How to play Scram
Two players, two roles, two innings. The Stopper shuts numbers down by hitting them; the Scorer banks points on whatever is still open. When the Stopper has shut the whole board the innings ends, the roles swap and the board reopens. The higher total scored while in the Scorer role wins.
Chuck Darts scores this game to exactly the rules on this page, and keeps the card open mid-match so anybody at the board can check one. A full leg of 501, a board of Cricket and six practice drills are playable right now with no account at all.
TWO PLAYERS ONLY
Scram is exactly two players. Not one, not three. There is one Stopper and one Scorer and no third role. A solo Scram will not start at all, both setup screens hold you to two, and a third player trying to JOIN is refused by the server, as is a game created with three in it. Play it as a doubles game if you like, but seat two. Nobody can be taken out of a live game, either: with one Stopper and one Scorer there is nothing left to play. If someone has to leave, end the game.
THE BOARD
21 targets: every number from 1 to 20, plus the bull. All 21 have to be shut before an innings ends.
THE STOPPER
Shuts a number by hitting it - once. Single, double or triple, it makes no difference: one dart anywhere in the 17 kills the 17 for the rest of the innings. That is the whole tension of the role, and it is why the Stopper aims for the numbers the Scorer wants rather than the ones that are easy. A Stopper's darts score nothing. Ever. They only take real estate away.
THE SCORER
Banks face value times the multiplier on any number still open: triple 20 is 60, the bull is 25 and the double bull is 50. A dart at a number that has already been shut is a dead dart, and so is a miss. Order matters inside a turn - the Stopper's shut takes effect the moment the dart lands.
THE SWAP
The Stopper throws first, and the two players alternate: Stopper, Scorer, Stopper, Scorer. Who stops first is decided by the seating order, not by a throw for the bull - agree it before you start if it matters to you. The moment the Stopper shuts the last of the 21 numbers, the innings is over. If that happens on the first dart of a turn, the other two darts are dead - they do not become scoring darts and they do not carry over. Then the roles swap, THE WHOLE BOARD REOPENS, and the new Stopper throws first. When the second Stopper shuts the board, the game is finished. Two innings, and no more. There is no round limit, and the setup screen does not offer one. Scram ends when the board is shut twice, however many turns that takes — a cap would stop it on an unfinished comparison, and one that landed in the first innings would hand the game to the first Scorer before the other player had scored at all. The host's End Game is the only way to stop it early (see WINNING).
WINNING
Only points scored as Scorer count. Higher total wins. Anything thrown after the second innings closes counts for nothing. If the two Scorer totals are level the app records no winner and no places - the card has no tiebreak and neither does the app, so a dead heat is a dead heat unless the house has agreed something else beforehand. A turn that could not be read dart by dart is different, and it does NOT stop a result: standard darts scoring counts a dart only once it has been called and recorded, so a dart that was never recorded did not score - that turn simply banked nothing, and the Scorer totals still stand as they are. If the host ends the game before both innings are done, the app awards it to whoever has more points at that moment - always the Scorer in the first innings, either player in the second - and records nothing at all if they are level. An interrupted Scram is not a fair result.
WHAT THE APP MAKES YOU DO
Every turn must be entered dart by dart. The whole game turns on which number was shut and when, so typing a turn total is refused. Log all three darts, including misses and darts at dead numbers. Only the player whose turn it is can enter a score. If a turn timer is running in a ranked online game and it expires, that turn is recorded as three misses - as Stopper you shut nothing, as Scorer you bank nothing. In a local game nothing is auto-forfeited. That timed-out turn is the clock's own record: it cannot be undone or corrected afterwards, by you or by the host.
UNDO AND THE PENCIL
Both doors put the board back the same way - a wrongly shut number reopens, wrongly banked points come off - but they hand the throw line (the oche) to different people, and in a game of two roles that is the difference that matters. Undo removes the last turn completely and replays the innings without it, so the throw belongs to whoever threw it and they take it again. Correcting that turn to 0 leaves it on the record with its darts rewritten as a single miss: the board lands in exactly the same place, but the turn counts as thrown, so the Stopper-Scorer alternation moves on and the other player is up. A correction typed as a number is refused: Scram is scored dart by dart, and a total cannot say which number was shut or when. Correct it with the darts as thrown — typed T20 D10 5, M for a miss — and the board recomputes from those darts. 0 is the single exception among totals - it is how the pencil records a turn as a miss. In an online game a pending Stopper turn shuts numbers on the board straight away, so the Scorer cannot bank points on ground that is already dead - but it does not end an innings and no points are banked until the throw is confirmed.
HOUSE RULES AND VARIATIONS
No governing body publishes Scram, but the version above is the one nearly every published guide describes. Where houses differ, agree first: - Whether the bull is a target at all. The app includes it; some houses play 1-20 only, which makes the Stopper's job much quicker. - What happens after the two innings. The app stops. Some houses wipe the closed numbers and keep playing more rounds onto the same running totals. - How a number closes. The app closes it on ONE hit, any ring. Some published versions close it the cricket way, on three marks — a single three times, or a double and a single, or a triple — which makes the Stopper's innings far longer and is the variation that changes this game most. - Teams. Some houses play it two-a-side. The app cannot score that as one session. - A tiebreak, if you want one - the app will not invent one.