Quitting a round is a real option in LAMA. Staying in gives you another chance to escape penalties, but drawing can make your hand more costly.
How it plays
Each player starts a round with six cards, with one card turned up to start a shared discard pile. On your turn, play one card, draw one without playing, or quit the round. A played number must match the discard pile’s top card or be exactly one higher. A llama follows a six or another llama; a one can follow a llama.
You can draw only while cards remain in the draw pile and at least one other player has not quit. Quitting sets your remaining cards aside for scoring and stops your turns for that round. Once everyone else quits, you may continue playing but cannot draw. A round ends when someone empties their hand or everyone quits.
Your leftover cards add penalties whether you quit or stayed in. Numbers cost their face value, counting each distinct number only once; leftover llamas cost ten altogether. Penalties accumulate as one-point and ten-point tokens. Emptying your hand lets you return one previously collected token of either value. Deal six cards each for the next round. After scoring a round, if anyone has forty or more penalty points, the game ends and the lowest total wins. Tied players share the victory.
Decisions you’ll make
When drawing is available, weigh quitting to accept your current penalty against drawing to keep trying to empty your hand, risking new card values that increase your penalty.
Learning the game
Explain that penalties count each number once, that all remaining llamas together cost ten, and that clearing a hand can return one token rather than just one point. Those distinctions give the play-or-quit choice its meaning.