Nine tips for learning board games

Want to get new games to the table? You'll want to learn them first.

There are two major barriers to entry getting a new game to the table. The first is having a proficient teacher to ensure those playing the game understand the rules, focusing in on how the mechanics function and intertwine, as well as the basics of strategy. It’s a topic I wrote about in August, and I’m constantly trying to hone my own teaching skills. You can never be too good a teacher, after all — I’m not where I want to be quite yet.

Nine tips for teaching board games

The second barrier is learning the game. Even the best teacher can’t upend the need for somebody to learn, whether that’s immediately at the table or before game night starts. That’s the barrier I’d like to focus on today, because it’s one that took me time to figure out.

Pay close attention when being taught the game

As somebody who’s taught plenty of games, I know how frustrating it can be when people aren’t actively listening to the rules explanations. As somebody who’s learned plenty of games, though, I completely understand why that struggle exists. Listening to a rules explanation from nearly anybody is a difficult task.

It’s not just about appearing to listen or maintaining eye contact — paying close attention is a personal consideration, and finding the right way to do so may feel like you’re calling back to being in a classroom. Maybe that’s true, and maybe that’s not a bad thing. Here are some tips I try to follow when I’m paying close attention.

• Take notes — even if I never go back to the notes, the act of taking the notes helps lock in information.

• Put your phone face-down on the table — this seems simple, but it’s easy to forget. It’s not just to show you’re paying attention (that matters, too, because it’s way more polite), but it’s also to put yourself in the right mindset.

• Ask questions — but ask your game teacher before you start if you can ask questions throughout. If you’re trying to think of questions, you might find yourself in a better position to think about the rules critically.

• At the end of a section of rules, parrot back a brief statement of what you learned. “Thanks, Bert. So, to repeat back what you said, when I lay farmers in a field, I don’t get them back, but they are worth three points for every completed city touching the field. Is that right?” You retain much more information when you repeat it.

• If the game’s particularly complicated, consider following along in the rulebook — maybe you have a second copy of the game for some reason, or maybe you’ve pulled up a PDF on your tablet. Either way, knowing where to get information will help you learn the rules more easily. Just be sure you’re looking up often and not just reading the rulebook yourself. That’s kind of rude.

Play the game with somebody experienced

One of the best ways to really learn a game is to play it with somebody who knows what they’re doing. Have you been thinking of playing Agricola, but you’re just a bit stumped by the best way to ensure you’re playing with a modicum of strategy? Finding someone to play the game with that truly understands it will benefit you. Watch what they do on their turn. Ask questions, if they’re the sort of person that’s open to that. In fact, if they’re not, don’t seek them out for this reason. Maybe do that if you’re looking for a challenge, but not if you want to get better at the game. 

Play a digital implementation

I recently learned Sky Team, and I’ve been playing it constantly on Board Game Arena for a month and a half with several friends, including a reader that reached out a while back when I told folks to add me on BGA. (Username’s moonty over there, by the way.) It’s been a great game, and I’ll talk about that more next week, but my point is this: Playing it digitally really taught me the game fast. It was immediately clear what I could and couldn’t do on a turn, and I had a very clear perspective on what winning looked like. When I finally got a copy of the physical game and played with my wife, it was straightforward, both to teach and to play.

Read the rulebook — seriously

I know reading the rulebook seems like an obvious suggestion, but often I see recommendations encouraging players to just watch a video instead of opening a tired old rulebook. You know what? I love rulebooks. A good rulebook is an important part of a game, and a bad rulebook should be an indicator that maybe there are some flaws deeper within the game, too.

A good rulebook will spell out flows, edge cases, unusual parts of the game, non-obvious scenarios — and a great one will do it in a way that you can read it and understand how to play the game. Now, not every rulebook you encounter will be good. Fewer will be great. But taking the game to assess that will benefit you. I think you should give it a try, but I have one more suggestion here.

Read the rulebook and take notes

That’s right. Take notes. Board games are a serious thing, you know. If you didn’t want to take notes to learn a game, you’d probably better stick to either always being taught a game or playing video games. Or maybe having a real knack for keeping a bunch of moving parts in your head, I guess. That’s fair, too.

In all seriousness, taking notes while reading the rulebook has really helped me figure out games. I can sit down with a rulebook for 30 minutes, and I’ll come away with both a page of notes and a firm understanding of the game. Moreover, I’ll come away knowing where in the rules I should look if I run into particular scenarios or need to recall something.

Create a flow diagram

So, this is maybe a little unusual, but I think there’s something really compelling about making your own diagrams. If you’re trying to understand how the game works, sit down with a pen and paper and map out the flow of play. Here’s an example.

This is a relatively simple trick-taking game, which I’ve used in part because it gives us a very quick understanding of the idea without additional complications. There’s nothing particularly novel about this flow diagram, but I wanted to point out one thing: This isn’t a summary of the rules. It touches on rules concepts, sure, but it doesn’t exist to explain the game for me. It’s a tool to help me understand the game.

Watch playthroughs of the game

While I’m largely an experiential learner, I know others learn by observation more effectively. To that end, there are so many folks out there creating videos about the games you want to learn. Trying to learn a trick-taking game? Maybe Taylor’s Trick-Taking Table will be your best bet. Maybe it’s the new hotness? I bet Watch It Played has something. There’s something out there for you.

Play a solo or multi-handed game

For those of us who are more keen on learning experientially, playing the game might just be the best way to learn it. You can do that on your own, and you don’t have to do it virtually.

Many games these days come complete with a solo rules variant. That might not teach you everything, but it’ll teach you a lot — just remember to study the rules for the multiplayer game before you try to teach it, or you’ll find yourself up a bit of a creek.

If there’s not a solo variant — or even if there is — consider playing the game with two or three virtual players you control. While it might feel a bit odd, especially considering you’ll have perfect information the entire time, it’ll put you in a position of having to really understand the rules. Maybe each of those virtual players can take a different gameplay approach.

Teach the game

The best way to learn something is to teach it to somebody else. That’s something called the Protégé Effect, and it’s real. I’ve felt it myself plenty of times, and you probably can recall a time when you did, too. Most of these suggestions could equally be part of my tips for teaching board games. That’s not a coincidence — to learn something effectively is to be able to teach it.

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Thanks for reading Don’t Eat the Meeples! I hope the week’s been treating you well. I’ve been teaching a couple of my wife’s younger cousins trick-taking games recently, with Taiki Shinzawa’s Inflation! being a particular hit. What games have you taught the young folks in your life?

Next week: We’re going to pilot school to take a closer look at Sky Team.