I used to rewrite board game rulebooks as a hobby. I was getting good at it, but something still felt wrong about it. Then I took grad school classes in technical writing. And then I started to hate all rulebooks. And I had to write 90 pages and a new rulebook about it. First draft is done.

Oooh, definitely reading this! Do you think there's any takeways for tabletop roleplaying games as well?

What an incredible amount of work you've put into this! As someone who has written rulebooks of varying quality, I think it's the tutorial vs. reference conundrum that strikes me as one of the biggest obstacles to game learning.

Technical writing is a skill very few people, let alone game designers, actually have or realize they lack. And editing technical writing is its own unique skill set, so even using editors doesn't always help unless they have experience in that area.

Putting my 2c in on this to just piggyback this amazing effort and suggest there should unironically be an awards ceremony each year for “best rulebook”. It’s truly both an art and a science and I think publicly praising good examples of rules design may make all rules better!

I've spent months working on this thing, and I don't understand how it got this huge. It feels like my life's work. I'll start talking it up on BoardGameGeek in a few days. For now, I'd appreciate any board game nerds who take a look.

It's taking me a while to get through it, not because it's a slog, but because I keep stopping to think about things (and occasionally chase down references for more info). Really liking and appreciating what I've read so far, though!

I started reading and was wondering where you were going and then I got to the section on cognitive load and then I knew I’d want to read the whole thing. I’m working on a book about teaching in various non-academic professions, and this is right in line with what I’m exploring.

Very quick scan through and a good look at your sample rulebook at the end. Will have a lengthier read when i can. That said, the sample is quite similar in approach to the GMT games "playbooks". Here's the playbook for my game. gmtwebsiteassets.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/RedDustRebel...

This is brilliant and is now my current reading material (which had been "Zones of Control"). Also, if you wouldn't mind, could you please rewrite the manual to Richard Berg's "Geronimo?" By October? Super. Thanks.

I just do some proofreading, but yeah, I'm our group's teacher and so many rulebooks need a lot of work. If I get time I'll have a nose at yours