Teaching the Game to newbies

[Cpt Ric]

Folks I've had a difficult time getting new folks in to this wonderful game. The big hurdle is the icons. They look at a card and I can see them go into the twilight zone as they try to decipher all the icons. Oh my!

Clearly giving them a cheat sheet to look them up helps. But has anyone come up with any techniques that seems to enable folks to grasp these icons faster? Many of the folks I game with have never played a game like this, which I suppose is also part of the hurdle. They (like me) have no context to put some of these icons and terms in.

Thanks much!

[pvanniervp]

I, for one, don't see this is an issue at all.

Yes, it will take a bit of time to learn the iconography, just like learning what road signs mean when you learn how to drive. It's just a part of the process.

After two or three reads of the rule book, I found that the icons became second nature. I was even self-testing my knowledge of them by covering up the meaning and trying to remember what they all stand for. Perhaps you can try that too with your play group - turn the learning process into a game of its own!

[Traveller-Jake]

The icons are something of a barrier, but at least these are well-designed icons. I played Fantasy Flight's Star Wars RPG for a year and still at times had to stop and think before i could decipher all the icons on their dice. And their rulebooks all use them too, which can make for difficult reading.
Despite having many more icons I find the icons in this game relatively easy to figure out. and are perhaps the most difficult.

[Cpt Ric]

I, for one, don't see this is an issue at all.

Yes, it will take a bit of time to learn the iconography, just like learning what road signs mean when you learn how to drive. It's just a part of the process.

After two or three reads of the rule book, I found that the icons became second nature. I was even self-testing my knowledge of them by covering up the meaning and trying to remember what they all stand for. Perhaps you can try that too with your play group - turn the learning process into a game of tis own!

I like that make a game out of them idea. Maybe I'll make up flash cards.... Yes once you get into it, I find that the Icons are very useful. It's getting folks over that "hump" that can be the trick.

As Traveller-Jake points out most are intuitive-ish to understand their meaning. I'd say that aren't the best. For the defense value a shield icon would have likely been more intuitive then the globe looking thing. For JUMP and DISTANCE, I'm not sure what would be better, but the icons to the casual observer don't give anything obvious about it's meaning. I do sometimes slip up on vs . Because I think of the stop watch for initiative as "speed", as in how fast you get from here to there.

[Horizon Jeff]

The presentation of the icons definitely isn't ideal for everyone, and can be a challenge for the new player experience. When I demo Traveller, I explain the icons as a picture matching game. Rather than worry about what each one means.

This works pretty well, though it is less effective for the icons that aren't resources, but instead represent game effects (like and as was already mentioned).

[Cpt Ric]

The presentation of the icons definitely isn't ideal for everyone, and can be a challenge for the new player experience. When I demo Traveller, I explain the icons as a picture matching game. Rather than worry about what each one means.

This works pretty well, though it is less effective for the icons that aren't resources, but instead represent game effects (like and as was already mentioned).

HI Jeff, yes the skills and capacity icons are a snap to get. It's more the others that are difficult for most folks, the Adventure attributes and Game concepts being the hardest. I think just using them (as in playing the game) is the only way to get them into your psyche.

I personally still don't understand fully the intent of the icon. To me it often seems redundant. As an example the Babel, TL-11 Translator . For the action phase is has this text -

, Jettison: resolve target

Why the before Jettison? Does that mean the still gets the for that round even though it's been Jettisoned? As I write this, I think that is the nuance that I've been missing, the is an "action" you do before you do the next thing in the text. I had been thinking that the USE of the item was the action of Jettisoning it (for this example at least).

Thanks much - Ric

[Traveller-Jake]

The indicates that the equipped with the also has to before the is jettisoned, which restricts somewhat the other actions the can take for the rest of the turn.
And no, the won't have the benefit of the Babel translator during the Resource phase if they jettisoned it during the Action phase to remove a .

[Cpt Ric]

The indicates that the equipped with the also has to before the is jettisoned, which restricts somewhat the other actions the can take for the rest of the turn.
And no, the won't have the benefit of the Babel translator during the Resource phase if they jettisoned it during the Action phase to remove a .

Ah, yes I see this in the rules on page 11 and 24, clearly I missed that before. Thanks for helping me on this. - Ric

[Horizon Jeff]

I personally still don't understand fully the intent of the icon.

There probably was a more intuitive or user-friendly way to go about this. The issue we were trying to solve was that we knew taking on would be a common occurrence, and it would also be something we'd want to modify (like the Thulse). If we had a specific icon for employing abilities, it would allow us to avoid having to type out on a or trying to shoehorn it into something like .

[korric]

I, for one, don't see this is an issue at all.

Whether you see it as one or not, it is an issue. There are players who do not want to wade through getting these icons down. I can see why a lot of people love the game, Race for the Galaxy, but I will never enjoy it because I find the iconography unintuitive.
Some of the iconography on Traveller is fairly intuitive, and some of it is not. For me, it was worth it in this case to learn it and enjoy the game. That is not the case for everyone, and a lot of people will be turned off by the iconography.