for quitting(Rule 113), so it can't hurt to take a look(Rule 116).The winner is the first player to get to 200 points(Rules 112, 208. For scoring, see also Rules 305.3.1, 305.4, 206, 307, and 309.2)
*** There's [https://web.archive.org/web/20131128210126/http://www.parl.gc.ca/ another name] for this sort of thing.
**** This goes all the way back to "The Paradox of Self-Amendment" (if a government's laws include laws on how to change the laws, and they're used, is it still the same government?). One of the appendices presented Nomic, basically a set of laws with almost everything except the how-to-change-the-laws part stripped out, so people could actually play with it and get a feel for it.
* In the game ''[http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/542 Democrazy]'', the object is to reshape (by player vote) the rules for acquiring and scoring colored chips so that your stash of chips is worth the most points at the end. As in the Fluxx example below, a winning position one turn can become worthless next turn, or vice versa.
* [[Steve Jackson Games]]' ''[http://www.sjgames.com/knightmare/ Knightmare Chess]'' uses a deck of cards, from which each player draws with every move, to turn chess into calvinchess. Typical card effects including blowing up pieces and rotating the board ninety degrees.
* ''[[wikipedia:Rithmomachy|Rithmomachy]]''. Note that it still managed to be as popular as chess in 17th century Europe.
* ''[[Talisman]]: the Magic Quest Game'', by Games Workshop, an expandable board game loosely based on the ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' and ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' role-playing games. Players advanced simplified RPG characters toward a simple goal (claiming a magical crown or some such), but the game took every chance to complicate and subvert this goal. Much of the gameplay occurred through card wars in the fashion of ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', with the added dimensions of dice and boards. Even without the expansions, various player powers and cards indicated contradictory or overlapping results. Expansions added wild elements like time travel, outer space, underground dungeons, and cityscapes. The overall effect was of a network of overlapping and shifting rules, whose precedence was hotly debated at every turn. In fact, half the fun of the game is debating the rules.
* Some chess variants. But the first place probably belongs to "[[wikipedia:Taikyoku shogi|Ultimate Shogi]]" with a 36*36 board and like 200 different pieces. (By the way, in standard Japanese chess a player loses the game if he makes an invalid move. Good luck enforcing the rule in this variant.)
* Ever play rummy with jokers? Yeah.
* The rules of the card game ''[[Fluxx]]'' start simply, but constantly shift in unexpected ways with each new card, such that the players aren't even sure what will make a winning hand next turn. It's been described as "Calvinball with a deck"—an obvious exaggeration, because you can't "make up whatever you like", you can only "do what the cards say", making it more like a simplified [[Magic: The Gathering]] than like Calvinball.
* The card game ''[[wikipedia:1000 Blank White Cards|1000 Blank White Cards]]'' has far fewer rules than Fluxx. The game ends when someone cannot play or draw a card, and the person with the highest score wins. Other than that, players can mess with the score, the rules, and really just do whatever the heck they want by creating a card with that effect. ''This'' is Nomic with cards.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130531234621/http://trouserarousal.nu/cards/highlights.html This page] pretty much proves that the only rule is "Draw on card-shaped pieces of paper".
** As, indeed, is the aforementioned [http://www.dvorakgame.co.uk/index.php/Main_Page Dvorak]. Which is superior seems to depend on if you prefer your Nomics with democracy or without.
* The most important rule of the card game [[Mao]] is that you can't tell anyone else the rules. The point of the game is to guess them. New players are introduced to the game with the phrase, "The only rule I you can tell people is this one." In some gaming groups additional rules are stated to new players. Typically {{Spoiler|when it is your turn you either draw or play a single card}} and/or {{Spoiler|If you win, you can make a new rule}}.
** There are three main types of Mao. There's bureaucratic Mao, where discussion about the rules is allowed when not playing the game, but the rules are numerous and hard to keep track of all of them. There's fraternal Mao, which is what was described above. And there is dictatorial Mao, where a single player has full control over all rules and enforcement, but generally does not play to win, changing the rules at his whim.
* The game ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has had to constantly change its rules because of the unexpected ways in which new cards could interact with older ones; the entire batch/stack system, which has been responsible for 99% of rules confusion and crazy Rube Goldberg card combos throughout the game's history, actually grew out of one single rule called the "paradox rule". Originally, the rules were only changed when necessary; now, however, they are changed on some rather ridiculous whims ("why should there be a rule preventing walls from attacking? Let's just make up a new keyword and put it on most walls already in existence..."), and the game currently survives by introducing new rules with every expansion set (no matter how little they contribute to actual gameplay) and then forgetting about them just as quickly.
** The comprehensive rulebook is hundreds of pages long and reads like the federal tax code. It's only available online because the rules change so often that a printed version would be out of date within weeks.
* Webzine ''Critical Miss'' gave us "Clique": the unplayable, uncollectable card game. The goal is to confuse as many spectators as possible.
* In the card game/drinking game alternately known as "Asshole" and "President", one of the things the president can do is add a new rule at the start of a round (for instance, "pass all of the twos to me"). Whether or not these rules stay in effect for the whole game is up to the traditions of the players. As well, seats are constantly changed depending on who won the previous round, and drinking elements are often incorporated into it.
** In a similar vein is the danish card/drinking game "Gud" ("God"). Each drawn card has such effects as "Texas Quick-Draw" (Last person to mime drawing six-shooters must drink) or "Lawyer" (Create or remove a rule). The real fun starts when a player draws a king, though. This will render him or her "God", and the player is thus allowed to alter, create or remove any rule at will. Needless to say, this can get very convoluted rather quickly. And since rule violations require penalties in the form of extra drinking...
* Another game, Numbers, has each card using a different rule (for example Four has all girls drink and Six has all guys drink). The King lets whoever drew it add a new rule that has to be followed or else the breaker has to drink again. One of the favorites was that you can't say the word "Drink".
** This game is also known as [[wikipedia:Kings (drinking game)|Kings]], and has its own entry on [[The Other Wiki]].
* The card game ''[[Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot]]'' increasingly gets this way with each expansion deck you add. Each card has a ridiculous amount of rules behind it, some only explained [[All in The Manual|in the manuals]], like a certain card not working on dates with all even numbers (like 02/18/08), or cards where you have to roll every dice X times, with X being the month. And then in the end, the winner is decided by what's essentially a complete random and arbitrary card that was shuffled and pre-chosen at the start of the game. Truly a game where the point is to have fun along the way.
** I think the presence of "Green Gelatin (With Evil Pineapple Chunks)" as a ''weapon'' in the first deck should probably have been a tip-off there...
* Steve Jackson's ''[[Munchkin (game)|Munchkin]]'' series states in the rules themselves that players are not required to follow the rules, and indeed, that players can even make their own rules up as they go along, with the stipulation that whoever owns the game gets the final say in the matter. The fact that there are numerous different versions of ''Munchkin'' (''Munchkin Cthulhu, Munchkin Bites, Star Munchkin'', etc.) and the fact that each of these versions have their own expansion packs, plus the fact that you are encouraged to combine decks can result in very Calvinball-like games indeed. Then there's the bookmarks and other swag (including a rare ''coin'' token) that go with the games, which have even more ridiculous rules than some of the cards themselves.
** Not to mention the "Cheat" card which allows you to play any card in the game regardless of whether you would normally be able to. This Troper's group at first used it to play cards from hands that we didn't meet the requirements for, then realized that we could use it potentially say "I'm playing X" look through the deck to find that card and play it and eventually ended up trying to use it to play cards from other games (such as [[Magic: The Gathering]] or [[Babylon 5]]).
*** In fact, one of the rules of Munchkin is that it's both legal and acceptable to cheat, provided [[Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught|no one else catches you at it]].
*** If read literally, a Cheat card allows you to play a card ''someone else has already equipped''.
* ''We Didn't Playtest This At All'', and its sequel ''We Didn't Playtest This Either'', from Asmadi Games. The objective of both is to play a card that lets you win the game. It's possible to have multiple winners, but it's also possible to have no winners at all. Each card you play has an effect or introduces a new rule. There are "Bomb" cards that cause everyone to lose if there are four or more bombs in play. There are cards that make you lose because you got eaten by a dragon, sucked into a black hole, or [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|blinded by a laser pointer]] (and cards that counter those cards). There's the "Spite" card, which makes you lose the game, but also makes a player that would have otherwise won instead lose. There's a card that forces players to say "Ahh! Zombies!" before they're allowed to play a card, unless they have a banana. There are cards like [[Eddie Izzard|"Cake or Death"]], whose effect changes depending on how many players picked one option over the other. There are cards that make all the players still in the game play [[Rock-Paper-Scissors]] or pick numbers between one and five, except only the player who played the card knows what will happen (everyone who throws scissors loses, or you win if the numbers everyone picked add up to a prime number, for example). There are cards that make it illegal to point at anything, or to say certain pronouns. There's a card that counters other cards by having them intercepted by a ''kitten''. Then there's the Chaos Pack expansion, where a randomly-chosen "chaos card" affects the game, such as one that changes all cards that say certain words to instead say other words (for example, swapping "even" and "odd" or "cake" and "death").
* With every expansion, the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]] had new rules.
** ''A New Hope'': epic events (destroy planets/Death Stars), squadrons, trench rules, destiny of π, forfeit of 1/2, imaginary power, immediate and mobile effects, dejariks and holograms
** ''Hoth'': [[Took a Level in Badass|persona]], deployment for the dark side when shield generators are in play, marker sites, interior/exterior location deployment rules (before that, [[Patchwork Geography]] was the rule), armor
** ''Dagobah'': asteroid sectors, Jedi tests, starship sites, creature sites
** ''Cloud City'': "crossing over", "your Lando/opponent's Lando/any Lando", cloud sectors, two docking bays, sabacc
** ''Special Edition'': vehicle sites, non-unique planet sites, exterior Cloud City sites, permanent weapon, unique permanent pilot
** ''Jabba's palace'': Jabba's Palace sites
** ''Death Star II'': admiral's orders, Death Star sectors
** ''Tatooine'': podracing, underwater sites, droids that can generate presence
* "Card: The Game". The basic rules for this game are: If it's card-sized and card-shaped, and has a picture and/or a number somewhere on it, it goes. A player starts out with a deck of 60 cards (or anything else that fits the despription of "card" and fits the rule noted above) and begins play by setting any three cards in front of them; one has to have a picture of some sort that represents the "player". or if lacking a picture is something that you can explain as represeting the player ("My card has a heart on; I'm the Queen of Hearts" is perfectly fine logic here), one that reperesents 'mode of transportation', and the last being 'location', AKA where your character card is. Basicly, the game is improvisation based on the cards you pull; as long as what you do has SOMETHING to do with something on the card, it goes. Players try to take actions and respond to other player's actions using improvisation based on whatever numbers or images are on the cards they have either in their hand or placed face-down in front of them specifically to use in defense against other player's actions (whether against them, against another player, or against another player's response to someone ELSE's action, exetera.) ("I have a card with the number nine on it; I'm launching nine cruise missiles at another player." "Hum... Well, I have an Ace of Spades: he goes out and builds an anti-cruise-missile wall around me." "Wait, wait- I have a Jigglypuff! Jigglypuff puts your Ace of Spades to sleep so he can't build your wall." All of this goes.)
==
* In the [[Tom Stoppard]] play ''The Real Inspector Hound'', the characters in the [[Play Within a Play]] play a card game called
== Video Games ==
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* "Thrashball" in ''[[Gears of War]]'' is basically Blernsball as applied to NFL football rather than baseball; in many ways very similar to a familiar sport, but in many others bizarre and incomprehensible. There's a guy with ''shields'' in the backfield.
* "Wolfball" in ''[[Battle Realms]]'' apparently involves [[Noodle Implements|a solid iron ball, a walled-in arena and a pack of rabid wolves]], and is fatal to play for those not of the [[Healing Factor|Wolf Clan]]. No rules are forthcoming, but it speaks volumes that one of the playing positions (the "hurler", who has a gigantic two-handed Atlatl) does double duty as a military unit in-game.
== Web Animation ==
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** "I play the 9 in [[Yu-Gi-Oh!|Defense Mode]]!"
== Web Comics ==
* A magical version pops up in ''[[Furmentation]]''. It tends to last much shorter than a game of [[Harry Potter (novel)|Quidditch]].
* ''[[Ozy and Millie]]'' occasionally partake in House Rules Parcheesi. We never see much of the game itself, but we do see its aftermath: the room tends to look like a tornado hit it. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130825190034/http://ozyandmillie.org/2000/07/13/ozy-and-millie-430/ Shout-out] and [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]].
** House Rules Parcheesi isn't just Calvin Ball, it's ''Zen'' Calvin Ball
* Euchre is a game in [[Real Life]], but in [https://web.archive.org/web/20111001192617/http://bukucomics.com/loserz/go/305 this strip] of ''[[Loserz]]'' it's described in a way that it sounds like Calvinball.
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{{quote|'''Axel:''' What do you mean you lost? You were making up the rules!
'''Namine:''' She played a Monopoly "Get out of Jail Free" card. How am I supposed to beat that? }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20100206073346/http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20011119.html Septuple Scare] from ''[[Adventurers!]]!'' is portrayed this way. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100626133114/http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20050820.html Ardam is currently the only one who has figured out the rules.] A clear parody of ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'''s Tetra Master (see above){{supersecretspoiler| <ref>Aha! An infinite "See above/below" loop! [[Evil Laugh|Moohahaha!]]</ref>}}
* From ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', we bring you [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2006-10-01 Munchkin-clix of Cataan]:
{{quote|'''Schlock''': Hah! [[Yahtzee]]! That's a [[Critical Hit]]!
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I wouldn't be surprised if Lamont pulls a full under-crunch moonsault. }}
* ''[[Skippy's List|Skippys List]]'' has examples:
{{quote|142. "Calvin-Ball" is not authorized PT.}}
* ''[[Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG]]'' as well have
{{quote|781. My tribe's trial by combat ritual is not best described as "Calvinball with axes." }}
* Reddit has [http://www.reddit.com/r/scoreball r/scoreball], created in response to [http://i.imgur.com/2BiXV.jpg this 6th-grade paper].{{deadlink}}
== Western Animation ==
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* ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'' has an episode where they get a new house and Shake is jealous that Meatwad gets it, challenging him to a game of Rock Paper Scissors. After several rounds, it appears to be going fine, then suddenly we jump cut to Shake using a condominium while Meatwad uses hurricane, and apparently there were other housing venues as Meatwad states that hurricane beats all housing. What housing beats and where they came up with it is uncertain (not that it matters).
** The [[Bizarre and Improbable Golf Game]] in one of the show's spinoff videogames turned, you guessed it, golf into a cross between Calvinball and ''[[Fallout]]''. Complete with chainsaw fights against time-travelling robot turkeys, and that's ''before'' it gets ridiculous. Somehow there's a course ''on the Moon'', and another one '''in Hell'''. All of this is apparently legal.
== Real Life ==
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** Then someone made [http://www.umop.com/rps7.htm a version with seven gestures.] [http://www.umop.com/rps9.htm Then nine.] [http://www.umop.com/rps11.htm Then eleven.] [http://www.umop.com/rps15.htm Then fifteen.] [http://www.umop.com/rps25.htm Then twenty five.] [[Serial Escalation|Then]] ''[http://www.umop.com/rps101.htm A Hundred And One.]'' By the time there are 5,050 possible outcomes, it probably qualifies as Calvinball. It is even possible to play Rock, Paper, Anything, in which one need only come up with a ridiculous item and spend the next fifteen minutes arguing with their opponent over whose item is more powerful.
* In the philosophical treatise ''Finite and Infinite Games'' Professor James Carse divides games into two kinds—finite games, where the rules are fixed and the object is to win, and infinite games, where the object is to continue play and the rules change in order to prevent the game's end. It's deep philosophy, but it fits the trope since infinite games just wind up sounding like more fun.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070514035218/http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/nomic.htm#initial%20set Nomic] is a game that consists of a set of rules that govern how the rules can be changed. There can be rules that allow a player to win, but whatever that rule is, it can be changed. Games may - and will - devolve into anything from Rock, Paper, Scissors to Diplomacy. It's basically Calvinball for academics.
* The game of Bar Chess. The rules: sit in a bar. Move the things (ashtrays, beer mats, etc.) around. Occasionally say things like "Check" or "No, you can't do that". The aim is to make the people around you think you are playing a game. Bonus points if they start to offer tactical advice. Also called "Table Chess", and played at any table with things to move on it. College dining halls are favored venues, for the sheer number of available items and amount of space.
* The sport of Cricket is often seen as this by those who don't have a history of playing it, due to its [[We All Live in America|complex ruleset and arcane terminology]]. This has often been a source of humour for Americans in particular.
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** In Michigan, the winner of each federal congressional district gets two delegates. The candidates are all proportionally allocated two at-large delegates—in other words, each of the top two finishers gets one unless the first-place finisher totally obliterates the second-place finisher. However, state party leaders may choose to instead award both at-large delegates to the state's overall winner...which is exactly what happened.
** In order to avoid being penalized of delegates but also get early candidate and press attention, Missouri features an early primary election...but it doesn't count at all, and is often referred to as a "beauty contest" because of its non-binding nature. Instead, it selects its delegates at a caucus meeting about a month later. Furthermore, caucus-goers don't vote for the candidate they want to support, but instead they vote for the delegates (the people) themselves.
* In the 2016 United States Presidential Election [[Donald Trump]] would prove most "rules" about the US elections, such as "a candidate must release his tax returns" and "never put a candidate in a hat if you can avoid it" were mere traditions. On the other hand, in 2020, he tried to prove that "the loser gets to stay President" was the law of the land.
* [[Calvin Coolidge]]
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