The founders of statistics were a bunch of drunk gamblers so I’m used to seeing parallels between games of all kinds and science. In that vein, Andrew Gelman writing about cheating at board games made me think of cheating in clinical trials, only the right parallel there would be cooperative games in the style of Pandemic and the many Arkham/Eldritch Horror games made by Fantasy Flight.
These are tough games — Eldritch Horror in particular — where players and rule keepers are one and the same and all on the same team. And they are easy to beat if the players are willing to fudge a rule here or re-roll the dice there. And to be clear some of the rules are punishing including — from my absolute favorite, Arkham Horror: The Card Game — The Grim Rule:
If players are unable to find the answer to a rules or timing conflict in this Rules Reference, resolve the conflict in the manner that the players perceive as the worst possible at that moment with regards to winning the scenario, and continue with the game.
The Bonferroni correction for multiplicity could be a form of TGR, as could sensitivity analyses with particularly harsh assumptions. Note that TGR is a shortcut intended to enhance enjoyment of the game. Sure, your investigators may be devoured by Cthulhu or all go insane, but even that is more fun than 30 minutes spent looking up and cross-checking arcane footnotes in thick rule books, or worse yet trawling through Reddit for rule tips. Note also that clinical trials and science are not there (only) for fun and enjoyment and that applying TGR has consequences more serious than having to restart a game.
Which is to say, it pays off to be more thoughtful about your analyses and assumptions when designing a study and think — am I making this assumption and doing things this way because I don’t want to fool myself, or because the alternative would take too much time? The same goes for assumptions that are too lenient, but of course you already know that.