Rulebook Red Team

A pre-print ambiguity audit of your tabletop rulebook: every contradiction, undefined term, and unanswered edge case we can find, each quoted verbatim, with drafted fixes.

The problem this solves

Indie tabletop designers and micro-publishers send rulebooks to print with holes in them: a term defined on page 3 and used differently on page 9, no ruling for simultaneous triggers, an end-game condition that can fire two ways, iconography that contradicts the text. Blind playtesters catch some of it, but they answer questions in the room instead of on the page, and the designer is too close to the rules to see what is missing. The cost of missing it is a print run with a broken rulebook, a permanent BGG rules thread, and refund requests the publisher pays for. Existing options are freelance rules editors with month-long queues and four-figure fees, or nothing.

What you get

A written Rules Ambiguity Report on one rulebook (up to 24 pages), delivered as PDF plus editable Markdown. It contains: (1) a contradiction register — each place two passages disagree, with both passages quoted verbatim and located by page/section; (2) a term audit — undefined, inconsistently used, or silently synonymous terms, with a proposed glossary; (3) an unresolved-case list organised by game phase (timing and priority, ties, empty deck or supply, simultaneous triggers, end-game trigger conflicts, illegal-move recovery); (4) text-vs-component mismatches found against the card list, board layout, and icon key you supply; (5) a teach-order critique of the first-play path; (6) drafted FAQ entries in your rulebook's own register, ready to paste into an insert or forum post; (7) suggested rewrite lines for the passages we judge worst. There are no quotas: if your rulebook is clean in a category we say so and the report is short, at the same price and with no padding — a four-finding report is a good outcome, not a shortfall. Every report also includes a coverage checklist naming each rule domain examined and its result, including 'checked, nothing found', so you can see what was looked at rather than only what was flagged. Verbatim-quote guarantee: every finding must quote the exact source text; if a quoted passage does not appear in your manuscript, that finding is an error — tell us and you get a corrected pass or a full refund, your choice. Stated scope limits, on the sales page and on page one of the report: this is a text-and-logic audit, not playtesting; it cannot judge balance or fun; it cannot see problems that exist only in physical components; and its recall is unknown — we cannot tell you what fraction of your rulebook's real ambiguities we caught, so this is a complement to blind playtesting and (if your budget allows) a human rules editor, never a replacement for either. Includes one free re-check of the revised rulebook within 60 days.

Delivered: You email the rulebook PDF plus a card/component list to the contact address; the report comes back by email as PDF and Markdown. No account, no portal. · Cadence: 3 business days for the main report; 2 business days for the included re-check

Questions?

Write to [email protected] — a human reads and answers.