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Every board game rulebook is awful [pdf]

• StanislavPetrov 2y ago
  You decide to peruse the History. Settling back under the Willow Tree, you open the book. (You read the Book of History) (No, really! Read the Book of History!)
• xpe 2y ago
  I've written many game engines (simulations). I've found that parsing the rulebook into code gives me a much clearer insight into the game.
• mdaniel 2y ago
  The Farming Game rulebook[1] authors must have taken this list as a "how to" guide because it is by far the worst I have ever encountered. They intermix rules with some narrative meaning one has to parse a lot of words to extract which ones are relevant to getting started with the game and what actions are legal during play. It'd be like if those infamous recipe blogs intermingled the SEO content in between baking instruction steps 1: https://upload.snakesandlattes.com/rules/f/FarmingGameThe.pdf https://upload.snakesandlattes.com/rules/f/FarmingGameThe.pd...
  • durumu 2y ago
    Reminds me of competitive programming, a la Codeforces or IOI, where you solve incredibly challenging algorithmic problems that are wrapped in some silly story about a cow in a garden or something. (In my opinion, that is part of the challenge and fun!)
  • colanderman 2y ago
    Galaxy Trucker takes this one step further. The first half of the narrative includes only partial explanations of most rules, with the missing details filled in later (still in narrative form), so you have to refer to two locations for any given rule. It makes for a decent tutorial, but it's a terrible reference.
  • jpalawaga 2y ago
    a side note, I actually quite like this game even though it's horrendously luck based. Like a less competitive monopoly.
• Pet_Ant 2y ago
  The rulebook for GMT's "Combat Commander" by Chad Jensen is in war gaming circles often mentioned as an excellently written rulebook. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/gmtwebsiteassets/living_rules/CC_Rulebook_v1.1.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/gmtwebsiteassets/living_r... [ 5MB PDF ]
• dpc_01234 2y ago
  TL;DR? Seems interesting and worth keeping in mind for other types of documentation.
  • readthenotes1 2y ago
    Tldr: it's tl, didn't even load the 32mb pdf before my patience ran out (I'm in a slow connection and have a fair amount of disdain or something that's probably 20 x the size it needs to be)
    • LoganDark 2y ago
      It has tons of images, diagrams, charts. 32mb is... sort of reasonable in this case. There are 150 pages.
      • shagie 2y ago
        It mostly finishes on page 93. Pages 94-100 are references. The remainder of it is then "Prototype Rulebook: Stardew Valley"
  • JeremyBarbosa 2y ago
    There is really too much here to summarize. It's a 150 page guide to technical writing, as in the writing of technical manuals, using a variety of board game rulebooks the author wrote as examples. I am only 15 pages in, but so far I have to say the boardgame approach with all its images makes this a much more fun read then any other guide I have seen for writing manuals. It is just about writing though. I don't think you'd gain much if you are just a general boardgame fan looking for a behind-the-scenes look at rulebook creation (if that is even something people look for??)
    • yifanl 2y ago
      For accuracy, it's a 100 page guide to technical writing, followed by a 50 page sample rulebook for Stardew Valley implementing all the ideas :)
    • 2y ago
• furyofantares 2y ago
  I feel like they mostly don't playtest the rulebook very much, and that doing so would get it in great condition. Watching someone try to learn the rules will tell you exactly where the rulebook is too complicated, doesn't introduce something at the right time, doesn't reiterate something that needs reiterating, doesn't emphasize something enough, etc.
  • toast0 2y ago
    It's hard to playtest a rulebook, because you need to get fresh players every time, if you want to optimize for the out of box experience (which I think you should!). But also, I think selection bias for playtesters is going to give you testers who are willing to dig through complex rule interactions, and that might not be everyone. I've had the best luck with explaining games that have short rule sets. Anything more than 4 pages and you really need the multiple sets of rules paradigm, and a good tech editor to make sure the playthrough instructions are accurate with the reference instructions. It's my personal choice, but I also don't care for the games where there's enough stuff going on that it's easy to skip things that are important to balance the game; but there's certainly a balance --- I want a game where there's enough chance that anyone could win, but enough skill that I feel like I can still do well even if chance is against me, and I strongly prefer games where everyone is engaged until the end.
    • furyofantares 2y ago
      In my experience, it is not that hard to get a stream of fresh playtesters. Maybe I'm just fortunate. I also don't think the playtester bias to be particularly bad for this. You'll miss some stuff because your playtesters will usually be a lot better than average at reading rules. But nearly everyone stumbles in visible ways on rulebooks, and the fixes for an experienced playtester stumbling tend to be simplifications / clarifications that are even more useful to inexperienced players.
    • bluGill 2y ago
      Fresh players are easy, just go any college and put up some posters. $minimum wage to try a new game - it isn't a good deal if you are into money, but if you ensure they have fun and have some beverages they will do it anyway. If someone is really good at something you know who to make an offer to.
• julianeon 2y ago
  I'm learning Conquest and Netrunner now. I kind of half-understand Conquest now, and as for Netrunner, lol. One day. So this is very relevant to me. I would compare the experience to being lost in a class, failing the first test, but just hoping you'll be able to learn enough by semester's end to pass. It's not easy, explaining all the ways things influence each other and cross-contribute. But thinking about it in a structured way can only help.
  • JamesSwift 2y ago
    My nephew and I taught ourselves Netrunner by reading through the rulebook and it was tough. Fortunately we were at Dicetower East and there were plenty of folks who stopped by to ask if we needed help (so many people excited to see Netrunner lol). Overall if you just run a few games you will pick it up as you think through the implications of rules. My main complaint is that the recommended starter decks hide several mechanics so you end up reading all these rules that dont even apply at first.
    • Lyngbakr 2y ago
      We bought Netrunner because it looked amazing, but we laboured through as many of the rules as we could stomach before putting it away without playing. That was 10 years ago. We've haven't had the energy to try again yet.
      • julianeon 2y ago
        Piggybacking off what JamesSwift said, Netrunner seems like a game where you try to understand the rules, pause (or give up), go to an in-person meetup, get 'tutored' to really learn, then wait again for however long and try again to learn the rules. In my case it will probably be about 80% in-person learning and 20% on my own studying the rules at home.
• r00fus 2y ago
  I liked how in Exploding Kittens (card game not a board game but similar genre) they basically say - watch this YT video URL + QR code to understand how to actually play.
  • bongodongobob 2y ago
    No thanks, I can read faster than they can explain.
    • jumploops 2y ago
      Can you read the rules and explain them to others faster than a video?
      • bongodongobob 2y ago
        Yes because I know the other players strengths and experience.
    • vundercind 2y ago
      I definitely can't absorb the meaning of two pages of turn-order and action-economy description faster than a one-minute demo of someone taking a turn can convey the same information. I can read it that fast, maybe, but it'll take some more reading and maybe some scratch paper to sort it out, or even busting out the game and stepping through it with the pieces as if I were playing. That's all way slower than a video. I agree that in practice lots of explainer videos waste a ton of time with intros and such, but thirty seconds of good video can easily replace ten minutes of reading and re-reading. [EDIT] Put it another way: if you're trying to decide whether to get a game, do you read the rule book? I'd put that after videos of play, which are by far the most useful thing for this, followed by written first-time play AARs (a huge step down from a video, but serviceable), followed finally and distantly by the rule book. This is entirely because getting a sense of how a game actually plays from a rule book is hard and slow.
      • db48x 2y ago
• bondarchuk 2y ago
  I kind of like Root's approach, just make three separate rulebooks. One quickstart guide, one "normal" rulebook, and one "law" type rulebook laying out everything in almost procedural style with clear and consistent definitions etc. Many games could benefit from that.
  • nurumaik 2y ago
    One book to decide whether to play, one book for everyone and one book for "that nerdy guy anyone will ask during game" Good idea
    • fsckboy 2y ago
      "...and one book to rule them all"
      • juancn 2y ago
        "...and in the darkness bind them"
        • ben_w 2y ago
          Please. Ring-bind them.
          • KineticLensman 2y ago
            I first read that rhyme 50 years ago and I have never spotted that before. Well played, sir
          • tolciho 2y ago
            The latest edition even comes with token ring wraiths.
          • ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
            It's the only way that they'll lay flat when open
• jvalencia 2y ago
  I recall my favorite part of opening up a new Nintendo game was poring over the manual. I didn't actually want it for instructions. It was the lore and the pictures and the dreams of what I could do with the game that made it fun. Now, people are so media saturated that they're begging to remove as much content as possible in order to just get the clearest bit of information. I can't help we've lost something in society when we're not really enjoying or having fun unless we get immediate and overwhelming pleasure triggers.
  • kelseyfrog 2y ago
    > I recall my favorite part of opening up a new Nintendo game was poring over the manual. Have you by chance played Tunic? If not, there is a mechanic you may be particularly interested in. :)
    • jvalencia 2y ago
      I did! And I enjoyed the mechanic, it was cute, incremental, and terribly fun.
    • ziml77 2y ago
      That mechanic is so creative. I love the gave but it's hard to describe what's so great about it to others without also revealing that brilliant mechanic which is really fun to encounter for the first time without expecting it.
      • vundercind 2y ago
        A conversation vaguely pointing toward a key game mechanic that might have something to do with metatextuality but which mustn't be described for fear of spoiling it is a damn good way to get me to buy a game. (Just purchased. Easy buy vs. wishlist decision since it's currently half-off on Steam)
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  • 2y ago
• imzadi 2y ago
  The rulebooks are the worst part of the hobby. Some are beyond awful. One Deck Dungeon took me several attempts and a few google searches to figure out. Another bad one was the travel version of Azul, which assumes you have already played the full size version.
  • debo_ 2y ago
    I also watched a few videos to understand one deck dungeon, but it wasn't until I bought the mobile game that I really felt like I knew what was intended. Don't get me started on One Deck Galaxy... I love both games, though.
• blakeburch 2y ago
  As an avid board gamer, I think one of the biggest factors is page count. A big rule book makes the game feel less approachable. In the example provided at the bottom, the rewritten rulebook is ~50 pages. The original is 24. It doesn't matter how well it's written if it scares people off. I find that many people are so afraid of reading game rules that they'd rather watch 15-30m how to play videos. It's telling of the industry that these videos are typically better learning resources than the rulebooks themselves. My favorite rulebooks have 1-page rule references at the back or scannable columns on each page that summarize the main text. As someone who enjoys technical documentation writing, I think board game rulebook writing would be a rewarding experience. Not exactly sure how to get into that field though... (I have yet to read this in full, but I'm excited to dig in)
  • adamredwoods 2y ago
    I re-write rules for myself for games where I need a better teaching "script". For example, the Keyper rulebook was terrible, but the rules themselves were not. I wrote myself a summary so I could re-teach the game if needed. https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/269820/keyper-quick-rules-teach https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/269820/keyper-quick-rules... https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/212516/keyper https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/212516/keyper And Smartphone, Inc, because the rulebook was bad for looking things up quickly: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2979178/some-rules-notes-i-made-for-myself https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2979178/some-rules-notes-i-...
    • 12_throw_away 2y ago
      Yes! Anything I'm serious about learning, I (re)write the documentation as I go. Haven't tried this with board games yet, but it actually sounds kind of fun. For me, at least, there is no rulebook or textbook or docs page that is so great that I can learn about something just by reading about it. Unless I can mess with it (even just by writing my own text about it), I will never internalize it.
  • imzadi 2y ago
    My group recently played Veiled Fate. Loved the game, but the 40-page rulebook was certainly intimidating.
• Apreche 2y ago
  WTF I am cited in this paper?!?!?!
• jncfhnb 2y ago
  I don’t know much about Paul Grogan but I know he was specifically brought on for the ISS Vanguard rule book and, man, what a piece of fucking trash that thing is. The book dedicates a considerable amount of pages running you through a walkthrough game. Every time I open it I’m reminded that a large portion of the rule book is, in fact, not rules. My favorite rulebook is Stationfall. There is a dedicated rulebook for fun lore and general tips; a set thing for walking through a game, and two copies of the dry legalese.
  • vundercind 2y ago
    I think board games on the more complex end are running into the fact that they're goddamn near impossible to teach, or to learn well enough to teach, without watching a demonstration or playing a couple demo rounds. A book alone is simply not sufficient without, as the linked PDF complains about, something like the effort of studying a textbook, probably with the game-pieces right alongside and working through fake play as you go so that any of it makes sense. Attempts to translate that into extensive game walkthroughs in manuals (not quick examples of play to demonstrate a rule, which are sometimes nice) are horribly misguided. Just include a damn QR code that points to a YouTube video. Give it an entire page to make it more likely the players find it, that'll still be less space than a walkthrough. I truly think Monopoly's around the upper end of complexity that normal people can be expected to absorb and apply from a game manual—not from someone showing them the right way, or from a video—which means the vast majority of modern-era games are way past that point. I've known more people who fail to play with all parts of the Monopoly rules than I've known people who correctly play with all of them (or at least know the rules, but affirmatively reject or deliberately modify them) by a large margin. Usually it's auctioning or mortgaging they skip, either because they never read the rules and learned from someone who wasn't familiar with those parts, or because they did read the rules but deemed one or both of those parts too daunting to play and manage without having seen a demonstration of it and decided the game seems like it can run without those rules (yes, it can, but it makes it worse in some key ways—not doing auctions when someone declines to purchase a space is especially harmful, as it prolongs the game without much in the way of compensatory extra fun) Like, sure, Risk is kinda a shitty grand strategy or area control or war game or however you want to classify it, for demonstrable, if arguable, reasons, but if your answer to that results in more complex rules than Risk... you're gonna need an explainer video, because your rule book is definitely gonna suck. Because that's a game normal people can, just barely, often figure out and run correctly just from the rule book, and yours surely won't be.
• burticlies 2y ago
  I tried to work around bad rule books by building https://www.boardgameonepagers.com/ https://www.boardgameonepagers.com/ It’s open source, all the rules have simple markdown formatting that’s easy to glance through on an phone, and they try to be as concise as possible. But it’s hard work writing rules and I’ve never given it the effort I’d like to.
  • jjice 2y ago
    This is awesome! I don't know your goals with this, but maybe opening the rule markdown files through GitHub to crowd source info would allow you to reduce the hard work of writing the rules. It comes with the (possibly harder) hard work of managing an open source project though. My first thought is dedicating an hour or two a month to reviewing, merging, and deploying, but not sure if that'd be accurate.
    • burticlies 2y ago
      Already done. There’s a link on the homepage to the GitHub, and you can just add a new markdown file in the rules folder. It auto deploys on merge to master.
  • mdaniel 2y ago
    Please consider including a license in your repo
• popcar2 2y ago
  I've only read like 20 pages but this is already hitting the nail on the head for me. I've tried many times to play specific games with friends on Tabletop Simulator, but more often than not we bounce off because it's too tedious to read rulebooks. I get that game designers want the player to understand all of the rules in a game but it quickly turns into its own game of trying to decipher a huge tome to understand how this game works. We just want to play the game as soon as possible and learn as we go, but tons of rulebooks try to teach you every single mechanic before you move a piece on the board. My biggest pet peeve with rulebooks by far is how many rulebooks feel like they're written out of order (which is touched on in the book above). I would get to parts that should be simple like moving a character or something similar, but there would be ten asterisks to how it works, each explained in different parts of the book. Fake example: "Here's the movement phase, where you can move your character! Character movement is determined by your weight, refer to the weight class your character is currently in." Meanwhile, weight classes are explained 30 pages later. Now you're expected to either memorize everything, or bounce around flipping pages left and right in order to go step by step...
  • causal 2y ago
    I've wanted a standard rulebook format for ages. I should be able to intuitively flip to the win conditions page because it's always in the same place, for example.
    • zahlman 2y ago
      You shouldn't have to "flip to" the win conditions. Historically they were among the first thing written in the rules (I was that weird kid who had actually read the rules for Monopoly, and could tell you that your "free parking" setup was BS, and explain how mortgaging is supposed to work...): in a section titled "Object of the Game" (sometimes in all caps).
  • rtpg 2y ago
    I think there's an understated component here that many games are built off of your knowledge of other games, so at one point the rulebook is there explaining stuff but omits a lot. But then you play the game and there's the right kind of symbology explaining the rules anyways! There are so many little details on boards of modern games that guide the rules. Doesn't solve tiny parts, but really you gotta figure it out. I think rulebooks can be way better, but at the same time I think rulebooks are not meant for players, but for whoever is going to teach the game. And that person should sit there and figure it out way before the game starts.
• jes5199 2y ago
  I think at some point you have to conclude that people want to be confused. That part of the pleasure is trying to internalize a bunch of disjointed nonsense until eventually something clicks
• TeeMassive 2y ago
  I sponsored Nemesis on Kickstarter. A very good game. But the rules are horribly written. 5 years later I still discover new rules. I didn't even played the extensions I bought because it turns out 35+ years old adults don't have much time.
• adamredwoods 2y ago
  The rulebook is the blueprint for gameplay as the designer intended. The more complex the rules are, the worse job the designer did. That said, some people love to figure out complex rules, and that can be a part of the game experience.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• empath75 2y ago
  I think a lot of the problems with game _rulebooks_ are actually problems with the game _design_. Once you start getting into _dozens of pages_ to explain the rules, there's no amount of re-organization or quality technical writing that can fix that. Some people like really crunchy rulesets with lots of rules, and that's fine, but games like that are never going to have an easy teaching or learning experience. Probably my favorite board game rulebook wasn't a rulebook at all: Fog of Love has a playable tutorial, where all the cards are setup in a particular order with game rules printed on cards that you draw when you need them. You don't even really need to open the rule book to get through the first game, and it's actually a fairly complex game. The rulebook itself after that is mostly for reference.
  • joemi 2y ago
    I completely agree. I've seen many games with good rulebooks, but they're not the sprawling complicated dungeon crawlers like so many examples from the essay. Those big games are going to have complicated rulebooks because they have complicated rules, and there's no way around that without changing the games themselves.
  • stevage 2y ago
    Yep. And it has to do with how complex the rulesets are, not just how many rules there are. If there are dozens of rules that could apply at any moment, that's much harder to deal with (and learn and teach) than sub-rulesets that are compartmentalised (like when in battle, use all the following rules).
• ChrisArchitect 2y ago
  Alternate link instead of Google Drive https://boardgametextbook.com/EBGRIA.pdf https://boardgametextbook.com/EBGRIA.pdf
  • adamrezich 2y ago
    The root page is just a landing template... is the author of this paper writing a textbook?
• adamrezich 2y ago
  Very interesting and informative read. It's kind of wild that nobody other than this author seems to be approaching this topic from this sort of technical perspective. In fact, it's kind of blowing my mind a bit that the game design program at the school I attended never had any sort of technical writing course at all, despite emphasizing rulebook ease-of-understanding and so forth when grading our board game projects. In hindsight, this is quite the obvious oversight!
• antisthenes 2y ago
  I tend to agree. Our first playthrough of a new board game usually ends up being 2x longer than the average game time listed on a box, mostly due to how long the rule book is. My thought is that you basically need every rulebook to have an MVP - what is the fastest way to get players to start their first game. If that takes longer than 45 minutes, it's a pretty big drawback. If it takes an hour - it's a game design failure. It's also the reason why we keep coming back to the same classic board games - Marvel, Battlestar Galactica, Carcassonne, Terraforming Mars, Race for the Galaxy. We already know the rules and it's so much easier to pick it back up with a simple refresher.
• blibble 2y ago
  5 year old me could understand monopoly's rulesheet easily enough (and if you actually follow the rules the game ends in a reasonable amount of time)
  • bentcorner 2y ago
    The video game version of Monopoly is pretty good - you can finish a game in about 20 minutes.
• wormius 2y ago
  One of the biggest issues I have is that a good rulebook/teacher should start at the "What are we trying to do?" From there everything else should flow. I haven't read all this yet, so maybe he touches on it. The point about interconnecting pieces or like "gears" that are all involved is a good thing. Everything is dynamic and in interplay. A lot of that means these are not linear systems (not in a systems theory sense, but textual sense). Graphics and images do volumes. But only so much as you understand, again, the WHY. Everything has to feed into the "economy" of the game and how all the parts interact. Rulebooks also need to make sure terminology is consistent. I've played some games where I see a word that's used, and then I try to find the definition and it's just... not there. At least not easily found. An index of some sort is necessary if you're going to use special terms that aren't obvious (and if they are obvious/standard words, but you use them in a unique way, also define that). I think there should be: 0. Intro/thematic vibe/core concept - the what you are trying to do and possibly why. 1. Component Overview - the what you are playing with. (Include a layout of the setup version of the game). 2. Step by step rules, underlined words that have specific definitions to be referred in the index. 3. Examples are ideal (including images), especially in tricky situations that involve edge cases (or worse, corner cases) 4. Common "edge cases" (oxymoron?) that are trickier should have their own FAQ/addendum for clarification. 5. Glossary/Index Rules should not try to be cute and invent words for common scenarios unless it's clear what it means in context. Rules should NOT try to be super thematic. A little flavor text at the beginning is fine, but like the above issue, there should not just be things like "Grippledize the phlumoxor to gain 10 boodiboos" Just say "place your character piece at location 3 in order to gain 10 units of currency" or whatever. If you're going to use terms like that - use them on the cards as flavor text, not hinge the rules on understanding them; or if you're going to be cute with names, be consistent with it, and constantly use it so it's etched into the brain "OK, Grippledizing means Place at a spot" - if it's just a one off thing there is no need for a "cute" name for it. This is similar to how some science fiction loves just inventing words for things that already have perfectly cromulent terms.
  • crazygringo 2y ago
    > One of the biggest issues I have is that a good rulebook/teacher should start at the "What are we trying to do?" This a million times. It drives me nuts when you're trying to learn a new game, and it's only at the very end that it explains what condition results in winning. Like, if you'd started with that, reading the rules would have made a LOT more sense.
• mithametacs 2y ago
  Both Pathfinder 2e and the Lancer TTRPG rulebooks are basically software implementation guides. Lots of use of tags and other capitalized technical terms. Information presented roughly in the order you would program them. Excellent on the technical end but also understandable. And a good rulebook has pictures/ examples too. Lancer does a great job of also presenting mechanics in the order you’ll encounter them. High-level abilities aren’t available till late game and the new mechanics they introduce only become relevant late game. So they’re later in the book.
• jordanpg 2y ago
  As with most difficult things, you have to learn by doing. For well-established board games, the best solution is to watch an intro video and then play a few rounds using an online version like BGA if it's available. For non-well established board games, someone with some pedagogical chops has to bite the bullet and read the whole manual and then teach it, in little pieces, to folks during an example playthrough. There is a weird conceit among some board gamers that you can know what the hell you're doing on a first playthrough. For any moderately complex game or beyond, of course you cannot possibly know much about how to play much less what strategies to use. This is why I don't like playing games once or very infrequently.
• iamwpj 2y ago
  I think Jaws of the Lion broke the rules down for Gloomhaven really well -- it introduced the complexities of the game slowly over scenarios. I would advise anyone who has a game that takes more than a couple of hours to play to have a way to start the game and then add complexity after initial barriers have been met. Mechs vs. Minions is another one that does this iterative process of teaching. This article looks great, I'll continue to read it.
  • Lyngbakr 2y ago
    I came to say the same about JotL. They got so much right in that game with the way they introduce the rules and the spiral-bound book game board being the most prominent.
• legitster 2y ago
  I cannot begin to express my frustration with rulebooks. At this point, I basically assume that we will always get some rule wrong. There was a trend 10ish years ago where the best games actually came with two rulebooks. One was a book designed to walk you through your first game, and the other was a reference book. They worked really well, but I can imagine they were a pain to develop. The hallmark of a good rulebook is that there is a section in the back that has commonly missed rules or details. Besides being extremely helpful, it's a good signal that the rulebook has actually been tested. Another "green flag" is if the rules include strategy tips - vomiting rules on me doesn't necessarily help me understand how I am supposed to experience the game.
• Buttons840 2y ago
  Tangentially: How do y'all approach explaining the rules to a new game? For the card game Hearts I would say something like: "I will give a 20 second explanation, and then go into more detail in a second pass. Hearts is a trick taking game. In Hearts players take turns throwing cards into a pile. Depending on which cards are placed in the pile, one player will take the pile, and that player will get some points. Points are bad, the objective of the game is to avoid getting points. Now let's just play through a mock round, it will only take a minute or two..." Etc. I've given some thought to this, because I've often had games explained to me and the explainer is going deep into the rules about some game mechanic before I even know what the objective of the game is. I also know that people's minds work differently, and so maybe my high-level-first approach is confusing to others. Any advice on how to teach the rules for a new game?
  • edanm 2y ago
    I'd start with the objective before anything else. "In Hearts, you get points - points are bad, and the objective is to avoid getting points." Everything else is framed around that, IMO.
    • peeters 2y ago
      It's astonishing how many rulebooks (and people) leave that for the "scoring" section as if it's an afterthought for when the game is over.
  • inanutshellus 2y ago
    I too find the "dante's inferno method" (i just made that up) effective, in which you start with a high level explanation then progress through deeper details iteratively. * Hearts is a card game * Hearts is a card game with tricks * In Hearts, winning tricks is bad, you want others to win tricks. * In Hearts, you win tricks by... Often it's really hard to see yourself in the newbie's eyes. (e.g. turns out I don't know what a trick is, so while you're explaining the nuance of tricks and going into more ad more detail, I'm waiting for you to explain what a trick is getting more confused and frustrated.). You aren't aware of what concepts are confusing, or how many weird words/concepts you can pile on before someone just disconnects.
• alach11 2y ago
  When I teach people how to play a game, I usually omit several of the rules upfront to help people grok the goal faster. For example when teaching Texas Hold'em, we might play all the way to the river with all cards face up and no betting. Then we'll play a round with up-front betting keeping our hole cards private. Finally, we play the game "correctly" with turn-by-turn betting. I'm surprised more board games don't include a "first game" playthrough guide to slowly introduce mechanics. This is extremely common in video games.
  • supernewton 2y ago
    This is covered by the article. A board game might take 4 people and 2 hours to play. If your three friends didn't have fun with a board game the first time, they probably won't want to play again, and so you won't be able to play again either. Therefore there is a strong drive among boardgamers to play the "full" game the first time, because there might not be a second time. It also adds extra difficulty to design a game that even has a simple version that is fun to play. Take your Texas Hold'em example, imagine it takes 2 hours to play one game. If you start with a version that has all cards face-up and no betting, people would conclude that Texas Hold'em is a supremely boring game, and wouldn't bother to try the full Texas Hold'em experience!
    • zahlman 2y ago
      I've seen people teach by playing the open-face (or otherwise simplified version) of a single turn as a way to give an overview of core mechanics. Naturally, this works better if the 2 hour game consists of dozens of 5 minute turns rather than a few half-hour ones. If you show one hand of Texas Hold'em, and don't actually play it, but instead talk through what players might be thinking at various points, then you not only cover the mechanics, but sell the game (through the rhetorical device of dramatic irony: you emphasize that the players don't have complete information, and may try to mislead each other, and may come to wrong conclusions even without such deceit, and of course nobody knows what will come on the river...). But of course, it's difficult to disentangle that from a strategy discussion.
  • ianferrel 2y ago
• jarjoura 2y ago
  The problem with 2-4 hour boardgames that require extension rulebooks, launched in the last decade, is that these games are islands. No game can point to another game to offer mental shortcuts in absorbing similar gameplay.
  • ta_1138 2y ago
    But they absolutely can. Go see Friedemann Freese Copycat, which has zero unique rules: Everything is stolen from a popular game insiders know. Hell, it even has a misprint on purpose, matching a famous misprint! You can teach it in 5 minutes to the right people, just by reference. The modern, kickstarter heavy 3 hour monstrosity just can't assume that the buyer has played all the games that have the same mechanics they are basically lifting from elsewhere, while only explaining the 2 or 3 places where they are doing anything interesting. But when you go through lives rules explanations among people in industry, half of the rules are really handled by reference, because you know what is going on. With some designers, the rules are almost unnecessary, as the played aids and the graphic design do 90% of the work. I've played that game with a certain designer: He sat there to answer questions, but he didn't even hand us a rulebook, or provide an explanation. Just the components in front of us and 'figure it out', as an experiment on the game's learnability
• masfuerte 2y ago
  Direct download link that doesn't require any Google js: https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1nkHWqYre866xihxN3MnHr5YFzY4gQWDT&export=download https://drive.usercontent.google.com/download?id=1nkHWqYre86...
• n2dasun 2y ago
  Can confirm. I really like the one for Dice Hospital. I learned from that one that Paul Grogan is the best at doing rulebooks. I also don't mind the one for Obsession, but maybe because I just love the game that much
• joemi 2y ago
  It's unfortunate that the author chose such a clickbait name for this essay. It puts me, someone who has seen boardgame rulebooks that definitely aren't awful, in an angry defensive mood when reading this, which is bolstered by the fact that good practices that the author recommends are in fact things I've seen good rulebooks do.
• barbs 2y ago
  My first thought when I read the title was "but I play lots of new games all the time and I don't find it too difficult to learn the rules". But then I realise - most of the time I find a learn-to-play video on YouTube and rarely learn the rules from the rulebook itself.
• galkk 2y ago
  That's why I don't like/play physical board games. Computers are much better in enforcing every arbitrarily complex rule/mechanic and there is no need to get into any rule lawyering disputes. Also, I can avoid any boring/time consuming stuff like counting tokens, points, scores, roads etc.
• p1necone 2y ago
  One thing that seems to be a trend recently is replacing a lot of text explanations of things with little pictograms. I understand this is usually some combination of needing to fit them onto the game board + avoiding needing to translate more things (and if you're lucky there's a lookup table of text descriptions somewhere in the manual) but they're usually completely incomprehensible to me.
• AceJohnny2 2y ago
  Tagentially, I've been working on how to best to explain Destiny raid mechanics to new players. Background: Destiny 2 is a co-op multiplayer FPS, and its pinnacle activity is 6-player raids, which requires players to combine fast-paced FPS gunplay, split-second reaction to mechanics, and coordination and communication with other players. This can be a daunting and overwhelming challenge for players new to the raid, even if they already are experienced in FPS gameplay. Challenge: explain to a player, familiar with Destiny gameplay but new to the raid, the mechanics of an "encounter" in 5-15 minutes, live. It must be as concise as possible so as not to confuse or overwhelm them, and not stretch the patience of the other players already familiar with the encounter. Too often I've see players start from the immediate aspects, working forwards towards the later/broader aspects of the encounter, but I find that in the firehose of information, by the time the explanation is complete, the player has forgotten the first, immediately important details: "wait, tell me again what am I supposed to shoot first?" So the approach I've been experimenting with is to work backwards from the goal of the encounter, so as to finish with the most immediate, tactically important information, so it's freshest in their memory. I don't yet have enough data points to conclude whether this is a better approach ;) In any case, I'm just barely wading into the immense topic that people have spent decades, careers, and PhDs on: teaching, but it is fascinating the breadth of choices one has in how to approach an explanation. (I also play a fair bit of board games, and learning a new board game is the primary obstacle of adoption, so I really appreciate the OP author's points)
  • AceJohnny2 2y ago
    My point is that explaining d2 raid mechanics gave me the chance to iterate on teaching in a targeted, globally understood (so there's a benchmark to compare against), and immediately actionable setting, which allowed me to practice these teaching essentials: 1. Be Concise! More information is not better, in fact it'll just overwhelm your students 1.a. Some details can be skipped entirely, until they become relevant 2. Repeat The Essentials! Repetition helps memorization, and highlights what's important. Some aspects are more important than others. 3. Visual and practical examples a essential! It's almost entirely useless to explain a subject without context or area to experiment in. Polite nods are your best outcome. 3.a. counter-example, the infamous "sudoers" manpage, so bad there's https://m.xkcd.com/1343/ https://m.xkcd.com/1343/ about it. Start with examples, then generalize, not the opposite! You may notice some contradiction between points 1 and 2. Yes! Finding the right balance is an art. The challenge for ADHD geeks like me is to avoid the "train-of-thought" infodumping approach, and filtering for what's really the most relevant.
• zahlman 2y ago
  There's a lot to read through here. There have been points I disagreed with, but overall this seems like a very solid overview of basic ideas. I think those ideas could probably be presented much more tersely. But I'm in the middle of putting up with a 150-page PDF, not so much because I'm engaged with the material, but because I want an excuse to spend a large amount of time thinking about it. ... Which tracks a lot with the start of section 2.2, actually. I could engage on these ideas in my own time and not feel like the author is wasting mine as I read. But the important thing is that I do engage with them at all; they'll stick because I'm actively processing them, just like in the experiment in Spielman et al.'s book. Another interesting connection I notice here is that Kalb's model of experimental learning seems to map very neatly onto the Diataxis model for writing documentation (https://diataxis.fr/ https://diataxis.fr/).
• tashian 2y ago
  I tried learning to make sourdough bread by reading the Tartine Bread book. The problem is, baking bread is such a sensual activity. You need to understand what it feels like when the texture of the dough is right. You need to learn how to fold and stretch the dough and shape it in ways that are very difficult to describe. None of this translates well into English, no matter how good of a writer you are. And photos are of limited utility. Learning in person from a knowledgeable teacher is ideal. Just as with a board game. But, since we are talking about media here, what helped me the most with bread baking was Instagram. I watched videos of bakers doing each stage of the process and talking me through it. I saw the texture of the dough they were using, and how they worked it. I learned by example. And I wonder if board games are similar to bread. Would I rather read a 70-page rule book, or watch someone play the game for a while or teach it to me in a video? I'd prefer the video content, and then I'd want rulebook as a reference guide rather than a tutorial.
  • trescenzi 2y ago
    I suspect it’s a per person thing. I’ve taught myself how to bake sourdough with a book. I’ve taught myself how to knit by reading as well which is also very tactile. When reading a good rule book/instruction manual I get little moments where the respective explanations click. But I assume everyone has a preferred method that works for them and has a similar experience when learning.
  • janniehater 2y ago
    [dead]
• denvaar 2y ago
  I have noticed that when people are explaining the rules of a game, they tend leave out the goal of the game, or wait to mention it toward the end of the explanation. You gotta lead with what the goal of the game is.
  • partdavid 2y ago
    The rulebooks (or videos) as well, do often omit this. But even when the overall goal is either obvious or explicitly stated, it's very common for none of the described options or actions to provide a motivation for the action or option that connects to the goal. In other words--yes, I can read some rules that say "on your turn, you can draw a BLANKLY card, play a FARB token, or advance one of your MORTGAGED BULLETS on the community barrel." But why would I do those things? So many rulesets could improved by adding motivation, like "If you think an opponent that owns your MORTGAGE is getting to close to the BULLETPROOF PIT, then you can beat them to the pit by advanced a MORTGAGED BULLET toward the target." Ah! Okay, those are the circumstances under which I might want to do that. Or, "If you aren't getting enough FARB tokens to block opponents, you might need more of the FARB-earning resources you can get by drawing BLANKLY cards. Remember that you're trying to either build a ROBOT--using parts on some of the FARB tokens--or destroy others' ability to build ROBOTs by shooting them." The rules of the game aren't really "how you play"; and a newcomer doesn't have a playstyle. You need to mix the basic strategy with the rules instead of just giving a bunch of options and no pointers as to why you might want to do one thing over another.
    • pimlottc 2y ago
      This is where the choice of theme can make a big difference. If chosen well, the players will be naturally guided to appropriate choices. Stock market game? Buy low, sell high! Farming theme? Can’t reap before you sow. Etc…
• siva7 2y ago
  I never got what people like about board games. Studying a manual for hours in order to play a game isn't fun to me but people are wired differently
  • zahlman 2y ago
    The point of the article is to explore ways to make it possible to play the game without studying a manual for hours first.
  • jordanwallwork 2y ago
    For most games you _don't_ study a manual for hours. Of course there are some crazy epic games for really hardcore gamers, but rule books for mid-weight game tend to take 5-15 minutes to read through and then you're ready to play, and a lot of people enjoy that time - familiarising yourself with something new, trying to understand what makes it tick. I personally find it an enjoyable ritual. Depending on the quality of the rules / complexity of the game, the first play through might be a bit ropey, but it's usually fine, and after that you're left with something that you can get hours and hours of fun from. Board games are awesome
  • Jensson 2y ago
    You have to learn the rules of every game you play, every board game rules are simple enough that you can learn them just by reading, the same can not be said for computer games whose rules often are hard to grasp even after hundreds of hours of having played them. So if you like knowing how the game you play works then board games is such a breath of fresh air compared to computer games where so many mechanics are black boxes that you have to reverse engineer to figure out what they do because they aren't described anywhere. Like, exactly how does armor reduce damage? How do defense affect chance to get hit? When does this conditional effect apply? All such things are often very opaque etc in computer games, since they don't have to describe them to you to make the game playable, and that makes it extremely frustrating to try to learn the game, you can play the game but you can't make any decisions since you don't know what anything does. Even worse, computer game tooltips and manuals often lie to you, giving you the wrong numbers or describe it in a different way than it was coded so it doesn't do what it says it does. A very common example is percentages, what is 150% damage bonus? Sometimes it adds 50% damage, sometimes it adds 150% damage, you never really know and sometimes the same game uses both versions. That never happens in board games since the written text is the implementation.
• ianferrel 2y ago
  How much of this is just "most board games are awful"? Awful in the sense of overly complicated and fiddly. There are plenty of games with deep strategic depth that have been around for hundreds of years and are simple enough that the rules fit on an index card and children routinely learn them from other children in the course of playing. If you end up with a 20-page rulebook, perhaps the problem is not how best to organize that rulebook, but that you have 18 pages too many rules in the first place.
  • krisoft 2y ago
    > If you end up with a 20-page rulebook, perhaps the problem is not how best to organize that rulebook, but that you have 18 pages too many rules in the first place. Exactly. My pet peeve is when a game is launched as a kickstarter and they add new game mechanics as stretch goals. If it was a good game with just the basic mechanics then why on earth would anyone want it be more complicated just because more people have funded it? And from the other angle if it is a better game with the extra rules and mechanics added then why not make that the game? It is the job of the game’s designer to make the very hard choices and tradeoffs between complexity of rules and the fun people will have with them. If they abdicate this responsibility and leave it up to “let’s see how viral our kickstarter canpaing will be” then they don’t understand their task.
    • ta_1138 2y ago
      Kickstarter games tend to have far more design than development, as the success of the kickstarter campaign has little to do with the game being any good, but with the material available at campaign time being attractive. So overproduced games with way too much art, and way to many systems, end up doing far better than, say, a simpler game that would have gone through a more traditional euro publisher 10 years ago. If you talk to people in industry, they realize that this is making the games worse, but it's making them sell better. Just like today, just like with a movie, high sales don't come from great mechanics, but franchises or licensing. Your superhero coop game is going to do much worse if it doesn't have a license. Why do we have so many boardgames with video game licenses? Because it sells. There's way too many games in the market right now for even industry insiders to good track of most offerings. Buyers working for large internet game stores are overwhelmed. So no, game designers are 100% understanding their task, which is to make a game that gets backed and is profitable. Cutting half the game after you told backers what you were doing is a disaster, and it's all those extra rules and extra boards that sold the game in the first place. The fact that the game is shelved after 3 plays is not a problem for them.
• deleted 2y ago
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• wrp 2y ago
  Since this is HN, I'm hoping for some discussion of how this could be applicable to software documentation. I've felt similar frustration with complex board games and software, and thought often about crossover in techniques of presentation. At the least, I'd like to see software manuals have a consistent structure, like those of the old SPI wargames.
  • ta_1138 2y ago
    The issue with software documentation is very different than a boardgame: The boardgame is static, changes to the boardgame are ultimately changes in the documentation, and people will not pay for a game they can't understand, while people end up using systems that are undocumented. There's good documentation in the software world, but it's always for systems shaped as to have all the incentives align to having good, current documentation. Stripe has good docs, because that's part of being able to onboard people: Bad docs cost money. Postgres has good docs because it doesn't change that much, so the good documentation stays useful, and they have a quick loop between finding errors and fixing them. Your typical internal project has awful documentation because it's nobody's real job, the requirements change constantly, and not enough people would use the documentation in the best of times to make good documents a worthwhile investment. And if you ask me, the SPI wargames aren't exactly pinnacles of good rulebook writing. If anything, the similar shape came from the games themselves having similar bones, more than because the system was good, or because standardization helped.
• nerdjon 2y ago
  As someone with over 200 board games. There is one game I can think of with a fantastic rule book is Azul. But I think that’s partially a symptom of those rules being very simple to explain and really you can only appreciate how complex it can get by playing. A close second is secret hitler thanks to its rules being all over the game itself. Other games then fall into 2 categories. Over simplification: an attempt to not bore seasoned players leads to some rules being up for interpretation. This leads to getting through the rule book quickly but annoyances while playing. Over explaining: to appease everyone they explain every single thing in extreme detail. It’s agonizing to read through and by the time you’re done you forget how the basics in the beginning (like turn order) work. Some address this by there being guides or hints on the board or whatever. Personally I have become a big fan of games that introduce things piecemeal or have a basic set of rules but then the complexity is dictated by card text. But that doesn’t work for every game.
  • sumo89 2y ago
    Over simplification can be ok but they need to provide an in depth faq after wards. I've got too many board games where the actions per turn are easy enough to understand, you get 3/4 of the way through then someone asks if this action means this token is generated again and you spend the next 20 minutes looking through the rules and the internet to find an answer. Give me a simple step by step of a turn but also give me a huge list of faqs that we can reference during the game.
• erehweb 2y ago
  Also worth considering - Fluxx https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/258/fluxx https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/258/fluxx where the rules are created during play as you go along. I really enjoyed the first experience of playing this and not knowing anything about it, but have not found anyone else who thinks this way.
  • Lyngbakr 2y ago
    IME, Pirate Fluxx is the best of the various themes. A good mix of silliness and solid gameplay.
• laurieg 2y ago
  My favourite board game rulebook is Pictomania. It starts by giving a very high level view of what the whole game looks like. It's a single page in the rulebook and doesn't get bogged down in details. Then, it explains the small details of the scoring system. Since you know how the whole game basically works you can mentally hang the smaller rules onto the overall game system. It reminds me of Jeremy Howards Fast AI course. He teaches "the whole game" with some of the details skipped. Then, he adds details one by one so you never get lost. The analogy often used is teaching sports to children. You start with a simplified version of the sport (For soccer: kick the ball into the other goal) and then you add extra rules (out of bounds, off-side, penalties etc) when they come up.
• NelsonMinar 2y ago
  I like zefquaavius' "holistic summary" of the rules for Daybreak [1]. They've published a bunch of others games rules in this form too [2]. They're not sufficient to learn to play the game but are absolutely perfect for remembering the details of how the game works after you've learned once. 1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1blJZCDK2A8DC6f6akcCcQ9_MyiwCgiL85MKAxA29_74/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.4ztrwkiy2miz https://docs.google.com/document/d/1blJZCDK2A8DC6f6akcCcQ9_M... 2. https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/190653/holistic-summaries-by-zefquaavius https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/190653/holistic-summaries...
• csallen 2y ago
  When I'm explaining game rules to someone new, my goal is to teach them without overwhelming them with irrelevant info, and without boring them into zoning out. I've found the most important thing to be the order in which I present information, and the best approach to be layered, like an onion. Essentially, I give them a broad overview of everything, then I do it again but with more specifics, then again with even more specifics, etc. Each layer provides context that will make it possible/easy to understand the specific details that I'll be explaining in the next layer. This runs counter to how most people and rulebooks explain the rules. Usually they try to group related facts together, e.g. "Here's all the rules for movement," "Here are all the rules for scoring," etc. That's great as a reference for people who are trying to look stuff up. But it's horrible for a beginner, because (as the linked PDF explains) it ignores cognitive load. It gives people information that only makes sense in context, but it doesn't give them that context, so they don't understand it. So they're forced to say, "Fine, I don't understand these details yet, but I'll just hold them in my short-term memory while I continue to read the rules until I get some context that helps me understand." But our short-term memories can only hold a few items, and they usually start to overflow pretty fast, long before the rules add the missing context we're hoping for. It's the equivalent of telling someone, "Hey, remember this number: 1823. And remember this number: 9094. Don't worry, I'll tell you later why you need them. But first, remember 6642, too. And 11456. Got it? Okay, just a few more things…" Ugh. Here's how I explain stuff instead: 1. Start with the goal/objective. For example, "The goal is to be the first to get to 10 points." The goal is the most important context there is! Without it, people have no idea why they should do anything you explain, which means they won't fully understand anything you explain, because "why" is one of the most important parts of understanding. 2. Explain the general flow of the game in simplified terms, and connect it to the goal. For example, "It's a free-for-all, not a team game, so you're trying to get to 10 points by yourself. We're going to go around in circles where we each get a turn. On your turn you'll take some actions that try to help you score points, or at least set yourself up to get closer to scoring points. Then once you decide you've done everything you can, you end your turn, and it moves clockwise to the next person." 3. Discuss the mechanics of how to win, i.e. how to accomplish the goal. For example, "So how do you get to 10 points? Mostly, you can build buildings in this game that are each worth points, usually 1 or 2 points. So the most basic way to win is to gather resources and build lots of buildings. But usually that's not enough to get you all the way to 10 points. So in addition to buildings, there are a few special bonuses and cards you get can get that can also give you 1 or 2 points and push you over the edge to 10 points. I'll explain those later." By now, the players have heard the goal of the game repeated three times, they understand the basic flow, and all they've even been vaguely introduced to some strategies, details, and mechanics. With each step, they have more high-level context that makes the specifics I reveal later much easier to understand. (By the way, the game I'm explaining in this example is Catan.) 4. Keep explaining things recursively. Always explain a goal/strategy, so people know why they're acting, before you explain the mechanics of how to do that action. This has always worked fairly well for me. It's essentially just respecting the "curse of knowledge," which you do by accepting the implications of the fact that your listeners don't know what you know.
• jader201 2y ago
  I’ve not read the PDF yet (but will), but posting now becuase by the time I have time to finish a 50-page PDF, this thread will be dead. But I’ve been watching Paul’s Gaming Rules! channel [1] for several years now, and regard him highly for not just writing rules, but also his YouTube content. Re: On Mars, I’m curious to see what the author points out as critiques, because I felt like it was really well done. The game is a beast, and I think it would be hard to put together a rule book for such a game without it being a complex task. But I feel like most complex games (heavier weight — 3.5+ according to BGG’s scale) are hard to learn by rules alone, and these days watching a teach on YouTube — or, even better, a playthrough — really helps with these heavier games. To the OP’s (likely) point, maybe rules alone should be enough? I mean, how else are the YouTube content creators going to learn! :) But I think for heavier games, no amount of rules wordsmithing will allow people to learn them without some fumbling and in-game rules referencing… and still getting some of them wrong. Also, if interested, there is a blog on BGG by the OP, with more discussion there. [2] [1] https://youtube.com/@gamingrulesvideos https://youtube.com/@gamingrulesvideos [2] https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/13453/blogpost/164134/every-board-game-rulebook-is-awful-the-essay#comments https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/13453/blogpost/164134/every-b...
• pcblues 2y ago
  For a bit of tangentially related fun, I recommend Steven Jackson's Murphy's Rules. It was a book of irrational game rules. I used to have a hard-copy of this. Sorry if this is not an official link. You may have better luck finding it yourself :) https://www.drivethrurpg.com/download_preview.php?pid=317646 https://www.drivethrurpg.com/download_preview.php?pid=317646
• roydivision 2y ago
  I've been wondering for some time if it would be possible to create a formal way of describing board game rules. Although there is much variety in board gaming, mostly they consist of some sort of state machine, with events that change that state, and usually a clear end game state. Does anyone know if this has been researched?
  • devjab 2y ago
    I don’t think you will be capable of pushing it as a sort of board game protocol. I think the best way to do rules is to have a rulebook where it’s very easy to look up rules as a reference later. Setup, turns and actions are relatively easy to learn, but you’ll often have to look up consequences of actions or specific events over the years. Rulebook which mix in everything in a big mess designed to describe “how to play for new players”, tend to make it hard to look up things. Which is what you’re going to want to do after a few play throughs. Especially if you play a lot of different board games. I think the biggest challenges you’ll face is that most rulebooks are simply poorly written and that many games aren’t well designed. Add to this that many modern board games are sold on FOMO models, where you get a lot of additional crowdfunding exclusive rule addons, and it’s just a mess. The best way to get good rules would probably be to get them digitally and have a LLM refine them for you though. Not only could you fix some of the bad writing, you could also ask for things like reference sheets or whatever you want.
  • Jensson 2y ago
    > I've been wondering for some time if it would be possible to create a formal way of describing board game rules There is, it is called computer code. Board game rules aren't written that way for a reason.
    • ben_w 2y ago
      > Board game rules aren't written that way for a reason. Most board games. Star Fleet Battles is basically a computer game written on paper 10 years before home computers had enough RAM for the rule set. The result is what you may expect, each "turn" takes 60-90 minutes and the game lasts 3-4 turns, and every box on this ship diagram actually does something: https://cf.geekdo-images.com/camo/45ff4f9cf11f36cafd7768931af1b600df61a1ad/687474703a2f2f7366622e7377612d67616d696e672e6f72672f737364732f46656465726174696f6e416476616e63656443412e6a7067 https://cf.geekdo-images.com/camo/45ff4f9cf11f36cafd7768931a... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Fleet_Battles
• bawolff 2y ago
  One of the things i find with playing a new board game (as a very casual player), is it usually comes down to someone reading the rules to the group. This is always frustrating because the person usually drones on about the part you understand, until eventually you stop paying attention,but spends ten seconds on the complex part.
  • ragebol 2y ago
    The group I most often play with has a school teacher in it. Guess who gets to read the rules to the rest.
• assimpleaspossi 2y ago
  Has anyone ever tried to look something up in a car manual? OMG!
  • MrMetlHed 2y ago
    Power tool manuals are the worst. Often times when I buy a kitchen appliance it has some basic info on all of the functionality and perhaps a nice recipe book. Vitamix stood out here, and Breville is mostly okay but could be better. Power tools though. Dewalt has a folded up piece of paper in micro-font that has technical diagrams that are hard to read and understand. And forget about something like a "recipe" book for simple projects (even if it could be an upsell for another tool.)
• ndsipa_pomu 2y ago
  I'm a fan of how the rules are structured in Scythe. Initially it seems very complex, but there's an underlying logic to it and you can figure out most of the rules by looking at the special abilities of each player - they each provide an exception to a rule. I don't relate well to reading rules although I'm quite good at picking up on the "exceptions" to rules e.g. you can only own two twizzles unless you've unlocked the fandangle. What works for me is playing an example round/turn to see how the various mechanisms fit together. One problem I find with game rules is when they introduce a term without the corresponding picture of the card/token etc.
• thaumasiotes 2y ago
  Clearly false; the Dominion rulebook is stellar.
• edweis 2y ago
  TLDR: How Do We Fix the Rulebook? My first answer is: I don't know!
• Jiro 2y ago
  There's a problem which he misses in this which appears in this game and almost everywhere: Games that don't have any useful words on the board, presumably because the game is to be sold in multiple countries. For instance, the question about what the crystal icons mean could have been resolved if the game had had words like "per round" or "additional" on them.
• d3VwsX 2y ago
  Old boardgame (wargame) rulebooks used to have numbered sections and subsections. I often miss that in modern rulebooks, even if some wargame rulebooks still have them luckily. It is so much easier to discuss the rules of a game when you have unambiguous identifiers for every paragraph rather than having to come up with ad-hoc vague references to some page and location below a heading. The linked article has numbered sections, which is nice, allowing for specific references like "in Section 2.3" or "Figure 14.4", but the example rulebooks discussed from what I can tell do not.
  • allturtles 2y ago
    Yep. I think it's avoided by most modern rules writers because it looks intimidating and technical to many people. Among modern non-wargames, the authoritative rules for Root (Law of Root) do have this feature: http://root.livingrules.io/ http://root.livingrules.io/
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• 01143492478 2y ago
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• josephcsible 2y ago
  > In a talk at PAX, Brandon DeCoster and Scott Rubin describe how you can ruin Wizard, a trick-taking card game, when someone plays a card that they weren't allowed to play: > DeCoster: Now, in Euchre, there's a rule for that. It's called a renege. The other team gets two points, and you just play a new hand. Fine. But, in Wizard, which is my favorite trick taking game, there is no way to handle that situation. > Rubin: Not, at least, officially in the rules. > DeCoster: We've been trying to come up with a way, but there's no official way. There's no rule that says if someone reneges, do X, Y, and Z. And, in fact, by the nature of the game, it's very difficult to come up with a fair way to resolve that situation. So the game actually has... It's like a video game that has a glitch: go into this one spot, the game crashes, and your save file disappears. The same thing can happen in Wizard. (DeCoster & Rubin, 2016, 41:33–42:06) But https://www.usgamesinc.com/Wizard-FAQ.html https://www.usgamesinc.com/Wizard-FAQ.html says: > 30. What happens if a player reneges (i.e. does not follow suit when required to do so)? > If noticed before another card is played, no penalty. > If trick is completed and the mistake then discovered, players automatically make their bids except the player who reneged loses 20 points.