Best Practices for Teaching New Games
While listening to the episode with Epidiah Ravachol, I was struck how well Jason Cordova was able to sum up games concisely. Since The Gauntlet is is firmly in the playing games camp, what are the best techniques to teach games and to prepare to teach games? Assume that no one besides the facilitator has read the rules.
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Know what are critical rules, and what are rules you can bring up during play. Some things have to be known off the bat, and some can be touched upon at the start and brought up later. You don’t want to flood a newbie with too much else their brain may turn off due to overload.
Also, have an analogy, a quick simple demonstration just in case someone seems confused by how it works.
This advice may or may not be influenced due to working IT quite a bit.
Know what are critical rules, and what are rules you can bring up during play. Some things have to be known off the bat, and some can be touched upon at the start and brought up later. You don’t want to flood a newbie with too much else their brain may turn off due to overload.
Also, have an analogy, a quick simple demonstration just in case someone seems confused by how it works.
This advice may or may not be influenced due to working IT quite a bit.
Having played it previously helps a lot! Our group usually struggles for a while to get a handle on a game we are all coming to for the first time.
Having played it previously helps a lot! Our group usually struggles for a while to get a handle on a game we are all coming to for the first time.
I do what Avery McDaldno suggests in Monsterhearts, which is to say I teach a game concentrically.
Start with an overview of what the game is about; 2 or 3 minutes should do. Always be sure to highlight the movie or TV show the game most closely resembles (that is the fastest way to understanding, I’ve found). This is also the best time to have the tone conversation.
Then teach them the things they need to know for character creation, but in the most general way possible. So, for example, if the game has stats, just give a broad overview of what each stat is for. That’s enough to get most people going, and if you get any more specific than that, you’re going to lose them.
Once you start the game, just keep very focused on the fiction. This ensures people will be having fun right away, even if they don’t have the whole picture in terms of the rules. If a mechanic gets triggered, teach it at that point.
ONE BIG CAVEAT: if the game has a mechanically-enforced end condition, you need to teach that up front. Any time there is an end state, or if the game has a competitive aspect that players need to be aware of throughout the game, you need to teach that stuff before you get too far in, otherwise the players are going to feel cheated..
I do what Avery McDaldno suggests in Monsterhearts, which is to say I teach a game concentrically.
Start with an overview of what the game is about; 2 or 3 minutes should do. Always be sure to highlight the movie or TV show the game most closely resembles (that is the fastest way to understanding, I’ve found). This is also the best time to have the tone conversation.
Then teach them the things they need to know for character creation, but in the most general way possible. So, for example, if the game has stats, just give a broad overview of what each stat is for. That’s enough to get most people going, and if you get any more specific than that, you’re going to lose them.
Once you start the game, just keep very focused on the fiction. This ensures people will be having fun right away, even if they don’t have the whole picture in terms of the rules. If a mechanic gets triggered, teach it at that point.
ONE BIG CAVEAT: if the game has a mechanically-enforced end condition, you need to teach that up front. Any time there is an end state, or if the game has a competitive aspect that players need to be aware of throughout the game, you need to teach that stuff before you get too far in, otherwise the players are going to feel cheated..