How to write rules without confusing people? J.Seigel Notes

How to write rules without confusing people?

In this blog I will be looking at an article by J.Seiger which takes a look at rule writing preferences and the best way of laying rules out without confusing or overwhelming people.

The rules of a game are the engine, the driving force behind the game without the rules a game is nothing more then a collection of bits and pieces with no indication on what they do. So its safe to say that rules are the most important aspect of any non digital game. 

Rules should cover every possible outcome of a game, leave no stone unturned. Rules are crucial to the gameplay experience and should make sense and be easy to read.

Narrative

Narrative can be important when writing your rules as they can provide logical explanations to why things work the way they do. They can help justify the games mechanics also.

List the materials

What you want to do next is list everything you need to play the game. Including any pre-game instructions needed for setting up the game.

Starting with the end

You want to lay out the win condition as soon as possible as all the rules serve this condition and will help in players making sense of the rules. It also makes it easier for a player to recap on the win condition if they have maybe forgot.

General to specific

You want to start of with all the important and common rules first. After them you may then want to start laying down the exceptions to the rule or any situational variations. So explain the rules in the order of when a player will come across them. Though overall the idea is to lay down the primary rules down first.

Can before cant

You want to be telling a player what they can do before you start explaining what they cannot do. 

The rules want to be written with low level vocabulary and when necessary include illustrations. Try to avoid blocks and blocks of text and break your rules down into easily manageable chunks and bullet points.

Try to write your rules in a friendly manner or following the theme of your game its about getting the players engaged and improves on the games aesthetics.