Writing a Great Board Game Rulebook

There isn’t one correct way to write a rulebook. There just isn’t. Anyone trying to sell you an exact method is more interested in the sale than the method. They might have some good recommendations, but they don’t have The Answer.

There are also a lot of analyses talking about problems with rulebooks, which to me is the easier task compared to talking about how to do things well. Definitional problems, cultural problems, linguistic and grammatical problems. These are all useful to be aware of, particularly during the editing process.

But eliminating egregious problems isn’t the same as crafting something of value.

So what makes a good rulebook for a game (and to be clear, I’m looking at board games here)?

Again, this is one person’s opinion, but I think that a lot of what I’m about to write is going to be universal enough so as not to invite much controversy. It’s not an arcane artform, after all. It’s just a rulebook. Maybe we can’t hit perfection, but we can do a lot of things right.

Introducing Your Game

The best rulebooks I’ve seen do a few things rather quickly:

1. They introduce the thematic premise of the game in an exciting way.
2. They outline the components of the game.
3. They explain the basic mechanical premise of the game (i.e. what’s the goal? How do you win/lose?)

In my own rulebooks, these are – in some order – the first things I include. Often you can do all three in a single page, though I’ll often push the components onto page 2 since it can be useful to include pictures of each component, which takes up page space.

Terms and Concepts

It’s often useful, though not always necessary, to explain basic terms and concepts that will be used in the rulebook. When I believe it’s applicable, I have a list of terms used in the rules and their basic definitions.

This is somewhere between or immediately after the sections described above.

Setup

Yes, including setup steps probably isn’t something I need to tell you to do. But I’ll accompany it with the suggestion that you include a visual representation of setup steps, unless your game is extremely simple.

How to Play the Game

There isn’t a single way to explain gameplay well. It will be dependent on the game.

However, there are certain core tenets that you can adhere to that will help you:

1. Begin with a brief high-level overview of typical game flow, perhaps across rounds or eras and drilling down to phases and individual turns or actions.
2. Standardize terminology used across sections of the rulebook, so that for example an “action” or “phase” means the same thing everywhere.
3. Include visual examples as needed to explain game flow and compliment the textual rules.
4. Be as brief as possible without sacrificing clarity.

Examples of Play, FAQs, Glossaries and Player Aids

This is the section for things that I consider to be optional. And make no mistake, I don’t mean they’re optional for all games, but rather that not all games will need each of them.

The more complicated your game, the more it will necessitate elements like a good glossary at the end of the rulebook. Or an FAQ section for common questions you receive during playtesting.

Similarly, the volume of information that will need to be referenced during play may necessitate player aids to be created. Player aids can take the form of materials separate from the rulebook, or a dedicated rulebook section that’s meant for easy reference.

Extended examples of play are more involved than visual examples of individual rules, referenced earlier, and incorporate several rules, turns or phases of gameplay. They’re used frequently in roleplaying books, and can be useful at times for board games as well.

Tone and Perspective

This is about your copywriting, and is worth thinking about. Some questions to consider:

• What do you want the tone of your rulebook to be? Serious? Playful? Mysterious?
• Who is the audience for the game? How should you curate your writing to speak to them?
• What’s the perspective of the rulebook? Does it speak directly to the reader, telling them what they’ll be doing during play? Or does it take a more distanced, omniscient view of “the player”
• How will you refer to players in the rulebook?

On the last of those, it’s starting to be considered gauche to use “he” a lot, but switching between “he” and “she” can be confusing and send the message that two different players are being referenced in a section.

I default to “they” or “the player” or “the active player” and similar phrases depending on the context. I’ve never had any issues with this, and would suggest trying it.

The Editing Process and Self-Editing

Editing is important.

You’ll also hear the advice that you always need to hire an editor. This isn’t bad advice, but it ignores the many situations where a game isn’t being created for commercial purposes and thus has no budget for such things. Or where a creator lacks the resources to hire an editor.

What do you do then? Well, self-editing may be a backup plan, but it’s possible to do it well. I’m a professional writer and have had to self-edit for portions of my career, so I’ve developed some useful heuristics for self-editing. It’s never the ideal situation, but it’s not the end of the world either.

The most practical advice I can give you is to do multiple editing “passes” for a work, and each time you’re looking for something specific and different. Looking for everything all at once won’t work. You’ll miss too much.

And what are you looking for? Some suggestions:

1. Grammatical and spelling errors. There are also free tools that can help with this.
2. Completion. Did you leave any sentences or sections unfinished?
3. Are you using each term the same way throughout? This may require multiple passes, one for each key term.
4. What examples of play could be added to clarify rules?
5. Read the rulebook aloud. How does it feel to speak it?
6. Leave the rulebook for a week, then come back to it. Has anything changed when you read it?
7. Is the style and tone consistent? If not, what sections stand out?

This is not a complete list, but it should be enough to get you started. As you practice more with self-editing, you’ll want to add your own “passes” that specifically target items that you’ve discovered are a weakness in your writing.

Designer or Historical Notes

It can be interesting and useful for readers to see a designer’s thoughts on a game. What were the chief inspirations? What compelled you to pursue this design?

If the game touches on real-world events or concepts, you might also use this to talk about areas of research that informed the design. This is particularly important for historically themed games such as wargames.

To be clear, I don’t think these are necessary inclusions all the time. And I also think some designers tend to overdo these elements, to the point where they seem to be attempting to will the players into experiencing the game how they intend it to be experienced.

Layout and Design

Not every game designer is a graphic designer. This is a separate skill that can make or break a rulebook, so it’s worth ensuring that someone with professional layout experience handles it.

Prototype copies of the rulebook do not need professional treatment, of course. You’ll be making too many changes during playtesting to hire a designer for this stage.

However, the UX (user experience) of a rulebook can be as important as the writing itself. This relates to presentation and layout, and can be the difference between an excellent rulebook and a mediocre one.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a big buzzword right now in design, but what does it mean? Lots of things, it turns out. Here are a handful:

• Making text large enough (and contrasting enough) to read easily.
• Including easy-to-parse color schemes.
• Ensuring crucial components are colorblind-friendly.
• Are language and visual depictions culturally representative?
• Do you need to have the rulebook translated? This will likely require separate translators and editors.

This stuff can be hard, and each one could require more research than I have time to summarize here. Each should be on your radar, though.

In particular, I find that many games have text that’s extremely small. This isn’t always true in rulebooks, but can be just as bad on components (cards, etc.) or player aids. In the worst examples, it’s been game-killing for me, and I never want to play again.

Playtesting and Refinement

The first version of your rulebook – for an unpublished work, at least – doesn’t need a lot of what I mentioned above. I believe you should start with something basic, then slowly add the elements (player aids, visual examples, glossary, professional editing and design, etc.) that make the most sense with your design.

Because there’s a danger in over-preparing as well. Maybe your design doesn’t work at all, and you put a lot of work into the rulebook for nothing.

Make sure you have something worth pursuing before you hire an editor, graphic designer, or spend days working on a rules reference that no one may ever read.

But taking copious notes and observing player struggles during play can lead you in the right directions on which elements will be most useful to include.

Blind Playtesting

A subset of this advice is to send the rulebook with a friend or colleague who hasn’t read it or played the game, and ask them to teach it to others based on only reading the rulebook.

The feedback from this can be invaluable, because it most closely reflects the conditions in which your game will be played without you present. It can also help you flesh out examples of play, player aids, FAQs and more.

Creating a Great Board Game Rulebook

If everything above seems like a lot, that’s because it is. There’s a reason you see more discussions complaining about rulebooks than praising them. This isn’t easy work.

Because that’s the other unfair thing: the best rulebook does its job and gets you to the business of playing the game, but is almost forgettable because it’s so well-done. A lot of great rulebooks won’t ever be recognized.

Instead, your rulebooks may only ever stand out if they are poorly done.

Still, if it keeps the focus on the game itself instead of the rulebook, you’re probably doing something right.

I hope this has given you some things to think about and recommendations for rulebook creation that you can take into your efforts. Good luck and have fun!