In Rules of Play, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman define rules as the inner formal structure of games.[8] All games have rules. Rules limit participant action by forcing players to take specific paths to reach goals and ensure that all players take the same paths.[9] Rules clearly mark what is and out of bounds.[10] Rules are explicit and unambiguous, as ambiguity will lead to the collapse of the game.[11] This can be explained by a participant or even a facilitator at the beginning, though the interpretation of those instructions must be shared by all participants. They are fixed and binding and are meant not to change.[12] They are to be followed, as they are an authority that exists beyond that of any participant [13], and important to subvert any existing power structures between participants.[14]

Rules also exist on three levels, as posited by Salen and Zimmerman: operational, constitutive and implicit.[15] Operational rules are those that the players follow during the game; they are the instructions.[16] Constitutive is the mathematical backbone of the play, what exists as logic and probabilities.[17] And implicit rules are the unwritten rules of etiquette and behavior that often go unstated when a game is played.[18] These rules contain the essential logic of a game and creates the formal (not aesthetic) quality exhibited in the game. For a participant, the translation that occurs across these types of rules is referred to as the magic circle[19] and is where meaning emerges as a participant processes these characteristics. For the sake of my investigation, I will focus on operational and implicit types of rules.

I want to pay special attention to games with rules that focus on the simulation of narrative arcs and narrative structures. As defined in Rules of Play, a simulation in regards to games, is an abstraction.[20] The game attempts to represent something that exists in reality in a simplified way. The game does not attempt to simulate every aspect of what it is referring to, but focuses on only the necessary elements. The game simulation not only includes the formal mechanisms of the system, but also the ways in which those mechanisms permit action. The rules never completely determine the play of the game, as one must consider the relationships that they set in motion. The experience of the participant will be based on their interest level, skills and expectations. Through procedural representation, or process-based dynamic forms of depiction, simulations can be a powerful way to depict storytelling that emphasizes the participants experience.[21] In many storytelling games, participants can adopt and experiment with possible characters[22], role-play their actions and script their plots through movement[23]. They can bring to life a protagonist as a persona through which they can adopt momentarily as themself and insert into an imaginary world. The participant can be aware through a double-consciousness of play both using the persona as a puppet or an object as to which they can interact through the game and at the same time knowing it is an artificial construct. There can be a “…three-folding of player consciousness: as a character in a simulated world, as a player in the game and a s a person in a larger social setting. The player and the character frames both take place within the magic circle where as the person gains its primary meaning from the cultural context outside the immediate space of play.” [24]

In one of the games I researched, The Storymatic[25], a narrative has been abstracted into two elements or represented as two kinds of cards. One set of cards represent the characters or protagonists and the other set of cards represent conflicts that point the direction of this story. Participants are required to draw cards to represent a beginning and an end state for your character and point the direction of your narrative. In addition to the cards, there are prompts constraining character development. Using both prompts and props, the rules and the cards, one can successfully construct a narrative. These prompts and props form the nodes, key points, or frames of the narrative arc. The action happens between these frames as the players or participants use their imagination to close the gaps.[26] It is not necessary to know the intricate structure of narrative arcs because the game has abstracted the main elements and provided that content on cards. Participants attempt to build relationships prompted by the cards, shaped through discovery and concluding in the delivery of a model of a narrative.

An important element of discovery and experimentation through game rules is that of feeling a sense of safety and trust with the other participants.[27] These elements rely on intimately on each other. Through testing storytelling activities, I have witnessed, that experimenting with identity can often feel vulnerable. Participants are expert consumers of narratives through many types of media, but less practiced at the formal creation of their own. In storytelling activities, game rules exist as a contract between participants to determine activity logic but also etiquette between participants. The rules imply a social contract that acts as a kind of psychological buffer against uncertainty, protecting players from the risk inherent in game play.[28] Sustaining the contract to the end of the game requires players to maintain the integrity of the magic circle so that this bounded community may share meanings and values that they have given life to through the play. The magic circle can be damaged by rule-breakers, disrupted by cheating and destroyed by spoil sports.[29] Players must enter into a social contract, a commitment to a shared set of behaviors and values. For story telling activities, this will be after the task of working through an uncertainty by way of narrative devices: characters, conflicts, plots, settings and resolutions or endings.

“The safer we feel in a game we’re playing, the more willing we are to play it. But, for this experience of safety. We cant rely solely on the game. We must also be able to believe that we are safe with each other. We need… some guarantee, somewhere, that no matter what happens in our pursuit of the well-played game, we will not be risking more than we are prepared to risk, Even though Im aware that I might die as a result of trying to climb this mountain with you, I can accept that as part of the game. On the other hand, when I discover that you’re cutting my rope so that you can get to the top first, I find myself mush less willing to play.”[30]

To conclude my inquiry into games as rule sets, it is important to be aware of all the elements one might be constructing to facilitate projects that solicit personal input from the participants. It seems to me that it is very important to social engagement that designers create activities that build trust.[31] Looking to the realm of games, it also seem to me that the construction of rule sets not only direct behavior in simplified ways to simulate experience but are also social contracts among members that create spaces for exploration and discovery. 

[1] Penin. [2] Mooney. [3] Lambert. [4] John-Louis Roubira, “Dixit”. (Asmodee. 2009). Board Game. 17 November 2011. [5] Penin. [6] Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004) 121. [7] Salen, 139. [8] Salen, 121. [9] Salen, 122. [10] Salen, 122. [11] Salen, 122. [12] Salen, 123. [13] Salen, 123. [14] Penin. [15] Salen, 130. [16] Salen, 130. [17] Salen, 130. [18] Salen, 130. [19] Salen, 139. [20] Salen, 439. [21] Salen, 457. [22] Lambert. [23] Mooney. [24] Mark Prensky, “Digital Game Based Learning”. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001). [25] Mooney. [26] Mc Cloud, 80. [27] Salen, 473. [28] Salen, 473. [29] Salen, 275. [30] Bernard DeKoven, “The Well-Played Game”. (New York: Doubleday, 1978). [31] Gaspar.