It has been a while since I wrote an article for Morning Table Talk and I was reading over some of my previous articles and one sub-header stuck out to me: “Rules Are Bad.” Since I am currently working on editing the rule-book for Who Wears the Crown?, am in the early stages for two more games, this got me thinking about the process of rules creation and how players will experience those rules.

On the one hand that idea of “Rules Are Bad” holds some truth, many have pointed out that rules require learning, memorization, and prevent the start of the game. On the other hand rules themselves can be good and help clarify mechanics, game-play, and act as a guide while we the designer are not there. So why this duality? How can rules be both good and bad and what makes rules easy to learn vs. difficult and confusing. Well some of that comes from the differences how designers think of games and rules vs. how players think of games and rules. Designers typically think of the game first, test it, maybe have some notes, and once the game is polished write down the rules. This means that for the designer, they may have internalized these rules weeks, months, or years prior to the codification of the rules and so write them with that in mind. For the player, the rules are the main resource they have to learn the game. The player saw the art, heard good things from a friend or played it once but forgot the details, got the game and now must learn it. We can see that at the core of this are two opposite approaches to the game reverse from one another. This can lead to easy pitfalls for the designer, not explaining enough, using terms to early, having too many terms, or trying to account for every single case that can occur. As a starting place, there are four principles that I have found effective with my work on Affectionate: Cats and Cuddles and want to share:

• Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

• Understanding your Audience

• Using the Rule of Threes

• Icons, Images, and Examples

Now all of these principles assume that you have already written up some rule and are focusing on the content of the rules instead of the graphical design concepts themselves such as composition. For help with some of the basic graphical design concepts a link to a good article on basics was included at the bottom of this post.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

As designers and developers as a whole writing rules is hard: we cannot be there to explain every quirk or interaction in our game and trying to write all of them out is exhausting. So the first thing to do when writing your rules is to simplify your language, terminology, and explanations as much as possible. Using new or complicated words will make things more difficult for your new player and impede their learning process. After you have found the lexicon that you are going to use, ensure that you are consistent to that lexicon. If you change words then that adds complexity again and adds confusion. With the rules themselves, avoid exceptions and addendums as much as possible. Adding addition restrictions to your rules can help with edge cases but add complexity making your game more complicated then it could be. If you are finding that you are using the terms Except, But, and Aside, then there is a good chance your rules are too complicated. As you simplify remember that each exception to the core rules compounds the complexity of your game. As you are proofreading and (hopefully) as others read these rules, ask where there are areas that seem too complex. What may seem intuitive to you may be complex or wordy to someone else. Focus on these areas as you revise these rules and you will find that your rule become easier to understand overall. Finally, this cannot be overstated, be simpler and more deliberate in your rules than you think you need to. Recognize that whoever reads your rules may be doing so for their first time and will likely not read it again for comprehension so simplify so they do not need to read your game in depth.

Understanding your Audience

When you designed your game you had a target audience in mind and now that audience is your reader. Ask yourself questions like, what other games would I have expected my audience to have played? What terms does that game use and what do the rule-books for those games look like?By answering some of these questions, you can help build the aforementioned lexicon that your audience will understand and utilize writing conventions that suit your game and will be understandable to your players. As I was writing the rule-book for Affectionate, I realized that my target audience was going to be families that will not have played a lot of board games. With this in mind, I made sure to understand the vocabulary level that Monopoly, Sorry!, and other mass market games used and wrote Affectionate’s rules with that vocabulary in mind. Also, since my audience was going to be families with children, I did my best to have simple sentences so that the children could potentially read the rules as well. If your writing style and the audience mismatches, you could use terms they are not familiar with and thus complicate your game. This concept of understanding your audience goes hand in hand with the concept of simplifying. It will provide a guide to your simplification and a base line for your terminology.

The Rule of Threes

Often the rule of threes is presented as a concise way to provide information and that is similarly here but more for reinforcement. Don’t assume that because you have written a rule down once that someone will automatically pick up on it. Often people need to be presented with the same information several times to remember and understand it. I am not suggesting that you write the exact text of a rule verbatim but instead you can present the information in three different ways.

With Affectionate, I presented the rules of play and actions once in the rule-book itself, once on the back of the rule-book as a cheat sheet, and finally on the player aid cards as well. Each time the graphics and information was the same (if not condensed in some areas) but it allowed people multiple ways to learn how the game worked.

The rule of threes can also be used to first present a rule in its entirely, provide an example scenario of that rule, and then the cheat sheet on the back or player aid. In short, find ways to provide multiple ways for the player to learn how a rule or concept works and they will spent less time reading your rules.

Icons, Images, and Examples

It is difficult to have too many examples and images in your rule-book but very easy to not have enough. Now images on there own create little to no context and can be confusing. So provide images for key things the players need to know iconography for the game, example scenarios, setup, game-play, and cheat sheets are ripe for images. With Affectionate, I made a choice that whenever a component was mentioned it would be accompanied by its representing icon. This would help create a mental mapping for the player that a component or idea was represented by a certain icon. This would become helpful with the various game-play, example, and setup images as well as with the player aid cards.Finally, your game should include example scenarios. This can help players with understanding how the rules can play out. Typically this should be done for scoring, game-play, and endgame rules/explanations. I have found that calling these scenarios out separately from the rules is also useful for those who just need the rule text and are not reading for the first time. These examples can and should use images when applicable to help players visualize the scenario.

Final Notes

As many other designer have pointed out, you want your rules to be clear, simple, and concisely convey your message. There are many graphical and writing techniques to help with this and with that I have found that focusing on simplifying your rules, understanding your audience, using the rule of threes, and complimenting your rules with images and examples helps exponentially. These techniques can and should be used with careful proofreading and by asking others to review your rules for clarity. I recommend trying to think of these ideas a early as possible since it could help in your design process as you are creating your next game and save you time as you finish up the play-testing and design portion of your development.I hope you find this helpful and feel free to comment about what helps you with rules writing or your experience with these ideas!

Graphical Design Principles:

https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/beginning-graphic-design/layout-and-composition/1/

https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/beginning-graphic-design/fundamentals-of-design/1/