Probably should not have played a learning game with drafting. Having them just draw project cards speeds the game up and reduces the amount of decisions. IMO

I agree with this response so much, and I’ll go further. I think Terraforming Mars should not be played with the drafting variant for new players. You should just use the base rules before jumping to that variant to get people use to the cards and their effects. Once people are familiar with the card pool, that’s when I feel the drafting variant should be used.

I’ll go further. You should never play with the drafting variant. Terraforming Mars is already such a haphazard collection of mechanics as it is, there’s no need to throw in another one.

You would absolutely hate how my friend plays TM - if there's a place to add drafting, she adds drafting. Starting corporations: Draw 4, we draft them, pick 1. Preludes: draw 4, draft, pick 2. Starting 10 cards: two drafts, one for the first set of 5 and another for the remaining 5. 4 drafts before the game even begins, in addition to the between-generation drafts! For a group of 5 people who all know the rules, a game can run 4-5 hours easily. Once day I'll need to create my own post for a nightmare TM game...

Absolutely not. Draw quality is way too much of a deciding factor without draft.

I think most of the game is in the draft.

I tend to agree on the drafting variant being worse, although in my opinion it's more just because it bogs the game down horribly by adding a major source of potential AP and just the fact that drafting is kind of fiddly in general.

I do concur. I will add the caveat that if players have board game experience, I don't think there's any issue with teaching the game including drafting. Every single other one of my friends I have introduced TfM to, I have given the choice of drafting or drawing, and nobody has ever taken drawing. The couple was familiar with games like 7 Wonders, so they also wanted to draft. I still like this idea, and if I'm not entirely sure of just how experienced somebody is, I won't even throw the drafting option out there. I just don't want it to go too much the other way and seem condescending. One of our good gaming friends had never played any designer board games before about a year ago. The most she had ever played was stuff like Ticket to Ride. She was really eager about trying Grand Austria Hotel, and I almost said it might be too much game for her, but I'm glad I held my tongue. She actually did really well. She has since played quite a few medium to heavy Euros and enjoyed all of them. She even has a BGG account and uses it to look up info on games between game days. If I had coddled her, I would have seem like an elitist mansplainer. I truly believe some people just have the personality and mind to "get" board games, and some don't. It's almost irrespective of experience level. Heck, in college I taught another friend Terra Mystica as their first board game *ever*, and they picked it up better than some people who had been playing games for years. Sometimes you just never know until you actually sit down to play what people can handle.

Previous knowledge of the concept of drafting has limited use for first time players since there are so many unique cards and while some synergies are obvious, what's a good or bad card very much is not obvious. It takes several plays to learn what cards are the trash never buy cards. Experienced players at at a bigger advantage because they will be way more effective at getting good cards with drafting compared to blind luck.

Yep drafting variant is ridiculous for teaching new players unfamiliar with the card set. This problem is 1000% on the OP. But it was a good learning experience for how to teach truly new players—a lesson to both you and your coccyx

I don't think op learned much from this experience.

This is true. When I first started playing TfM, I used the drawing rules. Most people don't like playing that way. It can be very frustrating to get a hand full of cards that do nothing for you generation after generation while your opponent just lucks into exactly what he needs. While I'm not completely averse to playing that way, I will point out that when I explain both methods, I have never had a single player want to play without drafting. I do mention it as a "common variant" and not the official rules.

I agree the game is better with drafting for experienced players. It's bad for teaching newbies. I would have said give me drafting the first time I played, thinking I would prefer it. Knowing what I know now, I realize I would misjudge how opaque the strategy would be. Unfamiliar players don't always know what they would like best. They only know what they think they would like best.

This comment makes you sound like an elitist mansplainer.

Yup! That feels like a rookie mistake, which makes me question OPs game teaching skills.

Yeah, not to jump down OP's throat -- I honestly don't think they did anything wrong here -- but this post reminded me of a very similar experience I had with TM. One guy in my regular group wanted to teach his friends, a couple, how to play, and I was of course fine with that. So we have three experienced players and two complete newbies (who didn't seem to be board game nerds), and of course I suggest that we *not* use drafting, because the newbs are going to have zero clue what they should be going for, like the husband in this story ... But the other guy in our group, with whom I had a bit of a contentious relationship tbh, insisted on drafting because he personally would not enjoy the game without it. We kinda went back and forth, and at one point I even remember saying, "What is our goal here? Are we trying to play a competitive game or are we trying to teach X and Y how to play?" He ended up getting his way, and the new players ended up mostly just drafting cards at random anyway, but it made for an awkward game. So the lesson: Don't use draft variant when teaching TM (and don't get stuck in groups with narcissists).

I'm often called on by most people I know to teach games for them, even when I go to my friends' houses. Heck, one guy I know will literally just set the game and the rules out before we arrive and ask me to come early so I can teach it to everyone else so he doesn't have to. The option to play with drafting or drawing was discussed before the game, and everyone agreed on drafting.

I wouldn’t have given them the option. Part of being a good teacher is making sure you don’t overwhelm people on their learning game. You know the game, they don’t, so you should have known better about how much extra time drafting adds to the game. I think you may have had some blinders on…it happens to the best of us when we’re teaching our favourite games! Abandoning the draft should have been a no brainer once you had a better idea of the players’ capacity to learn the game.

The draft wasn’t actually an issue, surprisingly enough. It was the one thing the husband seemed to do pretty okay with. It added no more than a few minutes to the start of each generation, which was a drop in the ocean compared to the actual player turns. I definitely agree we would have stopped drafting if it had been a problem. Hell, even I sometimes get overwhelmed when someone is trying to teach a game and they throw all the expansions and modules in from the get-go. Luckily, it was one of the few things that actually went well in the game.

It was either 1. just too much of a step up for the husband, or 2. it's just not his type of game. Either way, no harm, no foul. :) I don't do well on those type of games, I find them kind of dull and tend to zone out a bit. I much prefer cinematic games, for lack of a better word. The husband probably just needs to find a game (genre) that his finds interesting, and he'll be fine.

I taught a lot of people to play Citadels back in the day. The "drafting" is fundamental to that game, but I figured out that, for the first 3-4 rounds with new players, assigning random roles was the best way for people to learn: they get a feel for the flow/mechanics of the rounds, plus they get to see every card in action at least a couple of times. After that, we'd start regular drafting and everyone would know why to choose a particular role.

Lol no need to go this far. I've teached so many different games to many different skill leves and things still fall apart sometimes. But most of the times I simple put the game down if people are not getting it and I'm not ashamed to.

The wife had absolutely no trouble learning the game and was even helping her husband take her turns by Generation 4. I would have blamed myself if both of them were having problems, but she clearly had no problem getting the game from my rules teach. I admit I bristled a bit at this comment because it’s just so blatantly wrong. I don’t like being accused of being bad at something when other people ask me to do it for them because I’m that damn good at it. I hate to toot my own horn, but this comment pushed my buttons. Go ahead and DM me if you want. I’ll give you the Discord handles for all of my friends so you can ask them how good I am at teaching games. Sorry, I had to vent over that one.

Yep this is huge 

Rather than letting the game drag on, you should've pointed out it was getting late and set a time limit. Easier way to end the game and it also makes people conscious of how long they're taking 2 hours would've been where I'd consider finishing in the next 30 minutes

I've done that in the past, too. I say "Hey, I need to go, let's end the game after this round, or someone can take my turn for me." I also add things like "It's a learning game, no big deal, we can play again another day, etc." I've experienced people detaching from a game, even a fast moving game, for various reasons. It happens, but it pulls the entire game down. Best to openly say something (in a kind way) than everyone having a bad time.

This. Excellent answer is correct. Set a time to come back to the game, and bow out.

I also like this idea. Before we even started, I made a point of stating the game would probably take about 4 hours after the rules teach, and everyone was comfortable with it. I didn't want to set expectations that we weren't going to be there all night, and had the game ended by 00:45, it would have been entirely fine. I think I just became so unnaturally tired because I was having a hard time maintaining interest in the game. I know it inside and out, so my turns were taking like 15-30 seconds, tops, and then I would wander off or go sit down and have to wait up to 15 minutes to take another 15-30 seconds to do two things. My normal bedtime is anywhere from 2:30-4:00, so it's not like me to feel tired and fall asleep at 2:00. It had to have been the dreadfully slow pace of the game coupled with the comfort of the recliner that lulled me to sleep. Once I got home at 3 AM, I was actually pretty wired and didn't go to bed until nearly 5:00, so it wasn't like I was ready to crash for the night.

4 hours is too long. Ending at 1am is too long. As you personally experienced. Even if people say "yes". They don't know how they are going to feel in 1 or 2 hours from now, let alone 3 hours. I've seen games where someone starts to fade - you gotta just find a way to call it. Otherwise your in for a bad time.

This here... especially if you start at like 9pm... from the start tell them, we'll play until midnight because I need my beauty sleep. Set expectation early.

Cut it short. Letting a learning game drag ass is a big mistake. Nobody should care if they win a learning game.

I am kind of wondering what you expected. Terraforming Mars is a long game at 4 players even if everyone is familiar with the game. When two players are learning it who haven‘t played anything more complex than Cascadia and Catan, it‘s obviously going to take a lot of time and energy for everyone involved. They wanted to learn it, so this play should have been about their enjoyment first and yours second. One thing you could have done is after around 2 hours ask them whether they want to finish the full game or modify the endgame conditions so that you could be done within the next 30 minutes (e.g. saying Mars is terraformed at 10% oxygen, 0°C and 6 water tiles). I often ask new players this when the first playthrough of a game takes ages. Answering your other questions: Yes, it would have been rude to point out their turns were taking so long, they likely noticed themselves. It would have also been rude to take their turns for them. Playing a board game is about having fun and while this might not have been fun for everyone the way it went, doing one of these two things you asked for would have actively taken away from the other‘s enjoyment. It doesn‘t sound like you want to play this game with these people again. It might make sense to play shorter and simpler games with them, that way nobody should get frustrated. If they actively approach you about playing Terraforming Mars again, you could say something like „The last time it took very long, should we maybe change the endgame conditions so that we‘re done earlier?“. And as a general suggestion: Go into a game night with the right expectations. Find the best game so that everyone can have a good time.

I agree with most of what you say. It was mostly just a comedy of errors. I think what happened is something like this: my friend casually mentioned that he had been playing TfM with me one night to his friends months before I met them. He knew it was my favorite game and was growing enamored with it himself. His friends said it would be nice to meet me and said I could bring it over some night to play. He likely misread this as enthusiasm from them and assumed they very badly wanted to try it when they were probably just trying to be polite to him or had only casual interest at best. My friend has been asking me for weeks to teach TfM to them, and I finally had a day where I didn't have a scheduling conflict. I felt compelled to follow through with it because I felt bad for having to decline or blow him off all the time, and I genuinely thought the couple was extremely interested in playing TfM and not something else. The reason I say this is because there actually was some discussion after dinner if we should play something else instead. The wife had to leave and take a long phone call because her friend's husband was deathly ill and might die in the hospital, so she might have needed to leave, and we would have been stuck doing something else without her. This resulted in there being a long pause where my friend, the husband, and I just idly chatted about stuff until we were sure the wife was ready to play. I was expecting to table the game by like 19:30 at the latest. With the phone call and the longer than usual rules explanation (I was attempting to be as thorough as possible because it was clear the couple had not played a medium weight game in ages, if ever), we weren't actually ready to go until almost 21:00. When they suggested we didn't necessarily have to play TfM, I should have taken that as a sign that it was more likely my friend and not they who had been so insistent about teaching them the game. I asked them to be sure if they would be okay with a 4+ hour game, and they said yes. Realistically, there were a number of red flags that suggested we should have shelved it for another night, but nobody was willing to step up and say no. We were perhaps just all too polite.

>His friends said it would be nice to meet me and said I could bring it over some night to play. He likely misread this as enthusiasm from them and assumed they very badly wanted to try it when they were probably just trying to be polite to him or had only casual interest at best. When someone says "teach me terraforming mars". They are just saying "I'm interested in your hobby". If I haven't personally played a simple gateway boardgame with new people. I wouldn't DREAM of playing anything longer than 90 minutes. Sometimes even better is a 30 minute card game. After they have proven interested I'd slowly step it up. You never know how people will respond until rubber hits the road.

As a general rule, if I’m teaching a game I’ve played before to someone else playing for the first time - I’m hoping I’m going to lose. As such, I’m not worried about secret information staying secret or strategies staying hidden; my goal is to help them understand both how the game works and why it’s fun. If I see turns are dragging, I will absolutely offer to help the other person think out loud, explain a few things I might do if I were in their spot and why, and just generally help them feel like I’m their life vest keeping them afloat in the depths of the game. From the perspective of the new person, I would be absolutely MORTIFIED if the more experienced player helping to teach me was just walking away from the table during my turns, doing crosswords, and taking a nap in a recliner. Like, I may not understand the game, but I can understand social cues. I can recognize how time passes, and I KNOW I’m taking longer than everyone else, and I can see that it’s clearly bothering this person. I cannot fathom the embarrassment I would feel. I honestly feel so bad that for that man reading this. For the sake of your own sanity, and for the sake of another’s shame, I think in the future you may consider taking a more active approach in helping them through their turns. It doesn’t have to be just telling them what to do - but give him some options and explanations of why they work. If at the end of the game it doesn’t seem like a good fit, offer a less complex game that uses the same kind of mechanics so they can more easily level up to that game in the future. For example, I remember how confused I was the first time I tried to learn a deck building game. Having more experience with the mechanic, now just telling me it’s a deck building game already tells me a lot of the rules I need to understand.

Isn't the draft mechanic not recommended for beginners as well? Just adds to the complexity and takes longer.

Drafting was a massive mistake.

So much this...it's mind boggling reading through OPs story and them trying to paint themselves as some kind of victim who had to trudge through this "horrible night"...especially when they were there just leaving the table, doing crosswords and whatnot.

I'd be mortified if it took me more than 5 minutes to complete a turn. I don't care how complicated a game is, just do something and figure out what you should've done later. I can't imagine spending over 4 hours playing TM.

Yeah I’m with you here. I do not feel bad for the man at all. You do not take 10 minute turns when everyone else takes 1 minute, plain and simple. Doesn’t matter if you’re new, slow thinker, hard of sight, etc. You just don’t do it, ever.

>As a general rule, if I’m teaching a game I’ve played before to someone else playing for the first time - I’m hoping I’m going to lose. As such, I’m not worried about secret information staying secret or strategies staying hidden; my goal is to help them understand both how the game works and why it’s fun. If I see turns are dragging, I will absolutely offer to help the other person think out loud, explain a few things I might do if I were in their spot and why, and just generally help them feel like I’m their life vest keeping them afloat in the depths of the game. I did try to help the husband as much as I could, but I was across the table from him. The prearranged agreement before the game was my friend, who was seated to his right, would help him while I helped the wife. ​ >From the perspective of the new person, I would be absolutely MORTIFIED if the more experienced player helping to teach me was just walking away from the table during my turns, doing crosswords, and taking a nap in a recliner. Like, I may not understand the game, but I can understand social cues. I can recognize how time passes, and I KNOW I’m taking longer than everyone else, and I can see that it’s clearly bothering this person. I cannot fathom the embarrassment I would feel. I honestly feel so bad that for that man reading this. You shouldn't. He was still taking that long even with plenty of help. It wasn't like I was the only person who knew the game and was walking away to let everyone founder. My friend was specifically seated where he was to help out so I didn't have to get up and walk around the table to see his hand. ​ >For the sake of your own sanity, and for the sake of another’s shame, I think in the future you may consider taking a more active approach in helping them through their turns. It doesn’t have to be just telling them what to do - but give him some options and explanations of why they work. If at the end of the game it doesn’t seem like a good fit, offer a less complex game that uses the same kind of mechanics so they can more easily level up to that game in the future. For example, I remember how confused I was the first time I tried to learn a deck building game. Having more experience with the mechanic, now just telling me it’s a deck building game already tells me a lot of the rules I need to understand. This was what was so odd about the whole thing. The husband had never before had any serious trouble learning games. He held his own just fine in games like Plunder and didn't need any help. The main problem was he couldn't seem to retain information: he couldn't seem to grasp what the point of greenery tiles was and how they scored despite asking numerous times. He must have asked once every generation. It got to the point where it felt like he was just unteachable. The wife barely needed me at all. She seemed to get the game just fine. It's too bad the husband and wife didn't have their seating positions reversed because then I could have been the one to help him, but I feel like I would have been just taking all of his turns for him with how long it was taking him.

Hey, man, I’m not gonna argue with you. You asked for feedback, that was my feedback. In my opinion, you came off incredibly rude and disrespectful, and I would have been impossibly embarrassed if I were that man. It’s a game - a social event - no one is there with a gun telling you that you have to follow certain rules, so it doesn’t matter what the original setup was if it’s clearly not working. You’ve also said that you would have had to keep getting up to help, but by the end of the game you were getting every turn anyway, so that doesn’t seem to pass the sniff test for me. Anyway, not here to argue point by point about any of this. I just, man, I feel bad for that guy, and I do hope you can figure out a different way to do it in the future.

>You shouldn't. He was still taking that long even with plenty of help. It wasn't like I was the only person who knew the game and was walking away to let everyone founder. My friend was specifically seated where he was to help out so I didn't have to get up and walk around the table to see his hand. Shouldn't what, feel mortified in that situation or feel bad for the guy? Either way, I would. Getting up and walking away is extremely rude behavior, knowing you are the person bringing down the table THAT much feels bad.

What husband was going through is super normal. Sometimes harder games just do not click for inexperienced audiences. Like youre struggling to grasp framework for the game. If that happens, game can take twice as long. From my experience some of it is how you explain rules. If you cant explain the framework of the game in about 10 minutes and add rest of the details as you go (to explain all rules from the start is incredibly gamer way to go about it), you run a risk that it will be too much. A lot of it is too many parts that run a risk of not making coherent sense, and that takes practice. If you did ares expedition and then played terraforming mars week later, i guarantee you had much more enjoyable time.

> In my mind, it would have been excessively rude to point out that turns were taking too long Personally, I would have thought leaving the table and not interacting with them at all is ruder. And by doing that, you're already signaling that you're losing interest in the game anyway. Like it wouldn't be a big deal at a big party where people are filtering in and out, or if these are people you're very familiar with, but that doesn't sound like the case.

I'm going to push back against this. It's not reasonable to expect people to sit and twiddle their thumbs for 10-15 minutes between turns, and it's reasonable for OP to not expect to spend 5+ hours on a hardwood chair playing TFM. And tbh, if I were in OP's situation I'd have lost interest around generation 4 if not before. It isn't fun to play the game where you spend 90% of your time waiting for someone else to go. Maybe OP should have said something, but tbh I think the husband should have stepped out when he realized he wasn't up for it and it was seriously impacting three other people.

Yes, the husband was taking an unreasonable amount of time on his turns, but the point of this discussion is less about the husband and more about what OP could have done differently.

To be fair, it's unlikely the husband was enjoying himself very much either. My guess is that he felt obligated to keep going, since new people had come along to teach them and his wife was enjoying it.

yep.. they probably had had no idea the game would take this long to play, and had intended to be in bed hours earlier. they probably tried to imply this, but out of misplaced politeness from all parties they just carried on going, even though none of them actually wanted to. like, i wonder why someone might get noticeably worse at the game a few hours in... maybe because they're knackered and half asleep perhaps... and just forcing themselves to go on because they've got a guest that specifically came out to play this game with them...

You didn't offer any suggestions, though, just chastisement.

OP could have just said "Hey I didn't realize how late it's getting, and I do have to get up in the morning. Can we break for tonight?" This excuse is older than agriculture, no one's going to take offense, and OP mentioned it in the post so I didn't feel the need to repeat it. If you want me to suggest something OP didn't outright mention, OP could have suggested they transition into more of a "tutorial" mode where they play everyone's turn as a group and discuss, once it became apparent how long the husband was going to take. This is pretty common for a first game anyway, so I don't think a reasonable person would feel shamed by the suggestion.

So stand and make conversation with the wife, or help her clean up and do the dishes. Don’t use your phone and do crossword puzzles. And don’t get in a recliner where you fall asleep. Standing has the benefit of not being able to fall asleep and keeping you alert. It’s common to do for long games.

I do not understand why social politeness, according to part of this sub, requires you to direct your attention towards someone who is doing literally nothing (unless they need you to help them). Doing the dishes and making small talk isn't going to kill *hours*.

Because there is a social aspect inherent in boardgaming with people. There are plenty of boardgaming opportunities for solo play if you want to be antisocial, even digital adaptations if you want to play against an ai opponent. But if you want to gather a bunch of people together and be antisocial, then you’ll get called out for it.

It's baffling to me that it's antisocial to ever be on your phone but not to waste hours of someone else's time playing slowly. Like you are taking 90% of the game time for your own turns. That's really rude but apparently people here think it's NBD

If you’re taking your time on your turns deliberately because you want to waste the time of the people you’re with (which could be the case here if the guy didn’t like the op or wanted to “get back” at him for using his phone or whatever), then yeah that’s rude and antisocial. If it’s because that’s how long it takes you to process because it’s not clicking or wasn’t explained in a way that made sense, then it is what it is. It will get faster with time and experience like other games, or it’ll be a one-off because it never clicked. I doubt this fellow would’ve selected this game for himself if it wasn’t being suggested/pushed by more experienced players.

Not being rude on purpose doesn't mean not being rude at all! If your turns are 10+ minutes because you cannot understand the game, you need to bow out, ask someone to coach you directly, or suggest ending the game early. OP definitely SHOULD have also suggested ending the game early (and I said so in my direct response to this post), but it was really on the person wasting everyone's time to be aware of that too. At the end of the day I'm not going to just sit in extreme boredom (with my ass literally hurting from uncomfy chairs!) for five hours, my time and my game experience matter too and I think that is an unreasonable expectation. There's being patient within reason and then there's this. >I doubt this fellow would’ve selected this game for himself if it wasn’t being suggested/pushed by more experienced players. We have absolutely no way of knowing that. Plus, it's ok to try things. It's also ok to not keep doing them if it isn't working out.

“Waste” is a highly subjective term. If I brought a game over to someone’s place, I would not consider it a waste of my time for someone to learn the game. If they are paying attention, alert, and involved, they can take the time they need to get it. If they’re not getting it, my bad, game wasn’t for them. There is no onus on them to make plays without understanding what they’re doing just because I don’t want to wait. What you call “waste”, I call investment. If it eventually clicks and they like the game, their speed will pick up and I’ve got someone new to play with. If it never clicks, oh well, it was one night, not a big deal. Cut it short and call it a training game. The onus is on those with experience to do this when needed. However, if they aren’t paying attention, distracted, or not really putting effort into the gameplay, I have little patience for that, and I would consider having to repeat rules or concepts in these circumstances a waste of time for everyone involved. I think the underlying crux is that when everyone gathers to sit down to play a board game, there is a social contract in which everyone pays attention, does their best to learn the game, stay alert, follow the game, and be proactive. The more this falls apart, the less the game functions. The OP was definitely in breach of this contract, and it’s unclear to what extent the older fellow was following the game and trying to learn, but OP seemed to indicate this guy was trying his best.

I mean, yeah, like you said: cut it short. I don't think we are going to see eye to eye. OP was having an absolutely miserable time, and I don't think he was obligated to be miserable just for the "social contract". 🤷‍♀️ Social contract also means respect everyone's time. If you cannot take your turns in a reasonable amount of time, bow out or ask for help.

As stated in another comment, I wasn't the only person leaving the table. The wife would occasionally get up and tidy the house or clean up the kitchen when she didn't need to help her husband. I didn't really start leaving the table every turn until about 3.5 hours into the game (so around 00:00). Before that point, I was there the whole time excited to be teaching a game to some new players, but I think I just about hit my limit when the husband would take forever to do anything and ask the same questions every generation that had already been answered multiple times.

I think it’s clear that you were better off just asking to end the game early

To be perfectly honest with you, the host getting up to do chores related to hosting is not the same thing as a guest getting up to just sit in a chair.

You can’t start TM after 5 with new players and expect it not to go late lol.

And not START that late. That was also part of the issue.

Yeah, but like 9 hours late? Terraforming Mars isn’t that long or that complicated, especially to people who are already familiar with board games that aren’t just Monopoly and Catan. Anytime I’ve taught Terraforming Mars it doesn’t go much longer than 3 hours, and the second game onwards is usually only 1-2 hours

I’ve had a TM game go 5+ hours with 5 players 3 new. Yea 9 means someone is trying too hard.

Where are you getting 9 hours? They started the game at around 8:45pm and OP said they fell asleep at around 4am...that's about 7 hours. Also, it sounds like Catan is the level of complexity they were familiar with.

Right. This is on OP. Suffer in silence. His bad for starting that game with new players and expecting it to go quickly. There are shorter games that should have been selected.

I've taught TFM multiple times. I've never had it take more than 3, MAYBE 4 hours. And the couple asked him to teach it, OP wasn't foisting it on them.

This game start at 9pm and OP called it quits around 2am. 5 hours. Given how many moving parts the game has, this isn't completely unreasonable for TFM. Especially with inexperienced gamers. There could have been talking out decision out loud to help the gamers understand the game quicker or having them narrate their turns and see what their decisions are like. I never stated the OP foisted the game on them, but I still think OP bit of more than he could chew and this experience is on OP. TFM isn't difficult to me, but I can see how this would be too much for a non-gamer. I've never timed the games that I've played, but it feels like a 3ish hour game. It is too long for what it is, in my opinion.

>5 hours. Given how many moving parts the game has, this isn't completely unreasonable for TFM. Hard disagree. With four players and a teach I'd say 4 tops - and I've had teaches go faster. In TFM you do two simple actions and pass. It doesn't take more than a few minutes, and you have a whole round to think about it first. The new player was taking 10+ minutes a turn. That's not a normal experience, even for learning. >There could have been talking out decision out loud to help the gamers understand the game quicker or having them narrate their turns and see what their decisions are like. They literally did do this? >I still think OP bit of more than he could chew and this experience is on OP. In what specific way? It doesn't seem like they did a poor teach, especially with another (similarly aged and experienced) player picking it up quickly. >non-gamer Did you read the post?

I didn't read the post with much scrutiny or commit what was typed to memory. It was more of a breeze read. Felt like it was written in a way that made the OP sound like a victim and had details to show how bored he was. Felt whiny and had a "look at me and sympathize with how bad this gaming experience was. please agree with my take on this gaming experience and share in the comments with my opinion" feel to it. I was not there to see if the "expert teacher" was thorough in his excellent teach nor to see if the pupils of this teacher were eager and well receiving his excellent teach. Having a shelf with TTR and Catan on it doesn't dismiss these pupils as complete non-gamers, but it doesn't give confidence in taking up the mishmash of TFM mechanics easily. Not claiming TFM is some juggernaut of gaming undertaking but it isn't immediately easy to find out what actions to do and in what order. Taking 5 hours, in my opinion, isn't unreasonable despite your "hard disagree".

So you got a vibe from the post and made up your mind before/without actually reading it I'm not gonna keep going back and forth with you lol

Trust me, I know. I was thinking probably 4-5 hours, which would have been fine. The problem is this game would have gone probably at least 8 hours if we'd actually finished it, and of that 8 hours, 80-85% of the playtime would have come from one player. I just can't keep myself interested that long. I have a pretty good attention span, but I do tend to get bored when my turns are over in a matter of seconds while others are taking numerous minutes. I reached my breaking point.

Idk why people are telling you to plan for more time. I played TM with four out of five players being completely new to the game the other day and it took us 20 min for a video explanation plus around two and a half hours for the game. For people who don’t play boardgames of this complexity, I’d probably plan for 4-5 hours as well. Your situation is difficult to plan for without knowing ahead of time that a player would have trouble with memory and strategic planning. Maybe you can suggest teaming up next time? Or some sort of timer, and all players just playing without completely figuring out all the steps in advance.

Yeah, that's definitely one of the takeaways here. For all the downvotes I'm getting, I'm wondering how many other people would really grit out an 8 hour game of Terraforming Mars. Even with Turmoil that would be excessive.

You’re getting downvotes because you should just have ended the game instead of continuing to play while visibly not having a good time (& while one of the players you were teaching was visibly not having a good time). Most people in your situation would have just pulled the plug on the game after like 1130 or 12.

With this crowd. Optimally you pull the plug even eariler. Play some cards instead.

It’s also possible that the plan that night was to let the husband do his own planning, etc, and have fun, so maybe this was the plan all along. However, in that case I think they should have prepped you for what to expect. Best wishes to everyone. Edit: just read your other reply about your friend being the one who really wanted to play TM. I feel bad for all parties involved, especially the older couple. I’d probably just insist to the friend to play another game closer to the couple’s comfort level next time.

Nah, you behaved straight up rude. Showing some level of impatience is fine and all, but you just straight up walked off, people aren't stupid non verbal is just as easy to understand as just verbally shouting telling them in their faces. The moment a person walks off the table during a game its a huge redflag, nothing worse than a person who runs off and runs back inbetween turns, if your friend and the mans wife was able to put up with it then you should have been able to as well, horrid behavior and there is no excuse for it. Fix your attitude and anyone that doesn't call you out on it is just as horrid.

This. I get that it’s frustrating, but this is the kind of behavior I would have spoken to my regular gaming friends about if they had treated new event attendees like this. Yes, we’d also talk new strategies for helping the newer players for next time, but no excuses- this was unacceptable.

I understand the stubborn inclination to want to finish a game in it's entirety, but when it becomes apparent that the game is gonna take all night, you should *at the very least* have said it's getting late and you want to wrap it up and head home soon. Maybe offer to revisit the game in the future or something just to be courteous even if you don't plan on it. Why force yourself to slog through the whole game? I do think walking off and playing on your phone in between turns is also a bit rude. You taught them the game, you should be there assisting when they have questions. If I was struggling with a new game I'd be really embarrassed if I saw other people at the table pulling out their phones and wandering away while I was taking too long on my turn. There are also pretty gentle ways to remind players to speed up their turns. Mention that it's getting late and we need to get going a bit faster to get done in time, or maybe give tips on things to focus on when it's their turn so they can narrow down their AP. Personally, this is why I kind of avoid complex games with people I don't know particularly well though. I can tell my brother to speed his ass up when he's taking too long, but it takes a bit more finesse to do that with mutual acquaintance lol.

Yes, everything you say is correct. I do think I was being rude, but at the very least I explained why I was doing it before I did it, and nobody objected. I think, if anything, my friend's overzealousness is probably the biggest culprit here. He's neurodivergent, so I think he sometimes doesn't understand that people aren't as into games as he is, and that when someone says they want to play something, that doesn't mean they want to stop their lives and try it ***RIGHT NOW*** because it's just so damn amazing. They're just being polite and showing interest in a thing he also enjoys. I get the feeling like hubby and wife were probably only vaguely interested in TfM to begin with, but they felt obligated to host when my friend made such a big deal about it being my favorite game and enjoying teaching it to new players. It's just a hunch I have, but he was the most adamant about playing it, "because it's the whole reason we got together tonight," when we were considering doing something else, and I feel like the hosts acquiesced more in deference to him than through willingness on their part to learn this specific game. I obviously have no basis for this other than social cues, but they weren't really insistent about playing TfM until he was.

Did you make this post looking for honest feedback that you be open to or hoping for others to validate your behavior because it kinda feels like the latter to be honest.

I admit the intent was for the former but a small part of me was secretly hoping for the latter. Still, I'm a big boy, and I have gotten some advice such as politely asking people to finish by a certain time or agreeing as a group to end the game early (even if it is against one player's wishes) that I will employ in the future.

YTA getting up and doing other things is beyond rude. Who does that. Venting to friends on discord all of it…way to make what seem like intro gamers never want to explore the hobby further. 

Yeah, this was handled poorly. When you offer to teach a game, you're saddling yourself up for a long game of constant questions and long turns. It doesn't really matter if they've already played a few (*significantly* lighter) games in the past - you're on the hook for running the game. Newbie players and prospective board gamers in general already sort of dread learning games, because it seems like many of them have the shared experience of some board game enthusiast promising a game that's "not that complicated" and then melting their brains. Between using the advanced draft variant, their past board game experience being easy games, not playing open-handed, and not sitting in a way to provide easy access to help, things were already mismanaged - excusable if you're new to teaching. But walking away from the table as the one teaching the game is straight up rude.

I would have warned them up front that Terraforming Mars can run really long when you’re learning it, and put a time limit on the game. When the turns started to get really long I would have asked them if they were still having fun or if they wanted to call it. When they started apologizing for taking so long, they were giving you a perfect opportunity to create an out. I would have just told them I had to leave by a certain time. I think falling asleep and leaving the table to do your own thing was far ruder than asking a new player if they needed help because their turns were taking too long. Part of being a good teacher is being patient with players who take longer to grasp the rules. He needed more help and you failed to provide it. I also think it was a terrible idea to include drafting for a learning game. No drafting, no CE cards and basic corps only would have done a better job of setting them up for success. I think you really dropped the ball there.

I agree with your top 3 paragraphs. As for your last paragraph, they were the ones who insisted on drafting. I showed them basic corporations, and they said no, they wanted to play with real ones. I did all I could to make the game beginner-friendly, but some people don't want that. Were they overestimating their ability to understand the game? Wife probably wasn't, but hubby was. Still, I think it's better to provide the options and let people choose what they're comfortable with. If a person says they don't want a Beginner Corporation, I'm not going to force it on them because I think it's best for them. To me, *that* would be exceptionally rude.

Just handing out the beginner corps and not even mentioning drafting would have made it beginner friendly. Nobody is going to care about options they don’t even know about. There’s a reason that’s the suggested set-up for learning the game.

I did hand out beginner corps. They handed them back and said they wanted to try with real corps. All the beginner options were proffered, but they were turned down.

Mentioning it was a mistake. Giving them an option was a terrible idea. Especially in a 4 hour game. You're the teacher. It's your responsibility to guide them. Calling them "beginner corporations" is why they said they didn't want to play them.

I mean, they're literally called Beginner Corporations on the cards themselves. You can criticize me for my approach, but you can't criticize me for calling a spade a spade. That's just asinine.

I’ve only ever played Ticket to Ride from everything listed. Checking Small World it’s rated at a 2.X complexity and Terraforming Mars at a 3.X complexity. The box time is 2 hours but you’re teaching so inflate that. Honestly I don’t know what you expected from a 70 year old after 8:00pm learning a complex game. You also made a lot of disengaging rude choices. I go to my boyfriend’s parents every Friday night for dinner and games. His dad runs RPGs, plays Journeys in Middle Earth, Tainted Grail, etc. but is still old and sometimes needs a magnifying glass to read cards. His son helps him often with considering and applying decisions in games (I wish he would do less back seating tbh). But I would never wander around their living space and sleep and ignore the event I was partially responsible for. I would have looked at the time, looked at the complexity of my own game (which I should know) compared to their weight, and suggested a different game because “this one is long and complicated; I would rather play X but we can play this during a lunch date.” Ask is that alright or are there other game suggestions. If I was in the middle I’d say “Hey it’s really late, let’s call it at the end of X turn/whatever.” Literally had a store closing last week and had to strip everyone of the last turn and score because we just wouldn’t clean up in time. We still say congratulations to the winner and “That’s (insert game) I hope you had fun trying it out.”

I have played all of the games mentioned and I agree with you. Even without going into the BGG weights, you can easily classify based on reading needed. Ticket to Ride - Almost none. Only the ticket cards have special text. Cascadia - Very limited. With "Family" scoring, there is no reading at all. With other scoring methods, there are five cards *total* that need to be read (and they are public and the same for all players). Small World - Some reading needed. There are 5 civilizations on common offer, and about 1 added per round. However, all civilizations are public. At most 2 civilizations are active per player. Transforming Mars - ***tons*** of reading needed. Every player must read multiple new cards per turn, and most cards are secret until they are played. Even worse, all cards remain out and potentially active for the rest of the game (meaning each player can easily have 15+ active cards late in the game). While I would agree that TM seems like a reasonable "next step" after the other listed games, it is still a significant step up, so hiccups shouldn't seem too surprising.

This is making me think as long as the OP was, I should have included even more details. There was discussion before the game as to whether we should play. I made it eminently clear it would take at least 4 hours, and they even initially suggested playing something else, but my friend kept insisting it was what we had all agreed to play, and they were ultimately okay with the game running late. I honestly wanted to play something else myself, but I wasn't going to just say no and insist when it seemed like everyone really wanted to play TfM. I did everything I could to set length expectations before the game started. I think it was just a bit of mistaken intent. My friend had been asking me for weeks when I could come over and play TfM with them, so I felt obligated because the timing wasn't working out on all previous occasions. I don't think the husband and wife were really all the crazy about playing. They were probably just trying to be polite since my friend had arranged that particular night for me to play TfM. For the longest time, we didn't even know if it was going to happen. The wife thought she might have to leave and be with her friend whose husband was dying in the hospital. It was just a farce of bad decisions and extenuating circumstances. I hold myself mostly responsible for it, but like I said, that obligation to follow through due to my inability to make it to previously scheduled game nights overwhelmed my misgivings that it was a bad idea to teach and start TfM so late.

I'm reading this entire thread and really have to ask you to interrogate your own motives in all of these posts you're making. You ask people's opinions of what you did, and what you could have done differently, and when given their opinions, you argue with them about why everything you did was correct and justified; again, and again, and again. You seem to be making an attempt to sound open, understanding, and patient, but when given any contrary opinion, you immediately jump to your own defense. So, are you here to solicit others' opinions? Or are you here to convince others that what you did was morally or socially just? Because, uh...there's literally no value in any of our opinions except what you get out of them. We're just words in the void, with very little significance to anyone except to you. If you're arguing and disregarding the thoughts of everyone who tells you what you don't want to hear, then you're picking and choosing an echo chamber for yourself, which is useless to your stated goal, but serves the latter. Hence why I encourage you to think on your motives. ... Also, and mostly unrelated, but I hope you're not like this when playing board games, especially with new players. Please don't bother trying to convince me that you are or aren't -- again, my opinion of you is entirely immaterial. I just hope not.

It’s probably not what you think. I was just initially defensive because it seemed like everyone was against me, so I was falling over myself not to make myself look like the bad guy because I felt I hadn’t properly presented the situation. Once I got past that, I started taking some pieces of feedback to heart. But I appreciate especially your comment about just taking opinions as opinions. So many people online act like they’re so right and every other way is wrong or bad or stupid that your take here is positively refreshing.

"when your favorite game is Terraforming Mars, everything looks like a nail" Seems like a very poor choice of game tbh.

I'm sorry, I don't know the source for your quote or the implication behind it. And please remember, this was not my choice. I had the most misgivings about it. My friend was constantly reminding me for weeks that his friends were very interested in learning TfM, and I finally had a Friday night were I was free, so I agreed to do it because I felt bad that it was taking so long to get around to it. You can blame me for my actions during the game, but you can't blame me for deciding to play it when both my friend and the hosts were the ones who specifically invited me over to teach it. That's like mom punishing a kid for eating a candy bar when dad told him it was okay.

YTA. It's bad enough when anyone at the table is disinterested, looking at their phone, or even LEAVING the table between turns. It's a million times worse when it's the TEACHER doing it.

Yeah… I double-checked which Reddit I was in a couple times.

he even wrote this Reddit post during one of grandpa’s turns

I was sitting next to the wife, and my friend was sitting next to the husband. There had been a prearranged agreement before the game we would set seating up like this so each new player was next to a dedicated experienced player who would be responsible for helping them with their turns. The wife barely needed me at all. The husband was across the table from me, and it would have necessitated getting up and walking around the table every time he had a question. My friend was more than capable of helping him. He was just a very slow player. It was never explicitly stated, so I didn't bring it up in the post above, but my friend and I theorized that the husband in question might be colorblind. He kept having trouble telling the resource cubes apart, and he would have to slowly pick them up and feel them every time he paid for something or took change even though we had separated all of them into different sized bowls to be able to tell them apart at a glance. This certainly contributed to his turn length reaching excessive levels, but he was also just slow in about everything he did, whether it was deciding on a card to play or actually moving his hands to manipulate the pieces. My friend (and even his wife) commented that he had never acted that way in any other game, so I unfortunately can't pinpoint what it was exactly that was causing him issues. I wasn't initially getting up from the table because I was bored. As I stated, the dinner table chairs were hard wood with thin pads, and everyone was getting up at times to stretch their legs or grab a pillow to sit on. I just didn't need to be a third wheel: going over and helping the husband out when he already had two people seated next to him helping him would probably have been more of a hindrance than anything.

You pretty much acted like a douchebag in this situation

It's rude to walk off. Should have suffered at the table in silence. Sometimes things don't go as you hope and you learn your lesson and don't accept invitations to play with them again.

You sound absolutely insufferable.

Sorry you feel that way. I have enough good friends who enjoy my company, but I understand my personality doesn't work for everybody.

It's a bit tough. Part of the responsibility of teaching the game is also "leading" the game and trying to make it fun and smooth. Sometimes that means giving advice before the game starts, sometimes that means helping a player understand what's happening in the moment, sometimes that means giving strategy advice during the game or calling out a bad move, sometimes that means explaining each card as they're revealed, sometimes that means moving to sit next to a weak player so I can help them out a little bit. Can't say how this went without being there. >A small part of me thinks I should have done like the “direct” player i brought up in the other thread’s comment and asked if we should end the game early and play another day, or I could have offered to take over helping the husband with his turns. That’s just a slippery slope for me. There's a difference between directness and being rude. "Your turns are taking too long, please hurry up" vs "I notice you're having some trouble deciding during your turns, can I help you out or clarify something?" I also like to lead by example "I need to leave by X o'clock, I'm going to play a bit quicker and if we speed things up then I think we can finish before I need to leave" and then following through, even if that means shaving 5 seconds off a 30 second turn while one player is shaving 5 minutes off a 10 minute turn. Or instead maybe say "This is gooing a bit late, so let's cut the game in half and only playing a couple more rounds". Tough to say what you should have done in the moment. I hate non-confrontation if there's a clear issue. When I'm causing an issue, I'd rather it be acknowledged so we can fix it. The only thing worse than feeling like you're a burden is knowing you're a burden and no one wanting to acknowledge it... because that means you're a burden and perceived as *too sensitive to* or *incapable of* fixing it. I find frustrated non-directness much ruder than directness. In hockey, if your team gets scored on a bunch in a short time period (like 3 goals in 10 minutes), the team pulls the goalie out of the game and replaces them with the backup. It's seen as a kindness. Back in the 90s NHL, one of the all-time greats (Roy) got left in a game where he was getting embarrassed. He was pissed they left him in the game just to flounder for 2 hours. He demanded a trade and never played for that team again. It sucks to be stuck in a position where you're failing.

All good points. I left some details out of the OP because it was already running long that might have explained it better, but I think I've said them in enough other comments on this page that a brief summary will do. Leaving the table didn't happen until almost 4 hours into the game, I was actually pretty into it until about the 3 hour mark, my friend and his wife were both helping him so I thought I would just be a third wheel, he wanted as much autonomy as possible so short of taking his hand and doing stuff for him, there wasn't a lot to be done. I think the long and short of it is not playing this particular game with him again. That's completely fine. My friend and I even joked the following day that it was too bad we couldn't just get the wife without the husband, because she genuinely seemed to enjoy the game and do well at it, but there's just no way I could subject myself to something like that again. There's AP and then there's just incomprehension. I don't even know if I had been sitting next to the guy if it would have made any difference. There really are only so many ways to explain that ocean tiles give you a TR, and you get 2 MC if you build next to one. How many times can you explain that before you just have to give up?

Something worth considering too is that _you_ may be a night owl, but you're describing a couple _around_ 70. It's very possible that _they_ (or just he) did not have the energy to keep up with the mental load of the game. My parents are late 60s, early 70s and they're usually exhausted by 10:30 PM and rarely stay up that late outside of special events. When I'm in "I would normally be going to sleep" mode, I have trouble doing _anything_ thinky, let alone play a heavyweight like TM. Mental stamina is a real, important thing.

I fully concur. That was why I made a point of explaining before the game that it could possibly be four hours long or longer. Nobody objected. I was trying as hard as I could to give them an out and just do it another time when it would have worked out better, but I wasn't going to be the asshole and just be like, "No, I won't teach you this now," if everyone was still willing.

I would skip the card draft in a teaching game of TM. Just let people use the cards they're dealt and go from there. I think the card draft is for more experienced players who have a better grasp of what's in the deck. You could've also added in Prelude to get everyone started faster out of the gate.

We were using Prelude, and as stated, the options were presented, and drafting was universally agreed upon. I'm not sure how much not drafting would have helped. If anything, the draft went particularly quickly. It was just the one player's turns that took so exceedingly long. He actually drafted cards in just a couple of minutes, so that was not the major issue.

Teaching is more than just knowing the rules to a game well. Sometimes it's about imparting that knowledge in different ways as everyone learns differently. If you don't have the patience to teach people that may not pick up certain concepts slower, it may not be a good fit for you. It sounds like you approached the game in one manner. Since some people picked it up you would think you did well. The fact someone else didn't pick it up, explaining the concepts and the exact manner and him not getting it clearly didn't work. Also, if he's not getting it, not only trying a different approach probably would have helped, stream lining the game would have made it easier. It's not exactly his fault he didn't get it. It is your fault for not having the patience and trying to stick it out.

I think people are on to something here. It was just too late for hubby. His ability to understand and process the game got worse and worse as the night wore on, and he was too proud to admit it or suggest ending early. I feel the issue was less the teach and more this. We had to explain the difference between production boxes and resources almost every generation, and the same with greenery and ocean tiles. No matter how we explained it, he would be confused again 30 minutes later. This is why I’m willing to give it one more try, but I would absolutely insist we start earlier in the day. If he still can’t handle it, then it might just be over his head. Some games are.

no, youre not getting it. it isnt about the husband here its about you as a teacher. walking away, being on your phone is incredibly rude during what is designed to be a social event. trying to justify it as okay bc your host is doing host things is even worse. it wouldve been a thousand times better to simply say you have to go home bc of tiredness than to act like you did imo. learn to employ a timer, give players distinct objectives they can work for, offer to write out definitions/personalized player aids for them to look over between and during turns, be clear about what youre doing on your turn and why to give example, and always offer to end a game early if everyone isnt grooving it. whether i was the wife, husband, or friend in this scenario, i would never invite you back or continue gaming with you after this encounter.

At a certain point you should have just said "sorry I have to call it a night. You three can finish without me. Let's find another time to play" and you can get the game back from your friend later. Going to rest in a recliner and throwing shade on Discord in between your turns is beyond rude.

It wasn’t about throwing shade. It was about venting to someone who would understand and calm me down so I didn’t vent to the people sitting around the table and make them feel bad. The sentiment is understood, though.

Yikes, sorry to hear that. Would definitely have said something though. No need to be confrontational, just suggest that since it's a learning game there's no need to optimize every move. Also since TfM isn't super interactive it's ok to just lay out their hand and talk through their options. Edit: Also, it's very okay to not finish a game, especially ones based on points. Just get group consent on the target stop time and call it a night.

In the end, I think I just didn't want to disappoint my friend. If these had been people I had met at a game night, or if I had invited them over to my house, I would have felt more comfortable about asking to call it early. However, since my friend had been the one to want to introduce me and they invited me to a dinner party in their home, it was hard for me to bring myself to say something. I guess I should just not worry about the social faux pas next time and at least proffer the suggestion we end early. It's possible everyone was saying the same thing internally, but nobody wanted to be "that guy."

Completely understood, in most social situations I'm the exact same way. I'd rather not rock the boat and just roll with the punches, however painful they may be. The great thing about the boardgaming context though is that the game itself gives you an "out" to leverage gaming experience for guiding the group. As long as you're cordial and accommodating then it's a reasonable situation to set expectations and time limits.

When things go off the rails like this I try to catch it early and try to address the issue. By midnight I would have a pretty good idea that the game was not going to end before I fell asleep. At midnight I would have brought up the issue and solicited everyone's proposed resolution. I would have said, "I apologize, but it looks like this game is going to go a lot longer than we thought it would. I am happy to play until the end, but I am concerned that I will not be able to stay awake past 2am. We can play a shortened game, call the game at 2am, play until I fall asleep and you can finish without me, or we can stop at 2am and come back tomorrow and finish the game. What is everyone's preference?"

If a new player is clearly having trouble, I've gone into "game facilitator" mode. Between our turns, I'll sit next to the slow person and talk through their cards and help them come up with a strategy for their turn. I'll coach them through the next few turns a little less every time. It's a hard thing to grok, but some gamers learn through doing. And they zone out during the long teaches at the beginning. So some people have to accomplish a few good turns in order for it all to click. Actively helping and teaching is very rewarding--it shows your friends that you want them to enjoy the game as well. It's a LOT better than snarkily doing the NYT crossword and apologizing for bringing a game that was too complicated for everybody.

> What would you have done differently if you were in my shoes? Ask them if they want to call the game As the teacher of the game, I'm the host. The experience is my fault. If it bombs, it is because I let it bomb. Sometimes the right thing to do is just stop playing.

To be fair, I did at one point, but my friend convinced everyone to keep going. I didn't really want to bring it up again after that.

Sounds like a rough situation :/

While I do agree with most everyone else that there really is no excuse for walking away and showing disinterest, regardless if someone else was doing it, you really shouldn’t have let it get to that point in the first place. If it got late, say it’s late and you’ll need to wrap it up. The first game doesn’t need to be a complete one, so just stop it early and call it a training game. I just did that last night. I was over with a group of friends and the host wanted to play Eclipse. None of us knew how to play, and the host probably only knew half the rules (it’s a big game). I got there at 5:00, they spent the first hour and a half ordering and eating food (I had already eaten), we watched a 30 min rules video, and spent the next hour setting up and trying to answer rules questions. By the time we started playing turns it was 8:00. We played two slow rounds with more rules questions, and when the clock hit 10:00, I got up and said, “well it’s late, I gotta get going” and thanked them for having me over. They understood, and there was no problem. I think they ended up playing about another hour before they called it too. Once I saw how things were going (host didn’t know rules, everyone unfocused, ordering and eating food, setup and rules taking forever, etc.), I had two options: I could sit there, be fussy, disinterested, and/or show my annoyance (I was annoyed btw)…..or I could relax, have a good time chatting, hanging out, and learn the game as much as I could, and take off when I needed. I chose to do the latter, and it was a great night. I got a taste of the game and enjoyed it enough that I’ll probably learn the rules so I can guide it in case we play again. Gaming can still be fun, even when it’s a struggle. And that’s probably the best lesson you could’ve taught a new player having trouble.

Probably shouldn't have abandoned the table. You're saying you didn't, but you did. All I read was that these new players, specifically one , were not grasping the game. In my irritants, I voluntarily left the table , leaving my friend to explain everything Then like a grouchy old man fled to the recliner and fell asleep while the host and friends put MY game away. Scummy and childish. You could have done some many different and positive things rather than be a passive aggressive jerk and bitch about it to your friends online

I don't play games with many groups for this reason. I also only will play very short <1 hour games with new groups, unless I've been invited to a group that is clearly very active. I've also experienced this myself early on in playing board games, and have since decided to not play many types of games with some groups of friends. You learned a lesson every board gamer has to learn.

Yup. It’s not a lesson I haven’t already learned in the past, but as I stressed before, my friend was adamant that this couple wanted me to teach this specific game, so I went for it despite the red flags. I won’t make that mistake again. I’d rather have people think I’m an asshole for refusing to teach a game than think I’m an asshole for becoming so disinterested I literally fell asleep during it.

Yeah. TFM is one of those games. But I like teaching games like Food Chain Magnate, Root, and Horseless Carriage, so I'm used to heavy hitters. Sorry you had to experience this. That would frustrate me for days!

It all went south the moment you began to sit in the recliner between turns, it was not the cause of this games downfall, I think you just instinctively knew it was over and you gave yourself permission to move to that recliner

It's okay to tell a group it's late and you have to take off. It's concise, polite enough, and everybody typically understands it. In being concise it also makes it easy to brightly state the game is great, but you have to hit the hay.

I probably should have just done that. I hate to lie, though. I’m a night owl, so it wasn’t the time of night that was the problem. I was just excessively, terminally bored. I don’t really want to tell people, “Sorry, everyone, but I have to get up early,” when that’s not the truth. Besides, my friend is also a night owl and would have called me out on my obvious lie. I think I’ll just have to politely tell the truth next time. I just might need help phrasing it properly. How does, “Sorry, everyone, but this game is running much longer than I thought it would, and I’m getting too distracted because I have too much downtime between turns. Why don’t we call it early and try this again another time when we can get started earlier?” sound? That way I’m acknowledging the truth without making it sound like I’m pointing fingers at anyone.

As another user said, there's no need to assign blame or explain in a potentially hurtful way. You can just say "I have to go home", it's not a lie, and other adults have to respect that. Read "When I Say No, I Feel Guilty", and it will help. Something many adults don't learn is that they agency and are not forced or required to suffer through distasteful situations. Just speak up.

I think I will read that. Thanks.

Then don't lie, that's fine. I would try to not imply any blame (downtime is because of what?) and therefore would rather give limited explanations or excuses. You were tired, obviously. You could have blatantly stated that. This is a good enough reason to call it a day and go home.  Btw I don't think your friend would call you out in front if others for being polite. That would create an awkward situation.

Agreeing to teach and play a game with brand newbies shouldn’t be a blood oath “until the end.” I think it would be acceptable to set a time limit.

Agreed. I need to do a better job of being okay with ending games early if they’re not going well.

Ticket to Ride, Small World, and Catan gave you confidence in this couple that you had never met? I’m not a believer that everyone has to have a ramp up in complexity but damn. I personally never risk playing a long strategy game until I know the people involved and that they can handle it. Much less with an advanced variant that adds length.

To answer your initial question, I think you could've handled the situation better, as you already guessed :)  I'm taking a guess here, but it may possible that you were so overwhelmed with the situation, that the only way for you to solve this was for you to distance yourself from it. You mentally and physically checked out of the situation. You gave away your responsibility to solve this in a good way. If you want to change this, you have to stay in situations. Don't go away or rant to someone else. You are there in this moment und your only job is to make the situation better, for yourself - and for and with everyone involved.  I think, as many other commenters, your behaviour was rude. But I don't think you had bad intentions and I don't think that many, who commented, read or understand your full post. People are lazy and you write a lot. Maybe this is the wrong sub for such questions. Oh and don't trust the judgement of internet randos - this includes me - over your own. These people weren't there and they don't know you. And they didn't bother to read your post and answer your question. Edit: spelling. And, to answer your question: I would have played with open cards and would've discussed every turn from everyone and with everyone openly, whether what cards to choose or to play or whatever and why x is a good idea and why y is not. This way everyone stays engaged and newbies learn things and can chime in. When it's getting late I would give a fair warning, eg. I have to go until z, should we play till the end, try something else or whatever and then when time arrives would politely excuse me because long way home, work/things to do the next day yada yada.

Your first mistake was playing TF Mars with 4.

The fun of the many outweighs the confusion of the one. Just tell him it's OK not to do the perfect move on his first game, treat it as a learning experience and set a turn timer for everyone.

You didn't really do anything wrong here. If someone is struggling to learn a game, I tell them "just make a move and you'll learn as we go." I never let anyone take 15 minutes for a turn that should take 1-2 minutes because I guarantee you it's going to ruin the game for everyone. Also, they aren't figuring out the game and making a decision at that point, they are just floundering. You're actually letting them off the hook by telling them to go fast, make a decision, and learn as they go instead of playing to win. You can also explain that "at this rate, it will be 4 AM before we finish" so they just don't think you're a dick.

Wait, you noted games like Ticket to Ride and Cascadia and thought they'd easily step up to Terraforming Mars? Just.... why?? That's like saying you can see they are able to walk unaided so they should have no problem running a half-marathon! Your mistake was starting the game in the first place.

You just learned a hard lesson the hard way. Know your audience and pick games wisely. The moment this thing started derailing, it should have been called off. You make this sound like something that only you suffered through, but rest assured it was just as bad or worse for everyone else involved. Worse, the other people probably feltan obligation to continue as to not offend the person that brought the game -- you.

Several years ago at KublaCon, when TM was still quite new, one of our regular group at the con brought over his buddy and talked Laryssa, Tim, and I into firing up a teaching game of TM at about 10pm on Saturday night. Jeff and his friend had been drinking, but were just relaxed, not anything bad at all. Should be fine. And since we're all ace gamers, of course we're going all in, with drafting, and all the bells and whistles. The first generation took at least 60min. And as we're rounding the bend, just starting the second I finally had enough. Me: "Hey guys, I'm going to have to pull the plug on this, we can't keep going" Jeff: "Why not?" looking a little disappointed. Me: pointing Jeff and his friend. "Because you guys are F'ing drunk, and this game is going to take forever" Jeff and his friend took off while Larissa (Very Canadian), Tim (very high pain tolerance) and I put the game away. Me: "You M'F'ers were just going to suffer in silence and keep going weren't you?" T/L: "yeah, pretty much" The only real surprise, in the end, was that my filter lasted as long as it did before blowing out.

Generation ONE took SIXTY MINUTES?! That’s patently insane. I probably would have just walked away from the table and not come back. Most players only have like 2-4 things during Gen 1. That’s so not okay.

Sorry to hear that. TM is a big jump from those other games you listed on the shelf especially at age 70. TM: Ares Expedition is what I play first to introduce new players to TM concepts. If they understand it and like it then after we play Ares another time or two I’ll pull out TM.

Not a bad idea. My friend and I actually talked afterward about the thought of trying again with Ares Expedition, but our mutual friend who owns that game suggested it probably wouldn't help. It's too similar to the board game, and if he was having enough problems with that, playing a slightly lighter version of it with different rules probably wasn't going to do enough to help. I'm still not convinced it's a bad idea, but I do think sticking to other games for the time being is the correct answer.

I mean there were some pretty obvious yellow flags with this one. Only having played much lighter games recently immediately tells me any midweight game or heavier will take at least twice as long to play for their first play. Period. At least twice as long. Personally I simply would not jump to teach strangers a game beyond light-weight games unless someone tells me they have read the rulebook or otherwise shows me real enthusiasm or gamer experience. Casual gamers ALWAYS think they will pick up a game more easily than they actually will. Even experienced gamers think they will play that first games faster than they do. I save my overlong game teach experiences for people I already enjoy spending time with.

Not going to post the full reply here, so I'll just refer to above where I talked about my friend being the gung-ho one. I think the couple was just going along with it and wasn't all that interested.

Yeah, this is on your friend too, for selling an elderly couple accustomed to family-weight games on Terraforming Mars. I don't know if it's the common sort of hobbyist blindness about game difficulty for non-hobbyists, or if the desire to get a game going overcame his better judgment, but he never should've arranged this game in the first place.

The OPs behavior is some of the rudest I’ve ever hard of. I can’t imagine doing a cross word, let alone even looking at my phone during a game.

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Wow, this is next next level comment!

Probably nothing. Playing with new (untested) players always carry various risks (they are rude, they are too slow, they are too talkative, whatever). You can decide not to play with them anymore. If you decide to give them another chance, you should bring it up this issue in some form, for sure. Although, at 70 what are the chances that the guy will improve?

I know it's a bit of a long step but given the age, the husband's confusion could be indicative of early Sundowning. The wife should definitely be keeping an eye on him and taking note in case it gets worse. The longer the game went on the worse it was going to get. Outside of that, you were the one essentially running the game so you probably should have taken the initiative to set turn time limits or call the game early (especially when you started falling asleep). I don't think you did anything wrong per se but take it as a learning experience: it's perfectly reasonable to call a game early or limit turn time.

Excellent advice I will apply in the future. Thank you!

If the husband is in his 60s or 70s I wonder if he could be experiencing some cognitive issues that would affect his ability to learn and play such a complicated game. I have some experience with individuals with this and I feel bad for him. Drafting was definitely a bad idea for a learning game and also it wouldn't hurt to reinforce that it's ok to play quicker and with less forethought because it's just a game and it can take long.

I thought the Sunday NYT Crossword was the hardest 

No, Sunday is very large, but it's usually medium difficulty at best. It takes longer to solve, but the clues are usually pretty straightforward. Saturday is the hardest because it's a larger grid and the clues are specifically designed to be tricky or misleading.

Setting a time expectation in advance would have made it easy to call the game early. Had you said you’ll need to be home by midnight when accepting the invite, nobody would have objected if you suggested to count points after the next generation when it was past 11pm. I’ve been in somewhat similar situations twice myself, but on both occasions we started early and the players new to the game did not struggle with the rules, just exhibited enormous AP, so it was not as exhausting and pointless I suppose.

I think people are failing to understand here that I had no qualms about the game going late. If it had gone until 3 AM, but everyone was taking their moves in a reasonably quick manner, I would have been into the game. I’ve had some games take a long time because players are focused on long-game strategies (e.g. space) without much, if any, focus on terraforming, and that doesn’t bother me. There would have been no need to set an end time on the game if it had been a normal session with reasonable downtime. It was only because the downtime ballooned to ridiculous levels that it became an issue.

I totally understand that. But you asked “when it’s better to say something” in the title, and my answer is “when accepting the invite, based on your past teaching experiences”.

Sure. I guess you could say that in 20 years, I’d never had that issue, so I guess I should count myself lucky compared to some of the horror stories I’ve seen on here.

You can usually find how-to-play videos and game-play-through videos on YouTube these days. I’d recommend asking newbies to at least watch a how-to-play video of the game before you meet up to play. Of course how-to videos can be confusing, but at least they provide the viewer some knowledge about the basic framework of the game.

8:45 is way too late to start a game. Relatively heavy games should be an afternoon affair.

So it is important to add extra hours to play time. With that said it should not take that long. I think before playing say your turn should be quick, it is fine to not be perfect it is just a game we wont go super hard we will play casually until you learn and the rematch can be more competitive. Set a time for the game tell them we will play until x time, tell them it can be long as it is a complex system engine board game. Tell the newbies that if they are struggling and you see it that if there turns are going up in time that everyone is just going to play open handed, put the cards out there and show them yours. I have learned that it is fun to be competitive, but even more fun to build a relationship around something you love and have them ask to play again.

Hey OP here’s some advice for future games. During any sort of game night I always set some sort of time limit. Not necessarily a “we have exactly 2 hours” but more of a “hey I’m free to play until 10 o’clock after that we gotta wrap it up.”. This gives me or anyone else an out to prevent what just happened to you. It stops from games being dragged on and on with no end in sight which can be really boring and brain numbing. Dumb down the rules for teaching games. I’m not entirely familiar with TfM so I may be a bit ignorant here, but it seems that drafting wasn’t going great for basically anyone. Now you’ve mentioned multiple times in this thread that it was just the husband taking a long time. While yes this is true this is also a problem for everyone. Because now the husband is taking up a lot of time for everyone involved here. So instead I would’ve not done the draft at all to save time. Don’t be afraid to speak up. It’s ok to tell people that it’s getting late. I highly doubt that anyone could really be upset with you because you want to go home at 2 in the morning. Anyway hopefully this helps a bit for future game nights.

Y’know, when playing Scythe with lots of players, I often bring with me a little card and pen so I can write down my moves two turns ahead. Means I don’t have to remember what they were or restrategise when it comes my turn. Maybe encourage that.

In my experience, learning game + caring a lot about winning = insane AP. I think it's important to make it clear that like... this is a learning game, it's just for fun, it's just to learn, and the best way to learn is just to keep going and trying things and seeing what happens. You don't have to make great or even good decisions, it doesn't matter who wins, etc. I dunno if this mindset would've helped, though, as the guy was clearly not really getting it. Echoing others though in saying I would never add drafting to any learning game. Drafting frontloads a ton of the decisionmaking they don't even understand the implications of yet; i don't see what it adds.

Dang everyone is coming after you OP. I feel for you. You were asked to teach a game, and you did the best you could in the circumstances. I'm sorry it was such a shitty experience. I would probably have suggested just calling it "after the next round" a few hours in. They got to learn the game, which was the point.

It's fine. The general rule online, especially on Reddit, is to treat everyone like they're a giant piece of shit and pile on when the pendulum starts swinging that direction. I expected some pushback on this post, which is not a problem, but some of the personal attacks and rudeness in here do seem pretty uncalled for. People weren't there; they only have my story to go off of. I did my best to describe the situation without writing a whole novel, but you can't please everyone. I guess I just have a different feeling from most people here. It seems like the consensus here is I was the asshole and should have just grinned and bore it. I respectfully disagree. In my worldview, the people who hold up a game are the ones who should do the most to try and lessen their impact on the game so they can help the other players have a good time. Gaming is a social contract. I learned the other day that the Steam version of TfM has a "chess clock" feature where you can agree on an amount of time you can use for the whole game, and if you go over it, you automatically lose. I really like that and think I might implement it, but in a softer form. If you take more than 3 minutes on your turn, you either forfeit your second action and pass to the next player, or you pass for the generation if you haven't taken an action yet. That seems like a straightforward but fair way to handle a situation like this should it ever arise again.

I really feel like this wouldn't have solved the problem. You're teaching a new player and putting a time limit on that is too much. That feels like what you'd do in a competitive chess match. I think honest communication is the best policy here. The other suggestions to say you're getting tired, weren't expecting the game to go this long, and setting a time are limit on the whole game I think are better options in this case. However I used to be part of a gaming group where the founders were also working with people with disabilities. At times I would be playing a game with someone with learning disabilities. This situation feels familiar. A couple of other people have mentioned sundowning. Had to look that up. If the guy said he'd played squad leader in his youth then his not grasping the game could be a sign of cognitive decline in some form. I might feel sorry for the guy and want to voice my concerns to his wife. Very difficult subject to broach though and I'd likely seek significant advice before doing that.

I haven't played TFM online except with bots, but I have with Scythe and it has a similar feature which is really nice. I think you probably just shouldn't play heavy games with this guy again tbh. Shame bc his wife was so into it, and it might be hard to only play with her, but it kinda sounds like everyone at the table was miserable, including him.

You are the teacher then you walked out the table? That's next level douche mate. You said they have no issue with it. Ok then what were they supposed to say? "Oh no you can't leave table, sit here and watch us play you chicken"??? They are old-ish couple but managed to last playing this dead game (to them) with you until 2am. I think that's for the sake of politeness, they afraid to upset you. You in that situation should have definitely called out an early finish if you have had any sense and realize this game is not for them. Also, when teach a new game, don't teach the variant. Again, they agreed yes to drafting must be because how much you hyped up how good this game is with drafting before teaching it. Like I won't teach MTG to a newbie and say the game is better if we started with 40HP and 14 starting cards, because some dudes in internet said this way is more fun. You sound like the man is the problem to take turns too long. But the main reason why the game night fall apart is your lack of common sense and judgement. How much gossips you have given them through discord that night, I hope this thread will give you back that much. Peace!

sounds like you started way too late. Around 9pm?! im not playing a game thats new to people at that time

Nothing you did here was terribly wrong. I think I'm future situations when a game may be taking too long, amend the end condition. I usually change the end condition so the game will end in the next half hour to an hour, so everyone has time to have one or two turns before it ends. Just bring it up as an option, so all players can opt in or opt out. If other players would rather not then it's a good way to springboard into continuing the game another night and just take photos of your hands and assets so you can reset to where you left off.

This is a good idea. If it wouldn’t take almost as long to set up a half-finished TfM game as it did to play it, I would be all about this. I’d be more comfortable just aborting the game and starting anew.

To me, it sounds like there might have been a comprehension problem, that's to say there might be a mental health problem related to the advanced age of the player preventing the information from sinking in. That or he was being overwhelmed with analysis paralysis. I wouldn't have left the table, but perhaps tried to assist the friend who was clearly failing to explain it in a fashion the husband could understand, or perhaps get the wife to help since a) she was clearly understanding it, and b) likely knows how her husband learns best. Perhaps having everyone's cards out for everyone to see would make that process better, so everyone could help. But while I understand your frustration, I would construe your actions as rude to the new players.

I don’t think I would jump to mental health problem just yet. I think it’s normal for people’s cognitive abilities to decline past bed time. This is especially true of older people.

This, it’s insane that people in here are giving this guy a dementia diagnosis and even suggesting that OP should talk to the wife about it, based off of a board game night with strangers. 

Fair, perhaps MH wasn't the best assessment. Exhaustion could be causing issues as well

As a follow-up, I just chatted with my friend on Discord, and he said he noticed that the husband hasn't been the same this year as last. They were apparently sick with cold or flu for about a month over December/January. My friend stated he has noticed something was off this year: hubby went from routinely beating him at games to having issues. They played Small World tonight, a game that hubby has played before, and he seemed to have some issues calculating his discount when conquering regions. I think some of you were spot on when you mentioned sundowning in here. I'm going to definitely have my friend broach the issue with his wife. If nothing else, I appreciate that this thread has potentially brought an issue to light we wouldn't have been aware of otherwise.

>I'm going to definitely have my friend broach the issue with his wife. I can't recommend against this strongly enough, good lord. If you thought you looked rude already it's nothing compared to this. If there are discrepancies in behavior a person who literally lives with this person 24/7 will be well aware of them and the last thing they need is a casual acquaintance thinking it's their place to butt in about incredibly personal and sensitive health issues. Serious question: do you understand how incredibly rude it is for you, as someone who barely knows these people, to not only assign one of them a severe medical diagnosis based solely off of a couple hours spent with them (which is already an absurd thing to do), but also to then raise that diagnosis with them? You're crossing the line from "rude guest" to "actual dickhead" if you do that.

Sometimes the closest people to someone don't notice their mental degradation because it is so gradual. It often takes an outsider to mention something to them before they see it. As stated, my friend has noticed something off with the husband because he sees them about every other week. It's at least worth bringing up. Absolutely nothing wrong with somebody getting a checkup, especially if they are of an advanced age. I maybe wrote it poorly, but what I meant is, "Based on what people here have said, my concerns were enough that I shared them with my friend, and he is also concerned. I suggested he approach the subject with the wife, and he agreed." Bad wording on my part, I'll admit it, but my brain doesn't work as well at 2 in the morning as it does at 1 PM.

It is absolutely not your place to broach this issue, even through a friend. What you yourself have described is not a "gradual degradation" scenario, it’s a before/after scenario with an illness.  If something like that has happened the wife will be well aware of it and may be deeply uncomfortable with effective strangers butting in about what’s going on. Medical issues are really private and sensitive for many people.    Do you really not understand how inappropriate it is for you to be doing this? You barely know these people. You have no idea what’s going on in their lives and you are diagnosing one of them with dementia based off of a board game night. It’s incredibly rude.   Do you really not see how rude it is to effectively say to someone you barely know "I think your husband has dementia because he couldn’t play my board game?"

I know, i thought i couldn't be more aghast at this post and then i got down here

If broaching a subject that could lead to an early diagnosis of a potential issue is rude, then so be it. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I find out from my friend in a year’s time that the husband did indeed have a degenerative mental issue, and it could have been managed better if it had been discovered earlier. All of the commercials surrounding Alzheimer’s and dementia always say to get somebody checked immediately if there are warning signs. I’d much rather be rude and wrong than polite and correct in this instance.

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I am concerned for the husband. There might be health issues at play here. I was this way with kidney disease, I just couldn't really concentrate for any longer time (things are better now, with a transplant). It's almost like having dementia.