When deciding what game you want to start playing there’s a good little adage you should keep in mind: a bad game with a great community is better than a great game with a terrible community. Solo games are always an option for those of us out in the sticks, but generally we choose tabletop games to stretch our social muscles at the same time as scratching that itch to ‘game’. Spending time with others is a big part of our experience, and gaming with the right people will have a major impact on our enjoyment. Gaming with the wrong people, on the other hand, probably affects our enjoyment even more.

This post isn’t about who is the ‘right’ kind of person; we all want different things when we play and there are so many variables it’s impossible to identify one type of ‘good’ player. We can, however, broadly recognise that a community that is welcoming and supportive to new players, leaves room for differences of opinion, and can be accessible by as many as possible, is going to be a good one. So what do we need to do to transplant that community from one game to another?

Say you’ve identified a game you want to play. You’ve bought some minis and the rules, you’ve learnt them enough to like them, and you’ve decided to run a game for a friend. They’ve turned up, and don’t have a clue what to do. What do you do next? You’re going to have to teach them!

I’ve taught a number of games down the years, as well as training/teaching in various jobs, so here are a few tips to help your teaching-game run smoothly, with examples of how I’ve been showing friends how to play ‘Tea and Toast’:

1 – Keep it basic

There can be a lot of ‘moving parts’ in a game, and this can be quite daunting. Because of that you’ll want to try and keep things as (relatively) straightforward and simple as is feasible. Set up a scenario that introduces the core mechanics and not much else at first; if the new player enjoys these then you can always play games that include more and more mechanics next.

You also want to cut down on the amount of player choice at this point. A lot of wargames have list-building and force selection as a major part of their game design. As fun as you may find it, this kind of thing certainly isn’t right to introduce a new player to. They’re new to everything and will need a little time to learn the ways of a game. Try to restrict all player choice to tactical and in-game decisions.

My basic teaching scenario for Tea and Toast is 2 RFC planes squaring off against 2 German planes. These are typically SE5As vs Albatros DVs. I’ll occasionally swap them out for different planes, but each player in this game has only one kind of plane to understand and manage.

2 – Get into the action!

No matter how good an orator you are, you’re both there to play a game. Keeping rule 1 in mind, get to playing the game as soon as you can. Picking the scenario and forces on both sides so there’s as little resistance as possible will help the teaching game run smoothly.

Rule #1’s importance becomes very clear now. A demo game should facilitate getting into playing quickly, hence the importance of reducing the initial choices the new player has to make.

The learning scenario for Tea and Toast, therefore is as simple as it could possibly be: here are your two planes, the enemy’s two planes are over there – go and shoot them down. No secondary objectives, no ground units or additional events, just a straightforward dogfight.

3 – Don’t front-load

A lot of wargames (not all of course) follow a move-shoot-assault pattern of play in a turn. If your game does this then why explain anything other than the immediate phase in front of the player?

Teaching anything follows a simple pattern: knowledge – application – reward. If I’m teaching you how to cook a meal I talk you through what to do, we do it together, and at the end you’re rewarded with something to eat you can make whenever you wish. When teaching a new wargame we have the opportunity to create lots and lots of little loops of this pattern, which is very satisfying to the learner. When the ‘movement’ phase is first, briefly explain it, then let them do it!

Though a little guidance from yourself will be needed, this can even be learner-led. Encourage them to ask questions, and turn your answers into the mini-lessons. Instead of laying out ‘ok at this point you can move, shoot, or rally’ ask ‘you’re in this situation, what would you want to do about it?’ If they say move then you can walk through the movement rules; if they decide they want to fight back then it’s time to go over combat. This creates a really nice back-and-forth and stops the learning game from feeling like a lecture. There may be things the new player needs to be guided into, but you’re there to do that anyway – let them lead the way at first!

Tea and toast runs through very clear phases – initiative, movement, shooting – so in this case I would set up the board and talk through the initiative phase. Once that was done we’d then cover movement and do that, then finally we’d look at shooting.

4 – Let new players get stuff wrong (sometimes)

Making mistakes is part of learning, maybe the biggest part, but when learning how to play a game with a seasoned player making mistakes can be exploited. That’s not terribly fun, and will likely put the new player off. They’ll just find something that didn’t feel as harsh when they tried it rather than stick it out for the long haul.

That said, nobody wants to play with the guy who tells them that they’re doing things wrong all the time, or makes the moves on your behalf because theirs are more optimal. When we meet to play a game and make the effort to arrange a game with others we want to make sure we’re all as involved as can be. I certainly don’t want to be a spectator to the game I’m meant to be learning, and if I wanted to play a solo game I wouldn’t have come to a game with another person! Learners are there to learn, but you don’t learn a great deal from someone doing everything for you.

It’s a balancing act. You need to let the learner have the freedom to get stuff wrong, and not hammer them when they do so, but you also need to give them tips and instructions that don’t just take over the game. Of all the points listed, this is probably the most challenging to perfect, and maybe the most important.

5 – Come prepared

Think about your game of choice. What do you need to play it? If it’s a board game, do you just need the box of standard stuff, or are there extras? If it’s a wargame, how many minis will each side need? Do you need play aids or tokens? Measuring tools? Is this a game that needs one or two dice each, or huge handfuls of dice? Are there cheat-sheets that will help you teach?

This rule ties in with rule #2 quite a lot. By making sure you have everything required for the game you’re reducing the friction the learner will experience. Figure out what you need and get it all ready the night before, so you can just pick up your bag of stuff and be ready to go. Even if your trainee has some things that would be handy, bring spares so that every eventuality is covered.

Consider getting to wherever you’re going to play a little early, so you can set up. The learner can always help with tidying away at the end, but being able to turn up to a table ready-set for them is exciting and means you can get straight to the game at hand. Chipping in and helping out is part of the hobby, but let’s face it: we all like it when things are done for us.

6 – Learn from your own learning

Tabletop gamers of all persuasions are magpies. We love shiny new things, new rules, new minis, and new settings for games we love.

Understandably then, we’re often looking at new games ourselves, and may find ourselves being the learner. Take advantage of that not only to learn how to play a new game, but also to pick up a few tricks of the trade from the person teaching you. This is particularly good to do if you go to game shows or conventions with demo games – the people running demos have practically no time at all to show you how to play, so observe how they achieve that and get people enjoying themselves (and hopefully wanting to buy their game) in a relatively tight timeframe.

So I suppose that’s it: those are my rules for ‘learning’ games. These are all, of course, just my suggestions. Maybe you already run teaching games and passionately disagree with me, or maybe you’ll give these a try and they won’t work for you!

Teaching is almost like a performance, and something you’ll find you’re always tweaking and adjusting to work better. Ultimately there’s no better tool than experience, so keep getting games in when you can and sharing that experience with new players. Teaching someone how to play is taking something you enjoy and making the effort to pass on that enjoyment to others – no matter how it goes you’re enriching the community, so keep it up.