Playing by Rules That Don’t Exist
“Real fun comes from challenges that are always at the margin of our abilities.” ~ Raph Koster in the book “A Theory of Fun for Game Design”
Why games? Everyone plays games, whether explicitly playing something built to be a game or playing the games inherent in work, school, and even relationships. Meaningful play in games is not only a way to have fun, build relationships, and create memories but it can also explain some of your patterns in life.
Learning life skills through gameplay isn’t just for humans, even dogs do this. You only have to watch two dogs play fight to see this in action. There’s a ritual that kicks it off: one dog inviting the other to play through playful growling. They have rules of “don’t bite too hard”, they even pretend (yes, animals play pretend!) to get viciously angry and all for the purity of fun and enjoyment. Through this enjoyable activity they’re also getting practice in real life survival tools: fighting, defending, protecting their territory. This is the foundation of all games: rules that create meaningful play.
Over this newsletter series, we'll explore how specific games teach tangible life skills: negotiation through Monopoly, risk management through Yahtzee, pattern recognition and futuristic thinking through Chess. But today, let's start with something more fundamental: the rules themselves, written and unwritten. All games have explicit rules, and it’s these rules that lead the game from nonsense to meaningful play. Who am I? What am I doing in this game? How do I win? What can’t I do? What are my main choices and goals? You get the idea.
Life has these same explicit rules. Driving has posted speed limits and red lights you must stop at. But there are also unwritten rules of both games and life and that’s where things get really interesting. I would wager that everyone that is reading this doesn’t go the exact speed limit. When you see a 70mph posted speed limit, what do you believe is the actual number of miles over you can go before getting pulled over? 4? 6? Some people believe they can go up to 10% more before it’s pull-over worthy. This is (for the most part) a universally accepted and unwritten rule of society (in the US at least). You’d probably mock the police officer if he pulled you over for going 71 in a 70 and you’d certainly fight it in court. Yet if asked point blank, “Did you break the law and go over the posted speed limit?”, you would certainly have to answer yes.
Here’s where the game gets interesting: What about when you’re driving on a 2-lane highway and you start to see signs that say “Left lane closed ahead, merge right” and then “One lane road ahead, merge right” so you start to get over and traffic slows to a stop as two lanes is now one. You patiently inch forward until you’re five cars away from being through the bottleneck and able to drive fast again when you see someone coming up on your left very fast. They zoom all the way to the front and abruptly merge over, bypassing the line and infuriating at least 20 people who are disgusted with this “trash” and calling them every name under the sun.
Why are we so mad at this driver? In pure technical terms they didn’t break any law. One could argue they are more of a rule follower than all of you who go 74 in a 70. Yet, they’re universally seen as scum, someone who should be cast out of society, or at least sternly reprimanded if given the chance. Why? Is it because unwritten rules function as a social contract of sorts? Fairness? I’m fascinated by these scenarios and what makes something an unwritten rule, why society adopts it, and why those that break it are shunned so magnificently.
This exploration of unwritten rules is at the core of my coaching work. I love talking with clients about their lives and where their beliefs about unwritten rules may be holding them back or where they’re operating on autopilot, doing what everyone else does without understanding why or even realizing there’s a better way. Over this newsletter series, we'll keep pulling at this thread and examining how games reveal the invisible architecture of our lives.
