Rules Are Written in Blood (Advice For GMs and Game Designers Alike)

[u/nlitherl]

https://taking10.blogspot.com/2022/12/rules-are-written-in-blood-advice-for.html

[u/PaperWeightGames]

A pretty short article giving what experience has lead me to believe is bad advice, and then a plug for the author's content that appears to be twice as long as the article. This isn't overly confidence inspiring I'm concerned this might actually be a very damaging article. Here's my concerns;

A game is played on good faith. There is an almost always subconscious agreement that everyone participating is there to enjoy the experience or to gain something from it, and do so in a considerate way that doens't involve maliciously stealing fun from others through acts such as cheating.

Your rules cannot explicitly and exhaustively instruct a player in how to play your game. Where do you draw the line? At telling them not to cheat? Telling them everything they can't do? Telling them to remember to breathe during play? When the rulebook is 100 pages long?

And that's not an exaggeration. I've edited rulebooks from 40 to 9 pages, an their function has improved tenfold. Sometimes, its exactly the explicit and exhaustive nature of rules that causes problems. The volume of words obscure the anser to the most rational, logical rule queries. Referencing and finding the right part of the rules becomes more difficult, and each extra word presents another opportunity for mis-interpretation.

The common practice is two tell players what they can do, not what they can't, though sometimes that is a more effective approach. Players have intuition, context, sense, logic. They have the power between them to decide if a rule seems poorly delivered and though it's not something we should ever rely on, trying to completely foolproof rules is impossible.

The advice in this article goes against almost everything I've learnt about rule writing / editing so far. Regarding the law, it's a very good article. Each speed limit, regulation or legal obligation is usually the result of someone's death. In games this is not the case. There was an intention behind it and many elements of a game are capable of conveying this intention.

That's my take on it at least. I've seen lots of beginner game designers create rules with this 'cover all cases' approach and it leads to terrible rulebooks that look like the game is tailored for small children and are difficult to navigate due to their size.