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One of the things that makes D&D 5e so quick and simply to play is its use of Conditions – simple, self-contained sets of rules that govern what happens a character suffers an ongoing "Condition" like being Stunned, Frightened, Exhausted, etc. When your character falls over, you can just flip to Conditions and look up the Prone Condition. When a spell enchants your opponent so that they fall in love with you, the spell can just say "the target is Charmed". When a unit is emboldened by a potion of bravery, the item can just say "the character cannot be Frightened".

40k 8e has a lot of rules that effectively apply on ongoing status effect to a unit, which affect what it can do and how it does them. Advancing, for example, means that a unit can't shoot (except Assault weapons) or charge, until the end of that turn. Being within 1" of another unit means you can't move (except Fall Back), shoot (except Pistols), charge, or fight. In the book itself, these rules are all localized in individual phases, often refer to phases that then get screwed with by Stratagems, and sometimes end up being redundant with each other. What if 40k borrowed a page from D&D 5e, and made these into discrete "states" for units? Think about the tokens used in Kill Team, and especially the way that Shaken units are represented.

For example, what if the Movement phase just said:
"When you pick a unit to move in the Movement phase, you can also declare that it will Advance or Fall Back".

Then, in a single page at the start/end of the core rules, you had little Stratagem-style state/condition blocks that say things like:

Advancing

When a unit Advances, roll a dice. Add the result to the Move characteristics of all models in the unit.

An Advancing unit cannot shoot or charge.

A unit stops Advancing at the end of your turn.

Falling Back

When a unit Falls Back, it can move even while within 1" of an enemy unit, but must end its move more than 1" away from all enemy units.

A unit cannot shoot or charge while Falling Back.

A unit stops Falling Back at the end of your turn.

Charging

Charging units are picked to fight before all other units in the Fight phase.

A unit stops Charging at the end of your turn, or if its charge move fails.

Would you find this simpler to use/understand than the current set-up? I also think this could help with activations, because it'd help keep track of certain states and where a unit is at, Kill Team-style. It'd let you create rules like giving units bonuses against enemies that are Falling Back, or Stratagems that target units which are Advancing. It'd also mean you could replace rules that say "this unit gains +1 Strength on a turn in which it charged" with "this unit gains +1 Strength while Charging", or change "this unit can charge even if they Fell Back earlier in the turn" to "this unit can charge even while Falling Back".

If you go to the 8 pages of core rules the single page for movement more or less has that. Would it make sense for there to be a single page quick reference sheet? Yes.

Make one and share it with the rest of us.

 Lance845 wrote:
If you go to the 8 pages of core rules the single page for movement more or less has that. Would it make sense for there to be a single page quick reference sheet? Yes.

Make one and share it with the rest of us.

What I'm primarily talking about is formalizing the concept of "conditions/states".

For example, right now the rules say:
1. You can Advance in the Movement phase.
2. If you Advance, you gain +D6 move for that phase.
3. If you Advance, for the rest of the turn you can't shoot or charge.

While I think it would make more sense, in terms of writing mechanics, to say:
1. You can Advance in the Movement phase to gain the Advancing condition.
1. A unit with the Advancing condition has +D6 move, but can't shoot or charge.
2. A unit loses the Advancing condition at the end of your turn.

Because this means you can phrase rules like "you can shoot Assault weapons even if you Advanced earlier in the same turn" more simply, as "you can shoot Assault weapons while Advancing", and it means you can skip all the confusion or specific wording about stacking Advance etc.

Does that make sense, or do you think that's actually less intuitive?

No, it makes sense in that you are cleaning up gws poor rules writing by switching to a programing like gramatical structure. It makes it easier to spot and rectify logical errors.

But whats the end result you are looking for? Are you going to rewrite all 90some odd 8th ed documents? Do you want us as a community to help with that and form some kind of living repository of structurally correct rules docs?

Or is the easier thing to make a 1 page doc that presents the information clearly and cleanly for use at the table?

RevlidRas wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
If you go to the 8 pages of core rules the single page for movement more or less has that. Would it make sense for there to be a single page quick reference sheet? Yes.

Make one and share it with the rest of us.

What I'm primarily talking about is formalizing the concept of "conditions/states".

For example, right now the rules say:
1. You can Advance in the Movement phase.
2. If you Advance, you gain +D6 move for that phase.
3. If you Advance, for the rest of the turn you can't shoot or charge.

While I think it would make more sense, in terms of writing mechanics, to say:
1. You can Advance in the Movement phase to gain the Advancing condition.
1. A unit with the Advancing condition has +D6 move, but can't shoot or charge.
2. A unit loses the Advancing condition at the end of your turn.

Because this means you can phrase rules like "you can shoot Assault weapons even if you Advanced earlier in the same turn" more simply, as "you can shoot Assault weapons while Advancing", and it means you can skip all the confusion or specific wording about stacking Advance etc.

Does that make sense, or do you think that's actually less intuitive?

Try, instead:
During the Movement Phase, a unit can choose to activate one of the following conditions: Advancing, ....

Follow that by explanations of each option.

There’s two main issues with this, though:
1. Doing this sort of thing inconsistently can be worse than not doing it at all. Case in point, see some of the issues for Infinity 3rd edition.
2. You’re summarizing the rules, and thus adding an error source.

The only rational reason to do this sort of thing is “I want to be game designer/editor/etc. in the future and I need a project to work on”.

Because the problem with this sort of thing is that you’re a rules summary, and that’s the first thing that gets discarded if there’s a question about how the rules actually work. Your summary is going to be presumed wrong if there’s an doubt concerning its accuracy, because it’s not the source document.