- Sun Jun 11, 2017 12:46 pm
#35912
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for the questions! Let's talk about a few things here:
1. Sequencing Not Laws. I like the way you stated this, that Not Laws can be drawn on the linear diagrams. In games that contain just one or two Sequencing rules, often showing the Not Laws is helpful, and a positive step. However, in Pure Sequencing games where all or almost all of the rules are sequential in nature, there are typically so many Not Laws generated that drawing them all out isn't usually the most optimal approach. This is an important distinction because it means that in a typical Linear game you can use the Not Laws to your advantage whereas in a Pure Sequencing game you usually cannot proceed in the same fashion.
2. Using Not Laws vs the Sequence itself in Pure Sequencing games. I think this is the specific question you were asking, whether you can focus on just the Not Laws to the exclusion of the sequence. As you probably suspect already from my comments in the prior point, the answer is that you shouldn't focus on the Not Laws. In a Pure Sequencing game, the sequence itself contains all of the relationship information you need in the most concise visual format, and thus you should use the sequence,. The Not Laws actually contain much of the same information, but in Pure Sequencing games that information is not presented as effectively from a visual standpoint as is the sequence itself. In other words, in a typical Pure Sequencing game you probably won't even draw out the Not Laws and instead will just focus on the sequence.
3. Re-reading the rules. The nice thing here is that if you've drawn out a solid sequence, you won't have to go back and re-read the rules. I personally tend to check off each rule a second time once I create a final diagram in order to make sure I've captured everything, and the value of that is that I then know that my sequence shows all the rules, and so I can avoid re-reading any of the written rules again.
Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!
