Rules versus procedures
I had the idea to write this yesterday in the shower, then I thought "hm maybe I should look up what other people have said about it first" but like, where's the fun in that? I've often seen people talking about rules and procedures in ttrpgs, so let's define these terms without any prior knowledge!
I THINK rules and procedures are the same thing. Like, while they are obviously different words with several meanings, these are the ones that I believe apply to our use-case: "a prescribed guide for conduct or action" and "a traditional or established way of doing things". In the context of our make-believe games, I'd define them both as "instructions on a rulebook". When you use a rule in your ttrpg, you are invoking one or more procedures that will define how a certain situation of play will be resolved. When you use a procedure in your ttrpg, you are invoking one or more rules that will define how a certain situation of play will be resolved. Cute, right?1
That's where I land from just reading ttrpg discussions and never actually bothering to see how people define these two words in the ttrpg space. It feels vibes-based2. You call it a rule or a procedure when you want to communicate something about a game, but that something generally depends on... stuff.
After moving forward with my initial idea, I now think it would be silly to not complement it. There is a marketing angle of ending the post here and leaving an easy follow-up for next week's blog, but fuck the marketing angle.
Ava Islam's Errant3 defines itself as a "rules-light, procedure-heavy" game, and from what I've been seeing it's one of the cornerstones of the procedure semantics. As per their itch page, this means that the core basic mechanic is simple (which would be a "rule") while there are several other mechanics that aren't mandatory and help you navigate play situations (which would be "procedures"). That's an interesting way of putting it, even though I disagree with the semantics. I would just call them optional rules, but that doesn't have the same vibe, now does it? So I'd say the stuff that is motivating this differentiation in Errant is something around... showing modularity and ease-of-use?
Prismatic Wasteland argues in their "What Even Is a Procedure?" blogpost that "Procedures are a type of rule that provides the order of operation (which order typically repeats) for a game and works to structure play". This feels weird to because when they show me examples, I keep seeing rules and procedures as... Too similar to need this definition? They say that getting matching dice results in a row and then rolling again is a rule in Monopoly, but that is what orders the operations after you roll doubles and can lead to repetition...? They also say that combat in D&D is a procedure, but what literally provides the order for the following operations is the Initiative Roll, which is presented as a substantive rule...? And like, don't all rules work to structure play?
I guess the motivating stuff that fuels the differentiation here is identifying and narrowing down the core element of a playstyle...? Even though they started their blogpost by laying down a nice and tidy definition, the impression that I get from the rules and procedures they describe is that they wobble more towards "a procedure is an amalgam of ordered rules". I will say that what I found more captivating and tangible out of this is the idea of procedural rules and substantive rules, which not only aligns with my semantic angle of equivalence (keeping the "rules" in both names) but also indicates the difference with the adjectives.
PW's post also shows me that apparently this was a hot question around the web some years ago and then puts a halt to my search: because now I have a reading list and a blog post I want to finish before going to bed. Sorry for the double bait-and-switch, folks.
anb
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