My "What A Stupid Rule" Rant

Okay, so I buy a lot of games, and even when I don't own the games, often, I seem to be the one who ends up reading the rules. So, on occasion, I've been known to strategize, with full knowledge of all the rules that are coming, so though I really don't mean to use that unfair advantage, it comes up quite a bit.

But what comes up over and over again, even as I'm explaining the rules from the beginning, hoping to make everything clear enough that I don't have an unfair advantage, I try to explain some small point that I think needs clarification, and I find out that some rule that I thought was merely interesting, or curious, or perhaps even clever... I find out from others that in fact, these are "Stupid Rules!"

Some Stupid Rules that people have pointed out to me.

Steam: You can take goods from a city where you have not made a railroad connection. The rules simply state that you have to use your track links greater than or equal to the track links of anyone else. So far as I can tell, this is a perfectly good rule, as long as everyone knows it--but it seems that because I used it *once* before everyone clearly understood it, now it is forever on the "stupid rule" list.

Wealth of Nations: Yes, you're supposed to simply trade one item to the bank at a time, though you can trade as many items with other players as you want. This is so that the bank continually reflects fair market value. But because it slows the game down a little bit, and sometimes, after you've explained it for the umpteenth time, but people still insist on trading three food cubes to the bank and buying two energy and you decide to just let them because you know nobody else is trading energy or food... *sigh*. Later when I bring it up, it's a "stupid rule!"

Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition? AC is better when it's higher? What a "stupid rule!"

Win Place and Show: You add the red and white die to find out which horse gets a bonus, but then you use the white die to determine both the bonus to speed, and the other thing... I can't even remember, but it's not symmetrical. One of the dice is used for three different things, and the other is used for one. Gee, this just infuriated everybody. What a Stupid Rule!

Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition: That part where you pick out roles that you get to use once on your game turn and then everybody else gets to do a related power? Well, that just doesn't make sense at all. What a Stupid Rule!

Pirate's Cove: What!? The Pirate is at Treasure Island on the last turn of the game!? What a Stupid Rule!

Attack!: What?!? The Defender attacks first? I've never heard of a game doing that before! What a Stupid Rule! What?!? They don't say what happens when you leave your countries undefended? (Okay, in that case, they probably should have said what happens when you leave a country empty, or that you're not allowed to do it, but after we house-rule that you lose a random card, and then you leave a country empty, and then you lose a random card--and THEN you complain that it's a stupid rule. SHEESH!)

I feel like I remember a time when we just played the game and looked in the rules to find out what they were. The rules were terse and unyielding... handed down as though from the Gods... Unquestionable. Whether you liked them or not, they were the rules of the game. So I always find myself in this position of defending the rules of the game. Usually, I can even, in my own mind, justify the reason that the rule, as written, is better than it would be otherwise.

In Steam, being able to take goods from cities you haven't built to is something anybody can do, and it makes the game a little more unpredictable and quite a bit more strategic. In Wealth of Nations, if we were a more competitive group, it would make sense to worry about the little bit of difference of trading two or three at a time to the bank. Unfortunately, pestering about it in a more relaxed game makes me seem like a pain. And the dice in Win, Place, and Show, I really can't fathom the way they made it, but I also can't really tell why everybody else thinks its so terrible to use the same die for three different things.

I sometimes wonder if perhaps a second play, where the rule is made clearer from the beginning will fix things. But no. Each time we play the game, the argument becomes more vigorous, so the choices are either to quit playing the game, or to house rule the loss of the "stupid rule."

As luck would have it, here and there, I can find games that don't get too much complaint about the rules. Race For the Galaxy is a game where I have no idea what anybody else is doing, so everybody can probably play by their own rules!