Lifestyle / Scrabble Scrabble Allows Proper Nouns in 'Trickster' Version Rules won't change for original game By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff Posted Apr 6, 2010 12:52 PM CDT Updated Apr 6, 2010 1:52 PM CDT Copied 2008 National SCRABBLE Champion Nigel Richards spells F-O-V-E-A-E (a part of the eye) in the final game of the competition at the Royal Pacific Resort in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday, July 29, 2008. (Joe Kaleita/AP Images/SCRABBLE) Just imagine "Jay-Z" as a triple word score: A new edition of Scrabble will bring with it a change to one of the game’s cardinal rules—proper nouns will be legal. Mattel won’t regulate which names are allowed or introduce any rules governing spelling, it’ll just let players work it out for themselves, reports the BBC. But traditionalists shouldn't fear, notes CNET: That change and others (such as backward words and stealing letters) will only be in a version sold as Scrabble Trickster. The company said it expects existing fans to enjoy the change, but it appears to be extremely wrong. The head of the London Scrabble League tells the Express that Mattel is “tarting up” the game, predicting that serious Scrabble players will keep using the classic rules. In the Telegraph, another tournament player called it “an act of desperation by the makers, who have presumably noticed that younger people can not spell, read or write.” (More Scrabble stories.) Report an error