Read the Rulebook

Let's just agree on this. Rulebooks are indescribably boring. Though bespectacled engineers worldwide would undoubtedly challenge that fact!

Why engineers, you say? Well, from the few that I've carefully observed, namely my brother and my boyfriend, Charming Calvin, they both seem endlessly obsessed with diligently poring over the smallest, most insignificant minutiae listed in the encyclopaedic rulebooks. No sooner is the game box unpacked that they are desperately grasping for the rulebook.

And now we have one of the fellas in my newly formed gaming band, Sober Sam, who does pretty much the same - incidentally also a member of the engineering brotherhood! Wise to his ways, his gregarious wife, Kitty Kat, agrees with me and finds those traits equally amusing.

Kat : Let's have some tea while we wait. 
Paul : Still reading the rulebook? 
Kat : It will take a while. 
Paul : So we can't bend the rules even a bit? 
Kat : Definitely no modifications at all. 
Paul : No die rolling unseen?
Kat : Nor challenging moves recanted!
Paul : That's going to be problematic. 
Kat : Why? 
Paul : I foresee losing badly in the next game. 

Still doesn't stop us from occasionally backtracking on our moves. Or giving that lopsided die just that helpful nudge. Or whispering formerly secret stratagems to the presumed enemy. Which drives poor Sam - so cautiously methodical - endlessly batty as we twist the otherwise fixed rules into a braided pretzel.

I swear half the fun is watching his barely stifled frustration.

Sam : Though you manage to survive the fall off the balcony, you arise in the courtyard only to find yourself surrounded by a cadre of black armoured guards.
Paul : You mean I can't seduce them?
Sam : No!
Paul : Not even the hot captain?
Sam : I didn't say there was a hot captain. 
Paul : There always is.
Sam : It's not in the rules. 

Yes we love them for reading the rulebooks - and painstakingly explaining each tedious principles to us. Though our imbecilic understanding certainly tests their rapidly thinning patience. Poor Sam. When you're left with rulebooks the size of the Almighty Bible, seems almost like a chore to go through each and every tiresome chapter. Left to us, we'd probably just play along with some illogical, hastily fabricated guidelines! 

Sam : So there are three moves. You first take a card, then you move and then -
Kat : What did he say?
Paul : I no understand. Did he say three? 
Kat : Did you see the pretty pictures on the cards?
Paul : Still admiring the mini figurines. 
Kat : Should we paint them?
Sam : Are you even listening?
Kat : We can't play along as we go?
Sam : No!

Wouldn't blame him if he gives us a whack with the rulebook one of these days!