Subject: MN: Re: Reworking the Ruleset

From: "Kevan Davis" <kevan@z...>
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 21:07:48 -0000

>Just thought I'd spang a couple of ideas off into the ether about
>reorganising the ruleset, especially the 1.x sections.

Spangers at the ready, then...

>1. move the Nomic mechanics to the end

Certainly, yes. I'd even be tempted to move them to a completely separate
file, possibly taking the opportunity to hack them down to a friendly,
readable format. Since they're very, very rarely amended (and I think we're
at the point where we're rarely going to tinker with them again), it's
probably worth rephrasing them in a chattier manner, so that a completely
new Player can pick things up without effort.

After all, the administration side of things needn't be run to the letter as
much as other Nomics - I'm *sure* we could get the whole of Section 0.* down
into a couple of pages, without losing any of the general meaning.

>2. reorganise the Vanilla ruleset around explaining the GSD - this is
> already partly in place but could do with being more clearly described.
> However, I'm thinking that section 1.2 should be promoted to the
> beginning of the ruleset, with the objectives and Turn mechanics
> following.

Probably a good arrangement - we really need to structure the ruleset so
that it's readable from top to bottom, with understanding increasing
steadily at each step. Perhaps opening with (naturally) the objective of the
game, followed by a brief summary of how it's played, with descriptions
being padded out as the ruleset progresses.

This will make things a bit awkward to amend (in that we'll have to be
careful to check that the summaries remain accurate), but I think it's
probably important to have a readable, friendly ruleset.

>3. structure Action descriptions differently - [...]
> What I suggest is reorganising the Action descriptions by what kind
> of tokens they cost

Excellent idea. This would also have the benefit of encouraging future
Actions to be a little more in-theme when deciding their Token costs, which
can't be bad. (And it'd nice to be able to refer to "Offensive Actions" or
"Move Manipulation Actions" without ambiguity.)

>4. make tables the primary reference - there are several useful tables at
> different points in the ruleset. These should be grouped in one place
> near the beginning to make finding them easier, and to provide a
cleaner
> way in.

Not sure about this one; pretty much all of the tables belong where they
are, as an easy-to-read summary of some rule aspect, the only real exception
being the Action Lists. They're all fairly easy to find, as things stand,
aren't they? A mere search for the appropriate snippet of text.

(I must, I must have a look at writing another ASCII-to-HTML convertor for
the Ruleset, actually.)

>5. extend the Glossary - this is already a useful feature of the ruleset,
> but I think it could be useful to extend it to include conceptual
> descriptions that don't fit in elsewhere

It could and should be a lot more, yes - more than once I've wondered about
the precise Ruleset definition of a term (Rounds springing to mind more than
anything), only to find the Glossary silent.

>You'll note that I haven't talked about Special Rulesets - I don't think
>those can be organised any better than they are already, since by
definition
>they have to be grouped by specialisation.

Indeed not. Although a little uniformity among their layout (particularly
the implementation of new Actions) wouldn't go terribly amiss.

>What do people think? Would this be better or worse than the existing
>format?

Oh, infinitely better - it's the sort of thing we should have had in place
months ago. I look forward to your initial drafts for it, and its
development from there.

Much applause to you,

Kevan

--
kevan@d...
http://members.xoom.com/asabove

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