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W. Eric Martin
United States
Apex
North Carolina
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Since BGG News kicked off in January 2011, I've been reprinting articles, previews and columns from Boardgame News. Sometimes the reprinted piece ties into current news (such as my 2007 interview with Ed Carter at Cambridge Games Factory), sometimes a reprint fills what would otherwise be a blank space, and sometimes one or more readers request something that disappeared when BGN went poof.
Today's reprint, my BGN column from February 9, 2010, is an example of the latter, thanks to Anders Tyrland, one of four brothers in the newly founded Swedish publisher Ticking Clock. Michael Mindes of Tasty Minstrel Games had linked to this column in his blog, noting that I discuss "a topic that is extremely important for rules and rules editing. If you want to publish or be published, make sure you read this and fix up your rule books." Anders pinged me when he couldn't find the column, so here it is again, for the edification of all publishers. —WEM)
In early February 2010 I played the published version of Stefan Feld's Macao for the first time, and while I found the game intriguing in the usual alea/Feld manner of not knowing how everything fits together on the first play and making somewhat random moves that may or may not pan out (see In the Year of the Dragon, Notre Dame, Rum & Pirates), the other players and I were confounded by card text that exhibited a common grammatical problem, namely non-parallelism.
Parallelism, also known as parallel construction, is the practice of words, clauses and phrases agreeing with one another when they are used in series in a sentence, e.g. "I came, I saw, I conquered." The verb in each clause is in the simple past, which allows a reader or listener to process the meaning of the sentence more easily than she would with something like "I came, I saw, I was conquering." (Let's ignore for the moment that the two sentences don't mean the same thing – I'm considering structure for now.)
We tend to overlook non-parallelism in casual speech – "I'm going shopping, taking in a movie, and will see you tonight" – but such mismatches strike the ear abruptly when encountered in more formal situations. Take this example from Macao's back cover: "Who will have the best plan and can acquire the most prestige by the end of the game?" While not incorrect, the "will have" and "can acquire" are jarring. Far better would be this sentence: "Who will have the best plan and acquire the most prestige by the end of the game?"
Wobbly sales text on the back of a box may affect whether someone purchases a game, but it won't affect the game play – unlike the non-parallelism on Macao's building and person cards, which could. Half the cards use the imperative –
Quote: • Take 1 black AC.
• Return 1 blue AC to take 1 GC.
• Pay 1 GC to move your ship up to 4 spaces.
– while the other half use the second person pronoun "you":
Quote: • You take 2 GC.
• You take 1 GC for each ware tile you deliver.
• You need not return the AC to activate one card, but you must have the necessary AC in your action cube supply.
• For each 3 of any AC you return to the general supply, take 1 GC.
(For those who haven't played the game, "AC" means "action cube" and "GC" means "gold coin," and yes, if you don't like cube-pushing games, you should not attempt to play Macao.)
In some cases, non-parallelism is not jarring or confusing. "Take 1 black AC" and "You take 2 GC" will be clear to anyone who speaks Eurogame – but why are they different? "Take 1 black AC" and "Take 2 GC" would be better. The advantage of parallel construction is that once readers start to read and interpret text, they can use the same "mental framework" for everything else that fits the same pattern. Adopting the imperative for every building and office card would fit the way that the cards are meant to be used during the game: I use the card and am then directed to do something, whether that something is taking action cubes, scoring points, earning extra money, or moving my ship more spaces. (Note the parallel construction – taking, scoring, earning, moving.) With a parallel construction, you don't have to pause to reinterpret a sentence that doesn't fit the expectations already presented to you by other materials within the game.
In some cases adopting the imperative would require slight changes in the card text. The second card, for example, might read, "Take 1 GC for each ware tile you delivered this turn." The third card is trickier, but could read, "Take back the AC for one card that you activated this turn." Or perhaps "Activate one card for which you have the necessary AC in your action cube supply, but keep the AC instead of discarding them."
The main problem with the non-parallelism in Macao is that players can misinterpret how cards are meant to be used, despite the note on the back page of the rulebook "that the rules are intended to be read and followed with reason and normalcy". Take the last non-imperative card described above, the Prospector: "For each 3 of any AC you return to the general supply, take 1 GC." The format of this card matches that of the second one – "You take 1 GC for each ware tile you deliver." As written, this latter card sets up a condition that can be fulfilled multiple times for the remainder of the round – deliver a ware, take 1 GC. The former card has a similar structure – return 3 AC to the general supply, take 1 GC – but the two are not meant to be equivalent.
The German cards pictured above may be parallel, but their text isn't.
We realized our error only two-thirds of the way through the game when the Noble came up. (The Noble's power: "For each 2 GC you give to the bank, take any 1 AC.") "A-ha!" we said at the same time. "The Noble clearly isn't meant to give you AC when you pay GC for prestige as that would be far too powerful, so the Prospector must work the same way – which means Joey has been inadvertently cheating since turn three. Asterisk game!" (For the record, I caught up to Joey despite his cheaty, invalid lead and won by a few points. No asterisk needed!)
How should the Prospector be written? "Return any number of AC to the general supply. For each 3 AC that you return, take 1 GC." This direction matches our expectations: Choose this card, then do this. You have one chance to take the action, with nothing spilling over into the remainder of your turn.
Rules writing is difficult – I know as I've edited rules for a number of companies – but the goal of rules writing isn't: You want the rules to be invisible to players. The players should not have to interpret what a rule means or decide which interpretation is correct. Yes, this goal is tough to achieve, but by doing the hard work up front, you can make everything easier for those who want to play your game.
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The German cards pictured above may be parallel, but their text isn't.
