The Best Rulebooks

I gotta say that Hasbro has done really well. By that, I mean, the Avalon Hill, wizards of the coast titles. The avalon hill games after hasbro bought them have been really well thought out. I have had zero issues understanding how to play their games by a single reading of their rulebooks.

Same can be said of the DDAS/Dungeon Command/ Lords of waterdeep books.

Prime, laudable examples of how throwing a bit of money and time into them yields results that can be viewed as what the industry standard should be.

I have had some really good luck with the majority of ravensburger titles too. They seem to "get it".

I don't get the ddas love. Not the worst ever, but the ravenloft rule book was pretty piss poor. Some of the scenarios were nearly un playable without changes.

Looking at my shelves :

I think the FFG "Fury of Dracula" was pretty clear and well organised.

"Marvel Heroes" (french translation from the italian) was pretty poor, it was difficult to get the game from its rulebook.

"War of the ring" was pretty to difficult to get too.

"Age of Conan", i have the french edition but i have also checked the italian and english versions to find informations, confirmations. The rules are in a different order depending on the language, wich says a lot about the mess that Ares made with the release of this game ! Not very good.

"Blood bowl team manager" has a pretty good rulebook !

"Death angel" is average, there are some things that were hard to grab without more informations.

"Arkham Horror" FFG, very disorganised. You can understand the game with the rulebook, but it is not well organised at all.

"Eldritch horror' : Excellent Rulebook from the start.

"Dungeonquest" FFG revised, excellent rulebook !

"Elder sign" revised, a bit confusing at first, not the best one.

"Lord of the Ring" Knizia, last FFG edition, very fine rulebook.

"Legend of Andor" (recent french edition), a rather good, clean ruleboook

"Chaos Marauder" FFG, very fine.

When I am totalitarian ruler of the world, all publishers will be legally required to release all of their rules in plain text, with relevant images in a separate folder. So many rules with "artsy" backgrounds that make the rules hard to read.

I should add :

"Warhammer Invasion LCG", very fine

"Star wars LCG", excellent rulebook. I think it is from this game that i noticed that the FFG rules had improved.

"Lord of the rings LCG" : daunting, heavy, confusing rulebook. It's impressive that this game became popular with such a rulebook...

"Warhammer Diskwars" : the rulebook is clear and simple, too simple in fact as it left quite a few questions unanswered (especialy about close combat).

Rulebooks need to do two things: teach someone the game and answer in-game questions about the play. The trend for a while there was doing the first at the expense of the second. You got "funny" and conversational rulebooks that introduced things gradually, and you got those folks who split the rulebooks into multiple ones, where one was a "getting started" book. Those are both not bad for learning, but once you've learned the game it's a bitch to find a specific item you're looking up. I especially hate when there's a basic game and then an advanced game (which you'll usually play) that says "everything is the same as the basic game except..." which means you have to flip back and forth between two different sections.

Thankfully we seem to be getting away from that, as I haven't seen it in a while. One of the best rulebooks I've seen lately is that for Imperial Settlers, but only because it's such a radical departure from previous Portal rulebooks, which were a fucking mess. Still, it does a thing that's common now, which I hate: passes off important rules in an aside. It's very easy to completely miss what shields do and how, as it's not in the main rules but tucked away in a side-box. You'd think a commandment such as "PUT THE RULES IN THE RULES" wouldn't be necessary but here we are.

Also an anti-vote for Mage Wars. There are some clear and concise rules there, surprising for a complex game, but the game throws a lot of card-and-power-specific special cases right in the middle of them. For example: "Mages can eat up to two apples per day, unless they have cast 'Phantom Apple' which will allow them to skip one apple. Also, if 'Eden's Bane' is in effect, no apples may be consumed." This is a lot of information which may never or rarely come to pass so why not put it in something explaining the cards or effects? The result of throwing every single situation into the basic rules has kept a couple of people I know from getting into a game that honestly isn't that hard to get started with.

I also disagree very heavily with Arkham Horror. It's one of those manuals that give out half of the game's rules in an overview and then tell you to flip back and forth to know how to do everything else. It's bad to learn how to play and bad if you need to consult. Worst of both worlds by far.

Chicago Express' manual is great and pretty much how they should all be: First, it tells you what's in the box and how you have to set up the game. Then it tells you what the goal of the game is and what you are supposed to be doing and then, once you have the game in front of you and know what you are supposed to do it tells you the game's sequence of play. So it explains how each action works, basically. And after that, it tells you what happens when a phase ends. Logical.

It's also very good when it comes to exceptions, examples and sudden phase changes. For example, when it comes to dividends it explains first what a divident is, then shows an example and then, in a separate box says, "When a company arrives to Chigago, something special happens, go to X page to find out!". Again, very easy to read and to consult.

I also respect those Avalon Hill-like rulebooks because they are clear and extremely easy to consult, but there's no reason to have them when you can do something like Chicago Express.

Legomancer wrote: "Mages can eat up to two apples per day, unless they have cast 'Phantom Apple' which will allow them to skip one apple. Also, if 'Eden's Bane' is in effect, no apples may be consumed."

Is this example genuine? Made me laugh.