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Comment by Buttons840 | Hacker News Reader

Tangentially: How do y'all approach explaining the rules to a new game?

For the card game Hearts I would say something like:

"I will give a 20 second explanation, and then go into more detail in a second pass.

Hearts is a trick taking game. In Hearts players take turns throwing cards into a pile. Depending on which cards are placed in the pile, one player will take the pile, and that player will get some points. Points are bad, the objective of the game is to avoid getting points. Now let's just play through a mock round, it will only take a minute or two..." Etc.

I've given some thought to this, because I've often had games explained to me and the explainer is going deep into the rules about some game mechanic before I even know what the objective of the game is. I also know that people's minds work differently, and so maybe my high-level-first approach is confusing to others.

Any advice on how to teach the rules for a new game?

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I too find the "dante's inferno method" (i just made that up) effective, in which you start with a high level explanation then progress through deeper details iteratively.

  * Hearts is a card game 
  * Hearts is a card game with tricks
  * In Hearts, winning tricks is bad, you want others to win tricks.
  * In Hearts, you win tricks by...

Often it's really hard to see yourself in the newbie's eyes.

(e.g. turns out I don't know what a trick is, so while you're explaining the nuance of tricks and going into more ad more detail, I'm waiting for you to explain what a trick is getting more confused and frustrated.).

You aren't aware of what concepts are confusing, or how many weird words/concepts you can pile on before someone just disconnects.

I like the name. :)

I've often thought multiple passes over a topic, beginning with a short pass, and giving more details in each subsequent pass, is a good teaching method.

I haven't done it much myself though, and I haven't seen it done by others very often. I wonder if it really is a good teaching method in practice?

Unquestioningly a "good" practice, but it takes more time and effort on the part of the teacher, who has to take the audience into account when creating his layers of Hell--err, explanation.

I'd start with the objective before anything else. "In Hearts, you get points - points are bad, and the objective is to avoid getting points." Everything else is framed around that, IMO.

It's astonishing how many rulebooks (and people) leave that for the "scoring" section as if it's an afterthought for when the game is over.

IMO the best way is always to explain as much as you can while actually playing the game. Just accept that there's no way anybody is going to fully learn the game on their first try. Even in a simple game like Hearts there is enough strategy that nobody is going to play very well their first time, so there's no point in trying to make them understand everything

Once people are actually playing the game then 1) They will be having fun, which is the whole point of board games 2) They can ask you anything they don't get, and you can make sure that they actually understand 3) It will force you to explain mechanics in a logical order that gives people information only when they need it and can actually use it

For Hearts I would probably just deal a hand to each player, maybe face up, and go from there

For hearts I'd deal everyone in face up. Then I'd point out "because of X card this person starts" (I don't remember hearts, is this always left of the dealer or is it one where the person with some other card starts. If hearts is a bidding game of course I'd go over each person's bid, but I'd probably just tell everyone what to bid as bids won't make sense until the end when you see the results). That person will probably want to play X because it is the best legal move - of course we know that so and so has a better card and so will win the hand, now the next player has to play, this is why they would choose this card... Then play a game or two to get experience. Then erase the score for everyone and start playing

> Any advice on how to teach the rules for a new game?

It depends on the game and the people involved. IMO it's easiest when you're familiar with the group and can use terminology they can understand. The phrase "trick taking" is a likely no-no, and I'd rather say something like "Spades is like Hearts except blah blah blah" if the group is already familiar with Hearts but doesn't know what Spades is.

And if people don't know what Hearts is, just describe it in plain language. Like for the points I might say something like "higher points are bad, kind of like golf", as most people understand what golf is.

> Hearts is a trick taking game.

Just as an FYI: from the perspective of someone who very rarely plays card games this sentence is absolutely incomprehensible. The explanation would have been better without it. (For me.) It leaves me thinking what the heck a trick might be. I know card tricks where a magician asks you to pick a card and then things happen and later they magically identify the card. Or i know “tricking” people in the bluffing with card sense. But the heck would anyone “take” any of the above? Maybe the goal is that someone will bluff and we are supposed to “take it” as in believe othes bluffs and that is somehow the game? Oh but now from the description it sounds the goal is to not “take” the points so then isn’t that a “trick not-taking” game? Or a “trick forcing” as in the active thing is to force others to take the “trick” when they would rather not?

Board game geeks do this often. They have seen so many games before that they learned to identify patterns in the rules and they learned names for those patterns. They say something like “this is a pool bulding, hidden movement game with the added twist that your blurbs can smorg on backturns too, let’s play”. Which is fine, as long as they play with other board game geeks. But if they also want to play with us non-boardgamegeeks these sentences confuse more than explain. Because i might be just sitting there trying to figure out where will i find water for my pool, when actually what they meant… i don’t even know what they meant. Same way as i have no clue what is a trick and why would anybody taking it in the game you are describing.

> Board game geeks do this often. They have seen so many games before that they learned to identify patterns in the rules and they learned names for those patterns.

Funnily, enough: <https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgamemechanic>

You'll find "trick-taking" in that list.

I think it's worth its weight (or rather, with the time it takes to say).

It clarifies a lot for those who know what it means, and for those who don't know, the remainder of the explanation proceeds without assuming they know what it means.

Yes, it's quite important to know your audience for this (also, Hearts is in some ways a good example, because someone who knows what a trick-taking card game is will very likely know Hearts in the first place, it being one of the most well-known examples after probably Bridge).

(and, of course, relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2501/)

I always follow the same framework -- set the stage (What's the theme or idea?), explain the object (How do I win?), explain the overall structure of the game (How will the game flow and end?), and then hone in on your turn (What do I actually do when my turn comes up?).

The final step should naturally lead you into the finer nitty-gritty as players are ready.

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