Coloring Inside The Lines

This is a manifesto professing an approach to both playing and designing TTRPGs. It is primarily interested in rules systems as structures, and games as rules systems being decorated and navigated through by the players. Alternate titles include "Against Imagination", "A War On The Infinite", and "Rule Negative One".

To those of you who have ever struggled with the implicit social rules of convincing other players to let you have your way, who have ever wanted to see how a game works out and been disappointed when nobody actually uses the rules, who click their tongue whenever a game includes the "Golden Rule" and acts as though that's somehow a virtue - this one's for you.

Made for the  2025 TTRPG Manifesto Jam.

Cover image is a cropped version of Cat Coloring Pages For Adults - Printable Coloring Book, accessed through the Wikimedia Commons and used under the CC 4.0 license.