The Terrible Teacher | Board Gamer Stereotypes

Sometimes all it takes to ruin the fun out of a board game is to have a terrible teacher during your tabletop game night. How do you teach board games like a pro? Certainly not like this, and definitely not by reading directly from the rulebook. Explaining a board game's rules, mechanics, and strategy can and should be done concisely with humor and examples injected every step of the way, especially in teaching how everything would help a player win the game.

Even the most complex and heavy board games can be taught well to newcomers so that all those piles of cards, dice, and whatever other components don't just look like a jumbled mess of cardboard and plastic—as long as you don't teach like this guy!

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Games Shown: Dead of Winter, Pandemic, Lords of Waterdeep, Monolith Arena, Settlers of Catan, Quartermaster General WW2, The Godfather, Hellapagos, Tigris & Euphrates, War of the Ring, Twilight Imperium 4, Mansions of Madness

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#boardgames #tabletop #tabletopgames

[alexcannobbio]

You could make the other side, the player Who never understands the rules

[TheSerthn]

These only get better. Stereotype idea: the non-gamer trying their first “heavy” game.

[tzera_rhuon]

As the player in my group that routinely introduces new games and is tasked to teach them, "Did you not watch the tutorial video I sent" fully resonates with me (and yes, the majority of times it's a 'Watch it Played', Rodney is master-class).

[SeanUCF]

"Watch it played" is a god-send to board gaming.

[ScytheNoire]

How I teach games: Search in YouTube "How to play <game_name>"
Many thanks to Jon Gets Games, Watch It Played, and Nights Around a Table for teaching me most of my games.

[HeroineNisa]

Great video as always! The teacher that doesn't actually teaches and spends 30 minutes browsing through the rulebook and skips stuff until its relevant is unfun but an accurate description of many.

[charliesmith]

This is why I always start teaching with how you win the game before anything else. Then go on the teach the rules so the player can use then to see how they achieve this stated win. I personally really struggle as a learner being taught a boardgame so usually have to read the rulebook as I struggle at learning by doing. But I am told my teaching is very clear.

[ylnx]

Stereotype ideas:
- The griefer
- The victim / the game hates me
- The sociopath - will only focus on 'take that' even in games without those mechanics.

[yourbeardlybro]

Stereotype idea: The person who brought over their distracting kids

[lkjkhfggd]

If someone suggests a game I don't know, I always ask if they've played it before and if they say no, I always throw an excuse that I don't feel up for learning a new game this time. There's only a few people I trust to be capable of teaching the rules properly without having played it before. Most of the time, I prefer teaching the rules myself, since I know for sure that I have come in prepared to do the teach.

[DenisRyan]

I see you got your cloning machine all working. Nice. Did you work out the issues with the decloning blender? The trick I've found is to blend just one clone at a time. The motor can't spin the blade fast enough for more.

[dragonzord]

We have someone like this in our group. Except it's when someone else brings a game to play and is in the process of explaining the rules, she will pick up the rulebook and read it cover to cover out loud talking over the person, so we all have to stop and listen to her instead... Even though she's never played the game. We all just sit there looking at each other with this 'bruh...' face :(

[quibily]

Good video! What about the teacher who's too good? One game, I taught three friends a game, and they all wanted me to give tips on what they should do during the first few turns--so I came absolutely dead last.

[nj]

I have an idea. You should do "the cheater"

[benjamindavis]

Lore overview - objective - mechanics. That's my mantra on teaching a new game.

[piercenborchardt]

I’d love to see a stereotype of the guy who’s way too into Kickstarter games lol

[justindubois]

What about the "card counter"? The player who is always tracking every single situation and gets frustrated when they get unlucky?

[shortydancer]

The absolute WORST thing is someone straight out reading the rulebook to me. Funny enough, I always see this at cons. Sounds like hell to me.

[moltenbullet]

This opens up a good video idea actually - what would be the most effective ways to teach a party a game? Also, how to teach a party with varying levels of experience, either with the game or with games in general.

[josda]

I could never ever think that Rodney Smith is garbage.
I could, however, be told that I am a garbage game teacher. I'm the guy that sometimes forgets to mention that you win by getting most points. Even if that's true for 90% of board games.