How to Teach Board Games: The Broad-to-Narrow Method

Video Transcript

Hi, I’m Daniel with Love Thy Nerd. I want to discuss and suggest some good practices for teaching tabletop board and card games.

Known in the board game world as “The Teach,” it can truly make or break a gaming experience. So, whether hosting a game day at your house or teaching at a board game convention, it’s important to be able to convey the rules of a game well in order to provide a fun experience.

I just want to note that there is no one best way to teach board games. The following is my opinion and should be used as guidelines. What may work well for teaching one game may not work at all for teaching another. It may even take some trial and error to see which ways work best for you, your audience, and the game you’re playing.

That being said, I hope these guidelines will give you some good ideas and structures to consider during your teaches.

I call this the Broad-to-Narrow Method.

This approach emphasizes ensuring players have the bigger picture in mind before going to more specific instructions. By sharing the goals and themes of the game first, players should have context for the rest of the rules you’ll teach after.

We’re going to use five steps, starting with higher-level concepts and getting more specific as we get to the last step.

Step 1: Introduce Your Players to the Experience

Start by telling your players a bit about the thematic setting and their specific role in that setting.

Jumping straight into the game mechanics can be a little jarring for some. Also, the theme often helps players understand the mechanics better, as many games have strong ties between the two.

For example, in Fuse, you are a crew on a spaceship where you discover a saboteur has set many bombs around the ship, all primed to explode in exactly 10 minutes. As a team, you must cooperate to defuse all bombs before 10 minutes is up. If even one bomb is left armed, it’s still enough to destroy the entire ship.

Even games with pasted-on themes or fewer thematic ties can still draw players in and get them more engaged at the beginning.

For example, in Codenames, you can dive straight into how you’re trying to guess which words are your team’s or how to give clues for those words. Or you could talk about how there are two agencies and two rival spymasters. These spymasters must speak in code to try to get their respective agencies to decipher which of these codenames are truly their allied secret agents. But be careful: an assassin looms among the agents.

Can you identify your agents before your rivals while avoiding the assassin?

With the scene set, we can move on to explaining the main objectives.

Step 2: Explain the Goal of the Game

This is the foundation on which the rest of the teach is built. If players know the aim of the game, then everything they are going to be taught will tie back to this.

Imagine attending a cooking class. Upon arrival, the instructor immediately starts telling you to make a dough using some eggs, water, sugar, and flour.

The next thing you know, he is handing you a baking sheet, telling you to get your dough ready for baking. If you haven’t been told what you’re actually trying to bake, it’s going to be hard to know how to use your instructions.

What are the measurements? What temperature should the oven be on? What shapes of dough are required for this recipe? Am I baking one or twelve?

Not just the overall goal, but it’s also important to briefly highlight the ways in which the players can complete those goals.

For example, in Lords of Waterdeep, the goal is to get the most victory points. But we shouldn’t leave it at that. We should also give a couple specific ways in which players can get points.

We might say that players are getting most of their points from completing quest cards, which are going to need lots of adventurers and sometimes gold. Players will also get points from a couple other places, such as their Lord card and from interacting with certain buildings.

By explaining multiple ways to reach your main goal, you are not only giving a more in-depth teach, but you’re also giving them a glimpse at the basic strategies of the game.

Of course, these questions and answers can come up in the middle of the teach, but it’s your role as the teacher to get ahead of these as much as possible. Knowing the goal and how to achieve it gives purpose and meaning to the rest of the rules.

This is a good time to tell your players how long the game is in terms of its mechanics. Most games play a certain number of turns, hands, minutes, or rounds.

This segues perfectly into our next step.

Before you get to each following step, though, kindly ask if anyone has any questions about what you just went over. This is critical in helping your group stay engaged and shows them that you welcome their questions.

Sometimes this involves players asking a question about a concept you explained just moments ago. But be ready and willing to repeat yourself, as some concepts require going over them more than once.

Step 3: Explain the Turn, Round, and Game Structure

At this time, you want to explain how the game flows at a high level.

If a game has a round structure, very briefly touch on the steps and what that looks like. Maybe the game has an indefinite number of turns until the endgame triggers. Whatever it is, give the players a feel for what the game flow is like.

For example, in Clank!, players take turns playing cards in order to move, attack, and buy more cards.

These turns continue in clockwise order until one player has triggered the endgame by escaping with an artifact or until all players have been defeated by the mighty dragon.

Another example: In Pandemic, players take turns moving around the world, treating disease cubes, trading cards, and finding cures. After each turn, you will draw cards that trigger the spread of diseases on the board. The game continues until all four cures are found or one of the endgame loss conditions is triggered.

If a game has any conditions that cause your players to lose the game, this step is a good time to briefly explain what those are as well.

Some of this may feel redundant to the earlier step where we explained the goal of the game, but here you’re simply making the broad connection between gameplay and goals.

Once again, kindly ask if anyone has any questions about this portion.

Step 4: Explain the Specifics

Now that players understand why they’re here, what their roles are, what their goals are, and how the game generally flows, it’s time to dive into specifics.

Especially with more complex games, it can be easy to be overwhelmed as a teacher, since this is the most free-for-all step of the teach. If you’ve done the broad setup to get to this point, you almost can’t go wrong, as everything you teach will tie back to the big picture.

Start by running through a simulated player’s turn or a round, as applicable. Go through each step together, explaining the details as you go.

Most games these days come with a player aid, or one is listed on the back of the rulebook. Find this or know this well and run through the steps in that order.

If there are multiple player aids, make sure the players have them. That way they can follow along.

Some games may even have a section in the rulebook that simulates an example turn. There’s no harm in copying scenarios created by the developers themselves to help teach the game.

As you go, be sure to take the time to explain any iconography, available actions, turn limitations, etc.

Keeping with our Clank! example, I would mention that on your turn, you may play as many cards as you wish for various effects based on their iconography and text. Once done, discard any remaining cards and draw a new hand of five.

In detail, one at a time, mention skill, swords, gold, boots, text abilities, and Clank. Then explain movement restrictions, different rooms, and artifacts. Buying cards and collecting artifacts will lead into explaining the dragon attack phase.

Be sure to use the game’s various components during your explanation. Find examples of the different card types, resources, dice, board locations, dials, etc.

As you teach, let players hold the cards, roll the dice, and interact with other important components. Don’t be afraid to set up the pieces and cards to explain specific scenarios and rules.

Some players may have an easier time understanding the mechanics with a visual example. You can always reset the board before starting the actual game.

If the game has some complex interactions, it will be helpful to give an example of some of those complex actions instead of just explaining them with words.

Be sure not to do this for every single thing, as it can become overwhelming. Your players aren’t going to remember exactly everything anyway, so be aware of what you choose to spend extra time on.

Speaking of which, it’s okay, and better, not to teach every single rule and detail up front.

This will come with some practice as far as knowing which rules are important to teach and which ones can come up later.

For example, in Clank! again, the players don’t need to know what all the secrets do, how each and every card in the entire deck works, or how many cubes an escaped player draws before starting to play.

This exact principle applies to other areas in your teaches.

Don’t overwhelm your players with what can be explained mid-game.

Once again, at this time, kindly ask your players if they have any questions about this section of the teach.

Step 5: Time to Get Started

It’s time to figure out your starting player and get going.

It’s easy as a teacher to let your group go on their own at this point. While this can depend on your group, you’ll likely need to walk through the first several turns of the game to ensure your players understand the concepts taught.

This also reinforces that you’re there to help them have a great time and not just leave them on their own.

We’ve all done it. Players will miss an entire concept or sometimes not quite fully grasp an idea.

But be sure to continue in kindness when a player asks you about a rule that you definitely covered in detail on at least three separate occasions.

Whether it’s because they didn’t pay close enough attention or they’re struggling to understand a complex topic, your gentleness and eagerness will go a long way in facilitating a great gaming experience.

One final thought is to keep an eye on the focus and attention span of your players.

If you notice someone’s eyes glazing over, then you should consider asking if they’d like you to run through a concept again or give a specific example.

If this happens multiple times, however, it’s best to move on and keep playing, as some players might need to see it fully in action to completely understand.

As you play, it can also be easy to get caught up in your own strategy and goals.

Remember that when you are playing your favorite game, your main job as a teacher is to ensure the other players are having a great time, more so than it is that you do well in your favorite game.

Because in the end, hosting a great game is the goal.

I hope this guide helps give you confidence and structure as you share your passion with others.

Have a great time teaching.