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Players Making Decisions, 2nd Edition
book

Players Making Decisions, 2nd Edition

by Zach Hiwiller
November 2019
Beginner
697 pages
13h 18m
English
New Riders
Content preview from Players Making Decisions, 2nd Edition

15. Rules and Verbs

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, SR.

One school of thought takes rules to be the fundamental element of games. Thus, to explain a game you need to examine the rules. For instance, if you use MDA (mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics) as your framework for understanding games, the only element that you can directly affect is the mechanics. The mechanics, in this case, are just rules of varying scope. But even if you choose to use some other framework to evaluate your game, you’ll likely need to examine the rules of the game as a fundamental element of the experience.

Rules

When you are introducing a game—say, hearts—to a friend, how do you explain the game? Generally, ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780136500018