"Trust me on this."

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I was introduced to a new board game recently, and naturally I read the rulebook to get the basics of how it works. The others had played it a few times but not much more often than me, and as happens with board games there were some disputes over the rules or how certain things worked.

But there's something I noticed: Whenever I challenged what person X was doing I would reach for the rulebook and try to solve the dispute. Sometimes it turned out I was in fact wrong, sometimes I was right. But when others corrected me, and I reached for the rulebook, they'd be all "No, just trust me on this."

I find this very weird. It's not fair to "trust" someone that the rules are as they say they are, because they might be totally wrong. You need to look it up or have it said by an official (who was obviously not present as it wasn't a tournament or something similar) because otherwise you can't get to the truth. It's like the batter saying "I was on that base, trust me on this one." and then getting upset when the umpire overrules him. Have you ever experienced this kind of thing?

Yes. I understand "house rules," yet they need to be established before the game. If they are not, at least in the instance of that turn, your rulebook call should overrule, and if that is unacceptable to common rules, only future instances should apply.

Ah, but this was specifically not a case of established house rules. This was not a house rule I was unaware of, there was a dispute over the actual official rules as noted in the rulebook.

Sounds to me that they were trying to kind of rush through the game, and just wanted a very basic idea of how to play... so after that, they were trying to speed up the process by just stating a rule and saying "just trust me on this" so it wouldn't take more time to finish the game essentially.

That is actually how house rules wind up coming about, I think, with a new game. People either don't care about every rule in the book, or just want a basic idea to stand by and make up the rest as it goes along basically.

Once the first few games are through with and all, then everyone kind of has an idea of how to play when X, Y, and Z are there, and it kind of always goes that way after that.

I think it evolves from "just trust me on this" to "this is how we play in OUR house".

That's strange, because to me, the concept of house rules is that you know the rules but you disagree with them and thus you agree with the others to use a different rule. It shouldn't be an excuse for not knowing the actual rules.

The possibility of trying to rush the game is very possible...I don't like those kinds of people.

Haha, one would hope they would want to learn the rules first before coming up with new ones, but that isn't how it happens a lot of the time.

I have a family friend we visit often, and we have specific "______'s rules", because she just doesn't go by them. While trying to read them and inform everyone before the game starts, she will start waving her hand and saying "yeah, let's get on with the game, we'll figure it out when we get there", and then "assumed" rules start happening, but she doesn't like taking a break from the game to actually look them up.

Tonight, we were playing a game called "Sorry!", and it was quite funny to me after a while, because some things were just glaringly obvious that she just was not paying attention to. For instance, she had her guys in home row, and would get a "10" card, which states ON THE CARD for everyone to see, that you either move back one, or forward 10. Well, she didn't want her guys out of the home row, so we had to keep on reminding her that she could move back one still, lol. She would go with it, but it was obvious if no one was to say anything at all about it, she just would not have done it, even though everyone could see clearly what was supposed to happen.

For me, knowing the rules makes the game more enjoyable, personally, because it could be a lot more challenging to actually play by all of them, haha. But for some others, it's a matter of not wanting to know them all, because it's just too much to keep track of at times, so they just start coming up with general rules of things to bypass it... or as in the case of tonight, flat out ignore the annoying ones.

I think this is a misuse of the concept of trust.
Or maybe not.
Is this how people view trust?
As a 'get out of jail free card'?

Conventional wisdom says, if someone asks you to trust them, don't. I've only overlooked this once, and I was wrong to do that.

I think often we get hung up on a ruling, wanting to look it up, and everyone else just wants to keep the fun going. I find gaming is much more fun for everyone if I learn to let of of my ultra pedantry, and just flow with stuff like that, even if I'm pretty sure it's wrong. If the majority say, put the book down, it's probably a good idea. You can always look it up later if you feel the need. In the end, when playing a game, there is no right or wrong. Only fun and not fun.

This irks me, too. And I'm sure I irk them.

I don't like when I cannot read the rules, because of course I will have every detail memorized pretty quickly. I am seldom wrong about a "rule." I can completely go along with house rules, but they should be consistent.

But I don't think it's fun to just "keep going". Like in other games, occasionally the ball will go out of the field and some oaf will shout "Just keep going!". Then when I say that that's ridiculous, because that wouldn't be fair, they say "it's just a game." But I don't get this attempt at reasoning, because games only work if you follow the rules. If you don't, it's unfair and that's not fun at all.

The only time you shouldn't look up a rule if there is doubt about it is if it has already been done earlier in the game. Then you can simply reference that. I think there's nothing wrong with following the rules to the letter. Indeed, it makes games more fun because you know that it's fair and if you are surprised at something it's your own fault for not reading the rulebook.

Yeah, I think it's a problem of you and them having different 'needs' while playing the game. Not everyone would agree with you that games need to have strictly defined rules that are strictly adhered to. That's just your personal preference. I guess you'd do well to find people more like yourself in that regard to play with.

I was reading an article about two different basic play or game styles that I wish I could find now, it was really interesting. One style has very strict rules. And the other is kind of freeform with very few rules, or rules that change without discussion, at the whim of any of the players. Part of the fun of that is in trying to infer what the new rule is, and any ensuing chaos. I'm sure this has relevance to the discussion somehow, but I've lost the plot a bit.

Is this it?

http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features ... php?page=2

It's not but it seems to cover similar themes. I think I'll put it in my to read folder. Thanks!