I thought I was great at teaching new players until last Friday

I've been explaining board games at my local shop in Austin for years and always jumped right into the rules. Last week a guy asked me "but what am I TRYING to do" after 10 minutes of me talking about action points and turn phases. Now I start with the win condition first and it saves like 15 minutes of confusion. Has anyone else had that moment where you realized your teaching method was backwards?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair59721d ago

Oh man, the "but what am I trying to do" question hits hard. I had the exact same wakeup call when I was teaching Terraforming Mars and got about 15 minutes into explaining project cards and resource conversion before someone just stared at me and said "okay but why." Now I literally start every game with "the point is to have the most victory points by the end" or "first one to 10 points wins" before I even touch the box. It's wild how much time it saves when people know the destination before you start explaining how to get there. I used to think I was being thorough by explaining every system first, but now I just say "here's how you win, here's what a turn looks like, and the rest we'll figure out as we go.

mitchell.lee21d ago

Yeah that's basically how I roll now too, way less headaches that way.

the_stella21d ago

Oh man, @blair597 that Terraforming Mars story is basically my life. I once spent a good 20 minutes explaining the intricate worker placement rules of some heavy euro game, complete with a hand-drawn flowchart, only to have a friend ask "wait, do I want more points or less points?" That was the moment I realized I should probably lead with the goal instead of burying it under a pile of mechanics. Now I just say "first to 10 points wins, here are three ways to get them, and the rest we'll screw up together." It's way more fun and people actually remember how to play instead of giving me that deer-in-headlights look.