How often do you actually read the
rules to a board game? Usually, groups will have one person read the
rules (usually the owner of the game) and then teach everyone else;
this makes sense, since it takes less time to have one person learn
the game first than to wait for everyone to read the rulebook. But
what about older games? Have you ever read the rules for Monopoly?
Yahtzee? Risk? What about all of those games you've played with a
standard 52-card deck? There are so many games that people teach to
each other without having read the rulebook first.
Classic games that 'everyone' knows how
to play are an interesting breed; most of the time the rules of these
games are passed down from generation to generation, or at least from
group to group, as a sort of oral tradition. We are often taught
these games when we are young, when our reading skills are just
developing. This has the interesting side effect of feeding that
sense when we grow up that 'everyone' knows how to play; we are
astonished when someone doesn't know the rules of a game we've grown
up with. These games were a part of our childhood, and we know how to
play them by the time we would even think to read the rules, so it
seems strange that someone else would need to read a rule book for
them. We never bothered; why would we spend the time to read them
when we already know how to play?
Add to this the fact that some of these
classic games don't always come with rules, or if they do the rules
that are provided are often on a small piece of paper that is poorly
written. Chess sets in particular come to mind; the rules of Chess
are remarkably complicated, but whenever rules are provided with a
set they lack diagrams or seem to assume that the reader already
knows how to play. Backgammon is no better; growing up I tried to
learn how to play by reading several rule sheets, but the rules I
read were always so unintuitive that I couldn't figure it out. It
wasn't until later when I played Internet Backgammon on our family
computer that it finally made sense; the tool tips provided were
extremely informative and it showed just how straightforward the game
actually was to play. Still, looking at how the rules for these old
games are written, they seem almost to require a teacher to start
playing them.
Standard 52-card decks of playing cards
are similar to Chess or Backgammon sets in that they also rarely
comes with rules. Of course, a standard deck of cards can be used for
hundreds of games, and space is limited by the tuck boxes they are
in, so you can't provide complete rules for every game in a pack.
Nevertheless, the consequence of this lack-of-a-rulebook seems to be
that players gravitate towards card games that they already know how
to play, rather than seeking out rules for new ones. These games are
almost always taught to people by family or friends instead of a
book. For instance, I learned to play Cribbage from my family; I've
glanced at the actual rules for it once or twice, and I know there
are some house rules that we use, but I've never sat down and read
through the rules in the same way that I do when I get a new board
game.
By contrast, modern board games often
have a compact, presentable rulebook that makes it easy to learn the
game. They will usually have plenty of examples and diagrams to make
things as clear as possible, and almost every game has an emphasis on
spending less time learning the game and more time playing it. Some
companies have gone a step further to that end by creating things
like learn-to-play videos, which allow new players to have a game
taught to them rather than reading the rules. This has proven to be a
great way to learn a game, and seeing a game played can provide a
sense of what good strategies are, too, making the first game less
intimidating. So that's a bonus.
Still, even when learning a game from
someone else, sometimes it's worth just reading the manual.
13/13
No comments:
Post a Comment