Looking at a game on BGG. 50% of the forum posts are in the 'rules' category. Do you think that suggests an unclear rulebook? Or are there too many other factors for that to be meaningful?
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Replying to @gamesbymanuel
I mean, for this game we found the rules a tiny bit unclear. I was actually on BGG to find some answers. But I wonder if this is a truism. I actually wonder if you could datamine BGG to get a vague approximation of rulebook quality.
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Replying to @stuffByBez @gamesbymanuel
The last two games I've played I had to resort to a BGG rules forum search because 1) there were some sentences in cards open to interpretation, and 2) I could not find the answer in the rulebook when just looking for a particular problem.
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To me, case 1 happens when as players we think "outside of the box" and this is may be harder to see/predict, and case 2 happens when the rulebook is not organized to allow a quick search for answers to specific sections. Writing rulebooks is really really hard, an art.
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Replying to @nucaica @stuffByBez
Agreed. If the rules/components were clear from the start, there would be no need to ask rules questions on BGG.
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Replying to @gamesbymanuel @nucaica
But of course nothing can be perfect. And nothing can be perfectly clear. Additionally I would argue that in the case of some games (e.g. Jungle Speed, Yogi), clarifying every possible edge case in the box would make it a far worse game.
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There are a number of extra rules you'll have to engineer if you want to run a world championship of Jungle Speed. Same if you want to run a competitive game of Yogi Guru with the wildcards.
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Replying to @stuffByBez @nucaica
I've seen some games do these "catch-alls" for rules questions. For example, in the vehicle skirmish game Gaslands they have the Rule of Carnage: "(...) if the rules are unclear, choose whichever option results in the most carnage for all concerned. "
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Replying to @gamesbymanuel @nucaica
That sort of thing will certainly still need some additional work if being played in a competitive way. But maybe those sorts of things are good at setting the expectations and tone of the game.
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Yes, I don't think this game is meant for high end competitive play and I agree that in some cases, watertight rules make the game seem a lot more complicated than it is.
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