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[The rules that players verbalize] are an idealized set of rules-they are the rules by which people should play rather than the ones by which they do play.…we may have to know two sets of rules: the ideal ones and those by which the ideal rules are applied, misapplied, or subverted.-Kenneth Goldstein, "Strategies in Counting Out"
When you have to win, you're willing to break whatever rules you can if that would help you get closer to the goal. When you have to win, you're not concerned with fairness, feeling, the community, or even play. When you have to win you can't leave the game until you have finally, ultimately won. What's amazing to me about all this is that the game itself doesn't change. The rules and the conventions are the same. But the manner of playing the game is completely different.-Bernard DeKoven, The Well-Played Game
Introducing Rule-Breaking
This schema opens with a pair of quotes from two thinkers we have heard from before. Folklorist Kenneth Goldstein first appeared in the schema on Uncertainty, where he looked at the ways that children subvert the ritual of counting-out through a number of subtle and devious strategies, such as adding an extra "eenie-meenie-minee-moe" in order to avoid becoming "it." We introduced Bernard DeKoven in the previous schema on Conflict as a leading figure in the New Games Movement. Goldstein points out that although games have rules, they should be considered to have two sets of rules: the ideal rules of play and the actual rules of play, which sometimes misapply and subvert the ideal rules. DeKoven comes at the same set of issues from a different point of view. He points out that some players are so motivated to win that they disregard usual notions of fairness. What seems to intrigue DeKoven the most is that such opposing styles of play can occur alongside normal play within the same game structure. Whether we are talking about ideal rules versus actual rules or honest players versus cheating players, both writers point to an important game phenomenon. So far in this book, we have described game players in an almost naïve way: we have assumed that every player is an earnest player, carefully and honestly playing by the rules. Although this does describe many game players, it is certainly not true of every single one. Take the children that Goldstein studied in his analysis of counting-out games. In manipulating rhymes in order to achieve certain desired results (he is going to be "It," not me!), what were these players actually doing? Were they stretching and altering the rules of counting-out in order to win? Were they cheating at the game? Or were they simply playing the game very well? This final formal schema, Breaking the Rules, takes a direct look at how players bend, cheat, and break those carefully crafted systems of rules that we have so thoroughly investigated in the last several chapters. In so many different ways, breaking the rules seems to be part of playing games. Whether it is trying to sneak in a foul while the referee isn't looking, altering a board game to play with a special set of "home rules," or making use of an ace of spades hidden up your sleeve, reconfiguring, breaking, and ignoring the rules seems to be an intrinsic part of games themselves. But what guides a player to break the rules? What is the effect of rule-breaking on game play? How does a game's design either encourage or discourage players from breaking the rules? Lastly, can rule-breaking be used as a creative strategy for game design? We investigate these questions in the following pages.
