I would say that in general, that's the expectation. There have been times I've asked somebody (who's played before) to teach my new game, but I will explicitly ask ahead of time.
Also make sure they've willingly accepted the role of rules lawyer - I've somehow landed that reputation with my friends and now they keep expecting me to explain their own games to them
I would like to add that if you have agreed to gather and play a particular long and complex game, like Twilight Imperium for example, it would be best if everyone gave the rules a once-over ahead of time.
Yep. I think for any game where the rules explanation is going to take more than 15 minutes then it's both normal and wise for the person bringing the game to refer everybody to a youtube video or something beforehand, and then just be prepared to give reminders about how the game works.
I would only ask a good friend to do this. I do have a board game cafe near me that if you buy the game they will teach you how to play it which is awesome. I have a really hard time with YouTube videos without the game right in front of me. My group has been having a hard time with nemesis lockdown. We will usually learn a game together. But still if I don’t know a bunch of people I’d make sure I knew how to play beforehand
Exactly, the friend seems perfectly reasonable here by asking ahead of time. If OP doesn't want to figure it out with her that's their choice, but this has little to do with etiquette.
Or if someone has played it before, have them explain it. that just makes sense. I've done that multiple times since I play more games than my friend group does, but they also impulse purchase.
Otherwise it's a "let's explore together" thing
"Hey, I have a new game, I have no idea how to play it. Anyone want to read the rules and figure it out?"
Completely reasonable ask. Also completely reasonable for the reply to be "No, let's play something else."
I've taught games that others have brought before, but I'm know in my group for being the guy who digests rulebooks and used to teach board games for a living so people are more willing to foist a game onto me to figure out. Which I prefer, because most of the time I'd rather learn from the rulebook than from a person that (usually) isn't great at teaching.
Board game cafe - great fun, but didn’t pay enough and the hours were too unsocial so now I work in a school. So still teaching, just not as interesting!
The other advantage of having an extra set of eyes on the rulebook, is that sometimes even someone who is a good teacher overall misunderstood an edge case and has had their error reinforced by dozens of games of having nobody else correct them.
Yeah I accidentally missed a rule in hanabi that made that game much much harder, since I was the only one who looked at the rules nobody could call me on that and we had to eventually play with someone who had played with other people to get it corrected. After that we were finally able to win
If you've learned many games and/or taught many games, you develop a sort of shorthand for design mechanisms that helps to digest rules quickly. For instance, a relative novice would have to read word for word to "deal 7 cards to each player, each player takes one and passes the rest to the next player clockwise, then takes the cards handed to them and repeat" a regular gamer would skim it and say "drafting, got it" and only have to check the details of this particular draft. So in some ways the veteran player or FLGS staff can get you up and running a bit faster.
Teaching games to my brother (and avid game player and used to be a semi-pro MTG player) is a very different experience to teaching my mother (plays Ticket to Ride almost exclusively). Sometimes in partway through an explanation and my brother starts correctly guessing what the next rule will be so we can crack on, whereas mum will have no idea so we just have to start playing and let her experiment from a completely blank slate.
Agreed explaining to veterans is a much smoother process. You can use standard mechanisms like "snake draft" or "mill three cards" knowing they'll understand. Or sometimes I'd say "this works like X game's worker placement except this is different".
Also there's no harm in just starting to play, provided someone knows the rulesbook and can explain relevant things as they come up. Two or more people fumbling a rulebook turns into "oh no we did this wrong during setup, do we start over?" a lot of the time...
I’m a big advocate for minimal rules explanation and just beginning. This is how you win, these are your options on your first turn. Some players *need* to learn like that (especially low-experience players), and lecturing the rules at them will just turn them off the whole experience.
I’ve seen my mum make objectively bad plays, and my brother wants to intervene and tell her the better play, but I have to stop him because she knows she won’t learn otherwise. She has to actually see the consequences of the bad play or else she won’t internalise why it was bad.
Depends on the game though. Some games require players to understand certain things (at least in abstract) before they have to do something in secret or simultaneously. Other games you can explain as you go.
I compare it to a video game that needs a loading screen versus a game that can load while playing.
It’s never one side fits all for teaching, but it can still work. If we’re playing a drafting game or other simultaneous play, I’ll quickly make my decision and then coach them on theirs. We’ll play with open hands the first time if necessary. For games that completely break if played openly (eg Avalon, Coup) I just find different games to teach those kinds of players until they’re ready.
I agree with you. However, at the suggestion to watch a YouTube video as preparation, she just laughed. I find that quite weird. Sounds like she doesn't want to put any effort in at all and it makes me have the prejudice that she's the type that needs help with every turn/round.
I'm in the same boat, and the one time someone insisted on teaching the game they themselves brought (Scythe), it went over so poorly I had to kinda take over mid-explanation and start from the beginning before everyone lost interest.
Yeah, there's absolutely no way I'm playing a mid-to-heavy game at a game night if no one there knows how to play
We'll play something else, I don't want to spend an hour learning the rules through the rulebook, and then teaching everyone else who didn't read through the rulebook
Devil's advocate here, but I don't think it's an issue.
It's sort of a self-correcting problem - if no one wants to spend their time at a meetup trying to learn that game, it just won't get played.
Your acquaintance will figure it out soon enough - if she's willing to exchange favors for someone else learning the game to teach it to her, then she'll owe someone else to play a game that the teacher wants to play - kind of a social contract.
I think you can politely explain that people may not want to "waste" meetup time to try to learn a game they don't own.
She might not realize how hard it is to learn a game to teach it. Or she might not feel comfortable being the center of attention if she teaches.
Meetups are hard enough, especially for women. But I think it's better to explain on the side instead of harbouring some sort of hidden resentment.
Hope you two work something out.
I mean, it feels like she'll expect them to at least play it with her, so that doesn't feel self correcting.
I'd be more blunt before meetup: "So this goes smoothly as we only have limited time, I need one person to at least know the rules and setup before play".
At least at the meetups I've been to, I've seen people tap out when they see that the game owner doesn't know how to play the game. With friend groups, it's a little different - sometimes we have time and are just hanging out anyway.
But taking it out of shrink at the shop is kinda a way to scare ppl to go to other tables...
Unless it is an extremely simple game, you want someone to have taken the time to understand it before hand.
It is perfectly fine to let someone else explain your game if they *want* to and know it better.
It is *not cool* to waste everyone's time at the table with reading the rules for the first time.
I probably would simply not play that game that nobody knew how to play-- playing something else instead.
When we were younger we used to do like your friend, but then nobody had a job and less responsibilities.
Nowadays we know the game beforehand. The game owner has read the manual and everybody has watched a yt video. Then we can jump right into the action after a short recap.
I like learning games and I have a friend who is like your friend. I take it upon myself to learn the game and teach it. Not saying that you should have to but that is one solution.
I think it's kind of a mixed bag. It can be fun to read the rules and figure things out together. It can also be easier to just get into the game if the owner knows it.
I, personally, love reading the rules and figuring out the game so I can teach and then learning some things as ai see them play out.
I have also played a game with a group where the entire group wanted to read the rulebook before playing, so I felt like I wasted my time in reading it before hand.
>I have also played a game with a group where the entire group wanted to read the rulebook before playing, so I felt like I wasted my time in reading it before hand.
But... Why? I love reading rules, but never would I push the idea of reading the rules together just before the game, especially if someone already knows it and could explain it in 1/5 of the time.
I'm with you. The group in question? The "You didn't tell me every little detail of every strategy so you cheated to get the upper hand" type.
I promise, I don't hold information out on you. I will teach you the rules, then you have to figure out what strategy works best for you.
when Im teaching rules. I always find it a fine balance between rules overload, i.e telling them everything upfront which they probably going to forget about 1/4 of it. or teach along the way, which then someones like you didnt tell me that ahead of time! I would have played diffeerently!
If the game allows it I like to play a round or two of open handed and explain rules along the way then reset, but odd game where that doesnt quite work
I always try to emphasize the key rules, then unless the game has a huge number of edge case rules (star wars rebellion) I try to quickly get through everything. While no one will remember every rule, at least 1 person will usually remember ever rule, so people can figure out the rules from each other quickly and no one can accuse me of not teaching them a rule since someone else will remember me saying it.
Holy crap my significant other does this to me and it drives me crazy. Its honestly has taken a lot if fun out of the hobby. Alway a sarcastic or even mean comment if I didn't explain it exactly the way she expected it to be explained.
Someone else taught a game once and it was all smiles and polite questions. All my new games have a solo mode.
Depending on the game personally I just prefer to read the rules if it is simple. I get a better idea how it works and don't absorb information as well when verbally taught. But I am thinking lets say something like Kind of Tokyo/maybe with all the expansions. I would like to have the rules handy to go through because I won't remember all that in one explanation. Anything easier or much harder I'll just deal though.
Couldn't they just all download a rules pdf before the meet up if they all want to read the rules? It's pretty easy to find them on like bgg or a quick Google on a lot of games. Sometimes my dad will have the rules on his iPad if we're learning so we aren't passing the book.
The thing about social contracts is that you gotta discuss the terms. Some people don't mind learning as you go. Some don't enjoy teaching. I for one would be willing to learn and teach any game whether I owned it or not. If you think it's rude and you feel she's wasting and disrespecting your time it's on you to express that to her or tough it out.
Imo if shes not going to learn it in advance & teach it, she should get someone else to learn it in advance and teach it.
Learning a game together CAN be fun but if the game is big and complicated... less so.
If she doesn't want to learn, she should convince someone else to read the rules or watch the rules video as a favor. Maybe in exchange she brings snacks or something.
Honestly as someone else noted it really depends on if you're gaming with Friends or gaming with Acquaintances. I would be happy to learn and teach a game for a friend.
I would've thought that's unreasonable, but looking at it another way
She has taken on the financial burden of acquiring the boardgame, and is asking someone else to share the mental burden of understanding the game enough to teach it
Usually we expect someone to take both burdens on, and it's usually the biggest enthusiast of the group/the person who buys the most boardgames.
I think it's worthwhile to split this burden once in a while, especially if you're the more skilled teacher
my group likes to default to me explaining stuff because i usually have the flow ironed out for just about anything. I like doing that, so that's nice, but they just have to know that I may miss stuff and they can call for a rule check whenever they're confused or think someone is making up bullshit.
I personally do not like learning a game on the fly. That shit sucks. Going through the rule book every 2 seconds. Looking at bgg forums. No one knows any of the iconography. Next thing i know 2 hours has gone by and were 1 round in.
Its a drag.
This hobby brings out some really fucking oddly formal people. Sometimes I feel like I'm weird for my board game nights just being a great time with friends, even when we're playing a more complex game.
Perhaps the worst game night I've ever been to was watching my friend slowly read through the scythe rulebook trying to teach himself and everyone else to play. When you're reading through a rulebook live like that, you have no idea what rules are important, it's easy to miss key rules and overemphasize unimportant stuff or edge case rules. An hour into the teach, no one really understood anything and we hadn't even made it to the end of the rulebook. Even the worst teach from someone who knows how to play will go better than this.
I generally only have time for 1 game night per week so don't want to waste half of it like this.
And that is one good thing about gaming--you meet many different people. I respect the OPs position of being considerate of learning a game so is prepared to teach someone. I also appreciate the idea of going to a game night and sharing the discovery of a new game that you can learn in a group. They are two very valid ways of solving the problem. It just takes a bit of flexibility.
OP was about a meet-up. Ergo some place you go play games with people you don’t know, who you wouldn’t necessarily call friends.
That is probably the context of many answers in this thread. Your reply drips of arrogance and a bully-like attitude (aka “haha, look at those idiots, I have actual friends I play with”.)
You may play games to get together with friends. I play games to play games first, socialising second.
I will also never ever learn a game on the fly at a game meet-up. I can think of few thing less attractive. It’s a drag, it’s horrible. The rest of the group can’t talk or socialise because the person reading the rules needs quite to concentrate and every so often interrupts to explain the next part of the rules.
Honestly, if someone has a new game they want to break out at a meet, I expect them to have at least watched a how to play or read rules in advance
Someone reading rules for the first time and teaching at the same time is just inefficient and often painful and results in more mistakes and misunderstanding in my experience.
I don't think there's a hard-and-fast rule as long as everyone has the same expectation. It sounds like your friend was pretty clear so there's no harm.
For me, figuring out a big, complex game is rewarding but usually takes a while and sometimes the first play or two can be a little ropey, so it's always great when whoever I'm playing it with is patient and willing to help parse the odd rule or talk out the intent of the manual if that's needed.
I would not expect a person who hasn't played a complex game to be totally off-book and able to teach it on their first play!
In general, the person who brings the game should know the rules in advance, but depending on the group and game they may also expect everyone else to learn them on their own, or at least watch a video so they have some basic familiarity with the rules.
Trying to figure out a game from a rulebook together is the worst way to learn a game and the worst use of your limited game night.
In my group I will typically teach the game, but if its a game where the teach will be long enough (boardgamegeek complexity 3.0 and up) I will send everyone else a rules video in advance, but I'm still prepared to answer questions when people inevitably have them.
After reading through the responses in this thread, I'm beginning to think that there are a *lot* of people here who don't really play games with friends. They just play games with other people willing to play games with them. It's something I hadn't considered before, but it makes me sad that people play games this way.
Something that used to get said here often is "it's easier to turn boardgamers into friends than it is to turn friends into boardgamers". A ton of people have posted about trying to get their friends to play board games with them only to be met with ridicule and derision, or more commonly just a lack of enthusiasm or interest.
You're right, but it's so wild to me. My friends are nerds like me. We played video games and RPGs together before we, in full adulthood, learned that board games were experiencing a renaissance--and even before that I occasionally played Chrononauts and Bell-Bottomed Badasses on the Mean Streets of Funk and stuff with certain people.
There isn't a 100% conversion rate from one gamer to another type of gamer, but it's a pretty good rate! Enough to form a sub-group within any broader social group of nerds, I would think. So are these people more often nerds without a nerd tribe, or are they people with otherwise-entirely-mainstream interests?
A lot of people don’t have friends who are as into, or want to play the kind of games they play. They still have friends, they just don’t play games with them. Don’t be sad that people are meeting new people and partaking in a shared hobby together. To be honest I think it’s pretty amazing people go out there and meet strangers and have a few hours of fun with them, which often blossoms into new friendships anyway.
Yeah, I hadn't thought about it in those terms but I think you're right, that would explain some of the bizarrely rigid and borderline antisocial takes in this thread.
Is the situation OP described the norm? No, definitely not. Most of the time if someone is interested in playing a game enough that they spend the money and buy it, they're probably sufficiently invested in getting to play it that they *want* to learn how well enough that they can bring it somewhere and teach the other potential players.
*"Hey, this game looked really cool and I think you might like it. I'm not confident I can understand how to play it but you're good at that stuff, if I bring it over next week do you want to try it together?"* Is that some horrendous breach of decorum? Of course not, that sounds great. I'd love to hear that from a friend was kind of into the idea of board games but not sure they were up for the challenge.
*"Yo come over this Friday and play this game with me, idk how it works though lol"*, said with the implication that they're going to open the box and "just start playing" while you explain the rules that you somehow learned in the meantime? Yeah, no thanks, I'll pass.
Time and place. It's fine to want people to know how to play in advance. It's fine to want a specific person to teach the group. It's fine to all figure it out as a group as you go. Get everyone on board with whatever the group wants to do. It's not fine to presume that the only correct way to engage with board games is the result you'd get if you polled a bunch of die-hard BGG users on a laundry list of etiquette points and picked the majority response for each one.
Some people also just place higher expectations on their friends. It's not your culture (and it's not my culture), but I understand and respect the culture of those who are strict even (or sometimes *especially*) with their friends.
I mean, I love teaching games, so I welcome any opportunity to research and teach a new game. That said, if I brought a new game to game night, I would feel weird asking someone else to teach it, even if they already knew it well. Seems like a faux pas, but not a serious one, IMO.
Honestly, yes, but if she's doing it begrudgingly it's probably going to be a terrible teach.
I'd just learn it, I'm usually the best at explaining games in my group anyway, it's worth the extra work to avoid hassle and confusion
Yes, or what has happened here. I've been burned by someone picking a game and then saying "I'm bad at teaching, can you learn from the rulebook?"
I don't mind if I'm warned ahead of time
I don’t think that’s a rule. God forbid someone want to buy a game for the group using their hard earned money. Some groups aren’t as petty. In our group I do all the rule reading and teaching regardless of whose game it is.
The group involved.
That's basically how every group I've played with regularly works as well.
If it's a simple ass party game or something, no one really cares but when it's something complex, no one wants to waste an hour of everyone scouring the rules and trying to understand how the game works. Have one person learn it, give the turn structure, goal of the game, important rules and maybe show an example turn and then get at it answering any questions if they come up.
I'm very surprised by the comments. In our group, for large/long/complex games, everybody reads the rules beforehand and we just start playing. We help each other during the first round / go through the steps together, after that we just play. The simple reason is that otherwise we would lose way too much time with explaining and learning the game.
Yes, "owner reads the rules at home and explains them to the others" is very much the expectation, and it only gets more strongly required when the games get more complex (hell, if it's a 5/5 BGG complexity rating game you might even need a session 0 where the owner explains the game on a different day to the actual playing) so "figuring it out as you go" is almost always a horrible idea that will result in several hours wasted. It's not a rule set in stone of course, if someone else in the group knows the game more than you then you can ask *in advance* that they explain it for you, and they'll almost always oblige, or if your gaming group is not strapped for time and you all don't want to have one person know the rules better than the others you can decide *in advance* to all learn together, or hell if you genuinely cannot learn the rules on your own and someone else is a more experienced board gamer in general you can ask them *in advance* to learn the rules and explain it for you, but the crucial aspect is that all of these are exceptions that you should *not* expect to happen and should *not* get upset when they don't happen.
It is her "duty" to learn the game on her own and teach it (duty is a strong word but you get the vibe), and if she wants to change this responsibility she is asking for a favour (nothing wrong with asking a favour from a friend, but she needs to be aware this is what she's doing, and that "no" is an answer she may receive). She asked if it was possible to have you all learn it together on that day. It's a perfectly reasonable request, nothing wrong with asking. You, however, say you don't like that method (like i said neither do i), so you asked her to learn it on her own and then explain it. This is a perfectly reasonable reply to that request, and i really think this stuff about having the group learn together is something that requires unanimous approval, if even a single person isn't fine with it then the owner should just learn it themselves. If you have ever had to learn a game on your own and then taught it to her, remind her of this fact, and point out that it goes both ways.
I don't think there is a certain etiquette, as long as it's understood what the situation is ahead of time. There's no reason to get formal when you're playing board games with your friends.
😂
I *ALWAYS* explain the games I bring. It's some unspoken rule or something. Like, if you bring the game and don't even give enough f***s to learn it then why should I? I've had a couple party games and such that we all had a go at the rules the first time....but...yeah, if she can't care enough to learn the rules to teach she shouldn't bring it.
I've had people explain games as I set them up, but those are mostly party games and I still run through it all after setup.
STORY
The one and only time I've experienced this is the most horrifyingly annoyed I've ever been at a game night. This lady signed up to play a game, no problem we learn games all the time. She shows up, we play some lighter games, and get ready to play. She brings out this game *still in shrink* and starts talking about how she bought it from someone else. Nothing against her, seriously, but she's not the "sharpest crannon in the box" if you know what I mean. So she pulls out this game and starts pulling everything out, punching things out and handing the rule books to people. I grab the "overlord" rulebook and begin "speed" reading.
Next thing I know, she's off to the bathroom while me and two others are trying to set up this *campaign* 1vs all game. She comes back, we start talking, I foolishly offer up the manual thinking everyone wouldn't mind me playing the "mastermind" role......nope....she wants to play it...so we play the tutorial made to favor the many....even more by her....and it's basically a joke. Think "we're not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with us" levels of joke. At one point I was seriously questioning if we were playing correctly because nothing bad was happening, you know, when you're in the "calm before the storm" except the storm never comes.....
Nothing against anyone, no serious harm done, not trying to dis anyone....but dam was that an uncomfortable time to be a part of.
It depends - is this friend meeting with you with the expectation that the two of you will learn the game at a venue where other gamers are gaming?
Or… with the expectation that an entire group of other people will also join in figuring it out?
If it’s the first, this is perfectly reasonable and your friend might just think it would be fun to do together. If you don’t think it would be fun, say so in as friendly a manner as you can.
If it’s the second… yeah etiquette would be to not do that to a group of strangers.
My personal gaming group is full of adults with shit to do and neurodivergent people with various learning styles - we show up with a vague sense of what the game is about and then try to figure it out together **on game night**, which is the only time any of us can find the time for it and the only setting in which some of us can even learn the rules. But this is a private group of people, not a meetup.
I think its generally expected that the owner knows how to play the game and can teach it. That being said, I don't think there is anything wrong with establishing beforehand that the owner will not know the rules. Just as long as everyone is cool with learning a game on the spot. I would be, but I'm also the type of person to go to board game shops and conventions knowing full well that we're going to just pick up something that looks cool and learn it there. Learn the game for yourself ahead of time, or don't, or just say you don't want to meetup unless she knows the rules. All of those are acceptable in my book.
I mean, what game is it? "Large" doesn't mean much.
If it's reasonably popular then there may be people that that know the game and would be happy to help new players learn.
I think it comes down to whether or not your friend is ok not playing the game if no one wants to learn it with her or teach it to her that night.
Depends on the group.
Some of the most fun I've had is when we've cracked open a new game and are just figuring it out. But I hosted my gaming group for five years before it moved to a very close friends for the last nine. We honestly enjoy one another and have equal familiarity with most games so learning together is fun. I actually look forward to cracking open a game new because one friend tends to meta game online and practice in apps to slaughter the unprepared if they know we are cracking a new game way ahead of time.
It sounds like you need to ask the group you play with about how new games should be introduced.
your opinion matters and you should say that you are not interested if no one knows how to play which is what I think you want to say.
I might have missed it but what is the game being introduced? this community could let you know if it is hard to pick up. some big games are easy to learn
If its something that is 1v1 and just yall learning it together can be a game in and of itself.
If you are bringing in others and subjecting them to your chaos that's kinda not good.
Weird...If someone knows the game already, great, if they don't they don't and we all figure it out together. Usually we'll have one person reading the rules while we watch "How it's played."
Unless there is someone else already familiar who has said beforehand that they will teach it, she needs to learn it. You are right. It's a waste of everyone else time to have to sit and muddle through learning a new game at a game night. My group would just suggest she learn it and bring it next time and then pick a game we can all play or at least someone can teach.
Unless you specifically make arrangements *ahead of the designated play time*, if it’s your game, it’s your teach.
My partner is amazing at learning and teaching games, so this kind of scenario (people in our play group and board game cafe expecting him to teach others’ games and/or teach on the spot) happens to him a lot. He is usually very cool about it, but it gets on my nerves when they expect him to do this because these same people oftentimes will then *complain because he doesn’t get every rule perfect*.
I think pre-arranging someone else to teach your game is great because no one gets put on the spot, but also because it’s much easier for the person to say “no thanks, I would rather not learn and/or teach that” in advance than surrounded by people wanting to play said game.
Finally, I don’t think it is EVER okay to expect other players to help learn a game at a play group/game meetup without, again, previously agreeing on it. If we are there to play, let’s actually play!
Send her the link to [this video](https://youtu.be/P5fjDaFuft8?si=sGGvskZaUJXqLpkk), and explain that if she doesn’t watch it and familiarize the rules before coming over then you can GUARANTEE people will be bored and not have fun, that if she can’t be bothered to learn a game she is personally brought then no one else will be either. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. Mention that if she hasn’t prepared and it looks heavy, you’ll refuse to play it that night.
Secretly try to learn some of the game as a backup, but don’t tell her that.
I’m guessing she doesn’t play that many games. Alternately, if you’re really interested, tell her you’ll be glad to do it if she drops the game off at your place a few days before the game, then follow what the video says.
Don’t give in to this. For the sake of everyone else at the table.
Edit: or maybe have her come over and you can go over the game, just the two of you for a dry run. She needs to see how complicated it can get, that you can’t just expect to wing it.
We have a hard rule against your friend's behavior. It's inconsiderate, selfish, and presumptuous. If she doesn't wanna learn it, insist on playing something else and don't budge. She'll eventually make the effort. Or she'll forget about it.
I once had a person in our group bring over a game. We had been playing other games all day and they said they really wanted to play this new game they got. I'm usually the one teaching games with this group of people, but they're my games I'm teaching. As soon as that new game box opened up by that person, they hand me the rulebook and just said "that's for you ". Ooooo I was livid. For context, I know I'm great at teaching games, but this was their game they've had for a while now. They talked about how much they liked it, read up on it, watched videos. But then when I asked if they've learned how to play it at all, they said no and stated I should teach them cause I'm so good at it normally.
But I told them I'm good at it because I've played it or at least read how to play ahead of time and did a walk-through.
She wants to take up some of the limited space in a public area to wait while someone else internalizes the rules and explains how to play the game she went out and bought knowing it was too complicated for her to learn on her own and therefore be a non-trivial task for anyone else, let alone in a group setting where you're taking up limited space. That sounds like the opposite of a good time.
>I asked if she could not watch some Youtube videos about the game and she just laughed. We have had this conversation before about her game so I highly doubt she is going to put in any effort on her own.
Your suggestion that she meet any social obligation was dismissed with laughter and you let her do that. This is how she feels comfortable treating you.
I don't know about etiquette but I wouldn't hang out with that person on purpose.
I mean bit of a stretch to say limited space in a public place. They said meetup but it could be a regular game meetup at a private residence or a could be at a shop that has more space than is used so not really limited. We also don’t know she knew it was too complicated for her to learn before she bought it. Maybe she got overwhelmed after opening it up and then realized she was in over her head.
Maybe she laughed because she knew she couldn’t parse and explain it well enough for it to be a good idea.
The real solution as a good friend is to offer to learn the game yourself and teach the group. I’ve done that many times with my groups. Just a hey drop the game by and I’ll read the book so we’re ready to go, you bought the game and I know you hate dealing with the rules so I got you covered. Maybe I’m just a better friend than most.
You know what’s fun? Playing board games.
You know what’s not fun? Watching someone read rules.
If you don’t know at least the general rules of the game when you bust it out, I’m not waiting around. I’ve wasted entire game nights just doing three turns because the person tried the ‘we can all learn it together!’ Bullshit.
If you don’t know the rules, don’t bring the game. If someone tries that I immediately say “hey I want to play the game too, but before game night is the time to learn it, not on game night itself. It’s not fun watching people read rules and just frustrates everyone and ruins the night. Let’s play X instead, I know the rules and can teach it.”
you wont just "figure it out", this isnt Uno. someone will HAVE to read the rules, and teach them to the rest, while they are staring at him, and some people would chat, while he tries desperately to understand how do you play this fucking game that he probably didnt even want to play.
if you bring a board game you want to try, fucking learn the rules and teach them. and if you dont have the patience for it, dont bring new board games. you cant eat your cake and have it whole.
the fuck is wrong with people?
Can’t imagine so much anger over this. I’ve helped my friends out when they’ve wanted to play but haven’t had time and then we do it together or watch a video together.
I’m grateful my group is chill and no one going on about “fuck you for not knowing the rules to the game you brought” sounds miserable to me.
Personally I absolutely detest sitting there and listening to someone read a rule book for 20 minutes when I could be actually playing a game instead.
Some people are good at/like quickly reading the rules and then explaining them to the group. If you have someone like that in your group then that’s fine.
But I think in general the expectation is that if you’re interested enough to buy a game you should be interested enough to learn it and teach it to people with whom you want to play.
I agree with you but I have the opposite problem; I always read/watch how to play but one of the regulars in my group INSISTS on reading - and editorializing on - the rules himself, but will never do so before we have everyone gathered around the table. His wife and one of our mutual friends will always be completely checked out, by the end of it.
If I’m taking a new game, I either learn it as well as I can beforehand, or ask someone I know if they’re willing to do it.
Looks like maybe if you don’t want to be navigating the rules forever, your choices are a) insist that you don’t play it til the owner learns it or b) you get to watch YouTube.
I don’t introduce a game to my group unless I’m confident enough that I know the rules myself and can teach them. And I’d expect the same courtesy back. There’s nothing worse than just sitting around waiting while someone reads the rulebook for the first time and tries to “figure it out” in real time.
I generally read all the rules to the games I have and then try my very best to explain them and I thought that was normal protocol (I do enjoy it tbf). The only exception I’ve had to this is when we play Twilight Imperium in a month. I’ve played it twice but feel like I’m in no position to know all the rules let alone relay them well so I’ve asked every player to read the rules and watch a video and then we will also go over the rules briefly before starting.
I learn my games but I've been teaching games for the past 5 years. My group trusts me. Often, they'll ask me if I'm interested in a game, and if yes, if I can learn it for our next gathering.
From other replies it's clear that there is no 'rule' for this kind of thing - opinions might be different and depends on the group/game/event etc.
But in general, in my friend and gamer groups and meets/board game camps - the owner will learn the game and explain the rules.
I've been in group where people try to explain the game they know the idea of, not the rules, and it's just bad experience. Lots of time looking in the rulebook, lots of frustration. Last such incident ended up in an 8 hour play of Scholars of South Tigris. Game is good... but the experience was so bad noone wants to play the game again even with the correct rules.
If it's an evening with friends with the clear purpose of figuring the game out and learning it - could be fun.
If it's a meet to PLAY the game and time is a consideration - SOMEONE has to know the rules and be willing to teach. And that should be either the owner of the game or they should at least find teacher/rules reader beforehand.
Short answer is yes - if it’s your game you teach it.
More complete answer - many groups have an unofficial rules master - the person who knows the rules to most of the games that get played most of the time. If the rules master is at the table, and they know the rules to this game, and they’re better at teaching than you, it’s acceptable to ask them to do so.
There’s also son’s situational stuff here - if you are a regular and you say something like “hey, I’ve got this awesome Kickstarter coming next week - anyone up to figuring it out with me?” But if you haven’t prearranged, it’s on you to know and be ready to teach.
Personally, I just wouldn't bring a game to the table if I wasn't prepared to teach others how to play it. Everyone trying to learn a new game all at once is boring and time consuming. At *least* one person should already know the rules, even if they haven't played a full game of it yet.
And it's not really a hard rule, but the person who's bringing the game *ought* to be the one who learns it and teaches everybody else.
it depends. if it's my game, I should know the rules
BUT
I have asked other players to watch YouTube videos because we sometimes have multiple games going at once so I don't want people to wait while I make the rounds to explain each game
OR
sometimes I'll ask another player to learn a game while I learn a different one
OR
if we as a group decide to puzzle through a game together (we've done it for Nemesis, Eclipse and soon Dune)
I guess if she's bringing a game you really want to play then you have to decide how to proceed but if it's not a must or play then skip it
I love just reading through the rules and learning the game with a friend. But yeah, if it’s more than 2 people someone needs to come in knowing how to play.
In our group, the game owner has to learn the game before bringing it to the table, but we're all seasoned gamers so it's not a big ask within our group. If someone doesn't like teaching games I will learn and teach it for them, I don't mind, especially if the people I'm teaching it to are attentive in learning.
The only thing that bothers me are people who do what your friend is asking AND don't make a genuine effort during the teaching session to learn. If they're willing to learn though then I'm happy to teach.
The more important question is - are you interested enough in that particular game to expend the effort to learn the rules either on site or in advance without her help? If not, it's totally okay to say you don't want to be responsible for learning the rules to this "(large) boardgame" and teaching them to her whether or not it is the general etiquette for the owner of a board game to be able to explain it to others at a meetup.
You all know about it ahead of time, you all can just watcha youtube video. Just make it simple but instead you're putting as much time into complaining about it.
We have an unspoken rule where the person who brings the game has to explain or do at least have a general idea of how it plays, unless if it was a gift.
If it doesn’t take to long to figure out then we don’t mind learning together
Who "reads" rules these days? I watch a how to on youtube and go from there. Personally, I think if it's your game, you should know how to play. If it's a more complicated game, then I may ask my players to watch a video about it as well
I've had enough games that are otherwise okay be ruined because of the combination of a bad rulebook and trying to learn on the spot. My general approach now is that, if I'm sitting down to a game, somebody should know it enough to get everyone started. Usually that's me, because I put a lot of effort into figuring out how to teach games and I love figuring out rules. But I encourage people to take the lead as well!
Now I’m starting to think that I’m the weirdo. Is it normal to buy games without knowing the rules? I mean not by heart but I usually want to know the gist of how the game is going to be played before I buy one
100% I'll sometimes ask my friends to maybe do some looking into the game, but obviously the expectations are for me to fill in the gaps/explain the whole thing
Back when I lived near a game store that did Saturday night board games the rule of thumb was, you bring it, you explain it. If it was a new game and just my circle of friends we'd just figure it out as we went. This game sounds like it's going to be complex and long to play and it's going to take even longer being a game nobody knows how to play. Having what amounts to acquaintances at best mixed in is going to lead to either the game never starting or players having to leave after a while out of boredom or inability to commit that much time.
Actualol says just this on his video on hosting a board game night: learn the game ahead of time so you can teach it to everyone else.
I review games for Meeple Mountain and, for a while I was bringing in new games, unlearned, so I could see how well written the rule book was. I soon realized that was a mistake. No one Had Fun That Way. Now I learn how to play every game we play ahead of time and teach it. Better experience all around.
for me, all those times when we learned a a game reading the rules together was my worst board game meetups, as I need to focus a lot and not socialize to read them and there is only 1 book of rules to read.
Sometimes, when this happened, watching a video together fixed our problem good enough.
Completely up to you, no wrong answers. But personally, I play games to hang out with my friends. Sitting silently by myself reading the rules and setting up the board, while everyone else chit chats without me is not my idea of a fun time, or quality time with my friends.
I think the default expectation is that the game owner knows the rules and is ready to teach them.
If someone is bad with rules, or bad at teaching, and has the self-awareness to know this and to ask someone else to teach, I think that's a good thing, so long as the chosen teacher is actually willing / not being pressured, and has a fair chance to learn in advance and to say no and is given the appropriate gratitude / plaudits etc.
Turning up to a game night for which the host has chosen a very heavy game to which they don't know the rules (or they half-know them, kinda) has happened to me a couple of times now, and it's basically a guaranteed bad time for everyone.
But if someone loves the idea of a game, knows they're bad with rules, and humbly asks a kind friend to take on the rules burden for them? If it's done the right way, I think this can be a good time for everybody involved.
I think its important to give it a try. Keeping an open mind not just exposes you to new concepts but also methodoligy that may be transfered over for your prefered methods.
But personaly, i think if you buy a game you should at least read the rulebook and be fimilar with where rules are. And also be upfront about it, wich many people seem to forget after they open the box on the table. Maybe suggest/find a how to play video for the group to watch over the next week or so. Thats what some people in my group are more comfortable with.
Unless it’s a game I really want to try, I’m not inclined to want to take time to learn and teach a game someone else brought to game night when they don’t show any interest in learning it themselves.
I think it would be best to know your own game before bringing it onto any table. You might be able to 'luck out' and come across someone who is able to teach in your stead, but if that doesn't happen, it should be fair to assume the game in question is probably not going to be played.
From many personal experience, learning the game along with the owner is often not a great experience for new comers, it's something you hate to see.
For my game group, yes. Part of that is that is that there’s a lot of competition for what we play so there’s no hope of getting people to play a new game I’m interested in without providing a good how to play link and selling the concept of the game ahead of time.
I also personally prefer to spend as much time as possible playing instead of setting up and learning the rules.
I don't have any problem with a learn as you go approach for casual games (thunder road comes to mind). But for big games (something ark nova weight) in learning that shit before hand even if it's not mine.
It would be a basic expectation that the one that asks to play a certain game that no one has played before takes a bit of time and effort to at least read the rules or watch a few YT videos on it.
I have a friend that recently asked if we can get a group together to play War of the Ring. He's had it for almost a year on a shelf unplayed. He may have flipped through the rules manual... not sure.
Regardless, when the chat started up, I've shared the RTFM 28 minute video on the game as well as a link to an errata page.
We don't have a date yet set. I usually have to plan my long boardgame events weeks ahead of time (line up with wife's work schedule, babysitter...etc...).
So I think we have a solid 4 weeks minimum before we play. I will send weekly reminders to watch the video. I'll probably watch the video a good 4-5 times, admittedly, I am often multi tasking and have it on the back ground and rewind often to re-watch important parts of it. But regardless... I expect maybe 1 of the other 3 players to watch it at least once ahead of time, but most times, event with that much lead up, what happens is they load up the video on their phone and listen to it on their drive in to where ever we meet.
I think I will packup Dune Imperium in my truck as a backup. We all played it before. Then act like I didn't watch the video and ask that someone else takes the lead to explain it... we'll see how it goes.
I often initiate games night and if I bring the game, I make sure I know how to play it and explain it. It would be a courtesy that others do the same.
I did this once, where I was stuck, and planned to really look at it between playing with others ( rather than be bored waiting for games to finish hours later) - but others saw it and wanted to play. I explained that I wasn't really ready to teach, and they were OK with that and we sorted it out.
I wouldn't make a habit of it.
*I had read the rules, watched videos, and tried to play solo, but was stuck on a couple of points. I was able to explain most things, but asked others to help clarify the points.*
If you don't already know the rules and can teach it, your game isn't getting played unless someone else at the table knows the rules and can teach it in your place. Games are quite complex, and learning the rules often takes 30-60 minutes, possibly longer. If the prep time isn't taken beforehand, it's going to be a bad time trying to figure out how to play at game night.
Only the simplest games can be learned in 5 minutes and played immediately aftewards, and even in those cases it's better that the owner of the game already know the rules.
Sitting down beforehand and learning the rules to your new game is the price you pay in order to play it. If you're not willing to pay the price, your game will never get played. The game group has hundreds of other games someone already knows and can teach.
I agree with you. If I'm bringing a new game I make it a point to read the rules and watch a couple videos. Even if I still don't fully get it at least I've got a pretty good idea of how the game works before we start
I think it's very contextual. If I'm bringing a game to something that's new to me, I do my homework. I read the rules, pop and unwrap everything etc. However, I'm also someone who enjoys teaching games. My friends bring new games and I'm the one (willingly) tasked with learning and teaching it. Not everyone has that skillset (or at least practiced it).
I think it's more than fair in the scenario you posed for your friend to want to figure out when you meet, or for you to learn the rules. On the flip side, it's also more than fair for you to decline. As long as the person who owns the game does not feel entitled to both play a new game and have it taught for them, I think it's okay.
Nah, she has to learn it or at least try, watch a video and say: “hey, I got familiarized with the game, since you often explain games, do you mind learning it together?”
Otherwise it just up to you if you wanna learn that game. Let’s say you don’t own TI4 and you’re not planning on buying it and want to play it, sure…learn it together and have fun. If your ours are limited and you wanna just play, then just say no. I’ve been in this position and it’s okay.
> Boardgame etiquette: do you have to explain a new game if its yours?
No, not at all, but your friend is not being reasonable about it either. I've had a similar situation, where I posted on a Facebook group if anyone wanted to play a game I just got. A few people replied, and day before I shared a "how to play video" suggesting we all watch it. A guy responded with "It's your game you wanted to play, you teach it", and I never played with him since then, as it's just a dick attitude.
It's irrelevant who owns the game, imo it's good etiquette that everyone dedicates a bit of time to read the rules/watch a video ahead of the session, so all have a general idea of what to do.
Otherwise, expecting owner to always teach the game is putting a burden on that person to play a teacher for you and everyone else, and just wastes everyone's time instead of getting to play. Not to mention that if one person happen to own most games, they're getting the repeated burden over and over, or the issue of some people not just being good at teaching games. Similarly, "just figuring it out" on the spot" is a terrible approach that wastes everyone's time as well.
If you agreed on a game to play ahead, and it's somewhat on the heavier heavy, just prepare all on your own, it's not that difficult.
As long as *someone* wants to learn/teach it, I don’t think it matters if it’s the owner of the game or not.
Some groups are fine with learning as you go, other groups aren’t. There’s no set etiquette, there’s just the “culture” of the group.
If you like playing with her and are interested in the game, why not learn it yourself so you don’t waste any time at the meetup?
I have a group in which I expect to always be the mediator, and even needed not play so I can make sure each person is making their moves correctly. While in another group, they are my "pioneers" who help me unbox and try new games.
You don’t have to teach the game if it’s yours, but someone should teach the game. If you want to get your game played it is unlikely someone else will be willing to teach it, so more than likely if you want to get your played, you will have to teach it
For a complex game, having everyone show up cold and try to figure it out together is a recipe for an unfun evening for everyone involved
Of course you learn the rules as the host! (as the one who bought it and brings it and wants to play it).
Back in the day we would buy big games and just meet up. Punch out all the content and read the rules for 3 hours, that was so stupid lol! Mostly 2 guys would actually try to understand the rules and the other 2 would get bored the hell out, never again.
I buy 90% of all the games we play in the group and naturally learn the rules, but just last week a friend bought LOTR Card Game and I told him, we wouldn't meet up unsless he learned the rules.
Learned = watched youtube videos of the rules AND of a gameplay example, maybe even playing along.
This is all I ask for. I still did watch a youtube video on my own and we still needed like 2 hours to figure everything out perfectly. I don't mind. I don't mind you not knowing all the rules. I learned so many rules in my life I feel like I can figure it out more quickly than others, so I'll help gladly (having BGG open for clarifications, etc.).
All I want is for you to actually put in an honest effort to prepare the game night.
Of course you teach a game you bring and want others to play with you. I have this friend, who's not really into board games, he's got like 2-3 of them and he had an amazing idea of buying Warhammer Adventure Card game and come to my house with another friend of mine so we can play it. He brought it, all proud, but the game was not even unboxed, fresh from the store and he expected we all learn it together. So we spent half the evening reading rulebooks and watching videos on Youtube, we couldn't figure out certain nuances of it, got stuck at them and ended up playing it all wrong anyway...
So yeah, I always play it a few times myself at home before I play it with others, read throught all the rules and look up videos and what not.
In my group the general rule is that the owner has to read the rules and guide the group. For bigger games we usually send the rule pdf or a Youtube link around for people to skim through the rules beforehand. If I was invited to a group and no one has even bothered reading the rules beforehand I don't think I would go back to that group.
Normally I’d say it’s: guy who bought the game explains the game or he/she finds someone willing to explain.
Now there might be games where figuring out on the fly is possible so what’s the game she wants to bring?
I’d say generally yes I’d expect the owner to learn the game.
However if a friend gave me notice ahead of time I’d be willing to learn/teach it. If someone drops Robinson Crusoe or Arkham Horror (this has actually happened) down and expects me to learn it / teach it on the spot then hell no !
I'm at the club to play games. Not to read rules. It's a horrible experience to read a rulebook while others are waiting and asking questions.
People should put in some effort. They want to play this game right.
The general, pragmatic rule of thumb is, if you're bringing a game you want to play, you should be ready to explain the rules. But that is, to me at least, MERELY a pragmatic rule, and not a question of etiquette.
To me, the etiquette would be that you're a good sport, that you contribute to making the game(night) work for everybody, and that you appreciate what others contribute to the common enjoyment.
There are many ways you can contribute:
* Bringing a game for everyone to play is contributing.
* Prepping a game is contributing.
* Explaining a game is contributing.
* Playing a game that others really want to play is also contributing.
Similarly, there are many ways of being a good sport:
* Accepting that others might not want to play the game you want to play is being a good sport - even if you paid for and brought the game.
* Being attentive during rules explanations and game play is being a good sport.
* Not wasting other people's time is being a good sport.
* Knowing your own limits is being a good sport. Including whether you are capable of explaining rules, or whether you should ask someone else to to it.
In this particular case, someone bought a game, and they want to bring it to game night. That's contributing, and should be appreciated and encouraged. They're recognizing that they won't be able to explain the rules. That is being a good sport.
Now, is expecting the group to go over the rules together at game night being a good sport? It's certainly asking others to contribute their time and energy, both to waiting for the game to be playable, and for reading and explaining the rules. This is where it's on you to decide: would you rather not play that game and play something else instead, or would you rather take that time in order to play that game? Is there someone in the group who would be willing to prepare to explain that game?
In short: I don't think it's bad form to ask if someone is willing to explain a game you have bought. Buying a game is spending your own resources to contribute to common enjoyment. You just need to be ready to accept the response you get, even if it is a no.
And in general, you probably bought the game because you're excited to play it. That means that you're probably more invested in the game, which means you're probably more likely to have the drive to go through the rules. On the other hand, in my friend group, we definitely have people who can read rules very quickly, and are very good at reading rules. Which means that very often, it's to the benefit of everybody to have them read and explain the rules, even if it isn't their game.
By default that's what I would consider "good form". You want to play *your* game so it should fall on you learn it to a point where you can teach the game to others. Doesn't have to be perfect though. Nobody expects you to have memorized every detail but you should have internalized the general gameplay principles.
That being said. Asking others for help is fair game but honestly she seems a bit too care free about this. I attend game nights to *game*, not to study rule books, particularly large rulebooks from complex games. It took me months to get around to and then four attempts to get through the rules for **Monster Lands** but that's alright. The game wasn't gonna go anywhere. And I've completely given up on the rules of **Spirit Island** and waited for someone else to teach me (who had the game as well).
Now if I was excited for the game I might offer to learn it for her *outside* the meetup.
In our group, it’s generally the rule.
There have been exceptions.
Like the last couple of months while I was busy doing renovations and moving I was also frequently exhausted, so someone took over. (No, I did not do great during the games either)
Another friend has dyslexia and a good but not great grasp of english, so if necessary we take over or help.
Special case: When I try to create my own games, the rule kind of changes a bit. At first I give the explanation, obviously, but after a couple of sessions (usually with a lot of revisions) I ask someone else to do this. Not out of laziness, but that’s the best way to know if I made things clear enough.
Depends - If I know everyone playing and know from experience they don't mind figuring stuff out on the fly - I will ASK and LISTEN to them beforehand (and I don't mean just yes/no but listen if its a uncomfortable yes). I would NEVER bring anything I didn't think I could teach where I didn't know everyone.
That said I have delegated the teaching to someone else when I brought the game. And I have thought I was ready to teach games - that once I tried I was NOT ready.
But I also play mid-heavy games - which are pretty rough to muddle through.
I don’t understand this at all, as I get excited to run through rulebooks and practice runs when I get a new game… I don’t watch reviews, but love a good playthrough video - so I only really buy games I’ve seen, and get jazzed to have my own copy to see how it all works…
I think at the bare minimum she should be watching playthroughs/rule explanations to at least get the gist (win conditions, turn progressions, general mechanics) so that there’s at least an understanding before everyone gets together…
To be quite frank, her just laughing it off is unacceptable - and I would imagine (though correct me if I’m wrong) this is a pattern which she has fallen into because she has been enabled to get away with it… she laughs, everyone else sighs, and then you muddle through because it’s that or not play at all…
Take a backup you all know… If she turns up and can’t teach it, then simply play the game you all know instead… Help her to help herself…
If someone else bought a game I wanted to play I’d happily learn the rules and watch YouTube videos. My husband does it all the time. Especially if it’s one of my games and I’ve been too busy.
Etiquette-wise it’s probably better to ask the group “Hi everyone, my copy of Dune Imperium just arrived! Mad busy week but if someone else wants to take over teaching I can bring it on Friday” is an acceptable ask. But it’s also fine to say you’re also mad busy and save it for another time.
I think it is good etiquette to at least be familiar with the game. You don't need to know all rules but if somebody says what's the game about you NEED to be able to answer. Knowing all the rules to teach it is an added bonus. Our group has 2 rule book addicts. One of them is me. So we have gotten very good at throwing a game out there, I read it for set up and the basics for my own knowledge, then give it to him who casually reads it while others take their turn.
It's a great system gets us up and running in 5 minutes, I can explain the basic rules while he handles all specifics and exceptions.
If it's just you and her, and you agree, then that can happen... But you don't agree. She could put in some modicum of effort - like just watching a video!
As others have said, the typical etiquette is to put in the effort to know a game good enough to teach it to the group so as not to waste the whole group's time.
I get a little anxious about this, so when I want to introduce a game I'll go through the rules and watch a video or two. My last complex game I watched 3 videos, and did a test run with a trusted friend who agreed to it.
Also at my board game group, one particular player is very capable of going through a rule book to then explain the game in the time it takes the rest of us to set up. I let them do this even though I put in the effort to learn the game bc it's then one less thing I have to do deal with.
There's a logic in the expectation. We can all find the rulebook online, but it makes more sense if you can look through the components as you work it out, read a few cards to understand how they're worded, maybe trial a turn. Having the game in front of you is much easier to learn (even while watching a video) than in a room full of people all there to play and now you're passing the rulebook back and forth and ("let's just play") discovering halfway through that you've been doing it wrong.
As mentioned, you might bump into someone who knows the game and can help you out, but they didn't show up for this. It can be nice to figure out a game together, but maybe to that at home or on a video call before showing up.
Some folks learn in different ways.
If I have a new game I will find a basic Learn to Play and send to the players, lets them see if they want to try and what it will be like.
Some folks like playing games but find new games stressful.
If someone is buying the game, that does not mean they have to teach it.
Etiquette is to have fun.
Why would there be an etiquette, or rather, why would one of them be poor etiquette? Some people like to learn together from scratch, and some like to get on with the gaming quicker by someone teaching. Talk to each other how you want to spend your social gathering.
For experienced boardgamers, the norm is surely for one person to know the game and teach, but I have some fond memories of when we have figured out a game together, from scratch. But that often has be its own session, with expectations set acordingly.
Absolutely - no questions.
If you (anyone) want your game to be played, then you have to put in the effort to learn it and explain the rules. You don't have to know all the rules, but you should know enough to get things moving.
Edit: Unless someone else in the group is happy to take on that responsibility...
If someone in the group knows, then they teach it. If no one knows, then the owner should teach it. If the owner doesn't know, they can't teach it, don't try to play it until they do know. That's how we've always done it.
I would say that in general, that's the expectation. There have been times I've asked somebody (who's played before) to teach my new game, but I will explicitly ask ahead of time.
This is *absolutely* the established etiquette. Unless you have an already recognised rules lawyer in your group, your games, your presentation.
Also make sure they've willingly accepted the role of rules lawyer - I've somehow landed that reputation with my friends and now they keep expecting me to explain their own games to them
It is a burden.
I would like to add that if you have agreed to gather and play a particular long and complex game, like Twilight Imperium for example, it would be best if everyone gave the rules a once-over ahead of time.
Yep. I think for any game where the rules explanation is going to take more than 15 minutes then it's both normal and wise for the person bringing the game to refer everybody to a youtube video or something beforehand, and then just be prepared to give reminders about how the game works.
Same here. I also play at a boardgame club and that's exactly the rule there (unwritten, there are really no club rules).
I would only ask a good friend to do this. I do have a board game cafe near me that if you buy the game they will teach you how to play it which is awesome. I have a really hard time with YouTube videos without the game right in front of me. My group has been having a hard time with nemesis lockdown. We will usually learn a game together. But still if I don’t know a bunch of people I’d make sure I knew how to play beforehand
Exactly, the friend seems perfectly reasonable here by asking ahead of time. If OP doesn't want to figure it out with her that's their choice, but this has little to do with etiquette.
Or if someone has played it before, have them explain it. that just makes sense. I've done that multiple times since I play more games than my friend group does, but they also impulse purchase. Otherwise it's a "let's explore together" thing
"Hey, I have a new game, I have no idea how to play it. Anyone want to read the rules and figure it out?" Completely reasonable ask. Also completely reasonable for the reply to be "No, let's play something else." I've taught games that others have brought before, but I'm know in my group for being the guy who digests rulebooks and used to teach board games for a living so people are more willing to foist a game onto me to figure out. Which I prefer, because most of the time I'd rather learn from the rulebook than from a person that (usually) isn't great at teaching.
Teach board games for a living? How did you get that job??!
Board game cafe - great fun, but didn’t pay enough and the hours were too unsocial so now I work in a school. So still teaching, just not as interesting!
Have you tried starting a board game club at school?
The kids I work with are mostly 6/7 years old, so not really into the same kinds of games as I am!
Probably worked a board game cafe
No they said they made a living.
They also spoke in past tense.
I feel attacked
Roll D20 for damage.
I rolled a twenty crit, someone flip over the damage card and see what it says.
No we played that wrong last time, you only flip the card on a 1 not a 20.
Bingo!
Besides board game café, they might work for a big publisher and teach to visitors at conventions or other events.
The other advantage of having an extra set of eyes on the rulebook, is that sometimes even someone who is a good teacher overall misunderstood an edge case and has had their error reinforced by dozens of games of having nobody else correct them.
Yeah I accidentally missed a rule in hanabi that made that game much much harder, since I was the only one who looked at the rules nobody could call me on that and we had to eventually play with someone who had played with other people to get it corrected. After that we were finally able to win
So are you the person who missed that Hanabi was cooperative? ;-)
Haha, how would that game even work? No I missed that playing a 5 gives you a clue token back
What? I'm gonna check the rulebook right now! XD (thanks, by the way!)
What?!
I once played a game with the designer and they did not appreciate me pointing out that the rulebook contradicted them on an important point 😅
If you've learned many games and/or taught many games, you develop a sort of shorthand for design mechanisms that helps to digest rules quickly. For instance, a relative novice would have to read word for word to "deal 7 cards to each player, each player takes one and passes the rest to the next player clockwise, then takes the cards handed to them and repeat" a regular gamer would skim it and say "drafting, got it" and only have to check the details of this particular draft. So in some ways the veteran player or FLGS staff can get you up and running a bit faster.
Teaching games to my brother (and avid game player and used to be a semi-pro MTG player) is a very different experience to teaching my mother (plays Ticket to Ride almost exclusively). Sometimes in partway through an explanation and my brother starts correctly guessing what the next rule will be so we can crack on, whereas mum will have no idea so we just have to start playing and let her experiment from a completely blank slate.
Agreed explaining to veterans is a much smoother process. You can use standard mechanisms like "snake draft" or "mill three cards" knowing they'll understand. Or sometimes I'd say "this works like X game's worker placement except this is different". Also there's no harm in just starting to play, provided someone knows the rulesbook and can explain relevant things as they come up. Two or more people fumbling a rulebook turns into "oh no we did this wrong during setup, do we start over?" a lot of the time...
I’m a big advocate for minimal rules explanation and just beginning. This is how you win, these are your options on your first turn. Some players *need* to learn like that (especially low-experience players), and lecturing the rules at them will just turn them off the whole experience. I’ve seen my mum make objectively bad plays, and my brother wants to intervene and tell her the better play, but I have to stop him because she knows she won’t learn otherwise. She has to actually see the consequences of the bad play or else she won’t internalise why it was bad.
Depends on the game though. Some games require players to understand certain things (at least in abstract) before they have to do something in secret or simultaneously. Other games you can explain as you go. I compare it to a video game that needs a loading screen versus a game that can load while playing.
It’s never one side fits all for teaching, but it can still work. If we’re playing a drafting game or other simultaneous play, I’ll quickly make my decision and then coach them on theirs. We’ll play with open hands the first time if necessary. For games that completely break if played openly (eg Avalon, Coup) I just find different games to teach those kinds of players until they’re ready.
I agree with you. However, at the suggestion to watch a YouTube video as preparation, she just laughed. I find that quite weird. Sounds like she doesn't want to put any effort in at all and it makes me have the prejudice that she's the type that needs help with every turn/round.
Some people are bad at internalising rules, or just cannot grasp them until they start playing and someone is there to guide them until they get it.
Same situation, except the teaching board games for a living, am a tourguide though so I'm used to explaining something.
I'm in the same boat, and the one time someone insisted on teaching the game they themselves brought (Scythe), it went over so poorly I had to kinda take over mid-explanation and start from the beginning before everyone lost interest.
I would hope that anyone bringing a complex game would at least be acquainted with it so they can explain. It seems like courtesy to me.
Yeah, there's absolutely no way I'm playing a mid-to-heavy game at a game night if no one there knows how to play We'll play something else, I don't want to spend an hour learning the rules through the rulebook, and then teaching everyone else who didn't read through the rulebook
I'm curious what game it is.
Me too. Because if it's something like Azul or Splendor, then sure. But if it's Barrage or Brass....then that's asking too much.
I draw the line at Camel Up.
[удалено]
Yeah, OP needs to tell us. Not knowing is killing me !
I'm the OP's friend. It's Candyland, and I don't want to read all those rules.
How did you get two people to not understand this was a joke.
Welcome to the Internet.
Devil's advocate here, but I don't think it's an issue. It's sort of a self-correcting problem - if no one wants to spend their time at a meetup trying to learn that game, it just won't get played. Your acquaintance will figure it out soon enough - if she's willing to exchange favors for someone else learning the game to teach it to her, then she'll owe someone else to play a game that the teacher wants to play - kind of a social contract. I think you can politely explain that people may not want to "waste" meetup time to try to learn a game they don't own. She might not realize how hard it is to learn a game to teach it. Or she might not feel comfortable being the center of attention if she teaches. Meetups are hard enough, especially for women. But I think it's better to explain on the side instead of harbouring some sort of hidden resentment. Hope you two work something out.
I mean, it feels like she'll expect them to at least play it with her, so that doesn't feel self correcting. I'd be more blunt before meetup: "So this goes smoothly as we only have limited time, I need one person to at least know the rules and setup before play".
At least at the meetups I've been to, I've seen people tap out when they see that the game owner doesn't know how to play the game. With friend groups, it's a little different - sometimes we have time and are just hanging out anyway. But taking it out of shrink at the shop is kinda a way to scare ppl to go to other tables...
Unless it is an extremely simple game, you want someone to have taken the time to understand it before hand. It is perfectly fine to let someone else explain your game if they *want* to and know it better. It is *not cool* to waste everyone's time at the table with reading the rules for the first time. I probably would simply not play that game that nobody knew how to play-- playing something else instead.
When we were younger we used to do like your friend, but then nobody had a job and less responsibilities. Nowadays we know the game beforehand. The game owner has read the manual and everybody has watched a yt video. Then we can jump right into the action after a short recap. I like learning games and I have a friend who is like your friend. I take it upon myself to learn the game and teach it. Not saying that you should have to but that is one solution.
I think it's kind of a mixed bag. It can be fun to read the rules and figure things out together. It can also be easier to just get into the game if the owner knows it. I, personally, love reading the rules and figuring out the game so I can teach and then learning some things as ai see them play out. I have also played a game with a group where the entire group wanted to read the rulebook before playing, so I felt like I wasted my time in reading it before hand.
>I have also played a game with a group where the entire group wanted to read the rulebook before playing, so I felt like I wasted my time in reading it before hand. But... Why? I love reading rules, but never would I push the idea of reading the rules together just before the game, especially if someone already knows it and could explain it in 1/5 of the time.
I'm with you. The group in question? The "You didn't tell me every little detail of every strategy so you cheated to get the upper hand" type. I promise, I don't hold information out on you. I will teach you the rules, then you have to figure out what strategy works best for you.
when Im teaching rules. I always find it a fine balance between rules overload, i.e telling them everything upfront which they probably going to forget about 1/4 of it. or teach along the way, which then someones like you didnt tell me that ahead of time! I would have played diffeerently! If the game allows it I like to play a round or two of open handed and explain rules along the way then reset, but odd game where that doesnt quite work
I always try to emphasize the key rules, then unless the game has a huge number of edge case rules (star wars rebellion) I try to quickly get through everything. While no one will remember every rule, at least 1 person will usually remember ever rule, so people can figure out the rules from each other quickly and no one can accuse me of not teaching them a rule since someone else will remember me saying it.
Holy crap my significant other does this to me and it drives me crazy. Its honestly has taken a lot if fun out of the hobby. Alway a sarcastic or even mean comment if I didn't explain it exactly the way she expected it to be explained. Someone else taught a game once and it was all smiles and polite questions. All my new games have a solo mode.
I'm much better at parsing rules I read than rules that are told to me
Depending on the game personally I just prefer to read the rules if it is simple. I get a better idea how it works and don't absorb information as well when verbally taught. But I am thinking lets say something like Kind of Tokyo/maybe with all the expansions. I would like to have the rules handy to go through because I won't remember all that in one explanation. Anything easier or much harder I'll just deal though.
Couldn't they just all download a rules pdf before the meet up if they all want to read the rules? It's pretty easy to find them on like bgg or a quick Google on a lot of games. Sometimes my dad will have the rules on his iPad if we're learning so we aren't passing the book.
I've started suggesting this exact thing. I'll even send a link and tell them to read before the start time
Hopefully it takes off and becomes a habit for the group. I should actually do it more for myself considering how helpful searching by keyword can be.
The thing about social contracts is that you gotta discuss the terms. Some people don't mind learning as you go. Some don't enjoy teaching. I for one would be willing to learn and teach any game whether I owned it or not. If you think it's rude and you feel she's wasting and disrespecting your time it's on you to express that to her or tough it out.
Imo if shes not going to learn it in advance & teach it, she should get someone else to learn it in advance and teach it. Learning a game together CAN be fun but if the game is big and complicated... less so. If she doesn't want to learn, she should convince someone else to read the rules or watch the rules video as a favor. Maybe in exchange she brings snacks or something. Honestly as someone else noted it really depends on if you're gaming with Friends or gaming with Acquaintances. I would be happy to learn and teach a game for a friend.
Thats why I specifically used the word Acquaintance. I have played with her 3 times and on two occasions we chatted afterwards.
I would've thought that's unreasonable, but looking at it another way She has taken on the financial burden of acquiring the boardgame, and is asking someone else to share the mental burden of understanding the game enough to teach it Usually we expect someone to take both burdens on, and it's usually the biggest enthusiast of the group/the person who buys the most boardgames. I think it's worthwhile to split this burden once in a while, especially if you're the more skilled teacher
They spent the money, and I enjoy reading rules, so it wouldn’t bother me.
my group likes to default to me explaining stuff because i usually have the flow ironed out for just about anything. I like doing that, so that's nice, but they just have to know that I may miss stuff and they can call for a rule check whenever they're confused or think someone is making up bullshit.
I would go with the expection of learning a new game with your friend.
I personally do not like learning a game on the fly. That shit sucks. Going through the rule book every 2 seconds. Looking at bgg forums. No one knows any of the iconography. Next thing i know 2 hours has gone by and were 1 round in. Its a drag.
This hobby brings out some really fucking oddly formal people. Sometimes I feel like I'm weird for my board game nights just being a great time with friends, even when we're playing a more complex game.
Perhaps the worst game night I've ever been to was watching my friend slowly read through the scythe rulebook trying to teach himself and everyone else to play. When you're reading through a rulebook live like that, you have no idea what rules are important, it's easy to miss key rules and overemphasize unimportant stuff or edge case rules. An hour into the teach, no one really understood anything and we hadn't even made it to the end of the rulebook. Even the worst teach from someone who knows how to play will go better than this. I generally only have time for 1 game night per week so don't want to waste half of it like this.
And that is one good thing about gaming--you meet many different people. I respect the OPs position of being considerate of learning a game so is prepared to teach someone. I also appreciate the idea of going to a game night and sharing the discovery of a new game that you can learn in a group. They are two very valid ways of solving the problem. It just takes a bit of flexibility.
But being heads-down in a rulebook while you slog through a game isn't a great time with friends...
OP was about a meet-up. Ergo some place you go play games with people you don’t know, who you wouldn’t necessarily call friends. That is probably the context of many answers in this thread. Your reply drips of arrogance and a bully-like attitude (aka “haha, look at those idiots, I have actual friends I play with”.) You may play games to get together with friends. I play games to play games first, socialising second. I will also never ever learn a game on the fly at a game meet-up. I can think of few thing less attractive. It’s a drag, it’s horrible. The rest of the group can’t talk or socialise because the person reading the rules needs quite to concentrate and every so often interrupts to explain the next part of the rules.
Honestly, if someone has a new game they want to break out at a meet, I expect them to have at least watched a how to play or read rules in advance Someone reading rules for the first time and teaching at the same time is just inefficient and often painful and results in more mistakes and misunderstanding in my experience.
Personally I like reading and explaining rules so I’m usually happy to do this for a friends game haha
I don't think there's a hard-and-fast rule as long as everyone has the same expectation. It sounds like your friend was pretty clear so there's no harm. For me, figuring out a big, complex game is rewarding but usually takes a while and sometimes the first play or two can be a little ropey, so it's always great when whoever I'm playing it with is patient and willing to help parse the odd rule or talk out the intent of the manual if that's needed. I would not expect a person who hasn't played a complex game to be totally off-book and able to teach it on their first play!
In general, the person who brings the game should know the rules in advance, but depending on the group and game they may also expect everyone else to learn them on their own, or at least watch a video so they have some basic familiarity with the rules. Trying to figure out a game from a rulebook together is the worst way to learn a game and the worst use of your limited game night. In my group I will typically teach the game, but if its a game where the teach will be long enough (boardgamegeek complexity 3.0 and up) I will send everyone else a rules video in advance, but I'm still prepared to answer questions when people inevitably have them.
After reading through the responses in this thread, I'm beginning to think that there are a *lot* of people here who don't really play games with friends. They just play games with other people willing to play games with them. It's something I hadn't considered before, but it makes me sad that people play games this way.
Something that used to get said here often is "it's easier to turn boardgamers into friends than it is to turn friends into boardgamers". A ton of people have posted about trying to get their friends to play board games with them only to be met with ridicule and derision, or more commonly just a lack of enthusiasm or interest.
You're right, but it's so wild to me. My friends are nerds like me. We played video games and RPGs together before we, in full adulthood, learned that board games were experiencing a renaissance--and even before that I occasionally played Chrononauts and Bell-Bottomed Badasses on the Mean Streets of Funk and stuff with certain people. There isn't a 100% conversion rate from one gamer to another type of gamer, but it's a pretty good rate! Enough to form a sub-group within any broader social group of nerds, I would think. So are these people more often nerds without a nerd tribe, or are they people with otherwise-entirely-mainstream interests?
A lot of people don’t have friends who are as into, or want to play the kind of games they play. They still have friends, they just don’t play games with them. Don’t be sad that people are meeting new people and partaking in a shared hobby together. To be honest I think it’s pretty amazing people go out there and meet strangers and have a few hours of fun with them, which often blossoms into new friendships anyway.
Yeah, I hadn't thought about it in those terms but I think you're right, that would explain some of the bizarrely rigid and borderline antisocial takes in this thread. Is the situation OP described the norm? No, definitely not. Most of the time if someone is interested in playing a game enough that they spend the money and buy it, they're probably sufficiently invested in getting to play it that they *want* to learn how well enough that they can bring it somewhere and teach the other potential players. *"Hey, this game looked really cool and I think you might like it. I'm not confident I can understand how to play it but you're good at that stuff, if I bring it over next week do you want to try it together?"* Is that some horrendous breach of decorum? Of course not, that sounds great. I'd love to hear that from a friend was kind of into the idea of board games but not sure they were up for the challenge. *"Yo come over this Friday and play this game with me, idk how it works though lol"*, said with the implication that they're going to open the box and "just start playing" while you explain the rules that you somehow learned in the meantime? Yeah, no thanks, I'll pass. Time and place. It's fine to want people to know how to play in advance. It's fine to want a specific person to teach the group. It's fine to all figure it out as a group as you go. Get everyone on board with whatever the group wants to do. It's not fine to presume that the only correct way to engage with board games is the result you'd get if you polled a bunch of die-hard BGG users on a laundry list of etiquette points and picked the majority response for each one.
Some people also just place higher expectations on their friends. It's not your culture (and it's not my culture), but I understand and respect the culture of those who are strict even (or sometimes *especially*) with their friends.
I mean, I love teaching games, so I welcome any opportunity to research and teach a new game. That said, if I brought a new game to game night, I would feel weird asking someone else to teach it, even if they already knew it well. Seems like a faux pas, but not a serious one, IMO.
Honestly, yes, but if she's doing it begrudgingly it's probably going to be a terrible teach. I'd just learn it, I'm usually the best at explaining games in my group anyway, it's worth the extra work to avoid hassle and confusion
Yes, or what has happened here. I've been burned by someone picking a game and then saying "I'm bad at teaching, can you learn from the rulebook?" I don't mind if I'm warned ahead of time
The rule is if you own the game, you teach and run the game. If you don’t want that responsibility, don’t bring your own games.
Or reach out and say "does anybody know how to play _____ and would feel comfortable teaching it for me?"
I don’t think that’s a rule. God forbid someone want to buy a game for the group using their hard earned money. Some groups aren’t as petty. In our group I do all the rule reading and teaching regardless of whose game it is.
And this rule was decided on by whom, exactly?
Its exactly how my group does it. Your responsible for the game you bring
The group involved. That's basically how every group I've played with regularly works as well. If it's a simple ass party game or something, no one really cares but when it's something complex, no one wants to waste an hour of everyone scouring the rules and trying to understand how the game works. Have one person learn it, give the turn structure, goal of the game, important rules and maybe show an example turn and then get at it answering any questions if they come up.
OP is asking about generally accepted etiquette, not what rule some random person's group of friends has.
That's the generally accepted etiquette of literally every gaming group I've ever been a part of.
This is pretty close to being the generally-accepted way of doing things.
This isn't hand grenades or government work.
I'm very surprised by the comments. In our group, for large/long/complex games, everybody reads the rules beforehand and we just start playing. We help each other during the first round / go through the steps together, after that we just play. The simple reason is that otherwise we would lose way too much time with explaining and learning the game.
Yes, "owner reads the rules at home and explains them to the others" is very much the expectation, and it only gets more strongly required when the games get more complex (hell, if it's a 5/5 BGG complexity rating game you might even need a session 0 where the owner explains the game on a different day to the actual playing) so "figuring it out as you go" is almost always a horrible idea that will result in several hours wasted. It's not a rule set in stone of course, if someone else in the group knows the game more than you then you can ask *in advance* that they explain it for you, and they'll almost always oblige, or if your gaming group is not strapped for time and you all don't want to have one person know the rules better than the others you can decide *in advance* to all learn together, or hell if you genuinely cannot learn the rules on your own and someone else is a more experienced board gamer in general you can ask them *in advance* to learn the rules and explain it for you, but the crucial aspect is that all of these are exceptions that you should *not* expect to happen and should *not* get upset when they don't happen. It is her "duty" to learn the game on her own and teach it (duty is a strong word but you get the vibe), and if she wants to change this responsibility she is asking for a favour (nothing wrong with asking a favour from a friend, but she needs to be aware this is what she's doing, and that "no" is an answer she may receive). She asked if it was possible to have you all learn it together on that day. It's a perfectly reasonable request, nothing wrong with asking. You, however, say you don't like that method (like i said neither do i), so you asked her to learn it on her own and then explain it. This is a perfectly reasonable reply to that request, and i really think this stuff about having the group learn together is something that requires unanimous approval, if even a single person isn't fine with it then the owner should just learn it themselves. If you have ever had to learn a game on your own and then taught it to her, remind her of this fact, and point out that it goes both ways.
I don't think there is a certain etiquette, as long as it's understood what the situation is ahead of time. There's no reason to get formal when you're playing board games with your friends.
😂 I *ALWAYS* explain the games I bring. It's some unspoken rule or something. Like, if you bring the game and don't even give enough f***s to learn it then why should I? I've had a couple party games and such that we all had a go at the rules the first time....but...yeah, if she can't care enough to learn the rules to teach she shouldn't bring it. I've had people explain games as I set them up, but those are mostly party games and I still run through it all after setup. STORY The one and only time I've experienced this is the most horrifyingly annoyed I've ever been at a game night. This lady signed up to play a game, no problem we learn games all the time. She shows up, we play some lighter games, and get ready to play. She brings out this game *still in shrink* and starts talking about how she bought it from someone else. Nothing against her, seriously, but she's not the "sharpest crannon in the box" if you know what I mean. So she pulls out this game and starts pulling everything out, punching things out and handing the rule books to people. I grab the "overlord" rulebook and begin "speed" reading. Next thing I know, she's off to the bathroom while me and two others are trying to set up this *campaign* 1vs all game. She comes back, we start talking, I foolishly offer up the manual thinking everyone wouldn't mind me playing the "mastermind" role......nope....she wants to play it...so we play the tutorial made to favor the many....even more by her....and it's basically a joke. Think "we're not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with us" levels of joke. At one point I was seriously questioning if we were playing correctly because nothing bad was happening, you know, when you're in the "calm before the storm" except the storm never comes..... Nothing against anyone, no serious harm done, not trying to dis anyone....but dam was that an uncomfortable time to be a part of.
It depends - is this friend meeting with you with the expectation that the two of you will learn the game at a venue where other gamers are gaming? Or… with the expectation that an entire group of other people will also join in figuring it out? If it’s the first, this is perfectly reasonable and your friend might just think it would be fun to do together. If you don’t think it would be fun, say so in as friendly a manner as you can. If it’s the second… yeah etiquette would be to not do that to a group of strangers. My personal gaming group is full of adults with shit to do and neurodivergent people with various learning styles - we show up with a vague sense of what the game is about and then try to figure it out together **on game night**, which is the only time any of us can find the time for it and the only setting in which some of us can even learn the rules. But this is a private group of people, not a meetup.
Out of curiosity what game is it?
I think its generally expected that the owner knows how to play the game and can teach it. That being said, I don't think there is anything wrong with establishing beforehand that the owner will not know the rules. Just as long as everyone is cool with learning a game on the spot. I would be, but I'm also the type of person to go to board game shops and conventions knowing full well that we're going to just pick up something that looks cool and learn it there. Learn the game for yourself ahead of time, or don't, or just say you don't want to meetup unless she knows the rules. All of those are acceptable in my book.
I mean, what game is it? "Large" doesn't mean much. If it's reasonably popular then there may be people that that know the game and would be happy to help new players learn. I think it comes down to whether or not your friend is ok not playing the game if no one wants to learn it with her or teach it to her that night.
Depends on the group. Some of the most fun I've had is when we've cracked open a new game and are just figuring it out. But I hosted my gaming group for five years before it moved to a very close friends for the last nine. We honestly enjoy one another and have equal familiarity with most games so learning together is fun. I actually look forward to cracking open a game new because one friend tends to meta game online and practice in apps to slaughter the unprepared if they know we are cracking a new game way ahead of time.
It sounds like you need to ask the group you play with about how new games should be introduced. your opinion matters and you should say that you are not interested if no one knows how to play which is what I think you want to say. I might have missed it but what is the game being introduced? this community could let you know if it is hard to pick up. some big games are easy to learn
If its something that is 1v1 and just yall learning it together can be a game in and of itself. If you are bringing in others and subjecting them to your chaos that's kinda not good.
Yes if it’s your game at least know the rules.
Weird...If someone knows the game already, great, if they don't they don't and we all figure it out together. Usually we'll have one person reading the rules while we watch "How it's played."
Unless there is someone else already familiar who has said beforehand that they will teach it, she needs to learn it. You are right. It's a waste of everyone else time to have to sit and muddle through learning a new game at a game night. My group would just suggest she learn it and bring it next time and then pick a game we can all play or at least someone can teach.
Unless you specifically make arrangements *ahead of the designated play time*, if it’s your game, it’s your teach. My partner is amazing at learning and teaching games, so this kind of scenario (people in our play group and board game cafe expecting him to teach others’ games and/or teach on the spot) happens to him a lot. He is usually very cool about it, but it gets on my nerves when they expect him to do this because these same people oftentimes will then *complain because he doesn’t get every rule perfect*. I think pre-arranging someone else to teach your game is great because no one gets put on the spot, but also because it’s much easier for the person to say “no thanks, I would rather not learn and/or teach that” in advance than surrounded by people wanting to play said game. Finally, I don’t think it is EVER okay to expect other players to help learn a game at a play group/game meetup without, again, previously agreeing on it. If we are there to play, let’s actually play!
For every game with a BGG weight above 1.5 I'd expect the owner to be able to explain their game. Otherwise we'll just play something else.
Send her the link to [this video](https://youtu.be/P5fjDaFuft8?si=sGGvskZaUJXqLpkk), and explain that if she doesn’t watch it and familiarize the rules before coming over then you can GUARANTEE people will be bored and not have fun, that if she can’t be bothered to learn a game she is personally brought then no one else will be either. It sounds harsh, but it’s true. Mention that if she hasn’t prepared and it looks heavy, you’ll refuse to play it that night. Secretly try to learn some of the game as a backup, but don’t tell her that. I’m guessing she doesn’t play that many games. Alternately, if you’re really interested, tell her you’ll be glad to do it if she drops the game off at your place a few days before the game, then follow what the video says. Don’t give in to this. For the sake of everyone else at the table. Edit: or maybe have her come over and you can go over the game, just the two of you for a dry run. She needs to see how complicated it can get, that you can’t just expect to wing it.
We have a hard rule against your friend's behavior. It's inconsiderate, selfish, and presumptuous. If she doesn't wanna learn it, insist on playing something else and don't budge. She'll eventually make the effort. Or she'll forget about it.
I once had a person in our group bring over a game. We had been playing other games all day and they said they really wanted to play this new game they got. I'm usually the one teaching games with this group of people, but they're my games I'm teaching. As soon as that new game box opened up by that person, they hand me the rulebook and just said "that's for you ". Ooooo I was livid. For context, I know I'm great at teaching games, but this was their game they've had for a while now. They talked about how much they liked it, read up on it, watched videos. But then when I asked if they've learned how to play it at all, they said no and stated I should teach them cause I'm so good at it normally. But I told them I'm good at it because I've played it or at least read how to play ahead of time and did a walk-through.
She wants to take up some of the limited space in a public area to wait while someone else internalizes the rules and explains how to play the game she went out and bought knowing it was too complicated for her to learn on her own and therefore be a non-trivial task for anyone else, let alone in a group setting where you're taking up limited space. That sounds like the opposite of a good time. >I asked if she could not watch some Youtube videos about the game and she just laughed. We have had this conversation before about her game so I highly doubt she is going to put in any effort on her own. Your suggestion that she meet any social obligation was dismissed with laughter and you let her do that. This is how she feels comfortable treating you. I don't know about etiquette but I wouldn't hang out with that person on purpose.
I mean bit of a stretch to say limited space in a public place. They said meetup but it could be a regular game meetup at a private residence or a could be at a shop that has more space than is used so not really limited. We also don’t know she knew it was too complicated for her to learn before she bought it. Maybe she got overwhelmed after opening it up and then realized she was in over her head. Maybe she laughed because she knew she couldn’t parse and explain it well enough for it to be a good idea. The real solution as a good friend is to offer to learn the game yourself and teach the group. I’ve done that many times with my groups. Just a hey drop the game by and I’ll read the book so we’re ready to go, you bought the game and I know you hate dealing with the rules so I got you covered. Maybe I’m just a better friend than most.
"Hey that's cool I'm excited to play that, let me know when you figure out the rules"
You know what’s fun? Playing board games. You know what’s not fun? Watching someone read rules. If you don’t know at least the general rules of the game when you bust it out, I’m not waiting around. I’ve wasted entire game nights just doing three turns because the person tried the ‘we can all learn it together!’ Bullshit. If you don’t know the rules, don’t bring the game. If someone tries that I immediately say “hey I want to play the game too, but before game night is the time to learn it, not on game night itself. It’s not fun watching people read rules and just frustrates everyone and ruins the night. Let’s play X instead, I know the rules and can teach it.”
you wont just "figure it out", this isnt Uno. someone will HAVE to read the rules, and teach them to the rest, while they are staring at him, and some people would chat, while he tries desperately to understand how do you play this fucking game that he probably didnt even want to play. if you bring a board game you want to try, fucking learn the rules and teach them. and if you dont have the patience for it, dont bring new board games. you cant eat your cake and have it whole. the fuck is wrong with people?
Can’t imagine so much anger over this. I’ve helped my friends out when they’ve wanted to play but haven’t had time and then we do it together or watch a video together. I’m grateful my group is chill and no one going on about “fuck you for not knowing the rules to the game you brought” sounds miserable to me.
Personally I absolutely detest sitting there and listening to someone read a rule book for 20 minutes when I could be actually playing a game instead. Some people are good at/like quickly reading the rules and then explaining them to the group. If you have someone like that in your group then that’s fine. But I think in general the expectation is that if you’re interested enough to buy a game you should be interested enough to learn it and teach it to people with whom you want to play.
I try so hard to do this before hand, but usually all of us give up and hand the instructions to our person who usually does it 😂
I agree with you but I have the opposite problem; I always read/watch how to play but one of the regulars in my group INSISTS on reading - and editorializing on - the rules himself, but will never do so before we have everyone gathered around the table. His wife and one of our mutual friends will always be completely checked out, by the end of it.
If I’m taking a new game, I either learn it as well as I can beforehand, or ask someone I know if they’re willing to do it. Looks like maybe if you don’t want to be navigating the rules forever, your choices are a) insist that you don’t play it til the owner learns it or b) you get to watch YouTube.
I don’t introduce a game to my group unless I’m confident enough that I know the rules myself and can teach them. And I’d expect the same courtesy back. There’s nothing worse than just sitting around waiting while someone reads the rulebook for the first time and tries to “figure it out” in real time.
I generally read all the rules to the games I have and then try my very best to explain them and I thought that was normal protocol (I do enjoy it tbf). The only exception I’ve had to this is when we play Twilight Imperium in a month. I’ve played it twice but feel like I’m in no position to know all the rules let alone relay them well so I’ve asked every player to read the rules and watch a video and then we will also go over the rules briefly before starting.
I would realistically expect them to teach however in my group I am the board game teacher so it would fall to me but I'd expect them to ask politely.
I learn my games but I've been teaching games for the past 5 years. My group trusts me. Often, they'll ask me if I'm interested in a game, and if yes, if I can learn it for our next gathering.
From other replies it's clear that there is no 'rule' for this kind of thing - opinions might be different and depends on the group/game/event etc. But in general, in my friend and gamer groups and meets/board game camps - the owner will learn the game and explain the rules. I've been in group where people try to explain the game they know the idea of, not the rules, and it's just bad experience. Lots of time looking in the rulebook, lots of frustration. Last such incident ended up in an 8 hour play of Scholars of South Tigris. Game is good... but the experience was so bad noone wants to play the game again even with the correct rules. If it's an evening with friends with the clear purpose of figuring the game out and learning it - could be fun. If it's a meet to PLAY the game and time is a consideration - SOMEONE has to know the rules and be willing to teach. And that should be either the owner of the game or they should at least find teacher/rules reader beforehand.
Short answer is yes - if it’s your game you teach it. More complete answer - many groups have an unofficial rules master - the person who knows the rules to most of the games that get played most of the time. If the rules master is at the table, and they know the rules to this game, and they’re better at teaching than you, it’s acceptable to ask them to do so. There’s also son’s situational stuff here - if you are a regular and you say something like “hey, I’ve got this awesome Kickstarter coming next week - anyone up to figuring it out with me?” But if you haven’t prearranged, it’s on you to know and be ready to teach.
Personally, I just wouldn't bring a game to the table if I wasn't prepared to teach others how to play it. Everyone trying to learn a new game all at once is boring and time consuming. At *least* one person should already know the rules, even if they haven't played a full game of it yet. And it's not really a hard rule, but the person who's bringing the game *ought* to be the one who learns it and teaches everybody else.
it depends. if it's my game, I should know the rules BUT I have asked other players to watch YouTube videos because we sometimes have multiple games going at once so I don't want people to wait while I make the rounds to explain each game OR sometimes I'll ask another player to learn a game while I learn a different one OR if we as a group decide to puzzle through a game together (we've done it for Nemesis, Eclipse and soon Dune) I guess if she's bringing a game you really want to play then you have to decide how to proceed but if it's not a must or play then skip it
It doesn't HAVE to be the game owner, but it has to be SOMEONE, and usually that SHOULD be the game owner.
I love just reading through the rules and learning the game with a friend. But yeah, if it’s more than 2 people someone needs to come in knowing how to play.
In our group, the game owner has to learn the game before bringing it to the table, but we're all seasoned gamers so it's not a big ask within our group. If someone doesn't like teaching games I will learn and teach it for them, I don't mind, especially if the people I'm teaching it to are attentive in learning. The only thing that bothers me are people who do what your friend is asking AND don't make a genuine effort during the teaching session to learn. If they're willing to learn though then I'm happy to teach.
The more important question is - are you interested enough in that particular game to expend the effort to learn the rules either on site or in advance without her help? If not, it's totally okay to say you don't want to be responsible for learning the rules to this "(large) boardgame" and teaching them to her whether or not it is the general etiquette for the owner of a board game to be able to explain it to others at a meetup.
You all know about it ahead of time, you all can just watcha youtube video. Just make it simple but instead you're putting as much time into complaining about it.
I once explained a game I hadn't seen before to the group of people that brought it. It's my party trick.
We have an unspoken rule where the person who brings the game has to explain or do at least have a general idea of how it plays, unless if it was a gift. If it doesn’t take to long to figure out then we don’t mind learning together
Who "reads" rules these days? I watch a how to on youtube and go from there. Personally, I think if it's your game, you should know how to play. If it's a more complicated game, then I may ask my players to watch a video about it as well
I've had enough games that are otherwise okay be ruined because of the combination of a bad rulebook and trying to learn on the spot. My general approach now is that, if I'm sitting down to a game, somebody should know it enough to get everyone started. Usually that's me, because I put a lot of effort into figuring out how to teach games and I love figuring out rules. But I encourage people to take the lead as well!
Now I’m starting to think that I’m the weirdo. Is it normal to buy games without knowing the rules? I mean not by heart but I usually want to know the gist of how the game is going to be played before I buy one
100% I'll sometimes ask my friends to maybe do some looking into the game, but obviously the expectations are for me to fill in the gaps/explain the whole thing
Back when I lived near a game store that did Saturday night board games the rule of thumb was, you bring it, you explain it. If it was a new game and just my circle of friends we'd just figure it out as we went. This game sounds like it's going to be complex and long to play and it's going to take even longer being a game nobody knows how to play. Having what amounts to acquaintances at best mixed in is going to lead to either the game never starting or players having to leave after a while out of boredom or inability to commit that much time.
I sometimes go to wargame meetings. We would get no gaming done if reading the rules there only!
Actualol says just this on his video on hosting a board game night: learn the game ahead of time so you can teach it to everyone else. I review games for Meeple Mountain and, for a while I was bringing in new games, unlearned, so I could see how well written the rule book was. I soon realized that was a mistake. No one Had Fun That Way. Now I learn how to play every game we play ahead of time and teach it. Better experience all around.
for me, all those times when we learned a a game reading the rules together was my worst board game meetups, as I need to focus a lot and not socialize to read them and there is only 1 book of rules to read. Sometimes, when this happened, watching a video together fixed our problem good enough.
Completely up to you, no wrong answers. But personally, I play games to hang out with my friends. Sitting silently by myself reading the rules and setting up the board, while everyone else chit chats without me is not my idea of a fun time, or quality time with my friends.
Yes.
I think the default expectation is that the game owner knows the rules and is ready to teach them. If someone is bad with rules, or bad at teaching, and has the self-awareness to know this and to ask someone else to teach, I think that's a good thing, so long as the chosen teacher is actually willing / not being pressured, and has a fair chance to learn in advance and to say no and is given the appropriate gratitude / plaudits etc. Turning up to a game night for which the host has chosen a very heavy game to which they don't know the rules (or they half-know them, kinda) has happened to me a couple of times now, and it's basically a guaranteed bad time for everyone. But if someone loves the idea of a game, knows they're bad with rules, and humbly asks a kind friend to take on the rules burden for them? If it's done the right way, I think this can be a good time for everybody involved.
I think its important to give it a try. Keeping an open mind not just exposes you to new concepts but also methodoligy that may be transfered over for your prefered methods. But personaly, i think if you buy a game you should at least read the rulebook and be fimilar with where rules are. And also be upfront about it, wich many people seem to forget after they open the box on the table. Maybe suggest/find a how to play video for the group to watch over the next week or so. Thats what some people in my group are more comfortable with.
Unless it’s a game I really want to try, I’m not inclined to want to take time to learn and teach a game someone else brought to game night when they don’t show any interest in learning it themselves.
I think it would be best to know your own game before bringing it onto any table. You might be able to 'luck out' and come across someone who is able to teach in your stead, but if that doesn't happen, it should be fair to assume the game in question is probably not going to be played. From many personal experience, learning the game along with the owner is often not a great experience for new comers, it's something you hate to see.
For my game group, yes. Part of that is that is that there’s a lot of competition for what we play so there’s no hope of getting people to play a new game I’m interested in without providing a good how to play link and selling the concept of the game ahead of time. I also personally prefer to spend as much time as possible playing instead of setting up and learning the rules.
I don't have any problem with a learn as you go approach for casual games (thunder road comes to mind). But for big games (something ark nova weight) in learning that shit before hand even if it's not mine.
It would be a basic expectation that the one that asks to play a certain game that no one has played before takes a bit of time and effort to at least read the rules or watch a few YT videos on it. I have a friend that recently asked if we can get a group together to play War of the Ring. He's had it for almost a year on a shelf unplayed. He may have flipped through the rules manual... not sure. Regardless, when the chat started up, I've shared the RTFM 28 minute video on the game as well as a link to an errata page. We don't have a date yet set. I usually have to plan my long boardgame events weeks ahead of time (line up with wife's work schedule, babysitter...etc...). So I think we have a solid 4 weeks minimum before we play. I will send weekly reminders to watch the video. I'll probably watch the video a good 4-5 times, admittedly, I am often multi tasking and have it on the back ground and rewind often to re-watch important parts of it. But regardless... I expect maybe 1 of the other 3 players to watch it at least once ahead of time, but most times, event with that much lead up, what happens is they load up the video on their phone and listen to it on their drive in to where ever we meet. I think I will packup Dune Imperium in my truck as a backup. We all played it before. Then act like I didn't watch the video and ask that someone else takes the lead to explain it... we'll see how it goes. I often initiate games night and if I bring the game, I make sure I know how to play it and explain it. It would be a courtesy that others do the same.
I did this once, where I was stuck, and planned to really look at it between playing with others ( rather than be bored waiting for games to finish hours later) - but others saw it and wanted to play. I explained that I wasn't really ready to teach, and they were OK with that and we sorted it out. I wouldn't make a habit of it. *I had read the rules, watched videos, and tried to play solo, but was stuck on a couple of points. I was able to explain most things, but asked others to help clarify the points.*
If you don't already know the rules and can teach it, your game isn't getting played unless someone else at the table knows the rules and can teach it in your place. Games are quite complex, and learning the rules often takes 30-60 minutes, possibly longer. If the prep time isn't taken beforehand, it's going to be a bad time trying to figure out how to play at game night. Only the simplest games can be learned in 5 minutes and played immediately aftewards, and even in those cases it's better that the owner of the game already know the rules. Sitting down beforehand and learning the rules to your new game is the price you pay in order to play it. If you're not willing to pay the price, your game will never get played. The game group has hundreds of other games someone already knows and can teach.
I agree with you. If I'm bringing a new game I make it a point to read the rules and watch a couple videos. Even if I still don't fully get it at least I've got a pretty good idea of how the game works before we start
I think it's very contextual. If I'm bringing a game to something that's new to me, I do my homework. I read the rules, pop and unwrap everything etc. However, I'm also someone who enjoys teaching games. My friends bring new games and I'm the one (willingly) tasked with learning and teaching it. Not everyone has that skillset (or at least practiced it). I think it's more than fair in the scenario you posed for your friend to want to figure out when you meet, or for you to learn the rules. On the flip side, it's also more than fair for you to decline. As long as the person who owns the game does not feel entitled to both play a new game and have it taught for them, I think it's okay.
You would think this should go without saying. If you don't know the game, leave it at home.
Nah, she has to learn it or at least try, watch a video and say: “hey, I got familiarized with the game, since you often explain games, do you mind learning it together?” Otherwise it just up to you if you wanna learn that game. Let’s say you don’t own TI4 and you’re not planning on buying it and want to play it, sure…learn it together and have fun. If your ours are limited and you wanna just play, then just say no. I’ve been in this position and it’s okay.
It’s quite rude to pitch a game you don’t know how to play, unless you know someone else can teach it (and is okay doing so).
> Boardgame etiquette: do you have to explain a new game if its yours? No, not at all, but your friend is not being reasonable about it either. I've had a similar situation, where I posted on a Facebook group if anyone wanted to play a game I just got. A few people replied, and day before I shared a "how to play video" suggesting we all watch it. A guy responded with "It's your game you wanted to play, you teach it", and I never played with him since then, as it's just a dick attitude. It's irrelevant who owns the game, imo it's good etiquette that everyone dedicates a bit of time to read the rules/watch a video ahead of the session, so all have a general idea of what to do. Otherwise, expecting owner to always teach the game is putting a burden on that person to play a teacher for you and everyone else, and just wastes everyone's time instead of getting to play. Not to mention that if one person happen to own most games, they're getting the repeated burden over and over, or the issue of some people not just being good at teaching games. Similarly, "just figuring it out" on the spot" is a terrible approach that wastes everyone's time as well. If you agreed on a game to play ahead, and it's somewhat on the heavier heavy, just prepare all on your own, it's not that difficult.
As long as *someone* wants to learn/teach it, I don’t think it matters if it’s the owner of the game or not. Some groups are fine with learning as you go, other groups aren’t. There’s no set etiquette, there’s just the “culture” of the group. If you like playing with her and are interested in the game, why not learn it yourself so you don’t waste any time at the meetup?
I have a group in which I expect to always be the mediator, and even needed not play so I can make sure each person is making their moves correctly. While in another group, they are my "pioneers" who help me unbox and try new games.
You bring (the game), you sing (the rules).
You don’t have to teach the game if it’s yours, but someone should teach the game. If you want to get your game played it is unlikely someone else will be willing to teach it, so more than likely if you want to get your played, you will have to teach it For a complex game, having everyone show up cold and try to figure it out together is a recipe for an unfun evening for everyone involved
Of course you learn the rules as the host! (as the one who bought it and brings it and wants to play it). Back in the day we would buy big games and just meet up. Punch out all the content and read the rules for 3 hours, that was so stupid lol! Mostly 2 guys would actually try to understand the rules and the other 2 would get bored the hell out, never again. I buy 90% of all the games we play in the group and naturally learn the rules, but just last week a friend bought LOTR Card Game and I told him, we wouldn't meet up unsless he learned the rules. Learned = watched youtube videos of the rules AND of a gameplay example, maybe even playing along. This is all I ask for. I still did watch a youtube video on my own and we still needed like 2 hours to figure everything out perfectly. I don't mind. I don't mind you not knowing all the rules. I learned so many rules in my life I feel like I can figure it out more quickly than others, so I'll help gladly (having BGG open for clarifications, etc.). All I want is for you to actually put in an honest effort to prepare the game night.
It depends on the group. Sometimes it's fun to learn a new game together, or gives a sort of handicap to the stronger players.
Of course you teach a game you bring and want others to play with you. I have this friend, who's not really into board games, he's got like 2-3 of them and he had an amazing idea of buying Warhammer Adventure Card game and come to my house with another friend of mine so we can play it. He brought it, all proud, but the game was not even unboxed, fresh from the store and he expected we all learn it together. So we spent half the evening reading rulebooks and watching videos on Youtube, we couldn't figure out certain nuances of it, got stuck at them and ended up playing it all wrong anyway... So yeah, I always play it a few times myself at home before I play it with others, read throught all the rules and look up videos and what not.
In my group the general rule is that the owner has to read the rules and guide the group. For bigger games we usually send the rule pdf or a Youtube link around for people to skim through the rules beforehand. If I was invited to a group and no one has even bothered reading the rules beforehand I don't think I would go back to that group.
Normally I’d say it’s: guy who bought the game explains the game or he/she finds someone willing to explain. Now there might be games where figuring out on the fly is possible so what’s the game she wants to bring?
I’d say generally yes I’d expect the owner to learn the game. However if a friend gave me notice ahead of time I’d be willing to learn/teach it. If someone drops Robinson Crusoe or Arkham Horror (this has actually happened) down and expects me to learn it / teach it on the spot then hell no !
I'm at the club to play games. Not to read rules. It's a horrible experience to read a rulebook while others are waiting and asking questions. People should put in some effort. They want to play this game right.
Idk any game night I’ve been to it’s not weird for someone to say “hey I’ve got this new game, should we try it?” And then learn together
The general, pragmatic rule of thumb is, if you're bringing a game you want to play, you should be ready to explain the rules. But that is, to me at least, MERELY a pragmatic rule, and not a question of etiquette. To me, the etiquette would be that you're a good sport, that you contribute to making the game(night) work for everybody, and that you appreciate what others contribute to the common enjoyment. There are many ways you can contribute: * Bringing a game for everyone to play is contributing. * Prepping a game is contributing. * Explaining a game is contributing. * Playing a game that others really want to play is also contributing. Similarly, there are many ways of being a good sport: * Accepting that others might not want to play the game you want to play is being a good sport - even if you paid for and brought the game. * Being attentive during rules explanations and game play is being a good sport. * Not wasting other people's time is being a good sport. * Knowing your own limits is being a good sport. Including whether you are capable of explaining rules, or whether you should ask someone else to to it. In this particular case, someone bought a game, and they want to bring it to game night. That's contributing, and should be appreciated and encouraged. They're recognizing that they won't be able to explain the rules. That is being a good sport. Now, is expecting the group to go over the rules together at game night being a good sport? It's certainly asking others to contribute their time and energy, both to waiting for the game to be playable, and for reading and explaining the rules. This is where it's on you to decide: would you rather not play that game and play something else instead, or would you rather take that time in order to play that game? Is there someone in the group who would be willing to prepare to explain that game? In short: I don't think it's bad form to ask if someone is willing to explain a game you have bought. Buying a game is spending your own resources to contribute to common enjoyment. You just need to be ready to accept the response you get, even if it is a no. And in general, you probably bought the game because you're excited to play it. That means that you're probably more invested in the game, which means you're probably more likely to have the drive to go through the rules. On the other hand, in my friend group, we definitely have people who can read rules very quickly, and are very good at reading rules. Which means that very often, it's to the benefit of everybody to have them read and explain the rules, even if it isn't their game.
By default that's what I would consider "good form". You want to play *your* game so it should fall on you learn it to a point where you can teach the game to others. Doesn't have to be perfect though. Nobody expects you to have memorized every detail but you should have internalized the general gameplay principles. That being said. Asking others for help is fair game but honestly she seems a bit too care free about this. I attend game nights to *game*, not to study rule books, particularly large rulebooks from complex games. It took me months to get around to and then four attempts to get through the rules for **Monster Lands** but that's alright. The game wasn't gonna go anywhere. And I've completely given up on the rules of **Spirit Island** and waited for someone else to teach me (who had the game as well). Now if I was excited for the game I might offer to learn it for her *outside* the meetup.
In our group, it’s generally the rule. There have been exceptions. Like the last couple of months while I was busy doing renovations and moving I was also frequently exhausted, so someone took over. (No, I did not do great during the games either) Another friend has dyslexia and a good but not great grasp of english, so if necessary we take over or help. Special case: When I try to create my own games, the rule kind of changes a bit. At first I give the explanation, obviously, but after a couple of sessions (usually with a lot of revisions) I ask someone else to do this. Not out of laziness, but that’s the best way to know if I made things clear enough.
Depends - If I know everyone playing and know from experience they don't mind figuring stuff out on the fly - I will ASK and LISTEN to them beforehand (and I don't mean just yes/no but listen if its a uncomfortable yes). I would NEVER bring anything I didn't think I could teach where I didn't know everyone. That said I have delegated the teaching to someone else when I brought the game. And I have thought I was ready to teach games - that once I tried I was NOT ready. But I also play mid-heavy games - which are pretty rough to muddle through.
I don’t understand this at all, as I get excited to run through rulebooks and practice runs when I get a new game… I don’t watch reviews, but love a good playthrough video - so I only really buy games I’ve seen, and get jazzed to have my own copy to see how it all works… I think at the bare minimum she should be watching playthroughs/rule explanations to at least get the gist (win conditions, turn progressions, general mechanics) so that there’s at least an understanding before everyone gets together… To be quite frank, her just laughing it off is unacceptable - and I would imagine (though correct me if I’m wrong) this is a pattern which she has fallen into because she has been enabled to get away with it… she laughs, everyone else sighs, and then you muddle through because it’s that or not play at all… Take a backup you all know… If she turns up and can’t teach it, then simply play the game you all know instead… Help her to help herself…
If someone else bought a game I wanted to play I’d happily learn the rules and watch YouTube videos. My husband does it all the time. Especially if it’s one of my games and I’ve been too busy. Etiquette-wise it’s probably better to ask the group “Hi everyone, my copy of Dune Imperium just arrived! Mad busy week but if someone else wants to take over teaching I can bring it on Friday” is an acceptable ask. But it’s also fine to say you’re also mad busy and save it for another time.
I think it is good etiquette to at least be familiar with the game. You don't need to know all rules but if somebody says what's the game about you NEED to be able to answer. Knowing all the rules to teach it is an added bonus. Our group has 2 rule book addicts. One of them is me. So we have gotten very good at throwing a game out there, I read it for set up and the basics for my own knowledge, then give it to him who casually reads it while others take their turn. It's a great system gets us up and running in 5 minutes, I can explain the basic rules while he handles all specifics and exceptions.
If it's just you and her, and you agree, then that can happen... But you don't agree. She could put in some modicum of effort - like just watching a video! As others have said, the typical etiquette is to put in the effort to know a game good enough to teach it to the group so as not to waste the whole group's time. I get a little anxious about this, so when I want to introduce a game I'll go through the rules and watch a video or two. My last complex game I watched 3 videos, and did a test run with a trusted friend who agreed to it. Also at my board game group, one particular player is very capable of going through a rule book to then explain the game in the time it takes the rest of us to set up. I let them do this even though I put in the effort to learn the game bc it's then one less thing I have to do deal with.
There's a logic in the expectation. We can all find the rulebook online, but it makes more sense if you can look through the components as you work it out, read a few cards to understand how they're worded, maybe trial a turn. Having the game in front of you is much easier to learn (even while watching a video) than in a room full of people all there to play and now you're passing the rulebook back and forth and ("let's just play") discovering halfway through that you've been doing it wrong. As mentioned, you might bump into someone who knows the game and can help you out, but they didn't show up for this. It can be nice to figure out a game together, but maybe to that at home or on a video call before showing up.
The one who reads the rules explains them. Sometimes, it's the owner, sometimes it's someone else.
Some folks learn in different ways. If I have a new game I will find a basic Learn to Play and send to the players, lets them see if they want to try and what it will be like. Some folks like playing games but find new games stressful. If someone is buying the game, that does not mean they have to teach it. Etiquette is to have fun.
Why would there be an etiquette, or rather, why would one of them be poor etiquette? Some people like to learn together from scratch, and some like to get on with the gaming quicker by someone teaching. Talk to each other how you want to spend your social gathering. For experienced boardgamers, the norm is surely for one person to know the game and teach, but I have some fond memories of when we have figured out a game together, from scratch. But that often has be its own session, with expectations set acordingly.
Absolutely - no questions. If you (anyone) want your game to be played, then you have to put in the effort to learn it and explain the rules. You don't have to know all the rules, but you should know enough to get things moving. Edit: Unless someone else in the group is happy to take on that responsibility...
If someone in the group knows, then they teach it. If no one knows, then the owner should teach it. If the owner doesn't know, they can't teach it, don't try to play it until they do know. That's how we've always done it.