Explaining board games can be much harder than it looks. There is nothing worse when explaining board games than being barraged with questions because you got into the details of a game before walking the group through a broad overview. It is much easier to follow a clear and concise set of steps that can be followed when explaining any new game to anyone.
This list isn’t going to start with any superfluous steps like “Learn the game” or “Turn off distractions”. We’ll assume we’re all competent enough to do those and proceed with actual useful steps.
Here are the 7 steps and tips to explain board games to new players
- Introduce the game theme
- Explain the game type and components
- Disclose the game objective (or objectives)
- Determine how to accomplish the objectives
- Detail game actions
- Discuss rules, then Exceptions
- Play a practice round or turn
AND A Few Additional Tips
1) Introduce the game theme
Explaining the game theme is absolutely essential for some games. Especially when playing role-playing games or Ameritrash games in general, game themes are strong and essential to gameplay. Game designers spend lots of time developing themes and getting them just right. Without them, the games just don’t play the same; many games wouldn’t even make sense without their themes.
So make sure to explain the theme so that players will 1) understand the game’s purpose for existing and 2) players will be more “emotionally invested” in the game. I’m not the kind of game player that plays a ton of heavily themed games, and I certainly am not a super emotional person who gets weird about games; but that doesn’t change the need to draw players into them—however small—with the theme. In these games, the themes are as important as the game mechanics, like dice are in other games.
For other games, like euro-style or abstract games, it may not be as essential to explain the theme. Themes in these games are weak or non-existent and the game could be played without it at all. In fact, most of what you would say might be completely made up because game designers didn’t spend a lot of time developing the theme—so there’s really just not that much to it. Regardless, there is still usually a theme there that can be explained and it wouldn’t hurt to do so. It can still get players invested in the game.
Example 1
This is Carcassonne. In Carcassonne, we all dwell in the city of Carcassonne during the middle ages. We are competing to build the largest and most successful areas in Carcassone through our beautiful castles, magnificent roads and vast, open fields. Good luck and watch out.
Example 2
Welcome to Survive: Escape From Atlantis. We all have teams stuck on this sinking island and will all die unless we can get them off. The only problem is that there aren’t enough resources to get everyone off the island. Things have quickly turned into survival of the fittest and each team is on its own. You will have to be ruthless if you’re going to succeed in getting your people to safety.
After this step is completed, players should understand
- The theme and how important it is to the game so that they are more invested and excited to play.
2) Explain the game type and its components
This section is a two-part step, beginning with explaining the game type. There are so many types of games, with each one playing so differently from one another, that taking a few seconds to explain which type of game the groups is going to be playing, can make the rest of the explanation process much simpler. It’ll allow players to make mental comparisons to other games that function similarly or to process the rules more deliberately than they otherwise would. It can allow them to understand what “universe” their game is in, such as cooperative, tile-laying, role playing, card, and many others.
The second part of this step is opening the box and showing everyone the components within. For example, you would potentially showing them the game board that the entire game would be played on. Other potential components would be the pawns/meeples, dice, cards, coins/money, gems, chips, tiles, characters, miniatures, and many more. This step helps new players visualize the entire concept of the game. Everything they see in this step is everything they are going to see throughout the game. They won’t have any surprises and therefore can start to wrap their heads around how the game works.
This two-part step cannot be skipped because it provides the “glue” for the rest of the steps. If everyone knows the game type and components (as well as the theme), they can have a place to organize the rules and conceptually piece the game together as the rest of the steps are followed and explained.
It should be noted that the rules shouldn’t be explained yet. This should be a 30,000 foot view of the game. Everyone should just be looking at the pieces and pairing that in their minds with the theme. Getting into the rules at this point would only confuse the new players—because the objective hasn’t been explained yet. Once that is done, getting more into the weeds of how the rules work makes more sense.
Example 1
We are competing against each other in this Euro-style tile-laying game. There is no player elimination, so we will all play to the end. As we are building our kingdoms, we will use many of the pieces you see here on the table. First and foremost, we will use the tiles to build the game board as the game plays. The meeples that you each see in front of you will also be used to aid in building and collecting points. The small board off to the side is how we measure points as the game progresses.
Example 2
Survive is an adventurous, American style board game where players are competing to get their teams off the sinking island. But be careful, there are a lot of scary monsters lurking in the waters. And if you lose all your players, you can be eliminated from the game. Let’s take a look at the pieces that comprise this game. It has a large game board that has many tiles placed in random order on top—all face down… This would continue through explaining all pieces and components of the game so players become familiar.
After this step is completed, players should understand
- The theme and how important it is to the game so that they are more invested and excited to play.
- What kind of game is being played and how all the game pieces are used, as well as what purpose each piece serves. They should be familiar with the game from the physical-components perspective.
3) Disclose the game objective (or objectives)
Once players have learned the theme and understand the game type and components, they are ready to hear the overall objective of the game. This is still a pretty broad view of how the game works, but by the end of this step they should understand why the theme matters and what they are doing. Most importantly, they should know what winning is according to the game.
Some games require many objectives, while others require just one. Complexities vary widely, as we know, so making sure all players understand what ends the game can’t be overlooked. This may mean stating clearly that X and Y and Z are required to win the game and bring it to an end. Or it may be simpler, like stating that the player with the most money when all the tiles are gone wins the game. Regardless of complexity, it should be boiled down to the simplest explanation possible.
This will answer a lot of questions the group will have before they have them. If they understand the objective of the game, they won’t wonder later how a specific rule fits into the game as a whole or how a turn sequence helps advance them toward that objective. They will accept the rule within the frame of how it fits and works in the game.
Explaining the objective not only gives each player further understanding of the game, it gets them ready to hear the bulk of the rules. Some games are going to have quite a few rules that will follow. Understanding objectives primes the players for the next level of understanding.
Example 1
The purpose of Carcassonne is to be the player with the most points by the time all tiles are exhausted. As you can see, there are quite a few tiles in these stacks, so we will all get plenty of turns to earn points and strive for victory.
Example 2
The overarching purpose of Survive is to get the most points by the end of the game, which comes by way of getting pawns off the sinking island and onto safety. Not all pawns are worth the same value, so watch out. Some are more valuable and therefore, more important to get off the island. The player with the most points from their pawns wins the game—not the player with the most pawns.
After this step is completed, players should understand
- The theme and how important it is to the game so that they are more invested and excited to play.
- What kind of game is being played and how all the game pieces are used, as well as what purpose each piece serves. They should be familiar with the game from the physical-components perspective.
- How to win the game and how the game ends
4) Determine how to accomplish the objectives
While still not going into every rule one by one, this step includes getting a little more in depth on how to accomplish the overall objective. It is the step that shows what advances the game toward the end and how the game flows.
This means explaining different things that will happen throughout the game. For example, you would talk about triggering events that may cause problems for players for their turn, a round of turns, or even for the rest of the game. Some of those things can happen constantly throughout the game while, other times they are events that happen just one time before the game is over.
More than anything, the point that must be made in this step is the general flow of how the game progresses toward the objective(or the end). Players don’t need to know everything, but they do need to get a feel for the game. A great way to accomplish this is by giving a very brief example of how the event in the game could happen and what would follow after. It shouldn’t take more than a few seconds to explain though. More detailed examples can be given once the rules have been fully explained.
Example 1
Players each take turns connecting tiles onto the original tile that starts in the middle. They use their meeples to go on top of the tiles, whether that is within castles, on roads, in monasteries or lying in fields. This is how points are going to be scored. This process is continued throughout the game until all tiles have been used. Once that happens, we make the final tally for any points that have not been already counted. Then the winner—which is the person with the most points—is crowned champion.
Example 2
Players will take turns completing a number of actions in an attempt to 1) get as many of their pawns off the sinking island onto dry/safe ground near the edges of the board and 2) prevent as many of the other players’ pawns as possible from getting onto dry ground. They can get pawns to safety by using boats, dolphins and simply by swimming there. They can prevent others from doing so by using things like sea monsters, sharks, and whales to consume or slow them down.
After each player’s turn, he or she pulls one of the tiles (all beach tiles first, then forest, then mountain), which furthers the sinking of the island. Players continue doing this process of escaping, trapping others, and removing tiles until one player turns over the Volcano tile. That tile signals the end of the game; all pawns left on the island or in the water are killed. Only those on the dry ground at the four edges of the board are used to count each player’s total.
After this step is completed, players should understand
- The theme and how important it is to the game so that they are more invested and excited to play.
- What kind of game is being played and how all the game pieces are used, as well as what purpose each piece serves. They should be familiar with the game from the physical-components perspective.
- How to win the game and how the game ends.
- How to accomplish the objectives and how the game flows from start to finish.
5) Detail Game Actions
This is the step that shows how to advance the game toward the objective from a specific player’s perspective. The previous step shows what advances the game—this step shows how to advance the game. There are usually a general sequence or a list of options that each player can do on a given turn. These options need to be explained. Many games come with a small card or guide on the steps a player can/must take to complete a turn. For those that don’t, explaining the steps is important to keeping players on track when game time comes.
Example 1
In a given turn a player has several choices
- He or she picks up a tile (which they can pick up immediately after their last turn)
- Plays it on the existing set in the middle by connecting the field piece (grass), the road or the castle.
- If desired, a player can place a meeple in the castle, on the road, on a monastery, or lay it in a field.
- A player can also play pieces in odd ways that will make it more difficult for other players to score points
Example 2
- Player can play terrain tiles to help self or hurt others according to each tile’s ability. You can reference what each tile does on the tiles page.
- Players have 3 total movements to make progress in getting their pawns off the island. This can be in any combination. For example, a player can move 3 different pawns one space each; or one pawn 3 spaces; or a boat 2 spaces and a pawn 1 space. Whatever it is, it must only be 3 total spaces of movement.
- Player removes one tile from the island (ideal if an opponent’s pawn is standing on that tile because it falls in the water), which is then what is played on the next round in step 1. Sometimes it’s played immediately—see the guide as we play.
- Now is when you roll the die. The result will either be a whale, a shark or a sea monster. If a whale is rolled, it can move 1-3 space; a shark 1-2; and a sea monster just 1 space. Whales are meant to break boats of other players, sharks are meant to eat the pawns already in the water and sea monsters do both of those things at the same time.
After this step is completed, players should understand
- The theme and how important it is to the game so that they are more invested and excited to play.
- What kind of game is being played and how all the game pieces are used, as well as what purpose each piece serves. They should be familiar with the game from the physical-components perspective.
- How to win the game and how the game ends.
- How to accomplish the objectives and how the game flows from start to finish.
- How an individual turn works and how to complete it properly.
6) Discuss rules, then exceptions
Rules
We’ve finally gotten to the step of explaining the rules of the game. When explaining rules, there are a few approaches to take. The first approach is to start with the easiest rule and work up to the hardest rule to grasp to “give the players confidence”. I think it is weird so I don’t do it this way—or at least not for that reason. Regardless, it’s definitely an approach to potentially take to gain momentum in explaining rules.
Another approach to take is to start with the hardest rule and work your way to the easiest rule. That way, you can get the most difficult parts of the game out of the way and it not only gets easier for you to explain as you go but it gets easier for everyone to grasp as you go. Having completed the first 5 steps, this is a pretty good approach because, except for very complicated games, the rules you’re covering now should be relatively easy.
Yet another approach, and the one that I prefer to use, is to start with the most important and crucial rules and work your way to the least important rules. That way, the most important topics are covered early when people are paying the most attention. It means you’ll cover the rules that make up most of the game, while the smaller and less important rules can be added after the core concepts and rules. There will come a point that the rules are so small and/or conditional that it isn’t worth covering in the explanation process. They would be better served through explanation during a practice round or during actual gameplay. You will have to use your judgement to know when you’ve reached this point. But generally speaking, if the players know how to play 90-95% of the game, you’re probably okay to stop.
Example 1
Castles- Castles are big and “immediate” points throughout the game. When placing a tile with a castle on it, a player puts one of their meeples in the castle portion of the tile—making sure it connects to an empty tile piece on the board. At that point, they claim the castle and no one else can enter it in the same way. Then the player works to close the castle off so it has castle walls on each side. Once that is accomplished, the player receives 2 points for each tile included in the castle. Any castles that were started during the game and not completed are counted as one point each—at the end of the game. The meeple stays in the castle until the castle is completed then returns to the player’s hand to be used again at any point.
Roads- Roads work the same way as castles, but points are different. As long as the ends of the road is closed, a player collects one point per tile that contains a road piece. The meeple must stay on the road as long as it hasn’t been finished. Once finished, it can return to the associated player’s hand to be used at any point elsewhere. If a road is not finished a player is able to collect one point per tile in the road at the end of the game.
Fields- Fields are unique in scoring. A meeple is placed in a field by laying it on its side on the grass area of a tile. Then the tile is placed on an empty area that a meeple doesn’t already reside on, on the board. An “empty” field is one where grass cannot be directly traced—unimpeded by roads castles or blank spaces on the board—to another meeple. In other words, it is cut off by castles, roads or spaces. Meeples reside the entire game once placed in fields.
Scoring fields is pretty easy. Completed castles contained within a field is worth 3 points each. Players must trace the perimeter of the field and measure how many castles lie within it. So, points from fields are only measured once—at the end of the game.
Monasteries- Monasteries are just tiles with a building in the center of grass. A player places a meeple on a monastery he or she is going to place on the board. It stays there until it is surrounded on all sides (surrounded by 8 tiles). The meeple is then removed and the player is awarded 9 points. If it never gets completely surrounded, the player is awarded the same number of points as tiles in the nine spaces around it (including its own space) at the end of the game.
Example 2
Beginning the game- Each player gets all pawns of one color and two boats. Starting in clockwise order (by any player the group chooses), players place pawns on empty terrain tiles until all pawns are on the island. Then they take turns placing the two boats they each possess on empty sea spaces around the sinking island. Once placed, players cannot look at the bottom of the pawn to see their value, so make sure to remember which are the valuable ones.
Moving Explorers- When moving explorers on land or while in a boat, they can move up to 3 spaces in a given turn. As soon as pawns leave the island, they can’t return to the island. Players can only move their own pawns. They can move from one boat onto another—if the boats are in adjacent sea spaces. They can also move to an adjacent sea tile from land or from a sea space to the land at the corners of the board.
Pawns that are in the water move uniquely. They are defined as “swimmers” when they jump from land into an adjacent sea space, jump off a boat, have a boat destroyed by a whale, or when a terrain tile is removed by another player. Jumping from or boarding a boat into the same sea space, moving from one sea space to another and jumping from a terrain tile into an adjacent sea space are considered one movement—the only movement that pawn is allowed in a turn (even if you have more actions left to use). A sea space can contain more than one swimmer.
Moving boats- Anyone can move empty boats. Only players with the majority in a boat can move it. Only one boat can occupy a sea space. Each boat only has room for 3 pawns. Boats can be broken by sea monsters and whales. When the boats are broken, the boat it removed from the game and the pawns fall into the water.
Playing Tile Pieces- Some tile pieces are played immediately and some are played on a player’s own turn, or on another player’s turn. Refer to the guide for further instruction.
Exceptions
There is a simple way to approach explaining the exceptions in the game. If there are major, overarching exceptions, make sure to explain them now and how they apply. You don’t want people complaining later that you failed to explain major caveats that alter how the entire game plays; however, if the exceptions to the rules are small conditional ones, it would be much better to explain them as they come up during the game. Players need to get a feel for how the game actually plays before they can process the tiny rules and exceptions to the rules.
Example 1
Generally speaking, as I mentioned earlier, once a castle, road or field is occupied, a player cannot enter the same space; however, the exception to this rule is if a player puts a meeple in a castle, road or field that is not connected initially—but gets connected in subsequent turns. For example, if a castle is owned by player A, player B can build a castle next to it. Later, if he or she receives a castle piece that can connect the two castles, player B (or player A if desired) can play it, connecting the two castles. When this happens, the player with the most meeples in the castle gets the points. If both have the same number of meeples in the castle, they each get full points.
There may be more exceptions to the game, but we’ll stop here.
Example 2
Players typically can’t move other players’ pawns. The exception arises if they are in a boat together; if they have the most pawns in the boat (for example two pawns to another player’s one pawn) they can move the boat. The same applies when the number of pawns in the boat is equal (for example three separate players have one pawn each). In this case any of the three players can move the boat.
If a player is outnumbered on a boat, he or she cannot move the boat at all. Only the player with the most pawns in the boat can move it.
There are more exceptions but we will stop our example here.
After this step is completed, players should understand
- The theme and how important it is to the game so that they are more invested and excited to play.
- What kind of game is being played and how all the game pieces are used, as well as what purpose each piece serves. They should be familiar with the game from the physical-components perspective.
- How to win the game and how the game ends.
- How to accomplish the objectives and how the game flows from start to finish.
- How an individual turn works and how to complete it properly.
- The bulk of the rules and how the game plays from a technical perspective. Players know what they can do and can’t do in most situations. They will also know the major exceptions and when they apply to the rules.
7) Play a practice round/game
Playing a practice turn can be extremely helpful in most games to help players bring all the rules together and solidify them in their minds. Some are simple enough that they won’t require playing a practice turn, and can instead be learned during the first round of play. But for those where this would be difficult, demonstrating in front of everyone how a typical turn would work simplifies what could seem like a difficult process. A demonstration can show that what took 5 or 10 minutes to explain actually happens in a matter of seconds in real gameplay. For me, this often shows me that what I imagined is much more complicated than the actual process; which then allows me to better understand how the rest of the game works.
Another potential way to solidify the concepts would be to do an entire practice round with everyone. If this is something you think would be helpful, you would simply set up a simulated round of play and have each player proceed how they would if the game were being played live. It forces players to actually think through a turn and process how it would work. Questions might come up now that would have otherwise come up during the actual game.
The last real solidification concept is to play an open hand or an open game all the way through. Obviously, this is similar to playing a practice round but it is different in one major respect. When playing an open round/game, everyone knows what is happening with everyone else. Each player is still going to be in control of his or her hand, but you as the guide can walk each player through the thought process of what to do, and how to do it. This might not work for every game, but it works very well for some. Shorter games, where playing through a whole game wouldn’t take too long, are perfect.
How much depth you decide to go into will all revolve around whether people are understanding or not. If you’ve demonstrated a practice turn and everyone seems to be understanding how it will work, then it’s probably time to start the game. If not, you may want to try doing an entire round or open game to get everyone on the same page.
Examples 1 & 2
There is no specific way these practice turns or rounds should look. All you’re doing here is helping players get a real feel for the game and how it flows. This will naturally bring up lots of questions because players will think they understood something and now realize they don’t.
After this step is completed, players should understand
- The theme and how important it is to the game so that they are more invested and excited to play.
- What kind of game is being played and how all the game pieces are used, as well as what purpose each piece serves. They should be familiar with the game from the physical-components perspective.
- How to win the game and how the game ends.
- How to accomplish the objectives and how the game flows from start to finish.
- How an individual turn works and how to complete it properly.
- The bulk of the rules and how the game plays from a technical perspective. Players know what they can do and can’t do in most situations. They will also know the major exceptions and when they apply to the rules.
- Pretty much the entire game. They will have worked out most of their questions and be ready to start the game.
A Few Additional Tips
The following tips are meant to be additional steps/points to add into an explanation of a game. Not all apply to all games and none are necessarily required to do a good job explaining most games.
Tip 1
After finishing the steps, you will want to summarize the game again to make sure the players understand how it all works. It is also a great way to pull all the steps together into one quick summary so players can see how they all work together. Sometimes when explaining, one step may take several minutes, so mentally connecting them doesn’t naturally happen. Going over everything again can be helpful.
Another approach when summarizing is to quickly summarize all steps after finishing each step. So if you’re finishing explaining step 5, you can summarize steps 1-5 before proceeding to step 6. You would do the same after step 6. This should only take a few seconds to do though; don’t spend much time on this step.
Tip 2
Another way to help players better understand and compete well in a new game is to give them strategy tips after you’ve explained the game. By this point, they should already understand how to play. All you’re doing at this stage is to get them past the mechanics of the game and help them understand different approaches on how to win. Some people will like this and others will want to learn the strategy on their own. It’s best to just ask the group if they’d like to hear some strategy tips or not.
Tip 3
Not all rules were explained; don’t worry about that. You’ve covered most of them. Any other learning can happen/has happened in the practice round or will happen in the actual game. You have covered the most important stuff. Everything is new to these players, and remembering every little rule probably won’t happen anyway—so why explain it when learning it in a real situation is a much better teaching tool. The first time anyone plays a game is usually a warm-up round anyway, so everyone should just relax and learn.
Tip 4
Make sure players ask their questions. They will always have some, so get them talking. Sometimes all it takes is telling players to ask their questions instead of asking if they have any. Saying something like “I know you have questions. There are lots of rules, so ask them now!” can get people talking.
Tip 5
Repeat yourself along the way to solidify. Wait, have we already said this? I must mean it; make sure summarize and repeat yourself. It helps you probe for understanding.
Tip 6
Many games are best in learn-as-you-go style. If the game is simple enough, don’t spend more time explaining than you absolutely need to. It is just easier to explain in the first round or in an open round.
Tip 7
Let other games be your guide when explaining a new one. Games use similar mechanics and processes, so refer to other games if it’ll make the learning process quicker. It’ll help the new players learn that element of the game and focus on the foreign or more complicated aspects of the game. And some games are complex enough that this would be helpful!
Tip 8
You can switch any of these steps if it seems appropriate to do so. If we’re looking at the overall structure of explaining a game, what you’re trying to accomplish is to work from the broad to the specific. Start with the basic things because they are the structure that the more complex elements work within. Without understanding the structure, the individual rules don’t make much sense.
Conclusion
Now you are ready to go out and start explaining games to your friends. It doesn’t have to follow the outlined process exactly. Some games just make more sense to explain differently. This will, however, work for most games and most scenarios. So go be awesome!