- Accompanist (role)
- Ad libitum
- Agenda
- Aleatoricism
- Aspect
- Balance
- Bartle types
- BCG
- Conductor (role)
- Constellation
- Constructor (role)
- Co-optionality
- Cue cards
- Dice
- Dimension
- Downbeat
- Downtime
- Elegant Game
- Emergence
- End Condition
- Event (musical event)
- Extended technique
- Facilitator
- Fighting
- Flow
- Found sound
- Gameplay flow
- Genre
- Goals
- Heteronomous Music
- Horizon of intent
- Insert game
- Inspire cards
- Instrument Preparation
- Judge (role)
- Karaoke
- King-making
- Learning curve
- Ludomusical dissonance
- Meaningful Choice
- Mechanic
- Music game
- Non-idiomatic music
- Notation Cards
- Open work
- Parameter
- Pervasive Game
- Player (role)
- Prompter (role)
- Psychographics
- Quarterbacking
- Rhythm cards
- Rhythm game
- Roles
- RPG
- Rule Cards
- Speedrun
- Stacking
- Trading
- Transition
- Upgrade
- Victory condition
- Xenochrony
- XP
- Yes, and...
Cards that provide instruction to players (usually in text).
Board games
This type of prop is a classic design solution most commonly known as Monopoly's Community Chest or Chance cards. Pick a card, read it, do what is says. This has unquestionable advantages for designers, especially flexibility. In text you can put everything both as for rules and as for world-building/story. You can get very detailed about your instruction, so it's easy to provide the intended level of balance.
On the other hand, as this mechanic can be included in rules of any game what-so-ever, it doesn't reinforce any title's identity, and is rather boring for experienced players. Another disadvantage is a considerable downtime from the encounter with a wall of text. Pick a card, read it, do what it says… stop, give the card to others to read, discuss the wording… ;)
The purest example of a rule card is an island of its own which ends its impact after it is executed. The emergent options open if you put your cards on a table and let them interact with each other. This change quite suddenly makes the design process a totally different matter of time and effort, but nevertheless we'll keep the name. If the musical "instruction" is provided not in a natural language but in a traditional system, we'll call these: notation cards.
Existing decks
In music games, rule cards are easy to encounter, and more generally, for makers of 'art in a game form', putting all the rules written in a deck is a frequent go-to method as it's straightforward and the boardgaming community is not the target audience.
- Fluxfestkit Legacy — Here, Fluxus events are used as content for the card deck.
- Stay in Character — this game uses a deck of instructions for use in the context of a more complex RPG-inspired game.
- Trigger Cards — another take in the genre, this time from Auki Podcast.
- Tonic — these cards are also directed to a single player, although many possible ways of usage are encouraged
- Oblique Strategies — Brian Eno's more general constraints for overcoming creative blocks, possible to use in group activities too.
External games:
| Aphorisms Decks | Robert Fripp | sold | Guitar Craft Aphorisms are loose, inspirational rule cards and have three decks/parts: Discipline, Silence, Love |
| Art Deck | Holly Gramazio | rare | Non-musical, rule cards for drawing pictures |
| Etudes | Sharon Gal | sold | Cues deck with occasional non-standard, involved typography and Tarot inspirations |
| GSG Strategy Jam Cards | Actitect | sold | Rule cards targeted at live electronic jamming with polished graphics |
| Morgan Page Quick Tips | Morgan Page | sold | 48 cards with longer tips from a Grammy-nominated producer |
| Music Bravo | Rrrrrose Azerty | mix | Rule cards and inspire cards combined |
| Oblique Strategies | Brian Eno Peter Schmidt | sold | Traditionally used in the studio this deck is now the classic of a rule cards genre |
| Patch: The Card Game | James Cigler | sold | A deck for exploring modular synthesis with card types like "Abstraction", "Progression", or "Disruption" |
| The Songwriting Decks | Friedemann Findeiser | sold | From Holistic Songwriting, split into Melody, Harmony, Lyrics, Rhythm, and Structure |
| Tonic | Scott Hughes | sold | This game comes with dice and a deck where each card is a simple improvisational activity |
Universal deck
32 cards attached to this page are supposed to be suitable for different ensembles in the context of free (and not so free anymore) improvisation. There are no conflicting rules so you should be able to pick randomly a few of them and still follow all.
musicgames_rule_cards_deck.pdf
A simple activity is to let all the players add a rule one by one (stacking). You can then use rule cards as a backup for people who don't have an idea (let them choose one of three random cards).