ARTICLE: What Did The Rulebook Teach You?
Today I watched a very interesting video in which Gil Hova and Geoff Engelstein talked about writing rulebooks. They presented a thesis that each rulebook has two purposes: it has to be tutorial to teach us how to play the game and it has to be also reference book to help us if we have any concerns and doubts later during gameplay.
For the past months I kept telling my friend Lucas, who was responsible for rulebook for Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot that he is writing the most boring set of rules I ever read to the most fun game I ever designed. We had an argument almost every day. He wrote pretty good reference book as Gil and Geoff would probably say. And he probably wrote pretty poor tutorial.
Of course it bothers me a lot. But today I’d like to go even further with Gil’s and Geoff thesis. I’d like to ask if – besides being tutorial and/or reference – rulebook can be a guide to the spirit of the game.
Let me explain:
Should the Sheriff of Nottingham rulebook tell you that you need to lie in the game to enjoy it? ‘You need to lie’ is part of the spirit of the game, not actual rules.
Should the Mall of Horror rulebook tell you that at some point you need to betray your fellow players? ‘Treason’ is part of the spirit of the game, not rules.
Should the Rampage rulebook tell you that you throw pieces and don’t give a damn about scoring? As above…
***
Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot uses a mechanism known from miniatures games. You check the distance between dice to know who can shoot and sink merchants. You use a ruler to move your dice-ships on the board. You use a ruler to see if an enemy ship is in your range.
You can play by these rules and have a great fun.
You can play by these rules and have the worst experience in your board gaming life. Ever heard about miniatures games tournaments? Yeah, that kind of story.
I put a very clear rule in the game: if two players are in approximately the same distance to the object, both resolve the effect (meaning both kill him or both are killed).
That’s a kind of rule that says: Have fun. Kill merchants. Don’t you dare to use this damn ruler and/or argue about fucking millimeters.
That’s kind of rule that is a spirit rule. A rule that tells you how I want you to play.
Is there a place for such rules in the rulebooks?
Should I put a chapter telling you that Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot is about tossing dice into the box, shooting merchants and it is not about measuring distances?
I am eager to know your opinion.
I am eager to know how you play Rattle, Battle.
I am eager to know if there is a space for something like spirit in the rulebook.
-Ignacy
Over the years there have been a number of games that I’ve played that I just never “got”. These have often been games that involve negotiation and alliances where these things aren’t mentioned in the rulebooks. When I learn a new game, I’m pretty dependant on the designer to tell me not only the rules of play but also the style(?) of game that it is. Did the designer intend us to lie and bully our way to victory, did s/he intend us to form alliances, or was it intended that we play RAW? Having this information helps inform my early plays and may ultimately end up being ignored, but at least I had an idea how the designer thought that I might most enjoy their design.
I don’t have an opinion on *how* this information should be conveyed: explicitly, in the “blurb”, through example rounds, whatever, but where it’s not immediately obvious (by which I guess I mean “explicitly stated in the rules”), I would certainly appreciate some guidance. Even the way in which the guidance is given can be part of the guidance!
This is a tricky subject, and I’m not sure there is a ‘right’ answer. RBGTL is not your normal type of game because it has the measuring, so it can have ‘discussions’ about millimetres. Most board games these days don’t have that in there, so there is no opportunity for those discussions during a game.
One of the reasons that I personally was never comfortable with most war games was the measuring. It is so imprecise. Am I over the wall or not, do I have LOS, is it in range? Give me hexes any day.
Anyway, back to the question. I personally think yes, you should have something in the rulebook, at the start, in a coloured box with a picture of a pirate explaining how the game should be played. In the rulebook yes, but part of the actual rules no. Make it clear this is an explanation of how you intended the game to be played. However, don’t go to far….. Don’t TELL people to do it. Sheriff of Nottingham should not tell you that you have to lie to have fun. People can still choose to play the game however they want to.
So, yes, TELL people that RBGTL wasn’t intended to be a game about arguing about millimetres and advise them of the best way to have fun during a game. But don’t TELL them what they should do in order to have fun. I would find that a little offensive. 🙂
Hope that helps.
Paul
My take would be to make a strict rule that incentivizes the type of play you want, while still being specific. In the case of the Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot rule you’re talking about, what if it said to always round up to the next centimeter?
Saying, “If they’re approximately the same distance . . . ” means players will argue about what “approximately” means as they measure out the millimeters.
Saying, “Round up to the next centimeter . . . ” means players will casually measure without feeling the need for a magnifying glass, everyone will get to do more stuff, and eventually, players will just feel the fun.
I don’t know if I’m right, but I feel that specific (never vague or disputable!) rules keep players from arguing, and fun has to be incentivized (enforced!) in other ways.
(Aw, all my paragraph breaks got stripped out…)
Thanks for the shout-out!
Strangely enough, this topic came up in two other panels I did (here are videos of all my panels: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgOaQpus0t2lHdQnv8Dif3Oa5hW1nq2j5). In my Board Game Design 101 panel, I discussed heuristics, which are rules of thumb players adopt to compete in a game.
A great example of a heuristic is, in Hold ‘Em Poker, “Occasionnally raise with a poor hand to intimidate your opponents.” In other words, bluff. Bluffing is one of the central characteristics of any form of poker. It’s arguably the heart of the game.
And yet, bluffing is not mentioned in any form of poker’s rules! Nowhere in the rules of Hold ‘Em, or Draw, or any kind of poker, are players instructed to bluff.
Heuristics, like so much of a game’s experience, emerge from a game’s rules like a hologram from film. And the fact that poker’s most recognizable characteristic isn’t even mentioned in its rules speaks to the power of heuristics.
The other panel where this came up was my crossing over panel. Towards the end, an audience member asked if we had any examples of social contract issues that we could resolve directly in the game rules. We had four game designers from different fields answer this question (myself included, as the board game designer), and we tried to use as many examples as we could. But it’s a tricky thing to do.
Overall, as I said in my 101 panel, games are like holograms. You can’t directly manipulate a 3-D holographic image; you can only manipulate the film, and then the holographic image will change accordingly.
And in a game, you want to affect the overall play experience, but you can’t directly change that; as designers, we only have control over the game rules, art, and components.
So as a long-winded answer: you can allude to the spirit of the game, but like heuristics and social contracts, expect it to emerge naturally out of the rules as part of the play experience. You can’t control it directly, but if your rules are well-crafted, the negative space around them should fill in with the play experience you want as the designer.