" If real human players are serving as the authority, the spirit of the rules is intact even if they are not followed literally. Rules are checked for reference when a debate comes up about a certain ability or tactic, but they are not a constant authority. There’s a certain flexibility present when the players have the final say on what is acceptable. They only bend the rules when it makes the game more fun." This is very good: textualism versus contextualism.

"But imagine if the writer came up with a "story" before the rules.  A "pre-rules story."  At that point, you could create the rules around that story, and even if the rules seemed unconventional or unbalanced, you could be confident that they would work as long as the story works." Erm, not really; crap rules are crap rules, even if they make sense within the story. This paragraph directly contradicts his previous (accurate) paragraph, that stories must follow the rules of the game. To then say: "but we can retrofit rules onto the story if the latter was done first" just feels wrong. One more thing on my pile of "stuff about rules".

"I think this vision of artistic expression as a form of collaboration is a truer description of the nature of game design than of any other medium, because video games are inherently interactive." Pliskin on Steve Gaynor, and the gap between the screen and the gamepad.