Writing Rulebook

I'm doing the same thing right now for my game and am curious about this too (and what "standard" rules are you talking about?) - I've written "rules" before but never really got to the point I'm at right now where I have to look at them with an eye to actually handing them over to someone else so they can pick them up, knowing nothing about the game, and learn it.

I had a hard time 4 years ago when I started (has it been really that long?) but I'm getting better.

I'm a bit of a compulsive perfectionnist so I'm the same as you. Aim for excellence, not perfection. That's my new motto for writing rules.

Write it all up as quickly as possible. Not half-assed, but don't focus on keeping everything absolutely neat and coherent. This will slow you down enormously. You will have time to pass it over when you're done. Focus on one task. Plan what you are going to do. Don't just open your rules and start fiddling. Define a clear goal and Just Do it. Don't get distracted.

The structure of a rules document is very interesting to me for some reason. I bet there's an efficient way of structuring rules waiting to be invented/discovered.

Generally, writing the rulebook comes early in the process of designing a game for me, certainly before making a prototype, or even a playable one. I'm a rules guy... when I rent a videogame with buddies, I will let one of them man the controls while I man the instruction manual... that's just me though.

I find when writing rulebooks that priority of information is the most important thing. Everything should be learned by the player in the proper order. The fewer "See the ??? Section for details" comments, the better. If you can manage to have a new player read through your rulebook without flipping back and forth constantly to other pages, your priority of information is smooth. The more complicated the rules, the more necessary the jumping-around becomes of course, but I try to limit it.

Consistency. If something has a name, stick to that name in all instances. i.e. If you are referring to a play area as "the war zone", don't refer to it as "the battlefield" or "the combat area" somewhere else. Stick to War Zone. Removes confusion.

Break it up, if you can. People digest small bits easier. A whole page with no breaks or headings will be VERY difficult for a player to comprehend, or to look up something later when a note of contention arises. I prefer many small paragraphs with clear headings.

When is it enough? I do strive for perfection over excellence, myself. A lot of CCGs and complicated wargames make this virtually impossible, since these types of games are normally designed to allow for the maximum amnount of player creativity in terms of strategies and unique tactics and blending of components... BUT, for games of smaller scope, I do believe that perfection is possible in a ruleset.

You could easily write a perfect set of rules for Tic-Tac-Toe, for example. What's perfect? Perfect is when all possible situations that may arise in the game are covered by the rules. If any player asks a question, the answer is in the rules. You as the designer will not always be sitting there with the answer, after all.

I had a job as a "software regression tester" for awhile. Accounting software for construction firms, wheee. New programs would arrive in my inbox and I would spend all day testing every feature of every menu and every button and every combinaton thereof and so on, until the entire scope of the program proved to be functional. This is kind of how I view the "ruletesting" process for my games. I run through them many many times, playing not to win, but to insure that every feature of the game is fully covered by the rulebook in any scenario. When I am confident that everything is in there, it's done.

~Josh

There is a difference between the rules and the text that explain the rules.

Do you rewrite the rulebook because there is a bug in the rules or because the text is not written well enough.

If it is a bug in the rules, do not write the rule book. If you need to share the information with somebody else, then write a skeletton document that write the most important information to understand the rule. When the game works perfectly now you write the rule book.

For the rule book, I write it in a maximum of 3 times.

First writing : You write the idea as in comes according to a structure you have established.

Second writting : You read what you have written, and reformulate the sentense when the text does not flow as you want.

Third writting : Correct the typo, orthograph and grammar.

You can split you rule book in parts and apply each step for each part.

A good quot for this is:

Actually I think it was also said about art, books and movies.

When I first start wirting the rules, my process is to

First I brain storm the rules. I do this by writing down all rules I think that I might be able to use, even some alternate rules for particular mechanics.

The next step is to select from this mess the rules that best create the game I am trying to make.

Then I modify the rules and add more or remove where nessesary.

Then I solo playtest these (sometimes just in my head as a thought experiment).

Only now do I actually start to write the rule book.

I will work on and off on the text in the rule book (usually leaving it about 3 days or so) and critically review the rules looking for gaps etc.

Finally I will then get some people to playtest it. First I will teach the rules and then as a blind/cold playtest where I don't gert involved.

I will keep repeating the last 2 untill the rules make sense to the playtesters and I am sure it covers all the rules.

Finnally I will do a proofread of the rule book and make sure all the graphics are ok.

That's actually a great point... If you feel that you are good at verbally explaining your games to people, then "watch" yourself do so, and make mental notes (or actual notes) as to the order that you explain things to people, the things that make them go "aha, I get it", and so on.

Also, don't undervalue a diagram, illustration, or photo. Sometimes I find that it takes an incredibly complicated sentence to explain something that an image could convey simply.

~Josh