How not to write the rules of a card game

People who write the rules of board games, and of physical sports, are generally aware of this, and make an effort to write clearly, so that readers who have never played the game or sport before will be able to understand and learn from their description. However people who write the rules of card games often do so in ways which seem to be deliberately incomprehensible.

I have therefore collected some of the techniques that can be used to make it difficult to understand the rules of a card game, and listed them below. If you are writing up the rules of a card game, you can use these techniques, or avoid them, as you prefer.

Do not say what pack is used for the game

If you feel you must describe the pack, do so with reference to some other pack that may be unfamiliar to your readers. For instance, write "take a standard pack and remove the sevens", without saying whether the standard in your part of the world has 32 cards, 48, 52, 54, or some other number.

Mix rules with advice on skilful play

This is the most effective of all methods of causing confusion, and is widely used.

To make it more effective, you should ensure that you not only mix rules and advice, but do not distinguish between them. Here are some examples:

"If an opponent leads a trump, you should play a higher trump." Note the effect of "should" here. The subjunctive is often useful for leaving it unclear whether a rule or advice is being given. I say more below on the use of the subjunctive.

"Usually, when I play, the two of clubs is the first card played after all bidding is done." Does the writer play the two of clubs because she thinks it is skilful to play it, or because there is a rule requiring her to?

"The declarer determines .. whether to be in game (25 or more points) or to go for a partscore (fewer than 25 points)." The parenthetical remarks are probably advice, but their appearance in the same sentence as a rule makes this doubtful.

If advice on skilful play is given before any mention of the rule which makes it skilful, it can be particularly effective. This makes the advice completely incomprehensible, and may also cause confusion about the relevant rule when it is eventually given.

Mix rules with irrelevant information

Compare the game you are describing with some other game

Mix basic rules with treatment of irregularities

If the basic rules are given first, and the rules covering irregularities are given later in a separate chapter or appendix, a beginner can usefully ignore the latter. This makes it far too easy for the beginner to understand the basic rules. Therefore, you should cause confusion by interspersing the basic rules with the rules that cover irregularities.

Two methods can be used to increase the confusion from describing the treatment of an irregularity. One is to omit any indication that you are giving the treatment of an irregularity rather than a normal rule of play. The other is to deal with the consequences of breaking a rule before you state the rule itself.

For example, if there are rules covering what happens when a player accidentally exposes part of his hand, these should be stated before the basic rule that a player should keep his hand concealed. Then the reader is left wondering what the benefits are in exposing part of his hand.

Mix basic rules with variant rules

Mix rules with examples

Omit the basic rules

Instead of omitting all the basic rules, it is more effective to omit one or two, and to leave no evidence that you have done so. For example, you might explain the following-suit rule of Jass like this: "You must either play a card of the suit led, or play a trump." This is correct if you hold a card of the suit led. If you omit the fact that this only applies when you do hold a card in the suit led, your readers will wrongly assume that they are forced to ruff when they are void in the suit led.

Miscellaneous tips on writing obscurely

If a sentence describing a rule turns out to be loose and woolly, you can enhance the effect by appending another loose and woolly sentence that contradicts it tangentially, in a purported attempt to clear up possible confusion. ^ST

Repeat the previous rule in a exactly equivalent form as if it were a new rule, so the reader spends their time trying to work out the non-existent subtle difference. ^NL

State a general rule and then repeat it whenever it applies except for one place, to give the impression this is an exception. ^NL

Use two different words to describe the same concept, and use them at random.
     A more advanced form is to have three words, two with specific meanings and one that may mean either, depending on context. ^NL

If you use a word in a technical sense that is different from its everyday sense, make sure that you first use it before revealing that you are doing so in a technical sense.
     You can also reverse this technique, by using a word in its everyday sense, but printing it in a different typeface. This will give the impression that it is being used in a technical sense to be defined later in the book.

The suffix "-ed" is usefully ambiguous in English. It is used to form both adjectives and past participles. Thus you can write about an "extended sequence", and leave your readers unsure whether you mean a particularly long sequence, or one which has been lengthened after it was created.

I have already mentioned the use of the subjunctive to leave the reader unsure whether a rule or a recommendation is being given. Here is a different way of using the subjunctive to cause ambiguity: "since there are no 8s 9s or 10s in the pack, the card in sequence above the 7 would be the Jack". Does this mean that it is the Jack, or that it is not the Jack?

If you can't be bothered to write an incoherent account of the rules for yourself, you can just find an account (coherent or not, it doesn't matter) in some foreign language, and have it machine-translated. The result can be amusing, as in an "account of Skat" which called the highest trump the "servant of nipples". ^MT