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Besides my actual-money-earning work, and making games, I also run the Icel.me website, which hosts technology, gaming, and geeky content in English and Hebrew. Among that content, I’m one of the hosts of the Hebrew show Game Burning Podcast, where we talk about every kind of game – video games, RPGs, board games, and so on. This week, alongside the regular episode, we recorded a short bonus segment about teaching new games. My co-host Yehuda Halfon walked through some rules he developed during his time as a games salesman and instructor.
With his permission, I’ve translated the relevant information into English. It’s good advice for any gamer, and I also found it useful when running playtests for a game nobody but the designer knows yet.
1: The instructor
Decide in advance who will explain the game to the group. In a playtest it’ll often be the designer themselves, but in a more advanced playtest, let someone who has played once before do the explaining – it helps you see how other people understand your rules.
Either way, let them finish without interruption. Any clarifications can happen after the chosen instructor is done.
2: Setup
Unless setup is an important part of the experience, do it beforehand. Some games, especially heavier ones, can feel daunting for a new player if they watch you sit there for 45 minutes sorting cards and placing meeples. Prepare everything in advance.
For playtesting, this isn’t always the right call – you’ll need to test your setup instructions like any other part of the rules. But not every session requires going through all of them.
3: Winning
The first rule of game instruction: explain how to win. (Yes, it ended up third on the list. Still stands.)
4: Losing
Then explain how to lose. This mattered a lot in our last testing session for Champions of Fate, where the role of the player deck wasn’t explained to one player, which gave them the wrong idea about how important it was.
5: Sequence of play
Walk through the turn order as written in the manual or player reference sheet. Good practice for any game, but especially important for a playtest – you’re checking not just whether the rules are clear, but whether the turn structure makes sense at all. (Trust me: sometimes you think it does, and it doesn’t.) For each phase, explain what actions are available and how they connect to winning or not losing.
6: Player agency
Distribute player components randomly. Some games do this anyway (dealing Lord cards in Lords of Waterdeep, for example). If a game has player roles, positions, or special abilities, don’t spend time walking everyone through all the options before they choose. Assign components first, then go over what each player got. In Champions of Fate, I just say “you can pick the fighter, thief, or wizard” – and since most of my playtesters are roleplayers, they already have a rough idea what each class does.
In a game with hidden information (like Lords of Waterdeep), skip enforcing that in the first game. Let everyone show their hidden pieces and ask about special rules. After the first run, try playing with hidden information as intended. Let newer players consult the manual for specific questions.
And be prepared for a lot of questions. Answer them patiently.