The ancient Doman game of mahjong joins the entertainment on offer at the Gold Saucer. Face off against your fellow adventurers or practice against automata, and hone your strategies to triumph in this contest of wits!
While the Gold Saucer's mahjong tutor gives a basic outline of the rules, there are a few more terms that are commonly used when describing the game. We recommend familiarizing yourself with them before moving on to the other sections of this guide.
There are three suits of number tiles, each ranging from 1 to 9.
Characters
Dots
Bamboo
There are seven different honor tiles.
Wind Tiles
Dragon Tiles
Discarded tiles are placed in front of the player for their opponents to see. They are arranged in the order in which they were discarded.
A player can call chi, pon, or kan to claim a tile discarded by an opponent.
This term refers to the distribution of tiles to each player, including those drawn on a player's turn.
When a player forms a winning hand with a tile they have drawn, it is referred to as "calling tsumo." Using an opponent's discarded tile to form a winning hand is "calling ron."
When an opponent calls tsumo or ron, it will be displayed in a speech balloon.
Kan formed entirely from tiles in your hand are known as "concealed kan."
If a kan is formed using an opponent's discarded tile, it is known as an "open kan."
To differentiate between the two types, concealed kan are shown with two of the tiles face down.
When you are one tile away from a winning hand, you enter a state known as "tenpai."
If you have not yet called chi, pon, or kan, you will be able to declare riichi after entering tenpai.
If you have not called chi, pon, or kan, you are in a state called "menzen." Starting in menzen, then entering tenpai and winning the hand by calling tsumo fulfills the conditions for the Menzen Tsumo yaku.
However, calling chi, pon, or kan at any point during the hand means the Menzen Tsumo yaku becomes unavailable.
The kuitan rule allows tanyao yaku to be used after calling chi, pon, or kan. Since many mahjong players prefer not to use this rule, the Duty Finder offers the choice between "kuitan enabled" and "kuitan disabled" four-player matches.
A sequence of three number tiles of the same suit.
Three identical tiles.
Most winning hands are formed from four melds and a pair of identical tiles.
