Designing Game Rules - PAX South 2016
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- Опубликовано: 5 июн 2024
- Slides:
docs.google.com/presentation/...
The rules of a game literally define it. In videogames, they are intrinsic limitations. In tabletop, players must enforce them. In all games, players need to learn them. There are good and bad ways to teach a game. From awful tutorials to unparseable rulebooks, elegant demos to hour-long slogs, join us for a mechanical discussion of how game rules are (and should be) written, how players learn games, and why so few people are willing to read a 100 page rulebook (nevermind the appendices)!
Panelists:
Brandon "Rym" DeCoster [Producer, GeekNights], Scott Rubin [Host, GeekNights]
Presented at PAX South 2016! 
Игры
"If you have a hex map and you put 'diagonal' in your rules... Die in a fire!"
XD
Thank you! I listened to that ten times before thinking "Still nope....ahh check the comments....."
The rule writing advice from the PAX Panel by Rym DeCoster & Scott Rubin: Starts at 19:45
NOTE: I would add the adjectives "intuitive" and/or "clear" to most of these as well.
1. Use Precise language. Say things in a way that is impossible to misunderstand. Example: "Draw one and only one card." "You must now draw 0-5 cards players choice" or "Draw 0-5 cards until you have 5 cards in your hand" but not "draw up to 5 cards."
2. Use a Consistent/Strict Lexicon. Use special words the same way every time. Do not use more than one word to describe a thing.
NOTE: Using all CAPS for in game lexicon words is recommended.
3. Use the Existing Lexicon. Examples: Orthogonally and diagonally adjacent. My example: A turn is a block of actions or an action that generally focuses on one player (it is that players turn). Rounds are generally a set of turns. The bounds of when a round starts and finishes are defined game to game. Twilight Struggle reverses this. What the Crap!
NOTE: Glossaries are totally fine.
4. Use a Logical Lexicon. Language should be intuitive and clear to avoid phrasing that is likely to confuse.
4b. ASIDE (I inferred this): If you say that a rule is effected by other rules than reference them specifically so it is easy to see how and why.
5. Use Simple Language [when possible]. People generally read at a 7th grade level. The majority of adults are not skilled enough in language skills to synthesize information from complex sentences or summarize paragraphs in a way that maintains the meaning (based on census data referenced in the presentation).
6. Define a Process Once. For each thing that is explained there should be a single section that explains everything one needs to know about that thing. It should not be explained anywhere else.
NOTE: [I don't fully agree with this.]
6a. Unless rules are really short provide an index.
7. Provide in Game Feedback. If you have to flip cards or tokens over facedown than the thing may need to be marked on the other side so you can remember what it was. Intuitive reminders can assist with this.
Example: Tapping in Magic used to be identified by a "T" but has been replaced by a more intuitive symbol that requires less cognitive load to recall and use.
8. Use Icons.
Use intuitive icons along side text explanations a la Deus. This means that new players won't have to memorize symbols and experienced players won't have to keep reading text.
9. Never use Soft [poorly defined] Rules. Example: Pandemic says not to tell people what is in your hand but never articulates what communications are okay. Gloomhaven does this to a degree about initiative.
10. Handle Exceptions. If there is a rule that gets messed up frequently during play testing than change the rule or clarify so that it doesn't happen.
Example: In Puerto Rico players "always" forget to add colonists when the mayor role is taken. The rules include a note on what to do when this is forgotten so that the game can go on.
Example: In Fury of Dracula 3rd ed. Dracula has to move a certain way but his movement is hidden. No one can hold him accountable. If he cheats on purpose or accidentally there are clear rules on what happens as punishment if he is caught.
10b. Have a way to handle accidental cheating that is common and can't be rolled back easily.
11. Structure Rules.
Recommended structure:
1) Terminology
2) Object of the game
NOTE: [I would include how it ends in general terms here so that everything else that follows fits into that context.]
3) Course of the game (general): this includes set up.
4) Game End
5) Details of Play
6) Full Victory Conditions
7) Fiddly Bits: explanations, references, etc. Example: Card explanations. These things should be on the back of the book or printed as reminders on reference tokens/boards.
12. Be Concise. Rules that are longer than necessary are poorly written. If you are having to write in long paragraphs and add loads of exceptions that generally means that the game is flawed. An exception might be very complex games and simulation games.
13. Be Focused.
[I think that there point was to spend time on what matters and highlight it.]
13b. If you're game has a common feature but does it in a very uncommon way "then that should be the focus of the game or the game is probably bad." "Don't try to do too many [unique things." "Focus your game on the one thing that it does weird." "If your game does nothing weird than it is probably not a good game."
[I would add make that feature common or make it really clear how it is different. Also, remember people are likely to mess it up by assuming it works the same way as other games.]
14. Rules should act as a teaching tool and as a reference.
Summaries are a good reminder and reference for experienced players but new players need longer but clear explanations that would make a terrible reference for experienced players. Include both.
15. Glory to Rome Case study. This starts at 50:30.
NOTE: [they are wrong about the black box edition. It is ugly and dumb and the cartoon one is bloody king.]
15a. Write the rules so that players never have to go to a FAQ or check on BGG.
15b. Construct the rules so that it is easy to remember and is simpler without sacrificing mechanical purity.
EXAMPLE: Glory To Rome has players start with 2 influence and states that patrons and vault cards are limited by influence. It could have said they are limited by influence +2. Both are accurate but the first is much easier to remember.
EXAMPLE: In GtR the game ends immediately when clear and memorable conditions are met. It is nice and smooth.
MyEXAMPLE: [Through the Ages requires players to lose resources if they have collected too many via what is referred to as corruption. The old edition had corruption take place late in the clean up phase and was impacted by earlier parts of the phase. That required players to keep calculating how the clean up phase would play out to see if they would corrupt. The new edition put corruption at the beginning of the phase and made it very clear whether corruption was going to happen based on a simple graphic change on the player board.]
16. When play testing hand people the rules and let them play it. Don't teach them the game.: "Do more play testing of the rules then the game itself."
Not all heroes wear capes. Thanks.
Round of applause for this hero
OMG thank you cause seven minutes in these dudes are giving me a headache.
I'm replying to this so I can find it later on. Thanks
Thanks so much for this! As a side note though, please check your use of then/than. Yours truly, a grammar nazi and their pet peeve.
Unicorn gamer: I read rules to decide which new game I want to buy.
That's me. I read the rules I can find before buying. But because a board game is basically the rules, you won't find the complete rules
I read the rule for games that I don't have and not planning to buy 😂
I read rules so I can get inspired to create new ones lol. I bought murk Borg just so I could use it in other games
Does that make me a double unicorn now? Or unicorn squared?
@@solsystem1342 you are 2 unircorns controled by 1 soul
0:50
I guess I'm a rare, unicorn gamer.
I read-reread rule books in my spare time.
Super rare
I do as well. I've read many rule books to games I'll probably never play.
Alex Stambaugh Same here lol. It's better than actually playing the game sometimes.
You are a shiny I'm throwing an ultra ball
Cover to cover twice before I play any game. None of my friends however read until they thing I’m tricking them.
This is one of the best two-person presentations I've seen, you guys are super on point. You bounce the ideas back and forth off of each other like a pinball machine, the pacing is fast and furious, but concise and crazy easy to follow. It's a perfect illustration of how the theories you're teaching can apply to more than just rules-writing. Great stuff!
I love reading rules for 2 reasons:
1) I fell they help me learn better English
2) I want to make sure we play the game right.
'If you have to tell someone how to play the game, it's your failure as a game designer. . ." THANK YOU!!!! YES!!!!
strong point there to let the people playtest both your game and rulebook! What also really helps (cfr Quantum) is graphical representations of actions and their effects. It's language independent, works more intuitive than text and can help as a visual reference when looking for a specific rule in the rulebook.
This is very useful info. I appreciate the time and thought involved in creating your lecture. I will be using your tips as a guide for my own projects!
I'm in the process of designing my own game, and trying to get the rules so that it's consistent, worded in a way that people can understand, and flat out not bad!
I can not thank you guys enough for this video, it has been both informative and hilarious :)
(p.s. if you can't tell i'm horrible at writing)
It's alright bro, you've just gotta get rid of some of those "and"s in your run-on sentence and then you're all good.
...Although this comment was made 6 years ago, so I wonder if you've gotten better at writing by now.
the bald dude timing is very strange, sometime feels like he is trolling the ponytail dude lol
Dudes are game designers, not Tony Robbins ;)
R Daysh I love this reply so much.
So true, its hilarious 😂
I’ve had this feeling that they’re playing a game only they know about, just between them, every time they present
Yes! I very much enjoyed this presentation in person at PAX, and am happy to see the vid online.
We played the battle star galactica board game and the guy that set it up didn’t add any cylon cards so none of us ended up being the hidden cylons but we were so suspicious of each other we died anyway.
This spunds hilarious! I hope you all got a good time!
@@mohandasjung it was a blast. We still talk about it once in a while.
My favourite situation like this was playing LotR Risk with people who had no classical Risk experience, and a wrong print in the rules in german, that made them think, they can move as many soldiers as they want but only do one attack. The game turned into WW1 frontlines.
One of the best presentations of any topic I've ever seen. Bookmarking for the next session of revising my rulebook!
It feels like they're just cutting each other off over and over
I don’t think it’s out of disrespect or even on purpose. It’s just cause they’re homies.
I liked it, it was like ping pong but with talking
1. They are both enthusiastic about gaming. 2. They want to support and add to each other's statements. 3. They have a time constraint for their lecture.
tho it kinda felt like the bold guy was just interupting a lot XD
Designing presentations: Don't pace back and forth. Don't interrupt each other.
Agricola's beginner mode worked for getting my dad into a game session with me. Hands down, pun intended, he would have been overwhelmed by occupations and gotten lost or tapped out before getting some workers down and getting a feel for how the game played. Two food for the occupation spot and three minor improvements was a good number for him, and we could start to work into the game without completely bombarding him with concepts and information.
Some people haven't really played board games before, let alone a euro, let alone a euro with an ending that is very difficult to foresee when picking up the game for the first time like a heavy worker placement point driven game.
I agree that for most people, learning on a beginner mode is a waste of time, but for people who are on the fringe and might get turned off easy, jumping in with a little less can help bring someone into the genre by allowing them to play a more complex game once through to get a holistic idea of how the game plays out without being completely discouraged. I think that having one page or a small paragraph with a beginner mode option can function as a scaffold to help people who are not big game players learn a game without overwhelming them.
Another example is of a friend who played Caverna once with my two other friends. I saw his score the other day, as we keep all our scores, and it was a 29. I wasn't there that day. However, I know that he is not too into board games, and that experience completely turned him off to them. He has a background in Magic: The gathering so abstract and involved rules aren't a huge problem for him, but a three hour experience running lost in a forest of layered and synchronous decision making is simply not enjoyable for some people.
What really works well, are player aids. People can become autonomous players who can bypass the tradition of learning from someone else by quickly looking up the answer to their question in the same amount of time that it would take to verbally ask a question and listen to a response. This really helps bring people into the game without lengthy explanations or a full rule book read-through pre-play.
I really really REALLY enjoy this video. The word "enjoy" is very precise in that context. It refers to the fact that I've watched it many time, and might still do in the future.
(how's that for a rule book!)
This has helped me out a lot. I'm currently working on a little pet project for my college course which is making an online CCG. After watching this, I now have more of an understanding when designing my rules and how to lay them out for the player to easily understand. Thank you :)
That Calvin Ball reference at 19:20 is the best part of this talk, xD
If you read the rule book you have a one-up over everyone else. Wait 'til the crucial moment and bust out a rule no one else knows to win the game.
A well-designed game is able to teach the most important rules through the gameplay itself.
For example, look at Samson's stage in "Little Samson" for the NES - that stage simply takes you to a big wall that appears to be a dead end, but you know that there must be some way to get past it since it's only the beginning of the stage - so you think to yourself, maybe your are supposed to climb the wall.
So you try a couple intuitive button commands, such as holding the Left or Right button nex to a wall and then hit the A button to connect with the wall, and then all of a sudden you find yourself climbing the wall.
It keeps doing things like that for the rest of the game, like for example on Gamm The Golem's stage, where you must walk on spiky floors in order to get anywhere - and this way you learned that Gamm can walk on spiky floors.
It's so freaking simple and straightforward - just force the player to start thinking of new ideas that aren't too obscure or to pass certain areas that appear to be hazardous.
always a pleasure to listem to these guys
Awesome seminar guys!
I said GOODDAY SIR!!
The great thing about video games is you can teach the rules as you go through manipulation and player muddling.
3:55 That totally reminds me of the oldschool game M.U.L.E. You only succeed when ALL four players achieve a collective target wealth, but so many people actually played it competitively, trying to be the most wealthy player yet still finding the colony is doomed.
Holy hell if left guy won't stop interrupting
He's not interrupting, it's a well planned act, left's role is designed to make points and examples for right, it's crammed together because it's designed to barely fit in 55 minutes.
Stay around for the final 8 seconds of the video for the re-mix. On a serious note, thanks for the tips, much appreciated!
In this presentation, Rym asserts that a "majority" of table top gamers have not read the rules of the games they play. I ran a poll at BoardGameGeek that asked if BGG users read the rules cover to cover before playing a game. A majority of them do read the rules cover to cover. The poll is found in a Geeklist, "Keep Calm and Read the Rule Book."
Polls should be taken with a grain of salt, because not everyone is "honest" in polls. Sometimes people might not even intentionally intend to "lie" on the poll.
A poll at board game geek is probably significantly different from the general public.
I'm the rare "unicorn gamer" they talk about, but only for certain types of games like X-Com, Blood Bowl, and Fallout 1&2. Anything short of those and yeah, I don't want to spend an hour learning how the game rules and mechanics work. But with those, the amount of freedom and choice I had and how rewarded I felt with each one made me want to geek out and spend hours learning about the rules and mechanics... few games have that kind of feeling like your choices matter so much.
Well if you read monopoly rules it states that if you want a faster game do not play with "house rules" so...house rules are a part of monopoly and no one was playing it wrong.
The asterisk learning game thing is generally how we teach games, but we just call it playing a face-up game. The people who know the game not only teach the rules, but also teach a bit of strategy, like what your best move is with the resources you have, for example. As players start to see the patterns and strategies for themselves, we reach a point were we ask if they feel like they understand enough of the game to start the real game, and in general, we end up abandoning those learning games after a few turns, because everyone gets a feel for the game. The restart is also when you would explain endgame mechanics like scoring, which maybe wasn't important when learning how the phases of a turn work, but will be important in the end, and would result in bad feelings if not explained before they were relevant. Stuff will still occasionally come up, when an aspect of the game that wasn't explained before becomes apparent, but it seems to cause less stress when we do it this way; because you do a dry-run, you wait until you feel that they understand before asking if they want to start over, and you are asking them if they are comfortable before doing so, it seems like these three factors reduce bad feelings when it comes to teaching a new game. Also, beginner's luck is definitely a thing in our house; because new players have the experienced players coaching them on their best moves, the new players don't have to rely on their own limited knowledge, and if the best players are telling you how to beat the others, you have a way better chance of winning by essentially letting them beat themselves. Also, while we still do attack and do basic mechanics of the game to the new player, we generally agree to go easy on them the first game, so if we have a 8/8 and a 1/1, we send the 8/8 against an experienced player (or save for defense in 1v1), and will only attack the player with the 1/1. That way they experience getting attacked and can learn how blocking works on their end, as well as getting a small taste of the vengeful will that being attacked inspires, while not getting knocked out of the game early; same thing goes for discards, or other negative effects made against opponents, in that we generally only use the lighter stuff on the new player, and do the truly rough stuff to other experts, so the new players still get a chance to seem those aspects in action, without suffering their consequences.
Also, as a side note, we always try to set new players up for success. For example, if we are teaching magic the gathering, my brother has a deck that is super power but also easy to play, with simple triggers and powerful cards that don't require advanced understanding of the interplay between cards, and this is the deck that new players get- we call that deck auto-pilot, because it basically drives itself (Aesi deck about landfall and big creatures). Meanwhile, when teaching a game, we will try to use weird or overly-complex decks, as a way to handicap ourselves, but also to show how complex the game can be, so the new player gets the full scope of the game- for example, he once played a commander deck (100 cards) with only 3 lands in it. So again, it is fairly easy to get a win on your first game in this house, and you'd be surprised what a positive effect that seems to have on people's willingness to play again- especially if you playfully taunt them, and say it was only beginner's luck. You will also seem them be challenged again, and want to prove themselves, when they realize they were playing with training wheels, and how deep and complex the game really is; they might even complain that they didn't need training wheels in the first place, but trust me, it helps build enjoyment when done right, especially when a new player beats experienced player on the first game, and those defeated experts try to downplay their loss, and swear they'll beat you next time. It doesn't always happen, and we never just LET them win, but with experts essentially explaining how to best beat them, it happens often enough, because most people will follow the advice, and let us beat ourselves using their pieces. And likely because the still do have a choices about whether to follow the advice, they feel a sense of ownership over the victory that you all but handed them, again, especially if the defeated players dismiss the loss, rather than playing it up and congratulating them on the victory, which comes off as patronizing; dismissing the loss usually makes them want to prove that they can win without your help, now that they understand the game.
Oh god, Race For the Galaxy. Every card in the game has different symbols on it, some unique to specific cards. You literally have to _learn a written language_ to even try playing that game.
RftG is one of the best games ever made, but yeah, it's horribly unintuitive the first few times you play.
Agree. I play a lot of games and was pumped to see it out at a meetup a few years ago. Everyone else had played and after the five-minute how to, I actually felt like I knew enough to start. 15 minutes later I was completely lost.
"I don't care if your mom, who is a game designer, taught you to play the game that she wrote, you read those rules." No joke, my mom linked this video to me. I'm the one making the game tho, so she can read the rules.
I like reading rules and all my friends hate me for knowing how the games should be played :c
This is great, thanks!
Can you post a link to the blog post about grids mentioned in 24:27?
Yay I'm a Rare Unicorn.
I like reading rules and learning how to play a game to me is half the fun
Same here
My thoughts exactly, my friend ( I once read through the whole warhammer 40k rulebook in one or two sittings)
Agree. Me and my friend both read the rules together when we play a new game
YAY! I'm a unicorn gamer. I love reading and teaching the rules to new games.
This is very entertaining, exactly what I was looking for and also heplfull!
It also is exactly what the titel says it is...which is nice after spending 4h watching videos that where not what they said they were in the title...
That robber behaviour is even explicitly forbidden by the rules so at least you have that. In my group I was taught that the robber also blocks construction for some reason.
I love reading rules :( I bought several rpg manuals and never played them, yet I don’t feel sad about it because I enjoyed reading all about it. If a manual is missing anything about moment to moment gameplay I always catch it within a couple of hours since starting my first reading (for instance, I immediately caught that the The Witcher ttrpg, which I will soon get to actually play, isn’t very clear about how you recover energy outside of combat and how survival works i.e. effects of hunger, lack of sleep, how the weather might affect travel etc. Fortunately, I’m a very experienced DM, so I have an idea of how to make that stuff work, but that is a bit of an oversight).
I find that reading all the rules gets me pumped about playing like just about nothing else. Even when I play a tabletop game I can’t wait to get my hands on the manual and read away.
This was super informative. Thank you.
Games that Crash: Kingmaker. I tried *hard* to play Kingmaker. The victory Conditions for the game were obscure at best, but what was worse is that if you decided not to be aggressive in the game, it was very easy to find yourself in a stalemate, where all the nobility had been handed and dished out, and there just was no way to win a battle, because the sides were too evenly matched. It puzzled me for years, because Kingmaker was really really popular at the College which my father was playing games at, and I always thought that with all it's shields, that it was a cool game about knights, and in it's way, it is... but people who played that game must have house ruled it from the get go, because if you play with too few people, it just isn't winnable.
I had an example of counter-intuitive terminology while playing d20. I said something like "my character will move over there..." and the DM had to ask me something like whether I really wanted to move over there or run over there.
PS Having looked at the rules, I think it was "hustle or run".
Just like your precious information that reuse line in the license is simply awesome just like you
Wait wait wait. Is this literacy statistic only valid for US citizens? It seems to me that most people I've met in my life (I lived in Europe, never in the US) are more than capable of summarizing a text or extracting meaning from complex sentences. Am I just having a bubble effect?
This wikipedia chart: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate lists very few countries with under 30% literacy, which would put the US, according to your data, in the lowest possible percentile. I know the US is rather bad when it comes to education, but I don't think it makes sense that it'd be *that* bad.
I realize "literacy" is a vague concept and highly dependent on how you define it...But I'm intrigued by this whole thing. Could you shed some light on your statement? What sort of study, and how it compares to the rest of the world? It's not for any practical purpose, as I would write rules "like for a 7th grader" anyway, but I'm curious is all.
Their graphic references the National Center for Education Statistics, a government entity responsible for collecting and analyzing data on the state of education. They list four levels of literacy (as seen in the slide) measured between three aspects: prose, documents, and quantitative (I'll leave a link for more info, as going into it here would take me way off track).
(EDIT: finally found an operational definition for literacy on their poorly laid out website, sorry for any misrepresentation) "Literate" is used to define anyone who falls on this scale, as even those scoring "below basic" can utilize reading and/or writing for the most simple of tasks. The NCES estimates about 5% population illiteracy based off of inability to respond (a questionable definition, but that's how they're ruling it).
If you read or write at a proficient level, that's great, but you also definitely live in a bubble. Most people stop using (and thus, remembering) their advanced English skills the second they are no longer needed. Composition classes in college are designed to raise everyone to the level of proficiency before they begin to interact with the academic world, and when you have to peer review papers from college students with only a passing familiarity of flow and structure, you'll begin to see what the population at large is lacking.
Side note: As someone currently writing an English curriculum (as a second language, not to these exact standards), I can definitively say it is an extremely difficult subject to measure. One of the key things you need to focus on is the student's ability to replicate the exercise in almost every situation, not simply the examples you use. Most people can meet proficiency standards with specific texts, but actual proficiency is the ability to do so with any conceivable work, which is significantly more difficult. EDIT: This is reflected in the NCES study through what they call "Bookmarks," and is actually more lenient than I thought (being able to complete a given task 67% of the time, not ~100%).
NCES Source: nces.ed.gov/naal/perf_levels.asp
NCES Definitions for prose, document, and quantitative literacy: nces.ed.gov/naal/literacytypes.asp
Do note that the study they cite is from 2003, and while a more recent assessment was conducted in 2013, the results haven't been fully explored, and I'm not sure if the same scale was used for it.
They're not cutting each other off. They were filmed separately and whoever edited this was like meh.
Nothing was filmed separately and there are no edits.
It's just a live recording of the talk, which was given at a number of conventions.
these guys have a lot of good points
Thanks guys for a very good rule-explanation explanation video!
BUT the editor of the video has to be slapped! Whenever you are refering to the actual presentation he is ONLY showing your faces instead of the text or pictures...!
That is so annoying!
Aaackermann That is not necessarily the editor's fault buddy.
Hey Rym, Have you played heroscape ?
What did you think of their rulebook ? Im very curious. Anything you would have done differently ? (Not talking about the kid version haha)
"noone likes reading rules"
Me: *halfway into a 30 page rulebook "oh guess my dad was right, i am a noone"
Make set rules
Have the one person who read the rules also rule supervise
They make sure everyone else follows the rules
If they don't believe the person who read the rules
Show them the rule in the rule book
This is a good talk, very useful information, but It somehow felt like the two speakers were constantly cutting each other off. That was a bit jarring for some reason. Both were so excited for the topic!
Here's the thing about video games: you need to have the rules coded. CPUs tends to be discreet. If you don't try to put in the rules in right way, it's often called a bug.
0:25 Wrong. From being 1 year old on i only ever cared for the rules, my mother told me stories how i would take the rulebook of a boardgame i got for my birthday, sit in a corner and "read" it even though i couldn't even read, and i barely ever played with the game itself.
the same applies to everything i have ever done since, i know houndreds if not thousands of games by their rules yet i only ever played a few dozends of them
@ 35:25 Preach! The first time I played Shadows, I was King Arthur (who trades cards) and was also the Traitor and everyone was also freely sharing what was in their hand. It sucked.
Uhhhhh... I always read the rules right away
Good thing you told us. Sadly, informing us of that won't automatically make everyone else in the world do the same every time :/
And besides, the lecture also focuses on the people who misread or misunderstood the rules.
Justin Gruber same here!
No one said it will make every one do it too, where did you get that?
I read the rule ASAP too, i hate people that tell me "uhh, just play it".
Me too!
Hi! My name's Jack and I'm a unicorn gamer... 50% of the time anyways...
If you're stuck playing Monopoly, instead of being the boring rules stickler, suggest that you put candy or shots in the middle for Free Parking.
Great video!!!
Can't watch this through. Iam interessted jn the topic but them interupting each other grinds my gears
I actually do not mind reading rule books. Maybe because I was an avid D&D player in middle school. I also liked reading the great big rule-books that PC games used to come with back in the 1990s and early 2000s. With board games, I just like to read the manual BEFORE meeting up with my friends.
what's the name of a game board made from triangles? and what was the video mentioned about this board?
Hearthstone has... A very bad tutorial.
Actually I've got players that demand to also read the rules. It's the ultimate reference for the game. Learn Avalon Hill games and you can handle anything. House rules cover anything ambiguous. Many Avalon Hill games taught in easy chunks. Eventually it grew into a massive game.
Shadows over Camelot and Pandemic are two of my favorite games.
How big could the basic structure of the rules be for TTRPGs? Game End many times isn't there, and what not. Nitpicky differences really. But how about the combination of Terminology, Course of the Game, and Details of Play in TTRPGs? I'm interested in learning how to best lay those pieces out, really separating them in there "rightful" areas.
41:40 in Uno there is a pretty messed up (ambiguous) rule also, in the latest version there is a card which if you play it you choose which player to change hands from (so you can have like 20 cards on your hand and change it with a guy which hand only has 2 cards on it), but the things is... what happens if you forgot and accidentally play that card as your last one... is the effect applied and you have to give away the win to someone? or the effect just cancels itself?
If the rules states clearly that if a player's hand is empty they win and the game is over then no, they won't change hands (since the game ends before the action could be taken). If there are exceptions to this and somehow a player can be brought back to the game after emptying their hands then your question is still relevant though.
...Yeah there is an index in D&D 5e.
+VLRgospel09 The consensus on the Internet is that it is woefully inadequate.
Yeah, you're right on that front.
There's an index, but it's really hard to find things in it because the text is super small and there's no headings. The monster manual also buries the challenge rating in the middle of the stat block when previous editions placed it prominently in the upper right corner. The challenge rating is the most important piece of information when you're skimming through the book for creatures to put in your campaign, and I can't think of any good reason to deviate from previous editions in this regard.
And even worse, the spell list doesn't have the page number next to each spell, so you have to flip through all the spell pages to find them.
The interesting thing is D&D players are ones who have always thoroughly read the rules (RTFM "Read the F-ing Manual") to the point of rules lawyering and house ruling their own.
Earlier editions especially AD&D Gygax were written in his unique way of writing ie. No one else wrote that way let alone talked that way. Which personalized it to the point you felt he was talking to you. Yet some rules were personalized too much. It's interesting how he said it. But what did he say. Or what did he mean? Shakespeare would have been more clear. Yet not as interesting or engaging lol
As a print graphic designer and gamer who still owns my original D&D boxed set. I have a vid of that on my channel "Dungeons & Dragons Holmes Set TSR 1979" as far as rules and learning a complex game goes TSR asked Dr. Homes do a basic edition of the rules while Gygax wrote AD&D his own way while editing some AD&D rules into the basic set. Even the basic rules were more advanced for a starter set. Which is one reason we played it. Joe average jock wouldn't or couldn't understand it lol It becomes our own language. And community in fact. an dI played sports wasn't a complete nerd but not overly popular either lol
I rarely look at an index. I look at the Table of Contents (ToC) fwiw
Side note in my other AD&D vid about the stigma attached to it in the 80's. The person who started the after high school D&D club IN the school science lab(!) was a 300 lb football coach. He DM house ruled like crazy to the point of being gleefully unfair lol he was an ogre in class yet a teenage DM at heart. I mean he had a huge key chain he was round with a fu manchu mustache and tough demeanor that passed for an ogre but was the nicest guy playing D&D. My Mom had to sign a waiver saying it was OK to play. All my friends did so she was cool. He mimeographed character sheets and maps etc. with school equipment lol All of the sudden the game was cool. That didn't stand in our way of playing it ; It was still ours. Easy rules. Hard rules. House Ruled. Unfair rules. Confusing rules. But always rules. We understood it in an unwritten way if you know what I mean.
In which case we didn't need an index or did we? ; )
I disagree at one point, namely: put it at one spot.
my example is DSA 4.1
They had AoO like in D&D but with -4 penalty and a bonus according to your weapons initiative modifier. I want the fact that my weapons ini mod influences AoO at the rules for AoO AND at the weapon rule section.
or if a spell causes blindness I don't want to go to the pages for disease or lighting: I want it where it is needed. otherwise I'm flipping through the pages all the time.
You can't do that for everything but doing it never? that only works for games up to a certain complexity.
I think the point is to *explain* rules once, but to have them stated elsewhere is fine. References are great.
You missed a very important rule for designing rules: think how a player could exploit your rules; if you don’t want that type of gameplay in the game, then make rules to prevent it.
what is the book they recommended to read?
Hey Rym,
can you link the reddit thread you call of the carcassone guy?
You can read some of it on-screen, but I haven't been able to find this thread online yet... Would make for a fun read ;P
Do you guys have any advice on the actual production and selling of boardgames. You should do a talk on this.
I was just watching "Adam in Wales" talk about those very things. He has videos on every aspect of the game production & publishing process.
Now I'm nervous about when I learned Hansa Teutonica (by reading the rules) and then taught my family. I don't recall any issues with the rules as written. But maybe I taught them wrong. How would I know?
Wait, Europa Universalis IV has a tutorial? I always played it with absolutely no help. I'm pretty good with it now (conquering the world as the Picts with the Extended Timeline mod.)
It's actually funny to hear the example of the guy playing Carcasone wrong for 2 years, cause we just had that happen in my D&D group, where we just found out we had been doing opportunity attacks wrong for a VERY long time, because we read the section about "opportunity attacks", but not action types, and part of the list of action types.... tells you what actions will cause opportunity attacks. I'd say that's more our fault than the game rules though, cause we've been skipping over..... literally the part that comes first in the book, because we assumed we already understood it.
Very helpful!
Yeah I'm a unicorn! I've also read the rules to monopoly and I've been correcting people on that since I was 12.
I read the rules to monopoly and won a game by buying all the houses and locking everyone out! 😂
I'm that rare unicorn. I print pdfs and highlight them.
I really disagree with the idea that games shouldn't be complex. I also strongly disagree it requires anti-cheat rules. If the players don't wish to learn the rules, which are presumably well designed at that, how the hell would they successfully play anything???
I wish they could have coordinated their talk a little more or just had one person do the talk. What was the point of having two guys there that just kept interrupting each other?
I love reading rules
Paul Paulson same here
I am a unicorn too 😁
ITT: A large enclosure of rare unicorns. Am one of them, too.
"the problem with game rules is that no one wants to learn", that's not true, i'm happy reading every rules when starting a new game right now.
Wait, did I hear Carmell Dansen Right at the end there?
Man these guys are gamers.
Once more for the people in the back: *If any adult person can read your rules and disagree with any other adult person about what they mean, you have failed.*
Why did the last 4 to 5 seconds just repeat “tures”
What's the rule where you should try at least not to cut off the other person in a talk?
Rochester, NY!!!!
I knew all this already. Avoid Words like This, That, up to, any.
Re the idea that you can't 'learn as you go' with a board game: what about a 'choose your own adventure'-style paragraph-based system?
I disagreed with this in the video. Mechs Vs Minions does exactly as described and I think it works pretty well
Really? I didn't notice it. I remember you talking about SPI-style numbered paragraphs ("3.2.1 This case will not apply if either unit is artillery. In this case, refer to 3.2.2 - Artillery fire...", but not choose-your -own adventure style ("You may: search for secret doors - turn to 5 rest - turn to 8...")
Oh wait--are you saying you disagree with idea that you can't learn as you go in a board game, and Mechs vs Minions has choose-your-own-adventure-style rules?
I disagree with the learn as you go James Hutchings in the game each mission adds a new rule so it's definitely learn as you go
When 2 dudes that can't really "conduct a talk" try to do it together and at the same time.. you get this kind of messy nonsense
But its clearly stated in Pandemic that you can play with either open or closed hand AND you play with closed hand "so everyone has information to
contribute to play discussions"
Then you read the rules, get them perfect but the kids join in and change the rules to guarantee they win.
Unfortunately whoever directed or cut this missed lots of slides, especially when they used the laser pointer to show things.
There is a link in the description to the full slide deck.
Like this guy knows what the fuck he is talking about. I don't need his advice
I've played eu4 for 600h and I still don't know the rules...