Top 10 Worst Rulebooks

0:32 viewer discretion is advised hey everyone welcome back to another fat nasty top 10 oh no no if that's what I'm calling them welcome back to another top 10 in this one is actually a unique 11 because I haven't seen one down a bit and two because i saw a forum on boardgamegeek I was like that's actually a pretty pretty good topic and this is top 10 worst rulebooks this is can be a very very detrimental aspect of board gaming is if the game the game could have the best mechanics the best theme the best you know gameplay the best everything but if it has the worst rule book in it almost kills the game for some people because if they don't know how to play then they can't play the best game in the world uh and obviously this is one open for discussion every top 10 I do is one my opinion and sometimes real books can be easy for some and difficult for others and I tried to find that middle ground I tried to find games work I either found the rulebook to be difficult for myself or difficult to you know teach to other players based on how I took the rules in also I look through that form and found aid once I was said more often and then I was like okay yeah I can see why that

2:03 would be difficult so this ranks from and this by any means doesn't make these bad games in fact there's only one on here that I would say is I wouldn't even say it's a bad game I would just say it's not for me but the rest i actually open them all the all right I own I've traded away sorry 12 I've traded away three of these games the rest of them I stallone and i still play and I still very much like but the rule books are either very wonky difficult to comprehend or just terrible in general so without further ado let's get to the number 10 and the number 10 is through the ages now I hope it there should be a picture there through the ages was one of those rule books that wasn't by any means awful it's why it's at number 10 um there was just a lot and that was another thing I had decided on if there was a lot and in just a main rule book that can make it difficult because it's like ah ok I also thought of games that I had to keep referencing back to the rules because I couldn't retain the information and I feel like I'm pretty good at that but 3d ages was one of those games where I kept having to refer back to the rule book some of them made sense whenever I was I was playing the game or reading it I was like you know okay I get this i get this but there were some parts in there that i was just like i have no clue what this means i what and and with through the ages I it

3:36 had to robeks calico Fantasy Flight does with their learn to play in their rules reference one that their their rule book was there was the rule book but there was also a learn to play guide it's kind of a tutorial which I did I followed that and it wasn't that bad following the learning to play but obviously it holds out a lot of the extra features a holds out a lot of stuff that is in the core dame and so with the with the run through and playing it it was just one of those games where I was constantly to go back or over my friends they were just like I I don't know what this means and a good example is the pissed-off worker the eye camera what he's actually called it the worker that's that that is forced to work and he's not a discontent worker that's it that for some reason just did not make sense to me or any of my friends or my girlfriend we just we just that one we couldn't we were like so it go it's used like he can use it but he goes down but we can use him and it was that's that's the best example but wasn't the worst rule book I've ever seen out of these ten it's definitely that why it's number 10 so that's that's 3d ages number nine this is one of those that made sense to me but I can see why others would think it's the worst rule book they ever made or they've ever dealt with this was one of them most said on that forum and that is arkham horror and I bet you I can I can

5:09 pinpoint why everyone thinks it's difficult one I have to say this fancy flight has now done with their recent games they do a learn to play an air rules reference which i think is fantastic I think instead of having a 30-page rule book you have a 10-page rule book that says hey you can read this and play the game if you have any questions go the rules were like okay so how does combat work you go to combat and it's broken down it is brilliant I have a friend who doesn't like that and I don't know why I have a feeling he's like mentally ill but I think it's great this was for this was before that this was pre awesome rulebooks fantasy flight with arkham horror or Gomorrah has like a 30 plus page rule book that is it's just all over the place it's not really some some games have a big rule book but they're like okay so each round has has 5 parts and in then it will kind of debrief you and then we're going to detail on each of those phases are more did not do that like that rule book has so much information so many nitpicking merits in the Metro game so nitpicky gritty rules that you have to remember it's a how do I closed gates what's that number mean so if i use this how does it work with that what how do i use my character what can i do on my turn it was just all over the place and it did not get better with the expansions they have i want to say like eight I wouldn't say like 80 times they have a lot for arkham horror and they finally do the way with doing expansions for that they

6:42 are now doing a lot with elbert or which is also a great game I that one is not on this list because it is way more streamlined l couture if i was to teach a ameri trash game to someone I wouldn't say either them or gateway games but Alvin tour is definitely easier to learn I still like Arkham or more but with are more with the expansions ages 8 added so much in for mean it wasn't that difficult I do i do references this game a lot because wallets one of my favorites i don't played all the time and with the win if I'm playing with expansions I actually while I was setting it up last time cat and I played wii I I had her I was like okay I need you to look up these I need to look at these because i don't i don't remember what they do it's a second parts a lot of the expansions bring in situational stuff like if you happen to draw this adventure card and you have this option then you can get this particular card like at a game card the Sheldon game cards it's like well you don't get those but you can so I was like I don't remember how to do this whenever you add the more boards the expansion boards oh man like that's a whole separate rule book in and of itself so I'm including the expansions than that but even then I still felt I i grasp it quite well it's just those little rules were set crap so I had it well how does this work so that's arkham horror at number nine number eight is

8:13 Battlestar Galactica now you may be thinking what he's of picking big games what actually that that could have been the crux I will I guess its a spoiler it's not really 12 emperium is actually not on this list I thought about it but there's one of those games that I grasped pretty well and I felt my friends did too when we played it and I think it's more streamlined Battlestar Galactica to put it in perspective Battlestar Galactica a person I don't know who it may be on here has done a combination like rule book and i love this game of with all the expansions because the expansions definitely can bog down so someone went through and made of course I when mated in tennis but they made a rule boat that includes in categories and color codes everything that gets added from the from the game so baddest org elected is one of those things that if you thought arkham horror was bogged down with lots of bats or Galactica definitely does that and it doesn't go into asthma detail because you look at the board you like okay so like so the space is tell you what to do but they don't go into any detail and so the rule book is kind of all over the place as well especially with the expansions expansions can be pretty bad they're not bad expansions but the excuse me the happen to have all

9:46 those rule books just like arkham horror all over the place it's like okay so how do how do we even set this up how do we do any of this well if with all these expansions so that's why I felt Battlestar Galactica was was worse than arkham horror obviously because it's at number eight which now brings me to number seven number seven is not a heavy game it's one of those rule books that i think was kind of poorly done number seven is darkest night which I don't play a lot but I've played it quite a bit I've played a lot lately darkest night has one of those robux that has a lot of symbols that yeah well not allows them not like seven wonders words there's a lot of iconography but with darkest night they would like go through the rules and I looked us up if while I was making this list and they would use like almost like shorthand that would use symbols instead of writing out the words like secrecy was like it's like a little circle with an s in it and if you don't know what that and it does it has those in it before it tells you what that symbol means and I understand what they were doing but I kind of feel like I wouldn't say that's necessarily lazy but it could be because it's like oh I don't know what these symbols mean or is it is like they would use dice or a dye simple and just beyond the six and some people could read then be like wait does that mean if I roll a six or are you just putting a dye symbol there just to

11:19 represent a guy not like a particular outcome of that died inside with darkest night it was it was just one of those games were that they used a lot of symbols throughout the rule book to shorten up the rulebook because it's it's it's not like a big one like it's actually fairly small and you're just it's just kind of it's kind of all over the place with those symbols when in your like I'm not really understanding how to use my my guy even the gameplay also uses that where it's like okay so if i go here and can i use this item or is this where i'm going to get items and and have to have if they just kind of use symbols to shorten everything instead of using descriptions of what to do so darkness not rule book was one of those things that I kind of had to read and it was uh it was organized weird like I i wish i can give examples with with this by like you know we can i guess we got who could have gone through the roof but i don't own all the games on this list but it was it was organized in a weird way to to which it seemed out of order and when you're reading it you're like I'm not really following so number seven is darkest night number six is a game so far I've owned every game I've sonar I trade the way through the ages uh the number six is game I also traded away and I like

12:51 the game but its shadows of brimstone the swamps of death not the city I think of city of ancients that one was impossible to find shadows of brimstone we have was a flying frog productions game I believe yes so fly for production is already weird with their gameplay because they use you know real people in its their their component quality assaf but that's not what we're talking about we're talking about rule books well shadows of brimstone had a campaign and this one and it's like it was like some mythological weird like other world that you can go to but it was also a Western and with the rule book it had a campaign book that was really thick it had maybe six regular campaigns and six all alternate world campaigns scenarios and with the with the rule book dear God like that one was was pretty bad because of the fact that it had no organized the dark side no organization shadows of brimstone definitely didn't have it and whenever you're trying to figure our actions it's like okay so if I'm trying to do combat do I roll into its it was kind of like a D&E kind of style thing where it's like okay I roll to see if I hit and then I have to check what do I check to do that this was a game i was referencing back to a lot because I just I couldn't

14:22 remember I was looking all my stuff and one of the worst parts has come ties into the gameplay but the rules didn't really help either is throughout the campaign you can go you go the talent and you can buy stuff and buy upgrades but the book didn't tell you like it would have asked tell you what these upgrades did and there were no cards to represent your out your upgrades you almost had to write it was it was a tabletop RPG like d into your pathfinder but but it wasn't and the rules were like that as well so Dean D can also be over someone said because it's literally a book the rule book is a book for D&D and this one was almost like that but light it was like tabletop RPG light and so with the rules it just did a very shoddy job in explaining the pictures in it didn't necessarily help they could have used some more descriptions and every time we played I was constantly looking through that the rule book trying to figure out even how to play and this was like times whenever we play like two days in a row and I was like I don't remember how to do this and it just with the upgrades and how your character can upgrade I think they did a poor job with that in this with Dean D you can look at your character but this is who I am oh this is what I get okay and you can write that down this one it had things for your character to upgrade like low skill points you can spend but there is no way to actually keep track of

15:52 unless you want to mark in the world book which that you don't want to do and shadows of brimstone this is a side a side thing about it but the components you had to put together for the miniatures I just want to say I hate that that was god-awful so that was my number six shadows of brimstone my number five I should also say that our Gomorrah was actually funny enough now ardmore and another one on here were the 2i go saw in the forum that I've played others I was like yeah I I don't know I feel like one of these on here I'm definitely be the only one that says so but yeah if you watch if you watch my show you can probably do it hmm I don't know what one of them is but anyway number five on here is mage knight now made tonight is one of those games that I put on here at number five because it was a it was one of those things were it's okay gamers game meaning that it has just a lot of like particular you know attributes and symbols and a lot of things that you can do but it was also not explained now that well there's a reason why it was like hey do this tutorial because will teach you along the way what these symbols mean so for example if you're whoever you are how you played the game there's just a lot you can do is a slight deck builder one of the deck builders I actually liked you would pick these um you know either

17:23 you can get some followers or you can get these spells you can get these items but they all had different symbols on them so you would constantly be referencing okay so what is that flaming fist do what can that do how many followers can I have wait so if I need to find this place do I need how do I kick just a lot of those kind of questions where it bogged down the game a lot and well first of all it they had scenarios but they really they really didn't there was a tutorial and there's other ones that I wasn't personally like an actual campaign but you started over each time bites when it's like how do i set up the tiles and if i move how do i use these cards and it did pretty poor job of explaining how to use cards whenever it came down to combat Wow combat it was like you would look at these symbols the the tokens the little hexagons p were represented the people and they would have like you know upwards of no symbols till like six and you're like somewhat what do all these do like do these all go at the same time how does this like okay so does he attack me then if I attack wave but so if this symbol this game was was oh man oh man if you you really have to eat this game honestly would have been better at a video game like there are a few that I'm starting to realize that it's like they're so bogged down with all these int like and I'm not saying all games like there are some business simulator games or other games that it's like they function and

18:54 like the gears work you know and they keep going and it's like okay so it makes sense that this does this and this can do this and something that won't make sense and sometimes I'm like that's great as a board game there's a few like through the ages in May tonight I would argue saying that this should have been a video game like it's just there's just something about it and I know a lot people who like mage night and it wasn't a terrible game but the rules kind of kind of made it difficult for me to get into but that was my number five main tonight remember how I said there's a game on this list that I'm probably the only one that absolutely hates the rulebook I like the game I'm liking it less and less but uh this game I feel has the worst rule book and it's only because there is only like one rule book for it for how many expansions have came out and that is time stories and number four I truly believe time stories has one of the worst rule books it's initially without initially later on initially when you're playing you're like okay I'm kind of I'm kind of getting this there wasn't really a whole lot to learn it's a very simple game and the problem for me is whenever you have any questions whatsoever even in the first the asylum scenario if you had any questions that rule book did not help you in fact even in Asylum it helped you more because the

20:24 rule book was made for asylum what pisses me off is each expansion they've came out with they have came out with the Marcy case they came out with prophecy of dragons and they came out with under the mask and I think they're coming off another one they're probably going to keep coming out with more each three of those expansions did not come with a rule book they came with a slight deck of cards that would kind of explain the new mechanic it's like okay that's great but what if the mechanic then what if the mechanic makes sense or even if you have a question about the mechanic or if you have a question about okay so what's going on whenever we do this it doesn't explain any of that and that pisses me off so much with time stories because if you watched any of my renters I have run throughs for all of them except asylum because because such a bad job but every one of them were sitting there more like how the what's going on here so what do we do if this happens and you don't know you kind of have to house rule it or just assume or look it up and it's like we did we don't know because it didn't come with a [ __ ] rule book like an FAQ anything would have been great with with that game in expansions but no it's like I'll kind of figure it out yourself I don't want to do that I want to be like I want to know I one of those guys that wants to know for sure how something is done and there's a few I game to thy house rule but I don't have to rule a lot because I'm just like this is the way the game is unless it's truly a groundbreaking like rule or something I really don't like but can easily modify i usually

21:56 don't have school with time stories i felt like you did get good i guess is how we do it I want to do that so that's my number for time stories at my number three has another flying frog productions game that I feel did a much worse job with the rulebook and that is fortunately Laurie first of all most of my games did I play I can kind of pull the game out set it up and be like I remember how to play but I kind of know fresher fortune glory it's rule book is so bad that I have to read it I have to read the whole thing again and then I'm like okay I think we can play and once something happens I'm like okay so how does that happen added like what how how was the setup what happens if this person that's here what do we do if we draw this card how do we how do we you know pass this cliffhanger how do we what happens if we die Hollywood there's just so this added so much to this to the base game and then the expansion's was bogged down even more that it's like I'm constantly constantly looking at the robe ugh and there were times when because cat likes his game she actually likes it a lot and I don't think it's a bad game but whenever we're playing I remember the last time we played I thought was like I'm sorry because I had to keep going back to the rule book maybe it's just me maybe this is one of those rule books that I just can't wrap my head around but I remember apologizing because I could not remember or retain the information because it I

23:29 don't think it was a lack of information it was this lack of organization why my don't know where this is or okay so if we're doing this co-op how does because the rules change if you want to do co-op in the rule you can do a semi-coma if you can do teams it I feel like they should just picked one then like hey this is the co-op game you're up against you know Nazis or you're up against cultist so you're up against whoever the other faction was mobsters instead of just being like well we can do that or we can be against each other be it it was just it's weird and it's just a very bad rule book and also fairly long for what gets added and because there's so many components that you're just like okay so whether all these do that was my number 314 glory number two this is the the second one that was in that form that i saw a lot and i totally agree i I've heard they're doing a second edition I heard they're redoing it which I mean makes me super happy because maybe they'll fix the damn rulebook and that's Robinson Caruso I absolutely love this game this is one of my top tens I love this as a co-op I love everything about this game except the robot the rule book is one of the worst I've ever read and number two it's one of the worst obviously three two and one typically those are the worst room what's I've ever had to deal with number two and a person on the forum sort of a pretty good description it managed to make a mildly easy euro game if you can call it gyro and make it hard because

25:02 like there's lack of punctuation lack of organization lack of information when certain things happen that you're just kind of running blind when things when things don't go like like they should and it's like well so what happens if if this happens if we draw a card and we don't really understand oh well I guess you're gonna have to figure it out yourself and that's one of the things if they do I haven't I haven't really seen anything but I really hope that if they do do a second edition that they fix and you know streamline that rule book because one of the things is it just kind of all bleeds together and because there are some groups that are really it's like okay well then this game has five rounds and in each round there's three phases here's page one and this is what happens on phase 1 phase 2 and then phase 3 this one is just like yeah this is everything that can happen and you're like okay I don't even know where the look if something happens that I don't know what to do life in I played this game no I played this game recently and I remember we were looking at it and there's so many different scenarios that the game doesn't explain quite as well what what it does and I feel like if they if they had multiple scenarios that they could have at least had a few faq questions from each one or a different way to explain each scenario instead of having them different cards that maybe actually have like a full page in the

26:34 rulebook like like like a mansion vanish or something works like oh these are the different scenarios and nestles what it does manage to the madness almost made this list but I decided not to put it on here because as a second edition that makes it way better but that is Robinson Caruso at number two now from number one I am kind of cheating because this game is not out yet um it I I don't even know if it successfully made it to Kickstarter because i couldn't find that tried looking for it but i've done a run-through of this it was on kickstarter whenever I did it it was in the discussion it was pretty much the biggest thing I've harped on about it and it was one of the driving factors of why I was doing this rule book so my number one is the glorious fall oh my god this rule book is the worst if you can even call it a rule book this game I just said that there are some games that I was like okay I don't really know how how you know this works or if I don't understand there's nowhere in the rules to go tell me that's that's I mean that sucked but I've still been able to play the game I set this game up looked at it read the rulebook and then went at that time we lived in the town house went

28:05 downstairs and there was my to my girlfriend two of my friends who were like already and I'm like I was holding the rulebook and I'm like I don't know how to play this was the first game that ever made me feel incredibly stupid because I read the rulebook and had so many questions and it was on Kickstarter so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt but I had so many questions I was like I have no idea how to play this game and there were times when ever we would I was like okay well let's go upstairs and we'll run through it together this will learn together everyone and we didn't even we got bad five arrows I think we got through one it took us like an hour and a half to two hours to get through one ERA this is a fairly long game the run throughs four hours 3-4 hours and even then as we're going through it I was emailing the guy like I said in like three or four emails with multiple questions i was like i have no idea to play your game these are all the questions that we all had luckily he made a short like 30 minute video of one of the first areas of how to play which did help like it helped a lot but i watch that thing twice read the rules again and was finally able to figure out how to play but that is one of the worst rubik i have ever ever had that had the

29:35 unfortunate I time to actually greed and I really hope if they made their kickstarter goal I hope that they fix it he even said he tried to be succinct which is fine like you don't want a rulebook that also goes that is too long they are reading the same thing over and over there rehashing the same say you know mechanics over and over but you don't be too succinct where no one even told me he's like well I knew what I was talking about so I guess he's like well when he reads it of course he given one who made the game like you know how to play so it's like well I I know the place so whenever I typed it I figured it was making sense in my head I'm like okay you I've made Rule books for myself I've tried making a board game and I I have a few ideas and when i was typing them out and my friend was with me he's like man you're really making making guy like this rule would seem like stupid you're making it seem like it's pandering to the dumbest person and you almost have to do that now I'm not saying dumb people play games I'm just saying that you want it to be almost as crystal clear as possible and to have no questions you can't sit there type or Ryan good okay well I know what happens whenever you know the Empire moves or whatever so I really have to go into detail you do because I didn't make the damn game so that was the glorious fall I wish I I may be some someone what some

31:06 of you guys have played this game or look into it that doesn't mean it's a bad game this is one of those that it was not for us but I can definitely see others who would like it a lot and I'm looking over and I actually hung up the map because the map and the board the board it's a cloth map it is awesome but the rules at this point in time the Kickstarter rules the only rules that I've have I have knowledge of and dealt with was literally the worst room look I have ever ever held my hand and that's it everyone that was the top 10 worst rule books that I have had the misfortune to read let me know if you agree or disagree let me know what robux you thought were pretty bad or terrible in the comments below also let me know if you want to see any particular top tens you'd like and other than that like comment share and subscribe and have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you hey everyone thank you for watching and I hope that you enjoyed the video if you want to help out the channel i have my patreon link right there if you want to make some suggestions on four games we like to see us run through i have my board game people is right there and for the does he don't like the facebook page on myspace before whatever time of day it is free