I used too strong phrasing of my experience with the rulebook by saying “all over the place”. Speaks more about my experience than quality of rulebook that’s objectively quite ok compared to other card and board games.
I set my hopes too high regarding learning the game experience quality.
I found searching through the rulebook really frustrating. Dramaticaly affecting my first games experience.
One of the reasons is the complexity of the game, and the other reason is that rulebook is structured in a way that is not friendly for someone wanting to find a ruling for the situation he encounters in the game, especilay when you are learning the game and you don’t even know what you don’t know.
I always felt this frustration in many complex games. Codex isn’t particularly worse in this regard. I just feel it can be avoided with right rulings summary. Codex happened to hit the scope where it feels just perfect for me to try doing it.
It’s complex enough, so this kind of rulebook makes sense. But at the same time isn’t absudly complex and time eating like most TCG/LCG games. So i decided to spend some time and give it a try.
If general spreadsheet page, missing rules from rules thread and rules from basic Rulebook are added to the cardbase my work here will become redundant. If it doesnt happen and before it happens I feel it is valuable. The whole point is to make searching for rulings in a given game situation by moderately experienced player as simple as possible and as little time consuming as possible.
Real life example:
I dont know wheather Exhausting indestructable unit as a result of damaging it sidelines it from patrol zone.
Well they should right? But there is “Moment’s Peace” so changing game and requiring different approach might be what indestructable patroller is all about. idk
Its a basic interaction. How to find it currently:
- going through rulebook: reading indestructable section, hmm it says exhaust…
page 19 - it doesnt say anything about sidelining
- ok maybe in attacking section where was it… oh there is something on page 5 combat patrol attacking…
Exhausted units or heroes can’t patrol (so you can’t usually attack with something and patrol with it that same turn).
hmm does it apply to indestructable being exhausted, or only assigning patrollers? idk
damn cant find anything more specyfic, looking through whole rulebook finding nothing
spend like 20 min searching, frustration raising
ok lets search spreadsheet
3 rulings, nothing about this case, but at least it was fast and i learned 3 new cases
now rules thread
OMG 600 posts, search for indestructable, found 1 post, some other ruling
hmm maybe i need to formulate this diferently… idk…
I just want to play the game, and this ruling makes too much of an impact to just randomly assume something.
Playtesting this kind of game is too important to waste on absurd ruling problems.
And one place needs to have all rulings. Including core rulebook rules and advanced cases. Otherwise it is a real pain to search for rules you missed. Especialy when base rulebooks isn’t really designed for finding rulings.
So i disagree with current resources being enough. (Codex is really good compared to some other games, but i still think you can do so much better. Card database with rulings really shows you care, i just think basic rules framework needs better resources for both new and advanced players) Future resources might be enough.
It is easy to dimiss the need for easy to learn and precise rules when playing in engaged community, especilay when some members are in touch with designer. The group will eventually get all the rules right, or at least right enough so everyone is fine with them.
But having acessible to learn rules is super important for serious players, who want to play as designed, but don’t have access to other ruling sources than provided by the game and internet.
It happens very often with players who don’t go to tournaments, but like to play more complex competitive games with their fast learning friends who also like deep games.
This also matters for all Johny type players who like to find edge uses of cards, but hate quarreling about certain rules during actual play. (comunities often explore more standard interactions, but might find it hard to agree on rullings when less seen Johny cards start interacting)
Codex is much better than LCGs I play, and things will only improve as the time progresses. Game is finite and less obvious ruling areas will keep being collected and hopefully presented in user friendly fasion in the future.
Going back to the document i linked. I know its not perfect. English is not my natie language, mostly i read it on the internet and in games. I dont write much. And by trade im programmer not writer. I also tend to write chaotically editing many times until my text starts making sense. Even in my native language. So i expect it to need more work.
I make this doc mostly for myself. But I thought someone might find it usefull. And someone might find it a good idea to help me improve it.
The most important for me are rules I understood and as a consequence written wrongly.
Sentences that have irritating technical or styliistical misstakes are of less concern to me, but i will fix them if the fix doesn’t take too much time.
I’ll add an option to comment to ease improving this version. Soundls like a good idea.
I do want to enforce what I find good for the docuent, so i’ll probably reject some sugestions I disagree with or find too hard to fix not breaking something else in the process (like clarity, structure of given part etc).
But I’ll gladly fix many mistakes, especialy small stupid mistakes.
I dont think i’ll add opion to edit.
If you like the idea but want to edit it heavily feel free to copy whole document and post improved versions, if you feel like it.
(If there is some problem with copying in current form i can convert it to some other format if it doesnt take too much time. I think ctrl+c works ok in google docs)