Wesleyan grad students dressed as a SET magic square for Halloween 2021

During fall of 2021 the Wesleyan math grad students played a lot of SET, and came up with some fun variations. Here are some of our favorites.

1. Non-competitive SET. There can be any amount of players and everybody wins. 

Rules: Exactly the same as normal set, but you don't count how many sets you've found (all sets go into one pile). You play for the love of set!

2. Collaborative SET: There must be at least 3 players and everybody wins. This is the friendliest version of set we play and is great for people who are new at playing set.

Rules:  Lay the cards out as usual. If someone finds a set, they put one finger on one of the cards in the set (potentially moving it out of the way as to not block the other cards). This indicates to the other players that that card is part of a set on the board. The other players must find that set (or potentially another set which that card is part of ). Once a different person finds a set containing the first card, they put a finger on it. Finally one more person who is different from the first two must put their finger on the last card which forms a set with the other two. The set is discarded in a pile off to the side. The other rules are the same as the original, such as adding 3 extra cards if there is not set on the board.

3. Competitive Collaborative SET. There must be exactly 4 players. This is the most competitive version of set. It is similar to collaborative set.

Rules: Choose teams of 2. Play the same rules as collaborative set, except for discarding a set after it is found. One a set is found, the losing team that round is the team with the one person who did not help find the set. The losing team adds that set to their pile. The team with the least number of cards at the end wins.

4. Competitive SET. There must be exactly 4 players. This is the same as competitive collaborative except there is not teams.

Rules: The same as competitive collaborative, but only one person loses each round and they are the one who collects the set. The person with the least number of cards at the end wins.

5. SET Jenga. There can be any amount of players. This is the silliest version of SET.

Rules: You must have a table with a corner where you can wedge in set cards. To set up the game you wedge about 5 SET cards coming out of the corner of the table and in two different directions. Then you layer up the rest of the set cards face up on the wedged cards. To play, you look for a set in the pile and carefully pull out the set without knocking any cards off.