Evolving Rule Sets
Games where the new rules are added to the game as time passes.
Games needs rules to be playable, but these rules can change over time. These Evolving Rule Sets can do so on two different time scales: both during game instances and between game instances.
Contents
Examples
The modern variants of Chess and Go have evolved during the centuries they have been played. In contrast, roleplaying games such as Dungeon & Dragons and GURPS have gone through several revisions (as of 2011, 4 and 3 respectively) and nearly every new product for these game systems include new rules of some sort. Commercially successful board games such as Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, Race for the Galaxy, and Pandemic have spawned expansions with not only more content but more rules and game components with new functionality. Similarly, Collectible Card Games such as the Pokémon Trading Card Game and Magic: The Gathering release new cards in expansions, and the latter only allows a few of the latest expansions to be used in official tournaments.
When games become organized with international committees overseeing what the official rules are (part of the formal definition of sports but not the one used in this wiki), they stop having Evolving Rule Sets, or at least change much slower since these changes need to be negotiated. Go and Chess are examples of this.
Using the pattern
That the rules of a game instance changes as gameplay takes place; Enablers: Events Timed to the Real World; Consequences: Ephemeral Events, Encouraged Return Visits, Exploration, Red Queen Dilemma
Evolving Rule Sets differ from Varying Rule Sets in that latter does not need rules to be made during gameplay, the can all exist before game instances begin but not be active.
Expansions are a way of having Evolving Rule Sets after the fact - they allow game designers to add, modify, and remove rules and game components after a game has been publicly released.
Dedicated Game Facilitators Self-Facilitated Games Game Masters
Diegetic Aspects
Interface Aspects
Narrative Aspects
Consequences
Evolving Rule Sets automatically provide Varying Rule Sets since the rules changes over time - but the opposite does not hold since rules can switch back and forth without evolving.
Relations
Can Instantiate
with ...
Can Modulate
Can Be Instantiated By
Can Be Modulated By
Possible Closure Effects
Potentially Conflicting With
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
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Acknowledgements
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