Introducing board games to non-gamers
Hi, folks! I’m back from being out of town and totally feel recharged. And guess what? I got some board gaming in during my time away.
So the beginning of this post actually starts about a month ago. I get a text message from some friends in Los Angeles, telling me that they’re at GameHaus Cafe and that they’re thinking of me. I actually visited this place about a year ago when I was in town; I didn’t get a chance to play as I was on my way to a wedding reception, but I did get a chance to take some photos and pose nerdily in front of the massive game library. Seriously folks, this place is amazing. You need to check it out!
Anyway, my friends aren’t board gamers at all, but they were invited by another friend who also wanted to check the place out. They were amazed by the sheer volume of board games out there they had never heard of, especially games in the back room where you need to drop off your ID. So they said next time I’m in town that I should bring some games when I visit their pad.
And that’s my cue to let the flood gates open into the world of board gaming …
So fast forward to last weekend I brought Takenoko from Phoenix and grabbed a copy of Ticket to Ride from my parents’ house, and headed over to see my friends in LA. Ticket to Ride is a great gateway game (I’ve talked about how it got me hooked on the hobby in a previous blog post). The rules are easy to explain and the board is familiar as it’s a U.S. map. But what is great about the game is that it sets up the main concepts of eurogaming — where no luck is involved and winning comes down to making strategic choices and prioritizing your moves (e.g. Do I grab more cards or lay down these trains before the route gets closed off?). I have my own copy in Phoenix, but I bought a second copy for my parents’ house in LA for whoever wants to play it. I also brought Takenoko because, well, it’s cute and also a good medium strategy game. Plus, who doesn’t love pandas?
So my two friends and I meet up, have dinner and bust out Takenoko first. When introducing friends to new board games, I tend to start with the hardest one first so that as the night gets later, the games get easier. There was a little bit of a learning curve with Takenoko, but as we played on, everybody was getting the hang of it. They were realizing that it sometimes takes multiple rounds to get your panda and/or farmer lined up correctly in order to meet your objectives.
Next up was Ticket to Ride. This game got off the ground a little more smoothly, and I can totally see the gears grinding in my friends’ heads in trying to decide which action to take. This game ended around 12:30 a.m. So you can imagine my surprise when they both said, “Let’s play again!!”
Music to my ears! So we played a second game of Ticket to Ride, which went pretty quickly now that they were both familiar with how to play it. During the entire night, they were both taking photos of the games and asking about what types of games I play and other board-game related questions. I pointed them to resources such as boardgamegeek.com and Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop channel, and told them that more and more eurogames games are being sold at places like Target and Walmart.
Anyway, I had such an amazing time introducing friends to the serious board-gaming world — the world beyond Monopoly, Life and Scrabble. I told them that every time I visit next, I will bring a new board game. And they said, “That would be awesome!” Good times, indeed.
Folks of the Internet — how have your experiences been when introducing people to board gaming?