The Score is Still Q to 12

The great sport of Calvinball is governed by only one rule: You can never play the same way twice (there is some debate as to whether the second 'rule', "No one can question the masks," is an actual rule or merely a point of etiquette). To give a brief description, taken from some encyclopedia somewhere:

"Equipment includes a volleyball (the eponymous "Calvinball"), a soccer ball, a croquet set, a badminton set, assorted flags, bags, signs, and a hobby horse. Other things are included as needed, such as a bucket of ice-cold water, a water balloon, and various songs and poetry. Players also wear masks that resemble blindfolds with holes for the eyes. When asked how to play, Watterson states, "It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go." Calvinball is essentially a game of wits and creativity rather than stamina or athletic skill, a prominent nomic game, and one where Hobbes (and on one occasion, Calvin's sadistic baby-sitter, Rosalyn) usually outwits Calvin himself, although he seems to take it in stride, in contrast to his bad sportsmanship when he loses other games or sports."

That term used there, 'nomic', means a self-modifying game. If you've ever played a game of Mao around the lunch table, you're familiar with the concept. As an aside, apparently at Blair we played it wrong - instead of the Mao changing rules whenever he feels like it, he may only change one rule once per round, but changes carry over to every subsequent round, even over a period of several days (but then, maybe someone changed that rule previously - in the end, there's no real way to play a nomic completely wrong...).

Its important to note that in a sense, every game is subject to rules changes, usually in the form of a set of House Rules. These rules are in place because, for whatever reason, the people playing tend to have more fun that way. When we play Apples to Apples, for instance, the Helen Keller card is always an instant win - I don't know why. Some House Rules are so widespread they are essentially part of the main rules set. I know very few people who play Monopoly without Free Parking being the equivalent of a jackpot - in the original rules, it is simply an empty space.

An interesting facet of the nomic game system is that it tends to mimic the governmental process. In other words, the only real limit on enacting rules changes is the ability to convince the other players to abide by them. It therefore makes sense that Calvinball (traditionally played by only two players) has a fairly relaxed system for changing the rules; namely, shout out the new rule.

A more complex and widely-played game is much more difficult to change. An example that comes to mind is Magic: The Gathering. For the record, I don't play MTG, but my roomate last year did, rather a lot, so if I make any blatant errors, I apologize. In Magic, new sets of cards are released every few months, both to keep the game interesting and, I suspect, to keep revenue from card sales at a profitable level.

The new sets, neccesarily, contain cards with different abilities than previous sets. This can not only alter how combinations of cards behave together, but can create new combos which did not previously exist. More noticeably, new sets usually come with their own group of new special abilities (the Lorwyn set, for instance, introduced Deathtouch, Championing, and the Changeling creature type), each of which adds to the complexity of an already-complex game.

However, these rules changes are not made wily-nily (or at least, we'd like to think not). Extensive playtesting goes into each new set produced, and while fans may feel disconnected from the process, it's important to remember that the ultimate goal is to (make money by) make the game more enjoyable.

Like I said before, governments function the same way. Whether by vote or by iron-fisted rule, a successful government is one which convinces its citizens to acknowledge its laws. Among small groups, anarchy and tribal self-governance are effective, but larger groups require increasingly more powerful law-creating entities, like the Supreme Court or Our Glorious Leader.

To further analyze the effects of mutable rules systems in a competitive environment, here's a link to an excellent nomic card game: 1000 Blank White Cards. It may or may not be more fun as a drinking game. It likewise may or may not involve removing one's clothing (there's a certain danger in games that allow anyone to change the rules...).

Next Time: Thoughts on Portal (discussion of a computer game, I promise, this time!)
______________________________________________________
Appended:

Speaking of MTG and Rules Changes, I would be remiss to fail to note that 2010 will feature a sweeping change to the official rules, accompanying the arrival of the new Core Set. Okay, sweeping might be the wrong word, but there are a few major changes that those hard-core Magic guys are probably going to complain about.

1) All Mulligans are now taken simultaneously. I (like many people) always thought this was the way they were supposed to be taken, so in a sense this is just the rules coming into line with the players.

2) Various changes in terminology. Some I like, some I don't. These are:
a) "in-play-zone" is now referred to as "battlefield," mostly to be more flavorful.
b) "play" is now "cast," removing the confusion between "play" and "put into play."
c) "remove from the game" is now "place in Exile." I like it, since card that are "removed from the game" currently have a strange habit of finding their way back into the game, so the new term is less misleading.
d) "at end of turn" is now "at the beginning of the end step," pointing out the difference between this and "until end of turn."

3) Mana pools work slightly differently. Specifically:
a) Mana pools now empty between each phase or step, rather than just each phase. For the most part, there shouldn't be major gameplay change associated with this, since there's rarely a reason to float mana between steps anyway.
b)Mana burn is completely gone. Unspent mana simply vanishes. This will completely screw over some clever combos, but its really a pretty minor rule. I expect people will be more upset by other things...

4) Tokens are now owned by "the player under whose control it entered the battlefield" rather than "the controller of the effect that put it into play". This messes up even fewer combos than the Mana burn change, and those combos were even more BS, so I don't have any complaints.

5) This one is the biggy: Combat damage no longer uses the stack. This is the most major change out of any of them, but its fairly complicated to explain why. Suffice to say that a lot of creatures just lost a lot of their usefulness (Mogg Fanatic, you have my apologies), all in the interests of making the game more beginner friendly. Of course, anyone who's been playing more than a month already understands the elegance of the stack, so I'm not very much in favor of this.

6) The Deathtouch ability is being reworked somewhat, mostly so that it continues to work despite changes to the Combat Damage system noted above (5). This was probably needed, and its better than letting the ability, which was at least mildly neat, become useless.

7) The Lifelink ability is similarly being reworked, for the same reasons as Deathtouch. It's a fair change - things should work the way they're meant to work, after all.