The way I was taught to play Uno, the reverse card changes the direction of play.if you’re taking turns clockwise, it changes it to counterclockwise.
However, I often hear people say “uno reverse card” in the context of saying “whatever you just tried to do to me, I’m turning it around on you”. That seems to me to imply that in the game, the reverse card turns things around on the other player. Like if they play a +2, you can play the reverse card and make them pick up 2. Is that the way some people play?
Is this one of those “house rules” situations where some people make up rules different from the official ones? Like the famous Monopoly rule where people put a pot of money in the middle that you win when you land on free parking, even though the official rules say nothing happens on free parking
Yes. Most people I’ve played with do some variant of the super stacker ruleset.
All draw cards function as a skip your own turn and add to the draw stack. Skip and reverse can also function as passing the stack to someone else. This adds an additional element of risk/reward, do you play a scarce action card to pass the large stack at the risk of it backfiring and you possibly receiving an even larger draw stack, or do you just take the draw now?
The variants were popular enough that the UNO Facebook page has officially suggested them, for what it’s worth.
Rules for Stacking Draw Cards in UNO | Uno Variations - https://www.unovariations.com/uno-variation-stacking
This just feeds into the notion that “the rules of Uno are whatever you can convince other people they are”
Uno is indeed Calvinball
This was how we played growing up. We knew it wasn’t official, but knew it was more fun.