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<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9011084" data-attributes="member: 6690965">I wish this were true, but I don't think you can have a coherent discussion about the structure and nature of rules if you don't resolve the question of whether any player should have explicit authority to modify them in real time. The function of rules is very different in a situation with or without that authority. I generally contend such authority is a bad thing inside a game, or more precisely, should live outside both the game, and the meta-game.Players can (and do) play board games with houserules that are derived from social contracts absent the rules, ranging from folk-designs of dubious value (i.e. money on Free Parking in Monopoly) to new games derived from existing ones (say, a fan produced board for a scenario not originally covered in a war game) to entirely social agreements (avoiding the known degenerate strategy in a Few Acres of Snow). Those agreements exist on a plane entirely separate from the rules of the game, being placed above the magic circle of the game itself. The game doesn't need to provide for or even suggest such authority exists, because that authority isn't derived from the rules, it's derived from the agency of people coming together to play a game in the first place, and exists above and before those players bind themselves to rules to enter a game. It acts on the rules, instead of emerging from them. When it's placed into the rules, it corrodes the agency of everyone acting inside that system.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 9011084, member: 6690965"] I wish this were true, but I don't think you can have a coherent discussion about the structure and nature of rules if you don't resolve the question of whether any player should have explicit authority to modify them in real time. The function of rules is very different in a situation with or without that authority. I generally contend such authority is a bad thing inside a game, or more precisely, should live outside both the game, and the meta-game. Players can (and do) play board games with houserules that are derived from social contracts absent the rules, ranging from folk-designs of dubious value (i.e. money on Free Parking in Monopoly) to new games derived from existing ones (say, a fan produced board for a scenario not originally covered in a war game) to entirely social agreements (avoiding the known degenerate strategy in a Few Acres of Snow). Those agreements exist on a plane entirely separate from the rules of the game, being placed above the magic circle of the game itself. The game doesn't need to provide for or even suggest such authority exists, because that authority isn't derived from the rules, it's derived from the agency of people coming together to play a game in the first place, and exists above and before those players bind themselves to rules to enter a game. It acts on the rules, instead of emerging from them. When it's placed into the rules, it corrodes the agency of everyone acting inside that system. [/QUOTE]

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