Writing rules for games is a science of its own. When I discuss “rulebooks” in the context of this note, I mean anything in the game that creates or explains a rule: rulebooks, reference guides, FAQs, cards with rules (like Magic the Gathering or Pokemon TCG cards) and such. Don’t get too hang up on the “book” part. And it includes all sorts of non-digital games: board games, card games, wargames, social games and so on.
I haven’t (yet!) designed my own game to the point where someone else would need to read the rules, I have written many tiny, simplified rulebooks for games that I have shrunk into more travel size or built from scratch as PnP and every time, I keep thinking how I could get better at picking the essential rules and explaining them in concise but accurate way.
In his lecture Pragits, Praktis, Practice. Iteration in game design, designer James Earnest makes an important point about the relationship between rules and games and the role of a game designer:
Our job is not to make rules, our job is not to write mechanics. [ - - ] Really the rules are just how you get to the game. The rules are almost a barrier in your way of playing the game. The rules are like: “Tell me about Disneyland”. “Well, it opens at 8, it closes at midnight, there’s fireworks and you can’t carry liquids through the security gate.”
Our job as game designers is to understand the experience we’re trying to create.
Keeping that in mind when writing the rules is crucial.
In Technical Writing In Tabletop Games, Sam Pearson goes through a couple of key areas where rules text writing can fail and cause confusion. Namely, ambiguous rules and inconsistency in terminology and phrasing. He explains them through great examples and offers tips for fixing some of the shown examples. In addition, he provides a great checklist for common pitfalls to avoid.
In his talk ‘Magic the Gathering’ 20 Years, 20 Lessons Learned, Mark Rosewater mentions a couple of rules writing related lessons. Piggybacking (or the “use of pre-existing knowledge to front-load game information to make learning easier”) can help the designers and the players both in making the rules and mechanics easier to grasp but can also become a challenge if there are competing or conflicting interpretations across different cultures.
Speaking of Magic the Gathering, there’s a popular saying “Reading the card explains the card”. A huge part of the rules that guide the interactions during the game are not written in a rulebook but on individual cards and when done well, it can be very efficient way to drive the game. “Reading the card explains the card” is not unfortunately quite that simple though as there are many cases where extra explanations are needed because writing perfect rules is hard.
Jesse Ross in How to Write a Rulebook - Designing a New Board Game talks about where to start writing your rulebook and what to focus on (and what to leave for later) when you’re early in your game design process.
In Board Game Instructions (and why they are the most important thing), Exploding Kittens designer Elan Lee goes through a bunch of examples from games he has designed and how he discovered improvements to those rulebooks. He has a lot of good examples of learning from playtesting sessions. I can always appreciate when designers have the courage to look at their old work and critique them for the sake of helping others learn from their mistakes.
Backlog
Articles & videos to read/watch and make notes about.
- How to Write a Board Game Rule Book
- Writing Rules - Board Game Design Lab
- Rulebook Panel - Unpub 8 - Google Docs
- How to Write an Excellent Rulebook - Dice Tower
- Tips for Writing Board Game Rules | Calli’s Corner - YouTube
- Table Talk 38 - Rules for Rule Books - Watch It Played
- How to Write a GOOD Board Game Rulebook! - Tim Chuon