Heavier Games: Teach in Two Sittings

The program’s teach takes under five minutes. Some games will not fit, and you should not force them. A game that runs well over an hour has too many moving parts for one teach, and cramming them all in front of a newcomer is the rules dump this program exists to prevent.

The answer is not a longer teach. It is two short ones.

The two-sitting teach

Split the teach into two sittings, with real play in between.

Sitting one: the core and four turns. Teach only what a player needs to take their first four turns: the theme, how you win in one breath, the turn, and the main actions. Then play four turns each, with hands open and thinking aloud welcome. This is the open first round from an earlier lesson, stretched to fit a bigger game.

The restart. After four turns, stop. Reset the board, deal fresh, and start again.

Sitting two: the rest. Before the real game begins, teach the rules that matter later: end-of-round scoring, bonus cards, the endgame trigger, the odd rule that comes up in the last third. These now land on people who know what a turn feels like, so each rule has somewhere to stick (Frame before facts).

The two sittings can be ten minutes apart, or a week apart. Some groups learn the core on a weeknight and play the real game on Saturday.

Announce the restart at the start

The restart is the part most teachers skip, because it feels like wasted time. It is the most useful ten minutes of the night.

In four turns, a newcomer makes their worst moves of the game. They take an action that did nothing, or they spend a resource they needed. In a normal game they carry those moves to the end and lose by a lot. With a restart, those moves become the lesson, and the real game starts with everyone even.

The key is to say it up front: “We will play four turns to learn, then start over for real.” Said at the start, the restart is a gift. Said in the middle, after someone has a rough turn, it sounds like their play was so bad you had to call it off (Protect dignity).

Here is a quiet bonus. Newcomers make better choices in the restart than they did in the practice, and they notice. That feeling, “I am already better at this,” is the best argument for a second game you will ever make.

Worked example: Wingspan, goals left for later

Picture teaching Wingspan to a partner who likes nature and puzzles. The game runs about an hour, and it has a lot of small rules. It is a good candidate for two sittings.

Sitting one. Set up with the blue side of the goal board, which the rulebook suggests for new players, and lay out the goal tiles but say nothing about them. Teach the mat: “Each turn, put a cube on one row and take that action. Play a bird, gain food, lay eggs, or draw birds. Every bird you add to a row makes that action bigger.” Then play four turns each. Help with the arithmetic of food and egg costs. Do not mention bonus cards, the goals, or pink powers unless one comes up.

By turn four, your partner has felt the core of the game: a row gets stronger as birds fill it.

The restart. “Now we know how it feels. Let’s start for real.” Clear the mats and deal fresh starting birds and food.

Sitting two. Now point at the goal board. “Four rounds. At the end of each round, this goal scores. And one of your cubes stays on the board to mark it, so each round you get one turn fewer: 8, then 7, then 6, then 5.” That last rule is the one new players miss, and it makes no sense until you have felt how much a single turn is worth. Then hand out the bonus cards and explain that each one scores as written. Now they have something to plan toward, and the skill to plan with.

What makes the core

To find the core of any heavy game, ask one question of each rule: “Will a player need this in their first four turns?” If yes, it is core. If it only matters later, or only at the end, it waits. Be strict. Most heavy games have a core of five or six rules hidden under thirty.