If you are reading my articles, you know that I love board games. I don’t care if they are light, fast, and fun or bit complex and thinky. If there are good elements to the game that I can latch onto, I’ll enjoy it. The downside of loving so many board games is that I am often teaching people new rules for those games. So let’s talk about what can make a good teach.

The order below is in no particular order. You’ve been warned.

Know The Board Games’ Rules

First, you need to know the rules to the game. I like board games, and I which I could just sit down and teach it from the rule book. But almost no rule books are written that way. So when it comes to teaching board games, you need to know how to play it first.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you need to have played it. I know people who do set it up and play it two handed for a few turns to learn the game. But that is not something that you need to do. If you are good at internalizing rules and ideas without it being out in front of you, you reading the rules is going to be enough.

I love board games, but if someone is just reading from the rule book word for word, I will zone out. Most rule books are written as technical manuals and not stories or engaging processes, so learn it ahead of time. Or give me the rule book and I will read and learn the rules myself.

Show and Tell

When it comes to board games you have it sitting in front of you. So show what is happening. Find a card, move a piece, whatever it is, make it so it’s not just learning from what you are saying. I find that for most people this is going to help them internalize the rules a whole lot quicker. And my bottom thing will help with that even more.

You might think that it’s tricky to do, but taking a moment and setting up the board or a situation that you can show will help. The great example of this is Faraway. It isn’t hard to learn, but the scoring is weird, so set-up an end game state and show people how it works. Then it is not that hard to learn and play.

Don’t Teach EVERYTHING

A big trap when teaching board games is teaching everything. You do not need to do that. In fact, it makes it harder for people to learn. You need to teach the basic concepts and not the exceptions. You should know the exceptions yourself, this goes back to point one. But you don’t need to teach them.

When an exception comes up, it’ll feel like that and you can teach it then, because it’s going to be weird. Or, maybe it’s less an exception and more a special rule. If this situation occurs you can make this move. Chess with castling for example. It is not a standard move, but it is important to the game. And this ties into the next thing on my list, so let’s move to there.

Learning Games

It’s okay if a board games first play is a learning game. In fact all first games are going to be learning games. There is so much in terms of strategy and more that you can’t fully understand on your first play of a game. Now, this can mean playing a full first game. Or it might mean that you play two rounds or three and once everyone kind of gets into the flow and understands what is going on you restart. A ten minute game, I expect to play it, learn as we go, and shuffle up again. A three hour game, maybe two hands and then restart.

The Elevator Pitch

This is probably the first thing that you should do when teaching. Or maybe it is even before the teach, but explain the game in some ways. We are making our best meal over three plates and dessert. What game is that, Sushi Go Party. We are explorers delving into the jungle and finding and researching artifacts and fighting monsters. That’s Lost Ruins of Arnak. Get people on board with an idea.

It’s the same with a movie, book or television show. If you want people to be interested, you have to hook them fast. So give the quick elevator pitch. And often times it can help you teach the rules in the future. Arnak is a whole lot easier when you teach it as exploring, researching, and fighting versus deck building and worker placement. Yes, that is what you are actually doing, but less memorable.

Make The Board Games’ Teach Interactive

Finally, make the teach interactive. This is the one that I said tied into the other point for a good teach. But board games are an interactive thing. And this is beyond showing and telling. Let the players help with set-up. Give them cards to shuffle. Let them place pieces, theirs and others, on the board as you teach. This helps with the player engagement and takes some of the burden of setting everything up and teaching at the same time.

Plus, let’s say it’s variable tokens that go on the board. As you explain them then give them to a player and let them put them out. They will connect what those tokens are with what you are teaching. Or as you explain how a deck of cards works, give them the deck, let them look through it and then shuffle it, it’ll connect that deck more to them. It’s how people learn best, and why writing is important because it helps you brain learn reading and spelling better that way.

Final Thoughts on the Board Games’ Teach

There are different ways to do it. And people learn in different ways. But don’t overestimate how a good teach can make a whole game better. It might even change someone’s opinion on a game.

An example of a really bad one was the first time at Gen Con. My friend and I were learning Letter Jam and the person who was teaching didn’t mention one important thing. The game is cooperative. So my friend was wondering why we’d help the others learn their letters and words. That doesn’t make sense other than that the game makes us do that at least once as part of the rules. That is absurd in terms of a bad teach, and a bad teach for a game that we both like.

But a great teach can do the opposite and make a game even more fun to play.

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