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

Classic board game rule...

[KDan]

Let the Wookie win.



Sorry, I had to...

Daniel

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.

Re:This is so obvious it hurts me to type it

[Andy_R]

Because the rules often don't function well as a tutorial, since they (ought) to deal with every concievable circumstance.

Also, there are some games where the rules are horribly incomplete, for example the board game Risk, which (in all the editions I have seen here in the UK) doesn't bother to explain when a player's turn ends. Differnet people use different conventions for when it's the next person's turn, and for the inadequately defined 'reinforcement move at end of turn'.

Make sure the goal is clear and obvious

[dmorin]

I've found that the one thing that makes new players get all glassy eyed is if they don't immediately grasp the goal of the game. They'll understand the rules better in the context of the goal.

The two best examples I know are Go and Chess (I just had this conversation recently after trying to teach my wife Go). Take Chess first. Beginners are taught that the goal of the game is Checkmate. This immediately causes most of them to always go after "Check" thinking that it is "almost there." And if you ever suggest to them a draw, or that they surrender, they think you're nuts. The concept of the game being over before somebody is in checkmate is lost on them. This was clearly shown during that experiment when Kasparov played the world over the net. The expert advisors recommended a draw at a particular move, but the masses said oh hell no, we want to win.

Go has the problem that, for beginners, the ending is very difficult to understand. You are probably NOT going to play until the board is full. THe game ends by mutual agreement. But a beginner doesnt really understand what goes into that agreement. So they insist on playing on.

Re:Make sure the goal is clear and obvious

[MrWa]

I think a bigger problem with Go is not the ending, it's the beginning.

Chess starts with a board populated with pieces; these pieces move certain ways and there is a very small number of first moves. Since the goal is clearer (checkmate) in chess, even the novice has a good chance of starting out alright.

In Go you have a huge board with a lot more possible first moves. If the beginner isn't aware of opening theory there is almost no way to decide where to place the first stone.

That is why starting out on a 9x9, or 13x13 at most, board is a good idea. The games are quicker, the number of moves is more limited, and you can quickly start teaching fighting (9x9) and endgame (13x13) which is needed before you understand what the point of opening theory is.

Re:Make sure the goal is clear and obvious

[Ieshan]

Teaching chess, I find the biggest problem to be explaining the concept of forced moves.

I think it's very difficult for a novice to understand that most chess strategy depends on assuming where the other person will be moving on the next move, what you'll be doing, assuming where the person will move, etc.

It's difficult to assume where someone else will move if you can't figure out where to move yourself.

That's why I find chess puzzles so helpful. Teaching chess a few times about two years ago taught me that chess puzzles are everyone's best friend. The only correct solution are a series of forced moves, and the board positions are very "coaxing". There's no way to *not* see these sorts of things, given enough examples and enough time.

Masterful chess players (Grandmasters) often offer draws at unthinkable positions because they know exactly what is going to happen. Novices never draw because they can't predict what is going to happen next.

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. :)

Re:This is so obvious it hurts me to type it

[Rupes]

> Why not just tell them to read the damn rules themselves?

Well, looking at four random but highly regarded games from my shelves (Age of Steam, Puerto Rico, Amun-Re, and Funkenschlag), the english rules average a bit over eight 8"x11" sides each. This is a bit much for three other players to read in turn before a game when the explanation could be done in parallel.

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.

I just did this last night

[Daetrin]

We've experienced the 'steep learning curve' that some games have, where the owner sudenly remembers something we should have done way back at the start, but the solution is to comprimise. If the sudden inclusion of a rule allows somebody to win, we ignore it (for this game) and carry on play. We're playing for fun, not for prizes.

I've played Cosmic a lot online, but never actually used the board game i owned. However a friend of mine and her boyfriend wanted to play a board game last night, so we pulled it out. I did the tagline bit, but then had to resort to reading from the rulebook since i couldn't count on my memory to get everything right and wasn't sure what differences there might be between the online and print version. The game had been a last minute decision and i certainly hadn't had time to look over the rules first.

We played a turn or two, and then paused while i discussed the philosophy of deciding if you want to ally with someone, and which side you want to ally on. And there was more than one point where we eitehr came to a situation that i'd forgotten to explain earlier or that we couldn't find a clear example in the rules, and we voted on what to do in the case for that game.

At one point i suddenly realized that nobody had been taking a ship out of warp at the start of their turn. I'd mentioned the rule, and we did it the first two or three turns it was applicable, but then just forgot. So i just pointed out that we'd all been forgetting, and we decided it would be simplest to just have everyone take two ships out of warp and try to remember to do it right from then on.

Re:Player's turn

[Andy_R]

That method of ending that turn gives a huge advantage to whoever goes first in 2 player games, if they ignore the neutrals and just attack the other player, victory is practically certain, since the 2nd player will get a tiny start of move bonus compared to the first player, and the first player will have the benefit of trading in cards for armies before the other player even starts to play.

Stopping a player's turn when they either no longer want to attack or have 5 cards seems more balanced (that's the way the computer version I have plays it).

The other option of taking it in turns to attack once leads to the allocation of a huge number of armies, if players get defensive, you can use all the pieces up quite quickly.

I've also seen beginners try to play that each side must keep attacking until attack is impossible!

The instruction booklet doesn't tell you which of the above systems you should actually be following.

For fortification, most people also seem to add a stipulation that the destination is either adjacent to the source (which renders the reinforcement stage very ineffective) or that the destination must be reachable without passing through enemy territory, and some play that the reinforcements can go from one source to several adjacent destinations, and others will interpret the word 'can' in your definition to mean that more than 1 army can remain at the source, others that it only means the entire reinforcement stage is optional.

Again, the instruction booklet is unclear about this, and you need to agree with whoever you are playing what method you are following