How are larps and games built on the foundations of rules, and how do rules — of which there are only five kinds — really work? Board games to sports, digital games to party games, gambling to role-playing, they all share one thing in common: rules. Indeed, rules are the one and only thing game scholars agree is central to games. But what, in fact, are rules? In this talk, game scholars Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola explore how different kinds of rules work as building blocks of games and larps based on their recent book, The Rule Book.
Stenros and Montola discuss how rules constitute games through five foundational types: the explicit statements listed in the official rules, the private limitations and goals players place on themselves, the social and cultural norms that guide gameplay, the external regulation the surrounding society places on playing, and the material embodiments of rules. Depending on the game, rules can be formal, internal, social, external, or material.