My cousin said to never play 'Terraforming Mars' with the drafting variant on a first game, but I tried it anyway.

We had three new players and it took over four hours, with two people getting totally lost. He warned me the extra rules would slow things down, and he was right. Anyone else have a piece of board game advice they ignored and regretted?

3 comments

3 Comments

simonw413mo ago

Holy cow, four hours with three new players? That's brutal. I can't even imagine trying to explain drafting on top of everything else in that game. The sheer number of cards alone is overwhelming for a first timer. Your cousin was totally right, that's like throwing someone into the deep end with weights tied to their ankles.

henry1011mo agoMost Upvoted

Last time I taught a new group I started with just the core turn structure and stripped out everything else. No special powers, no drafting, just pick a card and play it kind of thing. Took maybe 45 minutes for their first game and they actually got it. Then I slowly added in one new rule each round after that. By the third game they were asking about the advanced stuff themselves. Feels like the best way is to let them figure out what theyre missing instead of dumping it all at once.

gavinperez3mo ago

Man, I read a blog post that compared teaching complex games to learning a new language. Trying to cover everything at once just makes people shut down. You gotta start with the basic verbs before you write a poem.