Who Teaches the Teacher?

There's a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indiana Jones is brought face-to-face with the person who has manipulated both Indy and his father in order to find the holy grail: Walter Donovan. Indy is surprised by this, as Donovan seemed so friendly and forthright before. And for good measure, Donovan had told him at the beginning of the movie, "Don't trust anybody." Surely he didn't mean to include himself in that?

Betrayal by the sage who initiated one's adventure is a well-worn trope and, if the number of movies it appears in is any indication, makes for great cinema. It does not, however, make for great board gaming. And, unfortunately, for those of us who teach board games, it can sometimes give us an unfair advantage.

Shut Up and Play!

Have you ever been to a concert where the band onstage, instead of doing what they've been paid to do, practices for their future career as the voiceover guy for America's Home Videos? The cry of "Shut up and play!" rises from the audience (or if you, like me, attended mostly Christian rock concerts as a youth, in Christian charity you silently bore ill will toward those onstage, especially if they were the opening act).

Well, a similar problem can plague you when you try to teach the rules to someone. You want to get every rule in, but there are some around the table who either have played before, who understand more quickly than someone else at the table, or who have a low attention span. They cry, "Let's learn as we go!" the board gaming equivalent of "Shut up and play!"

Consistency, consistency, consistency!

One of many things I've learned about grammar and editing is that there aren't as many hard-and-fast rules as your high school English teacher might lead you to believe. But while many things are permissible, that is not a license to abandon all rules. The key is consistency. If Webster has "mind-set" and you want to spell it "mindset," most people won't question you—so long as you are consistent.

This example may seem silly, but the same principle, I've found, applies when teaching board games and especially while writing rules for a game. Consistency is key, and there are few things more infuriating when you're trying to learn a game than inconsistency.

Patience: A Teaching Virtue

I'm typically the rules explainer in my group. I think part of this reflects my skill set. As an editor by trade, I'm used to following rules. In fact, I get paid to make sure other people follow the rules, and I'm often the one writers make fun of at their conferences. So for me to be a rules explainer is a logical progression.

Being a rules explainer has its perks. For one thing, you get to see the light of understanding go on for new players. It also makes learning players less likely to suspect you are a spy in The Resistance. But it also has its challenges and pitfalls and is sometimes a hard territory to navigate.

As someone who is frequently tasked with explaining rules to board games, I've decided to talk about the good and the bad of rules explaining (and maybe rules writing) in a series of posts. I'll talk about strategies for helping new players understand games as well as ways to handle the typical distractions and advice for which situations merit which games. Today's topic is a fitting way to begin, the crowning virtue of explaining rules, without which you will almost certainly go awry in any circumstance: patience.

My Rules for Games

As my first post for I Slay the Dragon, I thought it might be a good idea to explain some of the things I value in board games. Here is a list:

• Simplicity of rules. This is not to say that I like games that are easy; I like games that are simple. There's a difference. I find that the games I enjoy playing most are easy to learn and teach and allow the player to fill in the gaps. The rules these games have seem intuitive (at least from the inside), and they allow a seamless playing experience. The rules give the player the canvas, but allow him to paint whatever he wants. A game that exemplifies this for me is Dominion. Dominion is so easy to teach and understand--every turn follows ABC. But each game is a new experience, and the cards interact with each other differently. I've played games where a card one game is the card everyone buys; it's one of the exhausted piles. The next game, no one buys a single copy. Simple rules, but lots of strategy within those confines. (Incidentally, I feel the same way about books: the best books are not those that include pages and pages of description for every detail; they're the ones that allow the imagination to run wild.) Oh, and perhaps the argument most in favor of simplicity: it's easier to find other people to play with.
  
• Good-natured. I don't like games that encourage meanness because this often bleeds over to the after-game time. My sister beat me consistently at Risk, and it was hard to spend time with her afterward because she was so merciless within the game. The game encourages ruthlessness, and when you see those characteristics brought out of your friends in one context, you imagine it's possible for them to resurface in other contexts too. This is not to say that a game cannot be competitive. Games have winners and losers; that's the nature of games. But losing in a game should not make a person question his worth as a human being. The games I like best are the kind where the players can walk away as friends, saying, "This time it happened this way, but next time could be different!"

Run for your Life, Candyman

As you may or may not have garnered from a recent post, I am working on designing my very own board game.  I started this project in high school, and even got it to a point where I submitted a proposal to Mayfair games.  Apparently the proposal was well-written, because I received a response requesting to see my rules.  Unfortunately (as is very clear to me now) those rules were sloppy, overcomplicated, and just not very fun.


I took a break from the project for several years, but I recently rediscovered the rules and have been thinking about them for a while in the back of my mind.  Then, just a few weeks ago, I had an epiphone and figured out a completely new mechanic for the game that was significantly simpler and more-fun-sounding.  So, my work on the project restarted, and i've made loads of progress since then.