Doctors Paul Wake and Sam Illingworth
This month we’re taking it back to basics (in other words: the dificult stuff) and asking, “What does it mean to play by the rules?” and “What are rules in the first place?” They certainly seem essential in determining the nature of a game’s challenge and in providing a means to test a player’s mettle. But are rules more than that? Let’s examine these questions by looking at two very different games: Jamey Stegmaier’s Scythe and Andrew Looney’s Fluxx.
Stegmaier’s Scythe, an alternate-history “dieselpunk” strategy game, comes with a comparatively complex ruleset which BoardGameGeek rankings place somewhere between “medium” and “medium-heavy”. However, to regular tabletop gamers, comfortable with the fact that they’re going to be “running” the game (unlike digital gamers who can pass that duty on to their console of choice) there’s nothing to fear here. Once the game’s rules, presented over 31 pages, have been mastered play becomes streamlined and the challenge of achieving victory as defined by the ruleset can begin.