How To Teach Board Games Like a Pro

[Music] hello everybody if you've been watching this channel or not been living under a rock you'll know that board games these days are amazing imagine you're walking down the street and you see an X you used to go out with except it's not an X it's board games and you're like damn they're looking good these days maybe I'll set up a little board game night but I know that means teaching your friends how to play a game aka the teach aka the worst part of any board game night in 2020 of course you do have the option quite often of putting on a how to play video after your friends come over but I don't like to do that because it has the atmosphere of inviting people over to my house for a Skype call but also those videos are by their very nature slow and methodical by learning to teach games yourself like a cool surgeon you can make this whole operation more fun faster and less painful so what follows are my top 10 tips for giving white hot rules explanations to your friends specifically your friends take it from an expert teaching games to dads is sometimes impossible I've got a question for you would you invite your friends over and then when they arrive you're still sat in your dressing gown with your genitals poking out like some as-yet-unidentified subterranean mammal you wouldn't okay well then let's just start with the tip that you should try and not invite your friends over to play a game that you don't 100% know how to play as a philosopher once said if you're not reading the manual to the game on the toilet the week before your board game night you're probably doing it wrong but you know how best you learn maybe you should watch one of those rules explanation videos or play a dummy game where you control to three or four sides this is just good manners your rules explanation is going to be faster and smoother the more you know a game you're going to be able to answer questions quicker and your confidence is going to be able to help your friends relax tip one sub-clause a if a rule query ever comes up that you still don't know the answer to Google er like type the full sentence type in steam Park how do red rollercoasters work it is mind-blowing how often this leads you straight to a BoardGameGeek thread of people discussing exactly that rule a board game should not be presented as some museum exhibit instead it should be one of those cool museum exhibits that you're allowed to touch until it's time to move on ensure that a board game is completely set up before you start teaching it and that includes hands of cards to give to everybody or player characters you might hand out to your friends the one advantage you have when teaching a board game is that these are fabulously tactile objects so what you want is to give your friends permission to touch things examine things pick things up do a bit of self-directed learning as you're talking and that way they're gonna feel more engaged and more curious and hopefully less trapped so you behind your game you've set it up your friends are hopefully fiddling with stuff and getting a bit excited you're ready to do the rules but just hold off for one more second if you launch into rules right now that would be like starting a first date by making a timetable as to who should do what chores instead always begin by saying the same three answers one who are we to how do we win and three why will this be fun all right everybody this is tajmahal and in this game we are all indian nobles who are going to be accompanying the king on a tour around our country now along the way we're going to be bidding in very tight mean auctions to place these beautiful palaces of ours around the country and the one of us that does the best job will be the winner of this game I absolutely love this game the auctions are so tricky and so mean but the game is so rewarding and isn't it gorgeous also lots of the cards have a nice picture of an elephant on and he's cool and I'm gonna teach you about him in just a second by fast warming your friends up with these same three answers to again who are we how do we win and why is this gonna be fun you'll get your friends maybe a bit excited about this experience you're out to start and you'll have a table full of people who actually want to learn how to play which is really gonna help you out as you drive this fun bus into the actual deep mud of or actually teaching rules how much you need to practice your rules explanation before the big night depends on you it depends on the game but it also I think depends on how many people you're teaching if you're teaching a simple two-player game you probably don't need to rehearse if you're teaching two rooms at a boom at a wedding to 24 people and you didn't rehearse no it's it's genuinely too horrible to contemplate but at minimum look here what's a board games are a sort of forest of talking points so here are all the different discrete things you need to teach if you want to teach Great Western trail at minimum you want to know the path you're going to take through this forest of talking points to teach people the game and this is going to serve two purposes for you one an intelligent path through these talking points is going to smooth out your rules explanation and perhaps even shorten it by teaching things that are only relevant to what players have learned already and two it ensures you don't get lost and miss something out or repeat yourself I should stress as well rehearsing teaching board games is not something that only like beginners should do I still to this day I've taught thousands of board games and I still rehearse tricky rules explanations because listen it's hard teaching board games is frequently really really hard and unless you're extremely socially confident when you've got three or four friends looking at you waiting for you to talk for ten minutes straight it's intimidating and you might find that you lock up or you become nervous or anxious with a little bit of rehearsal you might find you're that much more relaxed and happy and that is gonna make all of your friends relaxed and happy as well any half-decent board game manual knows that the best way to cement rules in people's squishy heads is with examples so let's say I'm teaching negotiation SiC Chinatown I might create a situation the board where the red player here owns a tea house and wants to expand in two lakh twenty five currently owned by a green player I might have taught players the rules for negotiation but by creating an example on the board like this I can demonstrate what it looks like in practice and make sure that everyone completely understands the game we're playing here that's good right no it's not good that's me leaving an opportunity on the table because what I should done rather than a red player and a green player is bring in the people at the table whenever you use examples when teaching a game don't say red and green say okay so Matt imagine that you owned a tea house and millicent you own lot twenty five and millicent you of course won a fleece map for all he's worth but Matt you know that lot twenty five is useless to Millicent now obviously this has a bit more color and energy than if you say no imagine the blue player or imagine if player four wanted to mmm this is much more sort of peppy but the real reason you're doing it is because humans are hard-wired to pay attention to anything that involves them or where they are the protagonist of the story it is a cheap trick but by saying your friends names you will draw them in to the rules explanation as efficiently as if you were using meat hooks studies have shown that one of the big reasons people don't like to learn new games is that they're afraid to look stupid in front of a group so it is vital that you create an environment where players feel allowed to ask questions otherwise they might not understand something you say and then hold that feeling in and be unable to pay attention to what you say next until they're sat at your table resembling an unhappy bottle full of farts so if you've got players who are new to board games make sure that you tell them that you are available to answer any questions they have on any subject at all and if that means that your rules explanation gets interrupted with a question as a player goes wait what are these cards do make them feel rewarded for asking a question and not obtrusive say oh that's a fantastic question hold that thought I'll get back to that this tip is from CAV Lee over on the shut up and sit down calm comment and I love it if you have more than one player who knows the game probably don't try and teach it together okay so the first thing I want to teach you is about combat combat is gonna involve these enemies what I mean shouldn't we teach them about cards first cards from your deck before what about boffins we no instead designate one player who's going to be teaching the game and a second to be a flight attendant and assist them the flight attendants job is to be your laser pointer pointing at components that you're talking about they're gonna set up examples using components on the table of what you're saying flight attendants can also ask questions that the person teaching the game might have missed sequence you're talking a lot about fighting but how do we actually win Power Rangers ah yes that's good great here's how we win also flight attendants can consider getting snacks and beverages for the people who are forced to sit at the table listening to rules studies have shown that people are 200 percent less likely to regret coming to your house and being taught how to be a Power Ranger if someone's at least getting them a drink another pearl of wisdom from the shut up and sit down community this time from commenter CLG 6000 who says if you win a game you're teaching you've already lost now this doesn't just refer to how it's not very nice to invite your friends over for a game teach them it and then wipe the floor with them rather it refers to how you shouldn't necessarily have the ability to play a game super well because you should be so focused on making sure you're available if a friend has a question to ask you in watching your friends to make sure they don't break the rules and making them feel supported and encouraged and yes in watching your own play to make sure you don't do anything that's gonna make the beginners around you feel stupid or sad it's worth remembering that the more bored games you play the less winning and losing tends to matter to you but for beginners coming around to your house and then actually winning this new game might be the thing that gets them thinking God how much do these board game costs quite like modern board games so you should think twice before taking that moment away from them well took we're from the Bible if you beat them out of Go Fish you'll have a fun evening but if you let them beat you a go fish you might be playing games for life you know what some players really like if you're given the opportunity to play the game a little bit with a few sort of test turns before you reset everything so everybody can prove they know exactly what they're doing and perhaps you can even do this with open information players putting things like normally secret hands of cards faced up so when they do a move they can talk players through why they did that based on all the information that they had now this obviously helps people to internalize the game that you've just taught them but it's also a safety mat for any players around the table who don't yet really understand what you're doing but don't want to admit it in front of anybody else if you look around your table and think maybe one or two of your friends fall into that category then why don't you take the lead you can say you know what I think we're just gonna start by playing a few dummy rounds before we reset everything so we all are on exactly the same page that's not good ev Walla you might just have saved your friends from an amount of anxiety that they would have otherwise remembered with horror for years at worst teaching a board game can create a tense atmosphere because your friends are looking at this thing they've done or if they can learn it they don't even know if they're gonna enjoy it I mean have you ever thought about what this stuff looks like to a non gamer sometimes I think we should all be arrested the good news is you can fix this instantly by starting your board game night with a little game like the resistance or the mind or six names or startups or pits by doing that you're gonna give your friends confidence that they can learn games they do enjoy them and that this big thing you're gonna teach them next probably isn't as bad as it looks after all but also did deter you're giving them foundational learning even the most complicated modern board games are only made up of dozens of simple ideas working in parallel just as an example let's think about pandemic pandemic is built of little more than systems of action points cooperation hand management set collection trading and variable player powers and you see when you play little games with your friends you're giving them familiarity with these building blocks that are going to be used in bigger games or in the case of these checks out cooperation and management set collection trading and variable player powers by playing these five games your group are gonna find learning pandemic a breeze the only thing you actually have to teach them about is action points and in learning action points by playing pandemic that's a building block but when you teach them Twilight Imperium okay thank you very much for watching my tips everybody but one final tip if you ever find yourself at a board game convention you can do yourself a favor by just watching demo as closely these are the real heroes when it comes to teaching board games and they are the people who have teaching a game down to an art or science and I am always watching them to see what else I can learn my games if you stumbled across this video through youtubes we're now grow them let me tell you shut up and sit down is actually most famous for putting together the world's best board game videos you can see my recent review of Marvel champions for some of that or for some reviews of little bite-sized games that are guaranteed not to scare your friends away you can check out our video on 15 games to take home to your family for Christmas see you around everybody

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 329,315

Rating: 4.9776821 out of 5

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Quintin Smith, Teaching, Learning, How to Play

Id: P5fjDaFuft8

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Caudates]

"One of the reasons people don't like learning new games is that they're afraid of looking stupid in front of other people."

Wow, this is some great insight. I am definitely going to keep this is mind during future teaches.

[u/Spinpai]

I am prepping to teach On Mars this weekend and I'm glad to have this video both help me and show me that I'm not completely mad for doing all the things I do to get ready.

[u/woodsy7890]

Good lord Tip 7. That is my number one pet peeve when teaching a board game.

Nothing grinds my gears more then when I am in the middle of explaining the game and someone else chimes in and takes over/derails the explanation and my train of thought. I understand they are trying to help but I've found more times than not it makes it more confusing and slows the entire process down.

[u/SubtleNoodle]

I hadn't considered his last tip of using lighter games to teach board game mechanics but it's kind of brilliant. Much of my play group is comprised of magic players, so teaching them certain mechanics is easy. "Oh so we're just drafting cards and then I can play these ones at instant speed..." which is great, but as soon as I get someone who doesn't play games as often and I tell them "It's a deck builder" they give me a blank stare and I can tell that I'm about to have a rough time. I'll have to keep that in mind next time I'm teaching a new game.

[u/Jloother]

I have to teach Root soon. Pray for me.

[u/refrakt]

Ah this it's honestly so useful. I don't think I'm bad at explaining games but typically I'm not great at getting started - seeing the tips on setting up fully first seems so obvious but I typically would go most of the way and start explaining while I go.

The Who/How/Why bit my friend seems great at, I could definitely do with improving there.

[u/Hovercatt]

I'd like him to adress the problem of friends goofing around when you're tryinig to teach the game

[u/cevo70]

Love it. The simplicity of 1. who are we 2. how do we win 3. and why we will have fun, is a great intro technique. Quinns is the best, man.

[u/lazerlike42]

This video covers a lot of good tips about the overall learning/teaching experience. From the pure standpoint of "how do you play?" I think the most important thing is something which tip #3 comes close to saying but doesn't quite do: always, always, always, as far as it's possible, first explain the basic ways that you score points to win the game. This doesn't mean you need to go over every special way of scoring points or exception kind of bonus point you need to score. That would be overwhelming at the outset. However, I think that if you don't know at least the key ways to score points in a game it becomes very difficult to follow along with the instructions about all of the different mechanics because you don't really know what the mechanics are for.

For example, I think the one of the first things that needs to be said for different games are:

Dominion: "These green cards are victory points and in the game you will be trying to buy these cards to score points and win."

Wingspan: "Your final score will come from adding up this number from each of the birds you played, adding up how many eggs you have at the end of the game, and by completing the goals in each round. For example, in the first round your goal will be to have the most birds in the water row here."

Ticket to Ride: "Throughout the game you'll be putting out trains on these routes and you will score points whenever you do this depending on how many trains go on the route. You can also score points by connecting two different cities that are given on one of these cards here."

Viticulture (Base game): "You score points by making the right kind of wines listed on these cards and putting your worker on this spot to sell them."

Each of these games has other ways to score points and you will explain those eventually, but at the outset I think it's just so important to highlight very specifically the main goals of all of the different mechanics you're going to spend the next 20 minutes explaining. I think it's so much more difficult to follow when people do it the other way around.