Friday Night Shots – Should You Learn a Game Before Trying to Teach It?

Two bar visits in a row? That’s a rarity in 2024!

But I’m happy to have you come in to have a drink and talk about some obscure boardgame topic that my mind has come up with.

I appreciate you indulging me, and I hope you find it of some interest. I hope it’s not the drink that’s bringing you in here!

Have a seat and let me get you something. Non-alcoholic for Brian, of course, but anything you want!

I have some of the best bourbon behind the bar.

Well, yeah…I don’t know bourbon, so maybe not?

It does come well-recommended, though.

Anyway, let’s talk about the teaching of games and how you should go about doing it.

I did talk about teaching games before (or, rather, learning games), but this question was inspired by a forum thread on Boardgame Geek called “What Drives you Bananas During Game Night“

There was a lot of ammunition for future Friday Night Shots posts there.

One of the ongoing discussions in that thread is about somebody who brings a game to game night, saying that they would like to play it, and when people agree to play it with them, they pull it out and it’s still in shrink!

They haven’t even looked at the rules, much less punched the game and got it ready to play.

I can’t even imagine that. It just boggles my mind, and I think the people on the thread complaining about it have a great point.

You don’t do that when you’re bringing a game cold to game night, expecting people to just watch you read the rules to them.

Ok, maybe you picked it up on the way to your game night, so it’s in your bag, and you can say that you have it and does anybody want to play it?

That’s ok. Though you probably won’t have anybody agree to, you can mention it.

Just don’t put it out like you “really want to play it.”

There’s actually two parts to this pet peeve (or banana-driver, I guess).

There’s the “bring new in shrink game to game day” person and then there’s the person who really insists on playing a game that they’ve brought because they really want to play, but they haven’t made any effort to actually learn it yet.

When I bring a game to game day and want to play it, the least I can do is read the rules, and maybe watch a playthrough.

When I bring the latest Garphill game, like Ezra & Nehemiah last week, the rules get read a couple of times. And I think I watched two or three playthroughs.

Yes, yes…sorry, didn’t mean to make you drink.

Anyway, that’s the least I can do when I’m trying to teach a game.

I will have to reference the rulebook, most likely. I may even do the teach in the order of how the rulebook is set up.

But I would never actually teach directly from the rulebook.

For me teaching a game, the rulebook is there for reference, maybe a guide, and definitely a setup guide unless I’ve played the game a bunch.

Of course, there are times, especially at conventions, where by mutual agreement something like this can happen.

You’re all in a group and looking at the convention library for something to play.

“Hey, I’ve heard this game is good. Want to try it?”

“Sure! Let’s check it out.”

And then one of us has to read the rulebook and get the game going.

That happened when a friend and I played Explorers of the North Sea at SHUX in 2019, and it went pretty well.

I wouldn’t say no to playing a game like this, but it has to be agreed upon ahead of time.

If you’re going to do this, bring it up ahead of time.

“I’d like to play this game. I don’t know if I’ll have a chance to read up on it beforehand, though.”

Given the people in my game group, that probably would mean the game wouldn’t be played, but it might!

And if it was, nobody should complain about being taught from the rulebook.

Some people in the thread responded by saying that people were being too critical of this. One person even said that this kind of reaction almost made them stop coming to game nights.

To me, that’s a bit of an overreaction, and I think he thought people were talking more about bad teachers rather than teaching from the rulebook.

I don’t think I’m that good of a teacher, though I think I am getting better.

If you’re that afraid to teach, maybe ask somebody else to do it, especially if somebody else knows it?

Or if they’re a good enough friend, or if somebody wants to play it also, you can ask them to learn it?

That’s not ideal, of course.

If you really want to play a game, then you should be able to teach it.

But I’ve had a few occasions where a friend has wanted to play a game and I ended up teaching it to the other players because they just aren’t that comfortable doing it.

If it’s a game I know well, I don’t mind.

If it’s a game that I have to learn ahead of time?

Well, give me enough warning, and maybe I’ll consider it.

Ryan said this on the thread:

“This is probably my biggest gaming pet peeve. If you come to a game night and want to play a new game you purchase, awesome! I want to play it with you! But please read the rules before you come. I’ve been at too many tables that they plopped it down and started reading instructions. I’ve gotten to the point of asking if they already know the rules before we start. If not, that’s totally fine, but now I just bow out or kindly suggest we play something else and that I’d be happy to play it once they know the rules.

Some people may think I’m rude for doing that, but I feel it’s rude to waste everyone’s time.”

I can’t disagree with that.

You shouldn’t just assume that people are ok with learning the game along with you.

Ask first?

Sure. You may get turned down, but at least you tried.

But I would definitely say “let’s play something else” if somebody did that at our game day.

Of course, our game day is full of friends so nobody would actually do that.

But if you’re going to a random meet-up or something, that’s just not cool.

Hell, I’ve brought games that I’ve read the rules for, but in hindsight I was too afraid that I didn’t know the game enough to teach that I didn’t even suggest it for the day.

Have you ever had somebody do this at one of your game days?

How would you react?

Let me know in the comments.