Teaching Novices Board Games.. Properly

Thanks to The Games Journal for their new article discussing how to teach board games to those playing them for the first time. The author provides a how-not-to guide from his own experience, citing a friend who "..had to repeatedly refer to [the] rulebook.. [and] conveniently introduced a few rules during the course of the game, usually just as he needed to take advantage of them", then suggests an 'incremental approach' to boardgame teaching, consisting of a basic outline, then more detailed fleshing-out, suggesting: "..most people don't have the patience to hear out or the ability to absorb a detailed, chronological approach from top to bottom." Is there an approach that works for you?

Comments

Don't forget "girlfriend rules"

[dmorin]

Somewhere kicking around I've got the Girlfriend Rules for 8-Ball, but they all still apply. Girlfriends are allowed as many "do overs" as required to get a move right. And when the girlfriend makes a good move, she is allowed to celebrate, sing, dance, taunt, and basically do whatever she wants - but when boyfriend makes a good move he is not allowed to make so much as eye contact. :)

Ordered teaching

[MrWa]

I think that teaching something in order is seldom correct. Most of the time the sequence is arbitrary and only easily remembered when you know the entire sequence.

A good example would be learning hiragana. James Heisig's book Remembering the Hiragana does not teach in the alphabetical order but, instead, in an order that more closely matches how a Westerner can most easily remember the characters. Teaching something so that it can be remembered, and focusing on the meaning or technicalities later, provides the needed foundation first and makes remembering in the long run easier.

Learning a game - any game - is probably better if done the same way. Focus on the easy to remember parts, the fun parts, of whatever that person is interested in, because each person will focus on different parts. For example: in AD&D, some people want to memorize tables and stats, while others just want to roleplay. By focusing on what the person is interested in first, and letting them learn and do that part, you can keep them around long enough to learn the rest.

Re:Classic board game rule...

[DavidLJ]

For anybody reallyinterested in this subject, the classic piece is probably the appendix in Lasker's "My Life In Chess," I think it is, anyway, in his autobiography. The Appendix is on how to teach chess, and I re-read it recently before teaching a seven year-old nephew the game.

The essence of it is simple -- and agree with the article that started this thread: you build up from a coherent subset of the game until you have the whole thing.

In Lasker's example you start out playing two rooks and a king against the learner's king, and drive it to a mate at the edge. You encourage the poor guy as you go along, and since there are a whole lot of escapes for a little while, they don't get the feeling of being beat up on.

Then you turn it around, and let the learned beat you, which is nice for them. Then you play king and one rook against King, and again let the kid beat you.

And so it goes. In a couple of hours you have the full board set up, the kid knows all the rules, and you're ready to discuss principles of development, pawn structure, and what-not.