Every game has rules. You have to have a countdown to play hide-and-seek; there’s no such thing as (American) football without the gridiron markings that show the distance to a score or a new set of downs; and if you don’t leave the court after being hit during dodgeball, prepare for mutiny. These frameworks of play, whether official or undeclared, not only make games fair but determine whether or not you’re playing them. I still carry a mortifying memory from childhood of trying to join a game of soccer with classmates at recess, only to be told that I was “offside.” Maybe I didn’t want to play, anyway! (Narrator: She wanted to play.) But rules beget exceptions. Regulation play is pliable, so long as it’s in favor of mutually agreed-upon fun. You can stack draw cards in Uno. You can give each other unlimited serves to begin a volley in tennis. There’s nothing stopping you from making it up as you go along — that is, until you’re not the one making it up. Case in point: the “quiet game,” a parent-powered game that allows no points and no protest. Regulation play lasts indefinitely. Allowing the scales to tip can be a means to an end. My nephew was a tantrum-ready terror in his early years, and starting a game with him meant losing it, too, if you knew what was good for you. You played by his rules, or you didn’t play at all. I was once given the task of preventing him from bouncing his ball into the flower beds at a relative’s house, so I made a game of rolling the ball gently enough that it wouldn’t go into the soil. Inevitably, this led to competition about who could roll the ball closest to the flowers without crushing them. Like a good aunt, I allowed my nephew to determine the scoring system, so here’s how it worked: I was allowed to either lose or win “minus points.” He was allowed to receive real points, and redo his turn until he did. The house always wins. (My mother taught him chess later that year, and he eventually accepted that not every game would bend to his will and his temper.) Many well-known games feel unfair, even if they weren’t designed to be. Scrabble makes no mention of understanding any of the words you play, for instance, so you can just memorize its dictionary. Monopoly quickly allows, well, monopolies. One may ask: Why do they make the game if you can’t even win? And more important: Why do we keep playing? Popular adages do their best to wave off any hopelessness: Winning isn’t everything. Win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Winners never prosper! Wait, no, that’s cheaters. But there’s something to be said for embracing the shared fiction of play, even if you’re not the one deciding how it’s done. Not only is it entertaining; it’s precious counterprogramming to the seriousness around us. And if that means playing by someone else’s rules, I’m always willing to learn. Bonus Puzzle: Cryptogram |
