Bad rule books destroy games

 A couple years ago, I tried out the pre-Kickstarter demo for a game collection called Dice and Divination. I meant to follow up on it but missed the Kickstarter. Recently, I finally got the collection and have been looking it over.

Dice and Divination consists of seven different Roll and Writes games, each one based on a different form of prognostication. (I can use big words!) Astrology, Palm Reading, Tarot, Tea Leaves, Rune Casting, Dreams and Pendulums.

What is the most interesting bit is that each game is designed to six turns long, with each turn being a roll of three dice. The scoring systems are set up to be comparable so people can play different games at the same time and still be competitive.

But… the collection has a major flaw. 

These are honestly some of the worst written rules I think I’ve seen. And I comb through contests and prototypes where part of the goal is to figure out how to make coherent rules. I’ve seen rules that have clearly gone through Google translate to make it to English. And those were all ore functional than Dice and Divination.

A glaring example of the problem with the rules: remember how I mentioned how players can simultaneously play different games and still be competitive? That is only mentioned in the product description, not in the product itself. It feels like there should be an overview guide that never made it to the finished product.

Many of the games fail to fully explain the scoring. At least one doesn’t even actually include the fact that the game is six rounds. Basic, fundamental rules and concepts have been left out.

I’ve been doing my best to figure out how the games are actually supposed to be played because the ones I have been able to get through have been pretty interesting. There’s clearly some good ideas and mechanics hidden in the collection. The art and theming are also pretty good.

The world of PnP R&W games is a heavily saturated one. It’s not easy to stand out. I think that, between its interlocking scoring system and theme, Dice and Divination could stand out. But the horribly written rules are a huge road block. I think the actual rules might be good, if I could actually get to them.