I wrote this as an
article for my blog a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to copy it here as well to give it a bit more visibility. This is intended to be the first of a short series of articles where I give some of my suggestions as a professional games designer on how to write rules. Please leave comments, criticism and suggestions either here in this thread or as a comment on my blog.
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One of the great things about this hobby is that it encourages creativity. Painting miniatures, writing background stories, imagining the battle as it rages and coming up with new and interesting variations to spice things up all conspire to exercise the grey stuff. I like to read new ideas for unit types, new scenarios or full campaigns to play and I’m always interested in house rules and variant systems that other groups have adopted for their games. Obviously there’s a huge range in the quality and balance of these variants and so, I’d like to share some of my experience in writing rules to help others. Whether you are an experienced gamer who regularly comes up with new ideas or someone looking for a place to start I hope there will be something for you in here.
I’m going to try and cover a lot of ground and so I’ll break this guide up into several articles so that it doesn’t get too unwieldy. By the time we’re done I hope to have covered most of the areas for rules writing from variant units to entirely new systems.
To start with I’ll begin with some golden rules that apply no matter what you’re doing.
* Be Precise. Don’t use words that can be ambiguous, do use words that have clearly defined meanings in the game system you’re designing for.
* Be Consistent. Don’t mix up your terms, if you say model in one part of the rules and unit in another then you’re introducing confusion.
* Cover Exceptions. Define the limits of the rule and how it handles things that aren’t subject to normal mechanics.
* Be Concise. Describe how your rule works as simply as possible.
* Be Clear. If you need to explain anything after someone has read your rule then you haven’t written it clearly enough.
By far the most common mistakes I see in home-brewed rules are clarity and ambiguity. Quite often someone has a good idea for a new rule but can’t write it down in a way that’s completely obvious and can’t be misinterpreted. It’s important to bear in mind that, while you know exactly what you mean when you write something down, the person reading it only knows what you’ve written and can’t read your mind. Generally speaking, the longer your rule is, the more likely it is to be misinterpreted. Try and distil the rule down to the bare minimum needed to make it work. If there are a lot of elements or conditional parts to the rule then consider stripping them away and streamlining it into a single universally applied version for the sake of clarity. If you need more than two sentences to describe the rule then the chances are you’ve overwritten it.
Let’s look at some practical cases.
One of the most common areas for armchair designers is coming up with new units for their favourite army. This is a pretty low-impact way to create new things, after all the basic themes are already in place, you just need to plug your new unit into the existing background and ethos of the army. New special characters and units are fun to invent and don’t take a lot of time to bash out.
Generally speaking it’s best to work out the role and ‘fluff’ for your new unit before you start pencilling in stats and rules. Figure out what the unit does for the army, what part it plays in the background and how it will work alongside the rest of the force. An important point here is to remember that weaknesses in the army need to be respected just as much as the traditional strengths. Don’t make a cavalry unit for Warhammer Fantasy Dwarfs just because you’re unhappy with the army’s lack of mobility. On the other hand, don’t make existing units obsolete either; if a unit represents the pinnacle of an army’s speciality then making a better version of that unit is overkill. Going back to the Dwarfs, they don’t need a new elite infantry option with a 2+ save because they already have Ironbreakers. You need to identify a niche in your army that could be filled but currently isn’t.
Once you’ve figured out what your new unit will do, it’s time to pencil in some stats and rules for it. Use existing units as a baseline for the basic equipment and stats, if you deviate from the standardised statlines you should have a good reason for it and not just because you really really want to make an awesomely powerful unit. It’s a good idea to pencil in the points as well as these will give you a ballpark figure for the final cost of your unit. Next come any special rules for your unit. The first thing to remember is that these aren’t necessary. In some cases a unit can be unique and special based purely on its equipment. If you need a special rule to define the unit then look at existing ones and see if any of those apply. Don’t use unique abilities from other units, after all if everything has their special rule then they aren’t unique any more. Try instead to apply standard rules to the unit from the general purpose list that most systems have. That way it’s easier to balance the unit and there is less chance of clashes with other rules. It’s usually a bad idea to make up a different version of an existing rule – if you want your unit to be stealthy then give it all the stealth type abilities from the system rather than making up a new rule that basically achieves the same end in a different way. Also follow the format of other units in the army, if they tend to have only one or two special rules each then don’t burden your new creation with half a dozen.
If there are no rules that describe what you want your unit to do, then of course you have to make them up. Obviously you should resist the temptation to make the new rule too powerful but mostly you should be trying to describe the rule as clearly and simply as possible. Think of how you want the unit to behave and write a rule that helps them to do that. Once you’ve done that, think of all the ways in which your new rule breaks existing ones. A special rule is, essentially permission for your unit to break the normal rules of the game. Think of all the different situations in which the rule might come into play and how they would be resolved. If the answer isn’t obvious then write it down as part of the rule. When you have figured out all the likely repercussions of your rule then go back to what you’ve written and see if there’s a better way to word it that takes all of the special cases and exceptions you figured out into account.
For example, let’s say you made a unit that gets an additional D6″ of movement a turn due to its magical movement powers. Does that work in all situations? What limitations does it have? How does it interact with factors that affect movement such as terrain? What if the unit is running away? Can you choose not to use it? What effects will over-rule it and what specifically does it over-rule?
Now that you’ve worked out what your unit does, how it works and how powerful it is, it’s time to give it a cost. As a baseline you should be using the cost of comparable units from the same army factoring in the costs for the basic equipment that it carries – this is usually a standard cost. Costing any special rules is trickier however, the power of a rule depends on a lot of things, it depends on the general effectiveness of the unit that carries it, it depends on the limitations that you’ve described and, it may also depend on the place that the unit fills in the army. It’s best to err on the side of caution and make the unit too expensive to start with. Think about the circumstances you’d want to include that unit and what you’d be willing to give up to make it fit. That’s generally a good start.
Finally, it’s time to test it out. Ideally the person who invented the unit shouldn’t be the one to use it in tests. Give the rules to other people and see if they can understand them without you needing to explain things. If they need to ask questions then that’s a sign that your rules aren’t clear enough. Try and have as large a test pool as possible to account for differences in play style and skill levels as well as multiple different opponents. Make sure that the test games are run at various sizes too to ensure that you see he unit perform in as many different situations as possible. Ask your testers (on both sides) how they felt about the unit. Was it too powerful? Would they have included it in their lists even if you hadn’t made them do so? If you find that players would always include the unit then that’s an indication that you may have made it too powerful and should consider either toning down the rules or increasing the cost. Were there any situations that arose in the game where the special rules caused problems or weren’t clear? Sometimes you can clarify it and other times you have to accept that the rule just doesn’t work and must scrap it altogether. Don’t be afraid to write off all your work so far if it’s clear that your initial ideas aren’t workable.
An important tenet in design is ‘kill your babies’. This means that you should never be so in love with your ideas that you can’t bring yourself to discard them if they aren’t working out. Sometimes even a really good concept isn’t a workable one and you have to water it down into a less awesome but more practical form. Quite often you’ll just have to give up on it altogether because there’s no way to crowbar it in without breaking other things. Finally remember that no-one has a monopoly on good ideas; if you get advice and suggestions from your testers or from others you’ve shared your work with then it should be taken into account otherwise there’s no point in asking in the first place. Get used to criticism, don’t take it personally and use it to make your ideas better.
I hope that this blather has been interesting to you, I’ll follow this article up with one dealing with more complex systems and take the opportunity to answer any questions and respond to any feedback from this article. Please feel free to discuss and stick your queries in the comments below.
