Debate: Do you teach new players every rule upfront or let them learn as they go?

I used to always explain every tiny rule before we started a game of Spirit Island. Took forever and people got bored. Then last week I tried just explaining the basics and letting people figure out the rest during play. First time we finished a game under 2 hours. Some people say that's how you mess up your strategy but it worked for us. Which way do you teach newcomers?

3 comments

3 Comments

terry_thomas14d ago

Keep it simple upfront every time, way less overwhelming for new players.

felix82414d ago

My buddy Sean tried teaching his girlfriend Magic: The Gathering once and he handed her this 60 card deck with all these special abilities and she just stared at it for ten minutes. Thats what happens when you throw too much info at someone right out the gate. I remember when I first started playing old school Runescape and I had no idea what I was doing for like a month but it was still fun because the basics were simple. You can always add more layers later once they get the hang of it.

the_logan12d ago

Disagree hard. If you don't frontload the rules, people spend the whole game making mistakes that ruin the experience. @felix824 talking about Magic the Gathering is exactly why you do teach upfront - that friend just had a bad teacher who dumped a complicated deck without explaining the core mechanics first. You can teach the basics of Spirit Island in 10 minutes if you're not rambling about every edge case. Learning wrong feels worse than being bored for 15 minutes while you get the lay of the land. People who learn as they go tend to get frustrated when they realize they've been playing someone's house rules instead of the actual game.