RDTN Episode 46: Days of Wonder – Teaching Games, Merger and The Undead Viking

In this episode, we have two special guest stars on our show, Lance Myxter and Lee Shelton. Some of you know Lance from his youTube channel Undead Viking Videos and Lee you have heard us mention his name many times on our show as our resident go to guy for Netrunner and teaching games. Both gentlemen were kind enough to talk to us about the recent news with the merger between Asmodee and Days of Wonder and then share their thoughts on how to teach games. Then of course, we had to hear about their Gen Con experience as much as it pained us, okay, me. Lance talks about Five Tribes, Panamax, and Shinobi Clans and Lee tells us about Tragedy Looper, Subdivision, and Red.

I wanted to document the discussion about teaching games because it will be easier to reference here then go back and listen to the show again and I am sure I will need to pull it up time and time again. So our guest recommend the following tips on teaching

Have one teacher at the table. We have heard this many times before, but it deserves repeating.
Make sure that your players put their phones away and you have their attention.
Don’t be afraid to let them ask questions during the instruction because that is how we all learn is by asking questions. In other words, don’t just blurt out rules and then see if there are questions at the end.
Teaching a game is easier if you are not an active participant. Yeah, that doesn’t sound like fun, but sometimes that is what you need to do.
Keep the rules simple at the start and let the game get started if possible. We learn more when we have examples.Know your
Get to know the players if you can. Are they familiar with the style of game? Have they played similar games? What games do they like? All this can help you know at what level you need to teach the game.

[table]
Segment, Time
The Merger, 1:30
Magic Core Set Cycle Change, 19:20
Lance’s thoughts on teaching games, 21:30
Lance’s daughter says Hi, 22:30
Back to teaching games, 23:00
Lee’s thoughts on teaching games, 25:30
Some more Gen Con 2014 experiences, 51:00
Lee talks Doomtown, 1:00:00
Outro, 1:07:00
[/table]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:25:55 — 78.7MB)

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