Hey guys and welcome to episode 126 of Meatball to Meatball.
I am back. If you watched last weeks
episode where I interviewed Mark about talking about fury of
elements, then you saw that I was back, but I'm now I'm back
home. I'm back in the Maple to Maple
Studios. I would like to extend a
gratitude to Adam from Tabletop Vibes one last time for the
invitation to go to his studio, hang out with him and his family
and meet Mark and bring him and his game to you last week.
So thank you. I want to thank all the well
wishers. I'm feeling much better.
I'm not 100%, but hopefully soon because Origins is this weekend
and we're going to be busy as all get out, hang out with
content creators and publishers. So look forward to some live,
live collaborative reports from Origins Game Day.
So this week's episode, teaching games that turn people into
meeples and to talk about building community through
teaching games or using your teaching skills to build
community is Brian from Always Plays Blue.
Brian, how are you? I'm good.
Thank you very much for having me.
On I know this is exciting. Thank you for being on.
I'm really glad to finally get you on.
I have not. We haven't.
We haven't seen each other since last year, Cajun caught.
Yes. Yeah.
Trans play a game with you.
Yeah, we did. We did.
I know I was. I was heartbroken about that.
There was just, I was really, to be honest with you, I was so
touched and surprised by how many people showed up.
I didn't expect that, right? Yeah.
My wife as an extension was really, she was like, these
people love you. Like, this is crazy.
You know, I can't get 30 people to come to Springfield to visit
me, but to get everyone go to Southampton, it's like, Oh my
gosh, that was. Yeah.
So thanks for being there. I'm sorry we're going to get to
play a game, but you know, what we do get to do is talk about
teaching games and community building.
How cool is that? That's brilliant, yeah.
So you had brought up this topic about you've been teaching a lot
of games to family members and casual gamers, right?
That's, that's kind of what you've been doing a lot lately.
So, so let's start with our great friend, the Greek
philosopher Socrates, ready to go.
He said that teaching is the kindling of a flame and not the
filling of a person. So here's the question, how do
you kindle the flame of casual gamers trying?
It's these are people that don't like a lot of these people I
teach don't really have their own games, collections and
things like that like they do. You can see from all the the
things that the people that you may have behind us now it's.
Absolutely. It's, it's getting them excited
to enjoy a sit down and discover the hobby that we're so
passionate about, right? And also get them excited to
want to come back and do it again and again.
Yeah, that one play is important because it can get, you can get
them to have an interest in a hobby and bring them in.
So it's a good first impression of what we're after.
So is it when you do that, when you're teaching a game, is it,
is it your teaching skill or is it the nature of the games that
you teach? Like I'm interested in your
strategies, like when when you're going to go to a games
day or family or whatever. And it's like, are you choosing
games that are going to help kindle the flame, as Socrates
would say? Or is it that you have developed
this skill to create that welcoming moment and kindle the
flame? It's probably both, but.
A little bit, but I'd say more about the games.
It's. Yeah, it's making that decision
to pick the games. You don't want to put a game
down. Like I say, you're trying to
encourage these people in. So you don't want to put down a
massive box and say, right, your first game you've ever played,
here's Twilight Imperium, and then watch them run to the
borders. So, yeah, picking the right
games. You want the things with sort of
minimal actions. Yeah.
Not lots of different things you can do on a turn.
You want to keep it very basic. Yeah, short turns, things like
that. Right, so I know you have a list
of games prepared. So what is I know people like to
do like top fives and things of that nature, but let's go
straight to the top. What is your number one game?
It's your go to. You're pulling off the shelf to
teach it. Hands down Carcasome.
Absolutely, yeah. That's a good one.
I was going to build up to it, but we'll start with the best
one. You like to say?
Yeah. Yeah, no, let's start with #1
don't save that for last. It's downhill from here.
No. Yep.
It's, I know some people kind of go off the older classic games
like The Ticket to Ride and Nikitan and Carcasson, but it's
like I say, you want a game with simple and quick actions.
And it's just so, so basic. But there's a lot underneath it
that a new player can kind of get into because all you're
doing is picking up a tile. You've got no choice to make
other than where you're going to place that one tile.
That's what you've got to do. And that choice is obviously
dictated by a number of factors about legal placement already.
So you cut down your options for the player.
Yeah. And it's really nice because
there's two ways to play Carcassonne as well.
There's a nice way that you play with new, new players and then
once they're into it, you can sort of teach them the more
aggressive method that I like to play along with people that play
a lot. So that's a great, that's a
great option. I want to thank you for that
because you know, that's my favorite mechanic is tile
placement. I, I just look for me, I don't
even play to win that game anymore.
For me, it's all about making the map on the table.
And but here's the thing, when people people know that about
me, and if they play Carcassonne with me, they will
intentionally, when they draw the piece that you need to fill
in that spot because they know that I abhor a vacuum.
And I'm like, we've got to get this map filled.
I'm not going to win. But we got to fill this map.
And they won't, they won't do it.
They'll hold on to it. Yeah.
That just breaks my heart. Do you have teaching strategies
for how you play Carcassonne, or how you teach it rather?
It's I think some of these games on the list, and Carcassonne's
one of them, they're very good at teaching as you go.
You can give like a basic overall, like these are the
different tiles you're going to get.
So this is the Abbey tile, this is the road tile.
And just let the players know that this is how it's going to
score now. This is going to score at the
end of the game, but it's such a good game for just like pick a
tile. What have you got?
Show me what you've got and we can go through your options and
that and yeah, it's great for that.
Do you, because Carcassone, Carcassone can be a large game,
it's got so many expansions. So.
So I guess, I guess first of all, do you have them all or
most of them? OK, no, I've only got the
cathedrals myself. OK, but my brother-in-law has
got a few more, so we play bigger games when we go up and
see them. OK.
That was my question is do you
like introduce a group of people to Carcasson and then once they
feel good about it and they like it, do you like introduce more
expansions as time goes on? Yeah, so we'll I will drop the
the upcomers court now you know the farms and fields.
That's always a tricky 1 to teach new players, so I'll drop
that straight away. But once they're confident it
I'll bring that back in. And then I've also got the, the
version I've got has the rivers and the Abbots with it as well.
Yeah, and. The rivers.
Amazing.
Yeah, just to start the game off like that, Yeah.
And it's. A nice casual way to start the
teach. Yeah, I love that.
That's awesome. And then I'll bring in the Inns
and cathedrals because that's a fun one.
Then because you sort of it puts the pressure on them for the
incompletion. You don't want to not finish the
city. That's true.
That's very true. I like that.
That's great. So I was thinking about yet
another one of our Greek philosophers, Epictetus.
He said that you should seek not the good in external things, IE
games, but rather within ourselves, but do so in
community with others. And I feel like just listening
to you talk about how you teach Carcassonne, I feel like you
really do that right? It's not about the game.
You're seeking within yourself that which is good and then you
are sharing that in a community as if you've got some
responsibility. And I've really, I think you
seem to execute that well through Carcassonne.
I love it. Thank you.
Yep.
What is what's your second game that you like to teach that's
been successful for you? I've got all of them down here,
so I'm going to be bringing up one time.
OK, so those of you who don't like to watch the videos, you're
not going to see any of these, but.
That's true. That's true.
It's too bad and I don't care. This is Querkel.
You know, I've never played Querkel, so you're going to have
to, yeah, you're going to have to run that down for me.
I don't. I've got a travel version up
there, but this is the deluxe one.
We love it so much we bought a second version.
Querkel is basically Scrabble, but with shapes and colors
instead. So you're placing a tile and
trying to keep either the color of the six symbols or the same
symbol but with the six different colors.
And if you can get them lined up, then you get sort of extra
points. Having six, you get an extra
trial point or you get you score trial points.
But it's just one of those, again, tile lane where you're
just putting out on the board and it's spreading out.
There's no board for it. So you can play it on anyone's
table. You don't need to have any other
than the bag of tiles. That's cool.
Like Scrabble. Do you have like a little easel
where you keep or is it more like Domino's where you just?
How do you do it in the collectors?
Yeah, the collectors one came with those.
That's really nice. OK.
That's cool. We had.
That's been a successful game for you when you teach that.
It has, yeah. So I, there's a board game group
local to us. I haven't been for a few months
because I've had a lot going on with my studies and with the
with the building works outside. But earlier in the year I was
asked to go along and do they do like introduction tables.
So they do like a very basic one and then sort of like a next
level Advanced 1. And I was asked to do and I took
along Splendor and I took along Querkel and Querkel went down
very well with the ladies I was teaching.
Because it is you're taking Scrabble, which is again that
everyone knows, even if they don't play it.
And you're saying this is like Scrabble, but just here's the
change. It's colors and shapes instead
of words. And that's a great leveller as
well, because you don't need to have a thesaurus in your head to
get these high scores. Everyone's on the same playing
field because it's just six colors, 6 shapes.
Yeah. And it's just brilliant.
And when somebody gets that, it's called a quirkle.
When you get 6 in a row. When someone gets that, it's a
table chair, even if even if you set them up.
So that's a really I'm thinking about that.
That's a very simple, it's a simple mechanic.
It's a simple game. I can see why it's 1 you would
like to teach. It's very accessible both both
socially and intellectually. But I can feel like that's a
little bit. There's a lot of strategy
because you're not trying to put a word together like you
wouldn't scrub, but you're trying to think about colors and
you're trying to think about shapes.
That's. And that's good.
There's always that pace. At the beginning there are three
identical tiles, so there's like 3 orange circles, 3 green
circles, 3 orange squares, 3 blue stars like that.
So you can start to get, as you get to learn again, you can
start having your six in front of you to choose from and you're
like looking down, I've got an orange circle.
There's already 2 on a board there and there's a potential
quirk over there. I know nobody else can place
that circle, so you're going to hold on to it and let someone
else build those oranges up. So you do start.
Like, I tend to divide mine into two.
I have ones I'm holding on for for big moves later, and then
ones I'm just getting rid of to cycle through my tiles.
Yeah, once everyone knows that, that's it.
And they can sort of count the tiles and plan for their moves.
What's the player count on? It goes up to 4. 4 So when you
teach it, do you usually or do you usually play or do you like
have four players and you just kind of teach and oversee how
does that? Look like it depends on player
count. When I, when I taught that game,
I was the 5th person at the table.
So I was happier to just sit back and and then I can sort of
advise people like what ties have you got?
You might want to think about this.
And it's always good to give, not just teach them the rules of
the game, but teach them the tactics of the game as well, OK?
That's pretty cool. I like that corkle man.
That's yeah, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to get a copy and
play that. Is that one of the?
I know that it starts with the letter Q, but it's like there's
like a few games that all begin with the letter Q like Koali.
And no, it's not one of those I know the ones right about.
Yeah, No, it's not. OK, it's not in that series.
OK, no, good to know. Good to know then.
So it's a little something, a little bit.
Different and there is a. You can't see it now, but
there's a nice travel version. It just comes in small works and
the tiles are a lot smaller. That's what we normally play
with. I bet, I bet that's really just
easy to, you know, take with you to a restaurant or a pub or
something like that. And just and the and the tiles,
are they, are they wooden? Are they plastic?
Are they metal? And so in the normal version and
in the travel version are wooden, but in the deluxe 1
they're acrylic, a bit like these all tiles.
OK, so that one's really good for going to a pub or something,
because yeah, if you spill your drink or whatever, it's going to
be no problem. Yeah, OK, well, that's cool.
Quirkle, Carcassonne and Querkel.
That's one. And two.
I love it. So what's your third?
A game that you're like, I'm, I'm going to teach this and
everyone's going to fall in love and the community is just going
to blow up. Well, it's funny that you should
say the word love because it's a love letter.
Love letter. I did not see that coming.
No, that's a. Good, that's a good that's a
good one. And I love how I set that up and
didn't even. Yeah.
Thank you very much for that. This was really, really good.
Because it's each player has a card in their hand and then on
their turn they draw a second card.
So again, it's like keeping the choices minimal when you're
teaching games to sort of new and casual gamers.
So yeah, they've just got, and they've got, if you use the
spies as well, there's only 10 different cards in the game.
And then it comes with a little reference sheet that tells you
the card counts for each of them and what their what they all do.
Seeing the cards you don't have in front of you, you know what
their powers are. So they have all that
information and they've just got a very basic one or two
decision. We played again, actually, we
talked to someone at the weekend at the Expo.
And the first sort of round or two is a bit unsure, but then
you can see him ticking over like I need this information.
If I put this down, it screws, I'm going to see that person's
card. And you can see it all clicking
in his head. And at the end, he went on to,
he came second, but it was very close to the end to him and
against my wife, right. That was that was fun to watch
the final of those two gone off against each other.
That's one of my wife and I's favorite games to like.
Take with us when we're travelling because.
It's so small so. Yeah, so a couple of years ago,
my stepmother and my eldest sister came up from Louisiana to
visit. We just bought our house, so I
finally had space for them to stay with us before living in a
tiny apartment. And so that was a really nice.
They stayed here for a week and I taught them Love leather.
It was so it was really funny because I remember 1 moment
where they're still learning the abilities.
Like you said, they've got the little reference card that lets
them know what each character does.
So I think it's my stepmother. She plays the priest and she's
like, she tells my sister, let me look at your card.
And so then, and then my sister was next, so she played a
priest. She's like, let me see your card
then. And I'm like, yeah, So you got
to be careful with those emotions for such a simple game.
You cannot, you can't make emotional decisions in love
letters, especially like that. It's like, OK, guys, you just
wasted your priests. I'm just saying, you know, But I
love that. How often have you taught love
letter? And how does it get received by
the people that you introduce it to?
I haven't taught it enough, but it's, it's a game you pull out
first of all. And people see the red.
I don't know, I'm holding up to the camera, but they see that
red velvet bag and the kind of like there's a Princess and the
Prince and blah, blah. And people, I get a lot of sort
of doubt in their eyes. But once you get like two or
three rounds in and they can see that, that the cleverness of
like playing cards to reveal other people's.
And when you is it the kind of it's the king or the Prince, but
there's one where if you have another card in your hand, you
have to play it, but you can also bluff that as well.
So you can put it down and make people think you've got.
And once they sort of connect that and they're like, I don't
have to be, I love games. The bluff, that's a whole
separate episode. But yeah, it's just seeing
people's brains click with certain tactics.
Once they Start learning those cards, that's just fantastic.
That's. A great one, love letter.
That's a good one. And then if you want to bump up
a level then you go for Lovecraft Letter which has that
extra dimension of the Madness cards.
See, I haven't. We haven't played that.
One, no. The only other version of love
Letter I've played was the Star Wars.
What is it, Jabba? 'S Oh yeah, yeah.
Dallas, I didn't care for it. It did some it did some weird
things that seemed to over complicate like love letters so
perfect and seamless. I mean 16 cards and a few little
red cubes and a red velvet bag. Mine's old, so it's not.
Hearts. Yeah, I got an old.
Version I got. Cubes.
It came a cubes, not little
wooden hearts. Yeah.
So, you know, that's that's how that goes with love letter.
It's a good one. So we've we've gone carcasone,
we've gone Querkel, we've gone love letter.
So what's what's next on the list?
We're gonna get to the aggressive Games now, OK?
Next stop is team of Tokyo. OK, now that's one I know.
I say this again, it's basic rules, simple actions.
It's Yahtzee style. Before a lot of people remember
playing the arts. It's just like just rolling
those dice, re rolling, looking for punches.
Watching the banter start between the players is like, you
know, I'm punching you, you're punching me back.
And people going for revenge, even though it's not tactically
viable to do that because they're on their last few
hearts. It's like, I could heal, but I
want to punch you. And yeah, and then it goes up to
six players, which is really, really great for getting a nice
group together. Again, is this where you usually
teach it at the local game group that you were talking about, or?
Yeah, and also I used to before I left my last job I started a
little board game corner. I asked the head of the company
if I could have £200 because I found a two by two Calyx in
storage somewhere and I was like, I'm going to stop at the
Ball Game Corner for my work buddies and we're going to start
the ball game Club. And King of Tokyo was one of the
first games that I got us all into because it's not very long.
So for a lunch break everyone can have their food and then we
can get a quick game or two of that out.
Yeah, you get a lot of emails after the game where everyone's
sort of like discussing how they're going to get back at you
later. It's interesting because so you
had three games that were very kind of, they kind of like
stimulated thought, right? They kindled the social and
intellectual flame, as it were. And that's got a great appeal
when you're introducing it to new players.
But then with King of Tokyo, that kind of take that and
adversarial, that also Kindles like a more social flame.
Yeah. And is rather successful.
I think one of my favorite things about King of Tokyo is
it's so accessible for children. I know that I have a friend here
in Springfield who that was one of the games he played with his
kids when they were younger. They're all a grown adults now,
but he had a lot of success with it.
Hey, tell me about how much experience have you had dealing
with children and teaching games to kids in these groups in these
experiences you've had? Not many.
We don't have any kids that go to the local group.
The two experiences I would say I've had is I went to Gridcon a
couple of years ago, which is like a Paul Grogan.
Paul gaming rules. He does a little convention in
the South of England and we were setting up, my wife and I were
setting up a game of the White Castle, which we absolutely
love. And it's one of those situations
where you can put a little flag on the end of your table that
asks for more players. And my, my wife had just popped
to the loo and I was just sat there on my own and that.
And then a gentleman came over with his little boy and asked if
he could play. And I was like, he's like a
really small child and like, this is a complex game.
But I didn't say anything. I was like, more the merrier.
And when my wife came back, I could see her see the child sat
down and be like, what's going on?
This kid? I don't know him and his dad
must just play. Really complex games like
Laserda level stuff. Because I explained the rules
once and I said that you OK with all that?
And he was like, Yep, got it. And he played on the same level
as us for the whole. He's amazing, that kid.
Yeah. And I had chats with him later
on the weekend and yeah, he knows his stuff.
So UK Expo was what that was last last weekend.
Last weekend. Yeah, Last.
Weekend, but you were there. I know that a lot of people
bring their kids. There's a lot of families that
go to the Expo. I'm just wondering if you've had
any experience teaching games or just playing with kids at the
Expo, either this one or in previous.
The only kids that we really played with when we visit with
Nick and Shelley Ball Game Review UK, their three kids, who
are they are all three of them, even the youngest, they are
amazing at games. In fact, we've sat down with the
youngest because he wanted to teach us a game and he taught it
Florida State, which you'd expect from a child of Nick, but
yeah, he was. Yeah.
Those kids are brilliant. For me personally, outside of
the groups and that I have my son who's I can't not softly
push games onto him. So we've been building this
collection up. We started with like the sort of
the kiddie games you get in a supermarket, the ones that are
bad enough that we get irritated by them.
But we're now moving into all the my first particular ride, my
first one, and he's loving it. And then he recently became
addicted to Yahtzee, which we love playing anyway, but he he
demands we play multiple games that every weekend and the game
can roll for it. Oh yeah, roll for it.
Don't let don't let Craig get Craig from get into games.
Know that you like Yahtzee. Oh, is that another one he
hates? It's Yeah, I like his biggest,
like his biggest game that he loves to hate on his dice
throne. And he just calls it Marvel
Yahtzee. And he yeah, because he hates
Yahtzee, which is interesting. I have a friend here in
Springfield who just hates Yahtzee, so we like to buy.
We like to buy the different IP versions of.
Yahtzee. And like, give that to him for
Christmas is kind of a gag, but. Yeah, we're going to, we're
visiting Craig next. I think it's next month or the
month, I think it's August. We're going.
I'm going to take Yahtzee out there.
You definitely yeah, do should do.
That. You should do that.
Don't tell him I told you to do that.
But that would be. There will be no evidence of
this conversation. No, no, there will not.
It's not like he's going to listen to this or watch this
episode. Be like he's going to stop being
my friend. That's crazy.
That's great. No, that.
That's awesome. So how?
How old is your kid? He's 12, maybe 13, OK.
OK, so I want to, I want to tell you a quick story.
This happened to me just this weekend when I was at the
Tabletop Vibes studio hanging out.
Adam has his daughter Talia. She's she's 6-6 or seven.
I don't have any kids. I'm terrible at this, you know,
so I don't, I don't have the parental, you know what I mean?
You know what I'm talking. About.
Yeah, I know, I know. Anyway.
But but she is amazing. She is like this just coolest
kid ever. And so we were up, we were
supposed to play some board games, but instead she wanted to
stay up with dad and she wanted to teach us Loricana.
And so we ended up yeah. So she's, she's crazy for
Lacana. And so she taught us, you know,
like so Adam and Adam and Mark were here and then she and I
were here. And so we played each other.
They played each other. And she taught us how to play.
Laura, that's awesome. And it was, it was great.
It was really great. I love that moment Because I
don't have any kids. I don't get a lot of
opportunities to interact at the game table with kids.
I mean, obviously I have nieces and nephews.
My niece recently graduated high school.
So she's, you know, she's 18 now.
She's not much of A gamer and she's in Louisiana.
So I'm good to see her very often.
My nephew is 5 or I think he's about to turn.
He's about to turn 5 and is starting to kind of, you know, a
little bit play games. But then and I see more of him,
but we haven't really played a lot of games.
I don't I don't get that opportunity very often.
But so many of our friends both here in the US and the UK, y'all
all have kids of various ages and and what I like about the UK
Expo is that y'all you bring your families.
I know that Craig and Becky, well, they brought their girls
on the Sunday, but I. Know they did.
Brad and Susie bring their kids for the whole time that they're
there, and they manage that accordingly.
So yeah, I'm always interested in hearing about how gamers
interact with children of all ages and then teaching games and
what that's like. So, yeah, so thank you for
indulging me in that for a for a moment and sharing because
that's pretty great. It's tough to teach kids because
you're not just teaching them games.
You've got to teach them that win loss thing.
And my son was quite difficult at the beginning because it was
OK if you won a game, but then he needed to win the next one.
And if he didn't then he'd start to get shirty about it.
But you don't want to gift it to them and teach them that, you
know, it was easy because they moaned about it.
So it was very difficult for us to get to that point.
But he's really, really good with it now.
So it's like you're you let him win and when you stop letting
him win, when he starts beating you like legitimately, that's
when you know you've. No, it's I've avoided the
letting him win. Oh, you did OK.
Yeah. And so for, like, we started off
in the early days with Connect Four.
And I would, I wouldn't let him win, but I would very much, if I
saw him making a move that was going to give me the win, I
would just like, tap the top of the row and say, like, focus.
And he'd pull back and like, look at everything.
And it was teaching him to take his time.
Yahtzee was good for that as well because he would roll some
dice, pick out two twos, and I'd be like, but look at what else
you've got. I wouldn't tell him what to do,
but I'd tell him to sort of stop and think about his turn, not
Russia. And he's starting to really plan
his moves now. So yeah, that was quite good.
I imagine that's the real challenge is because you're
you're teaching them to think and be aware rather than just
teaching a basic mechanic of a game, right?
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
He comes to me as well with a lot.
He comes in this room and looks and says like almost as if the
games have got like a movie certificate on them.
He's like, what age is that game?
It's like it's not that you're not old enough that you are old
enough to play it. It's whether you can understand
the mechanics and everything. And so we'll get to those games,
I promise. But we've got to start.
Yeah, I love that. I find that so I'm, I think that
this conversation, this about kids and everything it reminds
me of. So there's a quote from the
Roman orator Cicero. Cicero said that we were born
not for ourselves, but for others.
And if you know anything about Cicero, Cicero was all about the
key to the key to all of his philosophy in ancient Rome was
trust, right? And it's always about putting
people first. The Republic in Rome can only
survive if we put each other first.
One could say that America could learn a lesson from Cicero, but
that's, you know, given our current situation.
But that's, you know, that's neither here nor there.
And it seems like that's exactly what you're doing, especially
with kids. You've got to put them first.
I think that's true. Would you agree that that's just
true about teaching board games in general?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I know some people
are on either side of the fence on this argument of whether when
you teach games, whether you should try to win or try not to
win. You think I had a really good
experience with Craig a few a month or so ago.
He taught us, well, re taught me Everdel because my first
experience had been with what I would categorize as an
aggressive teacher in that he was here's how you play the
game, but I'm going to beat you. And he was very much, you know,
not being very helpful and telling me what I was doing
wrong as if he was scolding me. Whereas I realised half through
the game you can't make your players be afraid to ask you
questions about their turns because they don't know the
game. And I.
Agree with that completely. Absolutely.
And I was, there was something I wanted to do, but it would
reveal what I was planning. And I was a bit nervous about
saying it, but I did in the end. And Craig was brilliant.
He told me, yeah, no, you want to do that because it'll get you
this many points and that. And then he didn't take that
information and use it against me.
On his next turn. He did what he was going to do
without information. I think that's really important
is to make sure your players know that if you're teaching
them the game, they can show you the tile or they can ask a
question about the card that they want to use, because
otherwise they're not going to. They're not going to learn
everything. Right, right.
I love that. How easy or difficult is it for
you personally to put on that that teacher's hat, right and
adjust how you're going to play the game when you're teaching
versus when you're playing, right?
Like, is it? Does that come naturally to you
or? What it does, yeah, it does.
Yeah. I I don't win many games, so I
don't get into game expecting to win.
So to back off and be like, I want to help one of you guys win
is is a piece of pie. But I don't need to win the
game. I know the game.
I play the game, I'm teaching the game.
It's one of you lucky not that's going to have that experience
and I want to help them have that.
And that's what building a community is all about, right?
Is encouraging that shared experience so that everyone has
a good time and then kindling the flame, as Socrates said,
right? Yeah, It's not to say that the
teacher can't win the game, you know, if it plays out like that.
But I don't think you should, like, teach a game to a bunch of
people and then go hunt a killer, like, keep things to
yourself. And yeah, I think, yeah, try and
encourage them. You want that?
Exactly. So you have a fifth game on your
list. I do.
Yeah, so tell me about tell me about the last game on the list.
Ignore everything I've said in the in the last four games, now
we're going full evil. Oh, we're going full evil.
This game Survive Escape from Atlantis, such a fun game to
teach people. This is like the King of Tokyo.
This is more about, it's less about the actual game itself and
it's more about building that experience and having that
laughter around the table because it's a game that just
builds chaos and turns everyone on each other, but in equal
measures. So there's no, you're not
picking on one person and giving them a bad game.
Everyone's having a bad game at the same time.
It's just fantastic for that. I got to be honest with you,
I've never played that one either.
So you have to tell me a little bit about the game itself.
Yeah, I don't know much. So it's you have a board with
it's just water and you have tiles that make up an island in
the middle, hex tiles, and they are mountains, jungle and sort
of beach. And they're different
thicknesses. So you'll place your meeples at
the start of the game on these different tiles.
And then you're trying to get to the four corners of this board
by moving them onto these boats and avoiding sea serpents,
sharks, whales in the water. But it's the level of
interaction on this game. So you move your meeple a
certain amount of places and then you roll the dice and it
lets you do things like move certain sea creatures.
So you're all sharing the monsters on the board and moving
them. So I might move a shark 2
towards you, but if you're lucky enough to roll a shark on your
turn, you might move it away towards me or towards someone
else. You're taking up boats full of
people and it's just we have a whenever they're over, that's
usually one of the games we play over them.
And you have that meta with it as well afterwards because it's
like, remember what you did to me last game coming straight
from your boat this time? Yeah, it's good.
Like I say, it's good because once that first person sort of
triggers the aggression, everyone just devolves into
that. But it's doesn't.
Nobody wins. Like even if you do win with the
points, nobody really wins the game.
There's like one guy left on the beach all alone.
Everyone else has just been wiped.
Oh. My gosh, that's great.
That actually sounds fun and I really prefer more cooperative
games generally. I mean, not not every game is
cooperative, right, Obviously, even in my collection, but that
sounds that does sound kind of fun.
I think it's the campiness, right?
It seems playful and campy and that that kind of it's not so
hurtful. Yeah.
So what about what about your
family? You talked a lot about gaming
groups, but you had also mentioned when we were when we
were talking about this idea, you had mentioned your family
too. Does your does your family have
like a favorite game that they that you have taught or they
want you to reteach whenever you get together?
That is not meant to be a trick question.
No, no, it's, I'm just thinking, yeah, so my wife comes from a
gaming family, whereas I don't. OK.
And so when she introduced me to them for the first time five
years ago, I just fell in love with them because these guys
play games to this level. It's fantastic.
And we play a lot because of the size of us.
Normally when we go around there's seven people, so we play
a lot of the big party games like Your Cash and Guns, which
is fantastic. Secret Hitler, which is evil but
fun. A lot of the small box card
games like Spicy Wandering Towers is I think he got my
brother-in-law got that last year.
That's a brilliant game. Six players again.
That game, that game is a fantastic.
It's amazing. It's it gets better with the
it's a higher player count. Yes, although it scales well.
It's very good at 2. It's very good at two.
Yeah. It just gets, it gets struck.
It's tighter. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
That's a good one. So what's, what's their favorite
like? What's the what are you guys
putting aside teaching? Like when your family gets
together, what is what are they like?
Secret hit like gets requested a lot.
It is, yeah. OK.
Have you tried that? No, because that's a
controversial game and it's a topic here in America where
people have very strong feelings about it one way or the other.
So we just kind of avoid it all together, right?
Understandable. So it's a social deduction game
though, right? I mean, at its cores, yeah.
So there's I think. I can't speak for anyone.
I can only just talk about my observations since I've never
played Secret Hitler, but I've heard people share their
opinions and I understand them because the theme is very
controversial. I think there are there are
other social deduction games that execute better maybe, and
so they're more enjoyable to the current American audience.
Again, I can't speak for the rest of the world.
Yeah, that's understandable. I think that's why Secret
Hitler's just kind of one of those games that it's, it's like
there are there are there's some key topics that you just avoid
when you're at the dinner table with your friends and family.
Like you don't talk about politics, you don't talk about
religion, you don't talk about abortion, and you don't talk
about secretly. No, that's true.
Yeah. So just kind of one of the so
it's interesting. It's just you hear you talk
about that. And so that's that's a game that
it's I guess why though. Yeah, it's a surprise they've
not done like a reskin, maybe to make it more marketable.
I want to say that they did but so to be honest I'm like the
worst person to talk about this because I don't like social
deduction games and I don't. I pretend.
And as an extension I really hate trader mechanic games.
I have through childhood trauma. I have trust issues, so lying to
my face. I love Craig and Becky and I
know that Becky's favorite game is Blood on the Clock Tower and
she and I talked about it. She knows this.
I can't, I can't play Blood on the Clock Tower, but I have
remotely with Craig and their group, right?
So we'll get on. With me, yeah.
Yes. You only won a game.
Did. We did.
We win a game. One of us was a mathematician
and one of us was something else, Clockmaker or something
like that. OK, so Craig, Craig and I learn.
Craig learned. He just makes me the clockmaker.
OK. Because like, you know, yeah,
because there was one. There was a game that we played
and I just, I got angry, right. And so we had to have a private
chat later and he's like, OK, what happened?
And I'm like, OK, yeah, I don't, you know, I'm really frustrated
here is this. And so we talked it out and I
think, I think he's like, I'll just assign the I'll just give
Peter the client maker. It lets me role play and like,
you know, whatever, because I, the only reason I play is to be
social with y'all. You know, it's just chat.
Let's get in the private group. And I know I'm supposed to help
you figure out who the bad guy is, but everything.
So how's your how's your wife and kids?
You know, like, yeah, I'm the worst.
I'm also bad at lying, which means if I were the if I were
the demon or in werewolf, if I'm the bad guy, whatever it is,
you're going to know because I can't lie.
Well, you know, it's just. Yeah, there's there's a couple
of games. I know Spy 4 is 1.
Where it's the pretender is another one.
It's games where you get you hand out cards and one person is
the spy or the pretender. So they don't have any
information but everyone else has like a word that you've got
to then kind of give clues for. Or like fake artist goes to New
York, that kind of stuff. And if you are picked first as
the spy or the pretender and you have 0 information to go on,
like if I get that card and then they say Brian you're first, I'm
like I'll just grin. I'm like yeah it's me.
I can't even attempt to play this around because my face just
gives that way. I struggle with the games.
We did Cocktail for a while, my wife and I, but we struggle with
that and with Werewolf as well because it's you need to
understand all the roles and Crocktail has so many roles in
it. Werewolf not so much.
Like Secret Hitler doesn't have as many games like Coup.
Coup is really good because it's just five cards and you're
always changing through them that.
So I prefer games like Coup that just have like very limited
bluffing information. KU is one of my favorite games,
and I've had people question me. It's like, because I'm very
vocal about the fact that I have trust issues, right?
And so if we're gonna have a social deduction game, I just
usually politely decline. And if people ask, then I'll,
I'll tell them. But I mean, I'm gonna open up a
book. So whatever you want to know
about me, I'll tell you. And if you want to really get
down deep into like how I discovered that this was really
triggering for me, you know, I would share that story.
But COO is 1. I really enjoy, I think because
yes, bluffing is, is lying for sure.
I, I recognize that as a truth. The fact though, with with is
that you can, you can be honest the whole time and win the game.
You really can. So you don't have to bluff.
But when I'm in a position where the way the cards are, I have to
bluff. Like, you know, if I have two
contessas and if anyone's ever played Coup contessas, just
block the assassin and that's the only thing they do.
So I have no choice but to claim that I have a role that I don't
have because I happen to have drawn 2 of the same role and
they essentially don't do anything, you know?
So I've fallen into it's situational.
I'm usually not very good and most people call me on it
occasionally. I get through.
Yeah, and sometimes I get sometimes, sure, people are
like, OK, you're the captain, whatever or whatever role I'm
bluffing on. But yeah, so I do enjoy that.
I understand there's a little bit of bluffing.
I mean, I've played, you know, traditional like, you know,
poker and Texas holdem and other other traditional card games
where bluffing is a key component.
So I'm not, I'm just never good at them because it's not a skill
that I developed because of my internal mechanisms that prevent
me from doing so. But OK.
So games to teach, to create a community with Carcassonne,
Querkel love letter. These are more friendly games.
King of Tokyo, little bit of chaos because it's mostly
random. And then we get into survive
escape from Atlantis, little bit more evil, I think you said.
And then just kind of a fan favorite of your family secret
Hitler. That's that's a good group of of
games that kind of encourages the interactivity, the putting
people first. All the things that the Greek
philosophers have been talking about.
I feel like you've really executed these well.
So I do have one last thing I want to talk about.
So again. Roman philosopher, Seneca, he
said that when we teach, we also learn.
So my question to you is, do you agree with that sentiment?
Do you find that when you teach games, you either you also
learn, Either you learn to be a better player of the game you're
teaching in the future, or you just learn to be a better
teacher when you're teaching in the future?
What do you think about that? Yeah, definitely learn to be a
better teacher. Any experience?
You take away what worked and what didn't in your teaching
method, then you just fix that the next time.
Specific games, It's just rules that people are having trouble
getting. You can work on getting those
across easier and then working out game types that just aren't
connecting with people, sort of take those out and try
different. So if nobody liked the
aggressive games at all when they were complaining about the
fact that they're always fighting each other, I'd take
those bottom two out and I'd find two more to bring in.
Yeah. So definitely every every
teaching session is a learning session that way.
Yeah. Have you, has there ever been an
instance where you learn something, something vital about
yourself through teaching a board game?
Like maybe you discovered something about yourself that
kind of helped you in your own self exploration, the journey
that we're all going on? Have there any been, has board
games and teaching board games ever facilitated that for you?
Yeah, we're going to get deep now.
Now we are leaning forward but. Yeah.
No, I've been saying so profound, just that I'd love.
I mean, I'm in the process of I've gone back to university, so
I don't have a job alone. I'm studying with the goal of
going into teaching, so. Oh, OK, yeah, having confidence
and being positive about teaching ball games is going to
be going up into teaching kids more than ball games.
Right. What would you?
So once you're done, you've completed university, what would
you be teaching? Or is it general subjects or is
it a single subject like? Well, I'm, I'm currently
studying English literature and creative writing, so I'll
probably be going in that direction.
So you're. Going to be bringing people to
read and think critically about what they're reading and then
how that'll help them be creative and write their own
works. And maybe you'll do a little
writing yourself. Yeah, I enjoy, love writing.
I do it a lot. Have some for years.
I would argue though, that the teaching of board games to
either new game, casual gamers, new gamers, family members who
aren't gamers, like, I think there's a lot of skills that
there's soft skills that you you're developing that are going
to be really helpful for you in the real world.
Not that gaming's not the real world, but you know what I mean
in your, in your alternative life, right?
Because. You're really.
This is the real. This is, Yeah.
That's why I say in your alternative career as a teacher
as opposed to a game, right, Alternative lifestyle, as it
were. Yeah, that's amazing.
Were there, I know you had a few others.
Any other games that you want to talk about?
Any other experiences that you'd want to share?
We mentioned roll for it. That's a really, my son picked
it up so quickly and that's just basic dice rolling and then
placed into scorecards. Going back to bluffing.
Cockroach Poker is another one where it's about the experience
at the table. It's about everyone laughing
with everyone else passing those cards around.
Have you played Cockroach Poker? So I'm going to, OK, You asked.
I'm going to tell you a story. It reveals a lot about me.
I think Gareth talked about Cockroach Poker and I was like,
I think I should get that game. Like I think he encouraged me
so. But we picked up a copy at a
local game store. We brought it over to my inlaws,
my wife's family for Christmas and and we played it and I'm
never going to play that game again.
I didn't behave well. I mean, I didn't.
OK. Like I'm a grown at the time.
I'm a grown man of 47. I'm now 50.
And I mean, like I threw a fit. I got really I got really angry.
I'm I'm not, I'm not proud of this moment at all.
But I mean, I behaved like a child and just I had to leave
the room. It's it's yeah, I can't, it's
it's because it's intentional. The only way to win is through
deception and cheating. And that's, I mean, that's the
whole thing that the other game is cheating Moth, right?
Yeah, both of them. I just now I, I do have the
ability to, you know, self-control.
This is This is why, This is why I'm asking you all these like
deep questions, because when I play a game, this stuff comes
out right. So I know not to play them.
But if we're going to play, I simply resign myself to the fact
that I'm not going to win. I'm not.
And not only am I not going to win, I'm not even going to play
the game well. But if everyone else at the
table really wants to play, I will do my best and I will check
my emotions at the door. Because remember, right, we're,
we're supposed to be doing this for others, right?
We're not born for ourselves, but for others.
So if the rest of the table wants to play Cheating Moth or
Cockroach Poker, then for the greater good.
Right. It's an odd game because I've
talked about, we've talked about the inclusivity of everyone and
make sure everyone's got the good positive memories from the
game. And that is one game that I own.
I think that everyone wins apart from one person.
There's no real winner, there's only one loser.
So that feels like it's a negative game.
But it's probably one of the ones that I've had the most
requests to play after teaching it again, right?
So even people that lose that have had a lot of fun and want
to do it again. Well, to be fair, I'm an
oddball. Next time you're over, we're
playing, I'm bringing my coffee, we're playing.
So I will tell you currently Katie and I have plans to return
to the UK next year. Oh awesome.
One of one of the things that we discovered, so first of all, so
last year was my first time traveling internationally.
I'd never left the country. And so I got the bug.
I was like, Oh my God, we got to, we got to go here.
We got to go here. I mean, you know, OK, great.
But international travel still is expensive.
So we've got to manage that. And you know, we kept talking
about and talking about and Katie had such a great
experience meeting everyone. She's like, well, maybe we can,
we can afford every other year. And still my problem is, is that
when I was in when I was in university, I studied non spoken
languages, right? So I mean like I got a degree in
Latin. Ancient.
Greek, I studied classical Chinese, I studied Coptic and
Sanskrit, right? Because I was an ancient
historian and studying the ancient world.
So I don't know how to speak any foreign languages right read
ancient languages which has not helped me for international
travel. No.
But so we're thinking about going back to UK next year and
there were cut. We want to spend, while we won't
spend four or five days in London like we did, there were a
few things we wanted to do that we just couldn't squeeze in.
So we'll start there, two days in London and then we're going
to kind of move it. But this time we're going to go
up to Scotland. We didn't get that.
We didn't get that option. But yeah, so that's possible.
It is possible that we could play Backroach Poker.
Yeah, I'll play. I will play it with you.
I will do that. And then you can laugh at me
when I get angry and you start seeing smoke come out of my
ears. But I will say what I have
observed about that game is that people do enjoy it.
It really makes people laugh. It it, it generates that sense
of community which I love and I appreciate it.
I just I can't. You know, yeah, not every game
is for every person. It's not.
We had that conversation this weekend with a Table top vibes
studio. It was like, not every game is
for everyone. And you can't, if you're a
designer, you can't design A game for everyone, right?
It's just, it's just impossible. So yeah.
So that's all I got. Do you have any final thoughts
or anything else that you want to share?
No, I'm just, yeah, I'm just going to carry on going out
there and trying to get as many people into the hobbies
possible. I love it.
Yeah. Keep keep building that
community. I I really love that you're
willing to put yourself out there and teach games to non
gamers and casual gamers. I think it's hard teaching.
Teaching games can be difficult. And I love that you've been
you've been very careful to curate games that are easily
accessible. That make it.
It takes some of the burden of teaching off of your shoulders
because the games themselves are just so accessible.
Yeah. So do you have do you teach, are
you as effective a teacher with like a heavier game like a heavy
lacerter or a euro or do you are those are more struggle or what
is how is that for you like in general?
Yeah, I do try to be. There's a lot of games where
we'll play them a lot at two players and I was one that
larger player count experience. We have a couple of friends that
come over that like heavier games.
The last visit I taught them as when they're my Garfield games.
It's a good one. And I love teaching them.
They're the kind of games that I have to have the manual because
there's so much stuff. I know and I do.
I regularly forget things. I'll get half for a game of
something, be like, there's this other rule that I completely
forgot to mention, or I'll get so into the teach.
And then we start playing and I realized I've not told everyone
what the win condition is or what we score on this game.
So yeah, the bigger the game, the harder it is for me.
I do love doing it still. I just love teaching games.
So I will say to try to help you along with that, I know a lot of
people know this already and you probably already know it.
You probably learned it. But so one of the things that
because my wife does most of the teaching right, she's got, she's
got a lot of opinions about rulebooks and how rulebooks are
laid out. And she's, she's very skilled at
analyzing and renting A rulebook guitar.
She's she's the teacher. I'm the, I'm, I'm the passenger
Princess, I get to just like sit there and let her teach me a
game, but that's just she she needs that right?
When we hit the table, I not forgot where I was going with
that. Why did I bring that up in the
1st place? It means that I don't teach as
well, right? Yes.
So she has said on countless occasions and she learned that
when she's teaching a game, no matter what the game is, the
first thing she teaches is how to win, right?
That's just how she starts. If we're going, if we're going
to play from the moon, if we're going to play men Nefer, if
we're going to play Civilution, which is some pretty heavy
games. The first thing to do, the first
way to win is scoring victory points or getting these, you
know, whatever the win condition is and she starts there.
Get that out of the way so you don't forget.
And then you can. And then you start breaking it
in. I know a lot of I know a lot of
my friends. That's the first thing they say
too, right? The way to win is to have the
most victory points at the end of the game.
OK, well, why do you say that? Well, because now I'm going to
tell you how you get victory points and.
Teaching. Games, they seem to start with
that, and it seems to be a successful guiding principle for
teaching games. So hey, take that.
If that works for you, great. If it doesn't.
Yeah, I'm trying to whatever, whatever works.
My wife sometimes for the bigger game, she likes to know she's
like, So what we doing here? And a lot of the big games have
that kind of paragraph at the beginning of the rule book, like
that set the scene and give the story or like you are ancient
philosophers doing this and she likes that because she's like,
what am I trying to do in this game?
Yeah, No, that's yeah. I should probably start with the
scoring conditions just because that's the I always forget
because it's at the end of the rule book, right?
Yeah, that is generally true. It is at the end of the book and
then you forget. And you get this, you get the
bigger games as well as you're teaching you like.
And then you get this card. And I'll get back to that in a
minute because you keep forking off at different, different
things, right? But yeah.
Absolutely, yeah. That's why a good rule book is
so important. If you're interested there,
let's see top three games where the rule book is laid out really
well for you to learn it as well as teach it.
And some of these are big games, an age contrived.
That is that rule book is laid out so beautifully.
Like you can you pick it up and you can go page by page and just
start the teach civilution. Civilution is another one I want
to try Good. It's a really good laid out rule
book that makes the teach done well and then men Nefer
everyone. I think people are tired of
hearing me talk about it. So civil illusion and men Nefer.
We both played at the beginning of this year at gay mini.
We each at the play the win library.
So we both like I want a copy of men never she want a copy of
civil illusion. So yeah, it was really easy for
us to learn it at the table at the moment.
And Katie has men. Nefer is so complicated because
there's so many, so many actions available to you.
And I've talked about this game, it's on blue in the mouth.
So the theme really informs the the the game play so.
That and. That that is really excellent.
And then the rule book is laid out well.
So those are like the top three games where the rule book is
just like she's got some more. I can't think of them at the
moment. It's also it's also the reason
why I'm just a terrible teacher. She teaches everything.
The only game that I I can teach blindfolded.
Everyone knows what it is. Here comes obsession.
Yep. Without Π.
Man, we need to play that. That's what we need to do.
I'll play that. If we're gonna play Cockroach
Poker, we'll play Obsession before or after.
That's fair. Actually, if I have to play
Cockroach Poker and that's gonna be tough for me, I should be
rewarded with us getting to play Obsession afterwards.
Yeah, that's fair enough. There you go.
I will suffer playing obsession. It's so.
Amazing. It's.
Great. That's a great game.
So tell people where they can find you on social so that they
can like, you know, ask you any questions about teaching or
whatever. Yeah, so I'm on Instagram as
always play Blue. I do have a website
alwaysplayblue.com. I'm actually just blog on that
one. I've just put my OK UK gave
extra updates on there for the for the last weekend.
That's good. OK, I'm gonna have to check that
out. So it's always plays blue.
Dot com always always. Yeah, so guys, thank you for
watching. Thanks for your thank you so
much for your patience with me. Again, all your well wishes is a
bit struggling through bronchitis.
That was not fun. Still not 100%, you know.
Hey, there we are. Please make sure to like and
subscribe. If you're watching this on
YouTube, please make sure to like on Spotify or any other
streaming service. The challenge I think is that
you guys, you in the ether, you're all listening to this in
your cars and then you forget to like it or leave a comment,
leave a comment. Tell us stories about games that
you enjoy teaching that help build community as a call to
action. Like y'all know that's what I'm
all about, right? Building community games.
You love to teach that, you know, you could put those in the
comments, YouTube, Spotify, wherever.
Let us know if you have questions for me, if you have
questions for Brian, maybe he's got some teaching tips because I
don't have teaching tips. You know, I don't teach, but I
know that Brians got more games on his list that he didn't share
because we kind of said five and we threw in a few more.
So yeah, reach out, post on YouTube.
We'd like to hear it. Remember, October will be the
one year since the launch of our YouTube channel.
We would like to get to 100 subscribers.
We're currently at 69. It's a humble little number
there, 69. So.
So thanks again for watching. Brian.
Thanks for joining me. This was a great conversation.
I really appreciate you taking the time.
Also, guys, if you haven't noticed, so Brian's painting his
house and he's not painting the room blue.
And yes, yeah, I know that you posted about that and I figured
I had to take a stab at you a little bit.
I did, yeah. Yeah, he did not paint it blue.
Yeah, that's OK. That's alright.
We love you. Anyway, thanks again for
joining. Thanks for the conversation,
thanks for watching. Everyone please take care and
remember to take care of each other and play more games.