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Unpopular opinion: teaching new players should skip the rulebook on purpose
I ran a demo table at a local con last Saturday and watched three different groups sit through 20 minutes of rules reading before even touching a token. Then they all got stuck on edge cases that never came up in their first game. I started doing quick 2 minute setup walkthroughs instead, just showing turn flow and one scoring example, then answering questions as we played. Every single table finished faster and asked for a second round. Why do we keep front-loading all that text when people learn by doing? Any other GMs out there try the jump in first method and see better results?
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david_stone4d ago
And honestly the jump in first method works even better than you'd think because it forces people to make mistakes immediately, and those mistakes are way stickier than any rulebook example. I've found that when a player accidentally breaks a rule and gets corrected, they remember that exact situation forever, whereas they'll forget a scored example from page 12 before they even flip to the next page. The key is to hide the rulebook but keep it within arm's reach, so when something comes up you can say "good question, let's look it up together" and that turns the rule hunt into a shared moment instead of a wall of text. Also, skipping the rules reading actually lets the game's theme do the heavy lifting, because people get invested in their little dudes or whatever before they even know the full scoring math. The only time I'd go back to reading first is for really crunchy games where one wrong move in turn one can wreck your whole strategy, but even then I'd just do a "here's what matters for your first two rounds" version. Honestly I think the 20 minute rule read is mostly about the GM feeling like they've earned their spot, not about what actually helps the players learn.
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