Thankfully, it isn’t something you need to be alone on. And there are a few things that make it easier if you want. The standard way or just reading through a rule book most certainly won’t work for everyone. And some of my favorite games, Lords of Hellas, or games from companies that I like, Mythic Games, consistently come with poor rule books. So how do you get around all of that?

Watch A Video

It might sound odd, but there are a lot of content creators that teach you how to play games. Meeple University, Watch It Played, and more. All of them go through and teach you the game. They might not teach you the solo mode or variant rules, but they will teach you a game. And this might be the best way for you to learn, depending on your learning style.

But beyond those videos, also watch a game play. GloryHoundd always disclaims that they do “Should You Play” videos not “How to Play” because they might get rules wrong. And yes, watching a game play, someone will likely get a rule wrong. But it should give you a general idea of the game, and what is what you want. It should show you general turn structure, and basic actions of the game. Game plays are probably supplemental to reading the rule book versus fully learning, but I recommend always reading the rules.

Play As You Go

As you go through the rule book, set-up the game and play along as you go. Get used to what the actions look like on the board. Even if you don’t fully understand it, start messing with the pieces. I tend to be a fairly hands on learner. That means, for me, that reading a rule book is how I often learn, but if I can mess around with the pieces, it sticks better.

Even if you read through the rules, and even with a competitive game, set-up the game and mess around with it. Get your hands on the pieces and the mechanics of the game. Play out a few hands or turns to see how it works. Once you do that, it’ll likely help your retention as well as give you examples for when you teach the game.

Use Board Game Geek

This one isn’t going to be the most obvious for a lot of people. Board Game Geek might not even be something you’re that familiar with. It is basically IMDb for board games. But the nice thing is what they have a “files” section. This might have better written fan rules that clarify and clean up rough rule books. It might have condensed rules just to get you going. Or it might have player aids to make things easier.

Not all games will have this. But some might, and if a game is too complex or just doesn’t make that much sense, Board Game Geek, might be your best bet. I know there is a solo game Rat Catcher, which I own, and the rules are bad. But there are better rules on Board Game Geek. So this is maybe a spot to go once you know that the rules don’t teach the game well.

Learn More Board Games

Finally, learn more games. One of the best ways to get better at learning games is to learn more games. The more rule books you get your hands on, the more games that you play around with, the more common rules things are easier to pick up on. A worker placement game, you aren’t learning what worker placement is. You just get that naturally and you learn the differences in games.

You also start to learn what matters for teaching a game. What might be an exception to the rules that needs to be taught at the start versus what is an exception that can be taught in the moment. The whole goal is to be able to understand the rules faster. And the more you read rules, the more you start to get through them faster and retain more.

Final Thoughts on Learning A Board Game

This is one of those situations where I wish that there was always a simple way to learn a game. And I love it when games offer a tutorial. Sleeping Gods and Tainted Grail, both give you that away to get your hands onto the components as you learn the game. If you watched my Sleeping Gods play through, you can see that I started with that.

Now, they aren’t perfect ways to learn a game. And a tutorial is generally only meant to teach you the basics of the game. But it is really nice when they are there. Then you really only need to learn the extra things and do the tutorial. Like I said, for me, getting my hands on a game and the pieces helps things stick for me. But that might not be what is best for you. Watch It Played, Meeple University, or Jon Gets Games might be better, but known your learning style and learn more games.

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Most people who are interested in board games are going to be up for learning a new game from time to time. Though, there will be some people who aren’t interested as well, but that was a different article. So, you get the game to the table, now how do you teach people the game? I might have actually written about this before, but I think it’s worth going back over and giving some more suggestions, because this is one of the bigger barriers to entry for a lot of board games.

The rules to games are often challenging, and unless everyone loves board games, reading from the rule book won’t likely teach people. Even if the people do love board games, and someone starts to read from the rule book, I’m going to zone out, because I can just read the rule book myself if that’s how we’re going to learn. There needs to be a more engaging way to keep people involved in the rules.

Teaching Rules Steps:

1. Start out by knowing the rules yourself. That doesn’t mean that you’ve had to have played the game before, though playing a sample hand wouldn’t be bad or sample turn, just to make sure that you get it. Or you can watch videos from places like Watch It Played that go over the rules to certain games. What you’re looking to come out of is the win or loss conditions, end of game, and what people can do on their turn. You are going to want to know those things well.
2. Start with the theme of the game (if there is one). By starting with the theme, you can get people’s interest since you aren’t starting off with something dry. This is actually a time where you can read from the rule book, because some games, like T.I.M.E. Stories actually have a bit of a story at the start of the rule book. You can use whatever the game gives you to tell the story. Now, for some games there won’t be a theme you can do this with, I’m looking at abstract games or Dominion as examples, so you can skip that step.
3. Then talk about how you win or lose the game. This is going to be the most important information for people in the game. Generally it’s going to be about how you win the game, especially in a competitive game. You want to have the most victory points, you want to control so many territories, you want to empty your hand of cards first, whatever that might be. But if there’s a condition, say, if you run out of cards, that can eliminate someone from the game, tell them that too. Or for something like Pandemic, there are a lot of ways to lose the game, so talk about those while you talk about how you win. Pandemic is also a good example as to how you can combine this with step two, because you can talk in the theme about how you’re all members of the CDC who are trying to cure four diseases. In that case, you can get the information out in one fell swoop, though I would be tempted to repeat it again, just to make sure everyone knows.
4. Spend some time go over turn/round structure. This isn’t what people can do on their turn. But if you start by drawing cards, then playing two cards, then moving the villain ahead two spaces, then optionally getting an event card, explain that. This is meant to teach people who this works at a high level and what the structure is going to be through most of the game. It is also going to give you a chance to show off random decks of cards or things that the players might not immediately interact with in the game.
5. Go over what people can do on their turns. Now, this doesn’t have to be everything. Especially if there is a player aid that is good and clear. But talk about the important things that people can do on their turns. In Pandemic, explain how the moving works and how to treat diseases and how to cure diseases. Then, most of the characters have a special action that they can take. You don’t need to teach something like this which is specific to a single player, but have the players read, at this time, their special powers, if they exist, and in fact hand them out at this time, and then you can answer questions.
6. Show people the important parts of the game. But more than just showing off the important decks, let your players be involved in it. In Pandemic, as an example again, you can talk about the player deck and have someone shuffle it and hand out people’s hands of cards while you continue to teach more. It seems like it might distract from your teaching by having someone do something like that. I personally don’t think it will, in fact it might keep people more engaged. Because people are going to be paying attention so that if you ask them to help with something it won’t be obvious that they weren’t paying attention.
7. Finally, teach in the game as need be. This can be a few different things. Sometimes there are several things that only happen once or twice in the game, you can teach them in the moment when they happen. However, this only works if it isn’t something that is extremely important to the game or to the scoring. If there’s something that can give you an automatic win, teach that earlier even if it’s really rare. Or if it’s something that helps you as the person who is teaching the game and hurts someone else, teach it earlier or refrain from doing it, and give it as an example as something that you could do. Another thing that teaching in the game can be is letting players roll back a turn if need be. If someone has an extremely good move and makes a very bad move, point out the option to them, they might have forgotten or just missed it. But don’t do this all the time, because you’ll basically be taking that person’s turn and make this about teaching the game, so once you’ve taught something once during the game, you don’t teach the same thing again.

Now, there are probably more things that you can do. But being patient and teaching a game from theme first, and from a position where you know the rules is going to make it more likely that people will enjoy the game. And when people don’t enjoy the game, don’t assume that it was how you taught it, if you were trying to be considerate and engaging about it, not every game is for everyone.

Have you found any ways that make teaching a game easier? Or are there things that you’ve found help keep people engaged in learning the rules?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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