I like playing a variant of Steal Scrabble that I developed when playing amongst friends. This may or may not be as fun for you as the original (if there really is a true "original"), but I found that it's really quite fun. The game starts very slowly, but is very interesting during the endgame.
Overview
Number of Players
Steal Scrabble is ideally played with three to four players, though more is possible.
Objective & Scoring
The object of Steal Scrabble is to score and hold points by creating words from the Scrabble tiles, either from community tiles or via stealing tiles from other players.
Players score points by counting their player tiles (below) at the end of the game. Each word is worth the triangular number of the tiles within the word (3 letters = 3+2+1 = 6 points, 4 letters = 4+3+2+1 = 10 points, 5 letters = 5+4+3+2+1 = 15 points, etc.).
The Table (Gameboard)
The tiles are all laid on the table for play, some face up and some face down.
Player tiles are face-up and grouped into complete words. They are owned by the player they sit in front of.
Community tiles are face-up tiles not yet combined into a word. They sit in the middle of the table.
Down tiles are tiles that are face-down. They will eventually be turned into community tiles and then potentially taken to be part of words as player tiles.
Gameplay
Setup
All tiles are placed faced down in the center of the table to start.
Play
Each round, a down tile is flipped over to become a community tile. Once this happens, any player can make one of three plays.
New Word Play: A player can take three or more community tiles and form a word, which will then become property of the player (as player tiles).
Steal Play: A player can take any collection of complete words from the player tiles anywhere on the table (including the player's own words) and form new words (with no tiles left over), which then become property of the player.
Combined Play: A player can take one or more community tiles as well as one or more complete words from the player tiles and form new words (with no tiles left over), which then become property of the player.
Rules/Limitations:
In any of the three play types above, the total score of player tiles on the entire table must increase. This always happens with a New Word Play is played, but this limits the ability to break long words into smaller words if Steal Play or Combined Play moves are attempted.
Regardless of the play taken, the player must declare all of the new words being formed before taking any tiles. This is optional, but helps prevent players from grabbing multitudes of words and then thinking after-the-fact about how to rearrange them into new, longer words.
If no players can see any plays to make, then a new tile is flipped and the next round begins.
Gameplay ends after the last down tile is flipped and no players can see any plays on the board. This is where the timer is helpful. After gameplay ends, players add up their score, with the highest scoring player being the victor.
Some players play with the rule that no word can be made twice in a game, though this is hard to enforce and not necessarily useful.
Example
Player 1 has in front of him the words "HAPPY" and "RAT." (15+6=21 points)
Player 2 has in front of him the word "FORT." (10 points)
Player 3 has no words in front of him. (0 points)
At the beginning of the round, a down tile is flipped. It's an "N."
Player 3 calls out "RANT," making a Combined Play by taking "RAT" from player 1 and the "N" from the community tile pool.
Each player now has 15, 10, and 10 points, respectively, making for 35 points on the board. This is an improvement on the 31 points that were on the board prior to Player 3's play, so this is a legal play. (In practice, this is very easy to assess and one needn't add up all of the points on the board.
The turn is not necessarily over, since more plays can potentially be made.
Player 2 calls out "FRONT TAR", taking his own word "FORT" and Player 3's word "RANT" and rearranging the letters. This increases the total points on the board from 35 to 36, making this a legal play.
Now, Player 1 has "HAPPY," Player 2 has "FRONT" and "TAR," and Player 3 has nothing.
There is yet another play that can be made in this round. (There may be better ones, I'm just giving some examples.
Player 3 calls out "TRAPPY THAN FOR," collecting all of the player words and rearranging appropriately. This increases the points on the board from 36 to 37, making this a legal play.
One of the things to note is that, in general, words get progressively longer when legal plays are made. It is not legal, for example, to take "THAN" and "FOR" and rearrange to "HON" and "RAFT," since this won't increase the points on the board.
If no players can think of any additional plays, then the round ends and the next community tile is flipped over. As mentioned before, having a timer for this phase may prove helpful.