How games are built on the foundations of rules, and how rules—of which there are only five kinds—really work.
Board games to sports, digital games to party games, gambling to role-playing games. They all share one thing in common: rules. Indeed, rules are the one and only thing game scholars agree is central to games. But what, in fact, are rules? In The Rule Book, Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola explore how different kinds of rules work as building blocks of games. Rules are constraints placed on us while we play, carving a limited possibility space for us. They also inject meaning into our play: without rules there is no queen in chess, no ball in Pong, and no hole in one in golf.
Stenros and Montola discuss how rules constitute games through five foundational types: the explicit statements listed in the official rules, the private limitations and goals players place on themselves, the social and cultural norms that guide gameplay, the external regulation the surrounding society places on playing, and the material embodiments of rules. Depending on the game, rules can be formal, internal, social, external, or material.
By considering the similarities and differences of wildly different games and rules within a shared theoretical framework, The Rule Book renders all games more legible.
Author(s): Jaakko Stenros, Markus Montola
Series: Playful Thinking
Edition: 1
Publisher: The MIT Press
Year: 2024
Language: English
Commentary: Publisher PDF | Published: March 12, 2024 | Open Access: can be downloaded for free. Follow DOI link.
Pages: 252
City: Cambridge, MA
Tags: Games; Rules; Video Games
Contents
On Thinking Playfully
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Rules
Method
Understanding Rules through Constructionist Ludology
Structure of This Book
1. Formal Rules
Formal Foundations
The Formalist Ideal
Play Instructions
Ambiguity and Contextuality of Formal Rules
Arbitration
Constitutive and Regulative Formal Rules
Formal Goals
Beginning and Ending
Conclusions
2. Internal Rules
Setting Rules for Oneself
First-Person Audience
Story Worlds, Interpretation, and Diegesis
Role-Playing as Internal Rule-Setting
Antisocial Internal Rules
Conclusions
3. Social Rules
Playing Games the Right Way
Fair Play and Sportspersonship
Playing Nice
Social Rules in Board Games
Peer Rules in Virtual Spaces
Conclusions
4. External Regulation
Consent to Play
Legal Regulation of Games
Rules Invoking the Law
Players’ Rights in Games
Commercial Control as External Regulation
Moral Judgment as External Regulation
Conclusion
5. Material Rules
Digital “Games”
Game State and the Material World
Code as Law
Formal Competition through Material Games
Primacy of Rules
The Body as a Rule
May the Best “Man” Win
Conclusions
Conclusions
Ephemeral Games
Extended Temporalities of Rules
Breaking Rules
Making Meta
The Paradox of Liberation
The Beauty of Rules
Notes
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Conclusions
References
Index
