Adding & Removing Rules

Limiting the number of game rules is key to simplicity.

When to add rules

There are only two reasons I add rules to a game:

When I design a game. I create rules, but the least number possible.

When I create a piece of content for the game that I really like, I start creating more. If this keeps going, it becomes worthwhile to codify it into a rule. This also means I can add as many more of this thing as I like, with no further complexity. Also, it's better to have complexity in the rulebook than on the cards (or other components.)

In Radlands, cards were initially all just in a row. It didn't matter where you put them. However, I made a Watchman card. He could be placed in front of another card, and the opponent would have to attack him, before they could attack the card behind him. This turned out to be such an interesting ability that I made more such cards that could protect a card behind them. I promoted this to be a keyword, called "protection". Eventually, I gave protection to so many cards, that I promoted protection to be a game rule — every person could protect.

In my gangster game, there are four different-coloured dice you can roll. I made a few locations that allow you to roll two specific dice, see what you roll, and then choose which one of those two rolls you want to enact. Choosing between two die faces on different dice is a very interesting decision, despite it being such a simple concept. I really liked these locations, but there were only six of them — one for each different pair of dice, and they had to describe this choosing process. I decided to promote this "roll two dice and choose one of the rolls" to an icon. It's now a die, split down the middle, with each half being a different colour. Because this is now just a simple icon, I can pair it with other effects, or have two of them on a location. This lets me use this cool effect on a huge number of the game's locations. (I then tried promoting it again, such that ALL die rolls were these "choice" rolls, but that was too much.)

In my gangster game, I created numerous cards that placed money or health tokens on various locations. Each of these cards had to specify that whoever went to that location got the tokens. Eventually, I just added this as part of the rules, and my cards got a whole lot simpler.

This is the proper genesis of rules. Only add them when the game content pushes you in that direction.

The game calls for the rules.

This also applies to other things, like icons, terminology, and physical components.

Promotion

Do this on purpose. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to proliferate your favourite components, and then promote them to rules or game concepts.

When I try things, I often just throw them in as a single card. It's very easy to do.

Most of my games start out with the rules being on one small reminder card. Over time, small things proliferate, and become promoted to rules.

Removing rules

Rules have a high cost, so when something has value, but isn't being used enough, make sure to demote it into individual components. Don't just keep the rule.

In Radlands, you could pay one water resource to rearrange all your people into a new formation. It was an interesting rule, but players rarely used it. The rule was demoted back to being a single, interesting card, called High Ground.

Radlands had three damage icons — "damage anything", "damage a person", and "damage a camp". After some changes, the camp-damaging icon was present on only two or three cards. I removed it from those cards, and just replaced it with the regular damage icon plus the text "...a camp".