Room Escape Artist

A surprising criticism that we’ve found ourselves saying over and over again is that the game’s rules don’t match the way the game plays. In other words, the gamemaster told us in the briefing, “Don’t do X,” but at some point in the game, we had to do X.

Some common examples include: 

• “Don’t use more than two fingers worth of strength,” but we had to use a lot of force to open something. 
• “You’ll never have to use anything more than once,” but we needed to use a blacklight multiple times.
• “If you see the monster, you must run away,” but there was nowhere to run.
• “When the killer is coming, you must hide,” but there aren’t enough good hiding places for everyone. 

Structurally building your game so that players must break your own rules is not only a terrible idea, it’s dangerous for everyone involved.

Why is Breaking Your Own Rules Dangerous?

It’s hard enough to get new players to listen to your rules and follow them. The second that you undermine those rules, all of your other rules immediately become suspect. 

I wish I had a dime for every time I sat in an escape room lobby, heard a gamemaster give an instruction, and heard a player reply with some version of “maybe you’re just saying that to trick us.” This is a common thought for first-time players who don’t always understand that the gamemaster is on their side. When that gamemaster is found to be lying, it confirms this feeling that the person operating this tricksy game really is an adversary. 

When one rule appears to be a lie, all rules appear to be lies. 

This puts the players’ health and safety at risk. It can put gamemasters or performers in danger. Additionally, the game’s set and props are under additional threat of damage — not because the players want to disobey the rules, but because they truly believe that the rules themselves are suspect. 

Aligning Your Rules and Your Mechanics

Maybe this all feels obvious, but I have seen globally top-ranked games break their own rules. This kind of issue can affect games of any level of quality. 

Whenever you’re releasing a game, be sure to compare all of the interactions within the game to the rules that you demand your players follow. 

Seriously, go one interaction at a time, and double check that you’re not confusing the situation. This is especially true if you’re pushing on mechanical boundaries. The more unusual your game is, the more likely you’re doing something that doesn’t fit the normal rules set. 

Protect your players, staff, and property with good rules that fit the game as it truly is… or don’t and we can roast you for it.

Expect More Like This

This is the second piece (the first was on being captured in escape rooms) in what I expect will be a long series of design posts. This series was inspired in part by our trip to Athens, Greece. Our Patreon community watched me slowly lose my mind in daily videos documenting the journey. I went from being very eager to play this market that I had held in such high regard, to being disappointed, and eventually disenchanted by a lot of design decisions that felt like they put extremeness ahead of good or safe design.

I have to thank our Patreon community for being a place where we can work through ideas around how to produce incredible games in a way that is safe for players, gamemasters, and the global escape room community.

I am not done working through what I saw in Athens. The most intense pieces are coming.

Special shout out to those who joined this month: Andy Mintzer, Madeleine Alexis, Adam Tencza, John DeGroot, Michael K., Christopher Chanes-Mets, Matthew Stegeman, James Douberley, Andre Leger, and Roger L

To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters.

Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission

There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon or Etsy after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.

The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.