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Teaching Games (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

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Welcome to pick Up and Deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder
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when I leave my car and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
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I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a lovely
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day here in suburban Chicago. I've just dropped off my car for my daughter
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who will need it a little bit later in the day, and I'm walking
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home. Well, I just listened to a strong episode of So Very Wrong
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about Board Games and they were reviewing a topic that they did a long time
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ago called teaching games or something like that, and I enjoyed the episode,
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and he realized, I don't know if I've ever done that before, or
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if I have, it's been a long time since I've talked about that here
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on the podcast. So I thought I would talk today for my walk home
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and about my approach to teaching games, what I like, what I don't
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like, and give you some feed some insight into it. The long and
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short of it is that I feel a lot about teaching board games the way
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that's So very Wrong about games guys do, Although there is one crucial thing
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they left out, so we'll get to that. So generally, I'm going
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to talk about how I teach complicated games, although my approach to teaching simple
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games is similar, it's just faster. But the complicated games are harder to
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teach, so I'll start with those and work backwards to simpler games. To
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start with. For a complicated game, first thing I'll do is talk to
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people who are going to play, arrange that we're going to play, and
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give them a link to how to play video. Now. Not everybody's gonna
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watch it, not everyone's gonna have time to watch it, but generally,
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if one or two other people have watched it before you go to teach it,
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that helps a lot because they'll often remember things that you didn't remember.
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Now. Of course, the experience is much different if I'm teaching a game
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I've had a chance to play. So I'm going to operate here on the
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idea that I have played the game before. So let's say that I was
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going to teach each ark Nova right now. That's a very different experience than
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if I'm teaching a game I haven't played before, but the preparation is a
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little bit different. So if I have not played the game before, then
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generally my preparation for teaching a complicated game is to first watch a how to
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play video. I do this because it gives me a path to take in
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my mind through the rule book. As I'm reading, I have a sense
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of context for what the rules are. I don't always do that. Sometimes
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I'll just jump right into a rule book first, but I like it.
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If I'm able to grab a how to play video first, then I will
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read the rule book. If I'm thinking ahead or thinking thoughtfully, I will
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consult the player aids that are available for that game and see whether or not
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those are the player aids that I want the players to have. By way
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of example, when I recently learned and taught Evacuate, I decided that the
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player aids the game came with were insufficient, so when on board game geek
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and found a couple of player aids that people had made and printed those out
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so that peop would have more access to those. This is also true of
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a recent play of Coinbra I did. I went and printed out some player
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aids for Combra, mostly because both of those games have a lot of icons
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and no words on the different components, so you have to pass around icon
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legends, and generally people don't have those handy, and the game doesn't usually
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come with them, or it comes with one on the back of the rule
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book, and that's insufficient for my taste. So I will usually make some
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player aids, or copy some player aids, print out some player aids if
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I can. So this is all in the service of prepping the game.
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I also generally, if it's a new game, I'll punch it and sort
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it and prepare it for setup. So I think about I go through the
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rules for setup, and I look at what do you have to do and
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set up? And I generally package the components in a game based on setup
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needs. So for example, if you're as a player, you get all
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the pieces of a certain color, and then you get the financial the money
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that you're starting money, and some resources or something. Assuming that the game
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has enough resources where it's not burdensome to have some missing, I will put
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all the resources that you start with in the bag with the player pieces,
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so that at setup I can toss you a bag and that gives you everything
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you need to set up your station. That varies by game, of course,
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but that's generally my approach. I'll often then package components in the same
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way. You know that components that need to be separated are often packaged and
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separate containers, although sometimes that just depends on how annoying it would be to
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separate them and how much extra work it makes at the end of the game
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to have to separate them out back again. So again, this is all
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preparation before I actually start the teaching process. Then when we're going to play,
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if I get the or first, I will set up the game for
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the number of players and kind of get everything in place where I can.
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That way, I'm not making players impatient while I'm figuring out where everything goes.
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This is an important part of the process because a lot of players find
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it boring to sit while you're setting things up, and what you don't want
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to do is start the game process having players feel bored. If the players
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are there during setup and it's possible, I will give them things to do.
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Hey, can you please put these tokens on that board? Hey can
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you shuffle these cards so that not only does the game get set up faster,
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but they also don't feel useless sitting there while I'm setting things up.
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We're past setup, We're ready to do the teach of the game the one
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plays. This is the place where I differ dramatically from the so very wrong
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about games people, And in fact I think I fit much closer to Richard
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ham or Rado in the way that he talks about game teaching and game learning,
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which is I start with the theme. For me, what we're doing
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in a game is about the community we're making around the table and about the
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story of the game is creating. Sometimes that story is very theme forward,
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meaning that what you're doing feels really thematic. Sometimes it's sort of a light
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sprinkling of artwork on an otherwise themeless game. Either way, I like to
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know what the story the game purports to be telling is. Sometimes I'll introduce
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that verbally. As often as not, the rule book has a short paragraph
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that provides that theme, and I will read that aloud or ask someone else
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to read it aloud. This sets up what the game is, establishes the
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story of the game. Then I will make sure if the game did not
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properly establish it, I will make sure to establish who the players are in
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the context of the game. What are we doing, who are we what
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is our purpose? I find that helps It helps you to learn what the
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rules are and why they are the way they are. If you know what
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your role in the story is. Human beings are storytelling creatures. This is
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where I reconvene with the so so very wrong about games folks, because then
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the next thing I do is I start with our objective. What are we
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trying to do? In other words, how do you win? We are
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trying to do this, and here's how you do it. So in Seven
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Wonders, we are trying to build our civilization in a way that earns the
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most points. You get points through playing cards to your civilization space called your
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tableau, and the points are added up at the end of the game.
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That would be kind of the introductory part to Seven Wonders. Once I sort
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of introduced what we're doing, then I will usually then usually the next thing
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we do is talk about game flow. It depends on the game. There
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are occasionally games where some other thing has to come first. So there are
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occasionally games where some other thing has to come first. Some other explanation of
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broad concepts, but generally I will start with the flow of the game.
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So again I'm just seeing you Seven Wonders throughout just well, no, I'll
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switch it up, I'll switch it up. What did I say Arkanova?
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So I might say, you know, I would explain how you win.
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You win when you're two scoring. When someone's two scoring pieces connect, then
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that triggers the end of the game. Everyone else gets one more turn,
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and then we add up points. Then I would talk about the flow of
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the game. I would say Arknova is played in a series of turns.
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On your turn, you're going to select one of your action cards in front
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of you and do what it says on it. Then you'll move your action
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card down to the bottom of this list, this row of five cards,
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and it's the next person's turn. Wherever your the card that you select is
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in your line of cards. That's how much power that card has when you
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activate it. So the further to the right it is, the higher number
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it has above it, the more powerful the action. That might be how
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i'd introduce the flow of ark Nova. Then I would point out the board
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and talk about how the individual cards work. So as quickly as you can
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get into how the game actually works, the better you know. If there's
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rounds and turns, you might say this game is played in a series of
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rounds. In each round, each player gets one turn, or you might
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say, you know, that'd be like Brass, or you might say in
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Actually, in Brass, you would say each player gets a turn, and
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then in the next round, the player who spent the least money in the
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last round goes first. For other games, you might talk about how the
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round goes as long as you have actions to do. In Orleans, you're
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going to place your discs on action spaces, and then we're going to take
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turns using those action spaces until everyone has passed. Some players might pass before
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others. They will just sit out and wait until the round is done.
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So again, we start with theme. We explain who we are and what
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we're doing, the talk about how you win. Then I explain the rhythm
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of the game, and then I'll explain individual turns. Generally, I will
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explain big concepts when they become relevant for individual turns. Brass is a useful
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one there because Brass has a couple really big concepts that you have to understand
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in order to play the game. Some people might be inclined to explain them
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at the beginning. They might be inclined to explain how the resources work,
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how the selling things work, how the networks work. I don't do that.
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I start the game, I talk about how things go, and then
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I'll introduce those segments as I talk about the early turns of the game.
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For me, the context becomes the way the mental hook you can hang the
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idea on so that you can understand what's going on. If you don't have
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the context, it's really hard to hang on to why you would need to
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know that or where to put that information. You mean, if you do
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remember it, having the context is crucial for me. The narrative side is
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the crucial way that that context becomes or that that information becomes contextualized. To
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go back to Brass, there's in Brass there's the rule about beer. Well,
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it's really useful to explain what I think as the game player, what
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I think the beer is about. And I'm like, the beer simulates the
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fact that a big part of business is about relationships and negotiation, and so
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when you sell something in Brass, using a beer represents building a social relationship
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with that perthin and that playing a crucial part in making the sale. So
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you need to have beer available to represent that. That's an example from the
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Vladimir Succi game, like evacuation is very thematic. I know I haven't talked
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about it yet on the podcast, but one way to think about that is,
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you know, you have your materials in the old world and you have
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your materials in the new world. As you pay for things in the old
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world, you have to use resources in the old world. It makes sense
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because that where the resources are. Sort Of explaining things through the theme gives
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players a way to understand what they're doing. And then finally, once I've
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kind of explained the ebb and flow of the game, then I would remind
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people, so the game ends when this happens, and then here's how we
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determine the winner. So I've kind of told people twice what your objective is.
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Often at the beginning time, when I'm explaining how you win, I
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will also mention what makes the game end, because I hate when people forget
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when people find the game ending and they didn't expect it to. So a
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couple more things about my teaching style. One, I do look for pitfalls
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on so very running ball games. They called this the Splotter effect, but
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the idea is that there are some things that if you don't know they're there.
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As a new player, they can really get you. An example would
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be playing blood Rage. It's useful to know there are some cards by which
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players can win a battle by losing a battle if you play some of the
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cards for Loki points by losing, and a player who gets a lot of
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those cards can be very effective. Similarly, in Seven Wonders, I'll talk
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about the science cards in Seven Wonders are often spread out among people, but
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if one person is able to get a lot of them, there are a
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lot of points available for them. In Seven Wonders, I also would talk
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about in Seven Wonders often getting a lot of points a lot of cards from
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the same color will give you bonuses. I don't know if I say that
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very often, but I particularly will talk about like the science scores dramatically more
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the more of them you have, so keep an eye out for that.
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I try not to do that too much. Mostly, I'll look for places
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where making a mistake can cost you dramatically. With nucleum, for example,
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you would I would caution people to be careful about which tiles they're using as
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their railroad tiles, because if you give away all of your tiles that do
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a certain action, then the only way you can do that action is to
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use your wild tile, which is not very effective. So I don't generally
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offer too much strategy, but I will sort of do warnings for potholes.
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Another thing that I do that I actually got from the Shut Up and Sit
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Down video about teaching games one is I try to give people their pieces right
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away, say they have something to fiddle with. And two, I try
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to answer questions if they come up. And this I think also puts me
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at odds with a lot of other games teachers. A lot of people don't
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like a question to come up in the middle of a teach and don't want
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to answer it. My approach is that the person who is asking that question
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is asking it because it occurred to them now somehow in the teach that idea
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has come up, and if I can answer it quickly, I will do
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so because I don't want them to bother them as they're trying to listen to
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the rest of the rules, Like, you know, can you play this
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when it's not Can you play an action card when it's not your turn or
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an event card when it's not your turn? I don't know what game that
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would be pandemic And if I'm like, I'll cover event cards later and then
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I can teaching. Well. Somewhere in their head, their brain is going
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well, But what about event cards? Can I play them when it's not
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my turn? So if I can answer it quickly, I will, or
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often I'll give a partial answer and say I'm gonna do more detail about that
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later. Like somebody would say, you know, can I build Do I
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have to build stuff in my network in Brass? And I don't know why
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I wouldn't have addressed that already, but I or do I have to have
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Does the shop have to be in my network to sell something in Brass?
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My answer would probably be it doesn't. I will explain that in more detail
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later. So I like to answer questions as they come up, but I'll
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often defer complex ex explainations to later. The last thing I do caution them
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is, you know, I learn and play a ton of games. I
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might very well miss something. I apologize in advance if I remember a rule
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later, but I want us to play by the rules, so I'll do
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my best. If I remember something I forgot to say later, I will
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bring it up as soon as I can, and we can decide how to
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deal with it based on how late in the game it is and how big
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a deal it is. So I've had games where I mentioned a thing and
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we realize we play two thords of the game the wrong way, and we're
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like, well, we'll just finish the game the wrong way rather than suddenly
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changing how the game works, unless some people benefit from that rules error and
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other people not. Other times we've just changed the rule because oh, this
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is the rule. It turns out, let's play it correctly. So a
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lot of it depends on having players that give you a little bit of grace,
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which is important to me as well. So what teaching tips did I
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miss? Head over to board game get Fill three two sixty nine and share
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with me which tips you would add as part of your instructions about how to
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teach a game right. I'd love to hear them, and I can't wait.
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Thanks for joining me on my walk today. I hope your next lot
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is supposed into his minds. Go bye. Brought to you by rattle Box.
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I H H.