I honestly think they're impossible to understand
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Oh, that just pissed me off.
Couple weeks ago I was at a bachelor's party, to which a number of people had brought Magic decks. I knew nothing about the game (never even watched a video), made this clear, and said that I just wanted to watch everyone else play.
Someone handed me a deck and said, "no buddy, you're playing!" I protested, but it was fruitless. I'd been roped in; and I was excited! A group of people excited to show a new player their hobby.
The guy that handed me the deck then proceeded to explain nothing and get increasingly frustrated when I had no idea what he meant when he'd say "uh, no you have to UNTAP your cards first.. ok now tap them.. yeah I know you just untapped them but tap them
" (I still do not know what the point of turning my cards sideways for two seconds was but I guess it's super important?)The other two players were fairly intoxicated and probably didn't pick up on the toxicity, but the whole table was frustrated with how God awfully slow the game was taking since the new guy just wasn't getting it. I just wanted to watch.
Up until now I thought homeboy had just oversimplified a few rules in his head and forgot a thing or two, but seeing that the actual instruction manual is 500+ pages, I'm furious that he had the audacity to forcibly rope a drunk person with zero interest in playing into the game, just to treat them like a moron for not instantly getting it.
\rant
Lmao, as a long time player, you really got me on the "turning my cards sideways for 2 seconds" part. It really is like that.
I would never throw someone into a group setting to play like that on their first time. Total madness.
The game was originally designed to be played 1v1 and group play was meant to spice that up by adding chaos and leading to wildly complex scenarios.
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"Here, just use this easy quick-reference PDF."
It worries me that the first rule specifies that a two player game is a game that begins with two players.
What do you mean, begins? Are there mechanics that add more players to the game?
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This is part of the reason I don't play tabletop games, my brain absolutely refuses to parse their instructions.
Start with something simple like Twilight Imperium, and work your way up to Cones of Dunshire.
Or try Tsuro. It’s very simple and quite nice.
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It worries me that the first rule specifies that a two player game is a game that begins with two players.
What do you mean, begins? Are there mechanics that add more players to the game?
No, but a multiplayer game which starts with, for example, 4 players could be reduced to 2 players before it ends, so they have to specify 'begins with' to keep that multiplayer game from also being a two-player game at that point.
And this really sums up the level of semantics and minutia that requires a 299 page comprehensive rule PDF for a card game.
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I wanna see someone make a midwit meme for Magic the Gathering about the card bloodmoon. The card says "nonbasic lands are mountains." The idiot would think this turns them into the basic land card called mountain. The genius will know how it actually works, of course. But the midwit would say that it doesn't take abilities away because it just changes the card's subtype, which doesn't inherently remove abilities in general, but for basic lands it does.
But even then it's a stretch because the midwit in the example would have to be a very narrow slice of the chart. Obviously bloodmoon negatively affects opponents or it wouldn't see play. Nobody in their right mind is gonna think it buffs cards if they know what it is used for. But still, I remember it tripping me up in a "but wait, why does it do what it does?" way.
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Start with something simple like Twilight Imperium, and work your way up to Cones of Dunshire.
Or try Tsuro. It’s very simple and quite nice.
I really love ticket to ride. I think it's more fun than Settlers of Catan and a little better as a gateway game.
But yes, Twilight Imperium is very simple and straightforward. If you start learning in the morning you'll be half way done with a game by evening lmao
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I wanna see someone make a midwit meme for Magic the Gathering about the card bloodmoon. The card says "nonbasic lands are mountains." The idiot would think this turns them into the basic land card called mountain. The genius will know how it actually works, of course. But the midwit would say that it doesn't take abilities away because it just changes the card's subtype, which doesn't inherently remove abilities in general, but for basic lands it does.
But even then it's a stretch because the midwit in the example would have to be a very narrow slice of the chart. Obviously bloodmoon negatively affects opponents or it wouldn't see play. Nobody in their right mind is gonna think it buffs cards if they know what it is used for. But still, I remember it tripping me up in a "but wait, why does it do what it does?" way.
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Tabletop/card games seem inexplicably complex like bruh.
Something about the teaching method of some guy explaining something to you haphazardly, while sitting physically across from you making facial expressions and body language gestures and whatnot, something about the societal pressure to understand the rules in a given time limit as to not hold up a game, yet also make sure you actually do understand it and not come off as an idiot in a group which often features people you don't know that well, meaning you're now vulnerable in front of strangers, the way it's explained purely in the abstract without any relation to the real world which just makes the rules seem extremely arbitrary... It just makes for a rotten stew of incomprehensibility.
On the one hand I actually like it because how much of a challenge it is to my brain and the sheer novelty and shock to the system that the experience brings.
Most of the time games you play either have a commonality with others (genre i.e. FPS) or simulate a real world activity (i.e. shooting people) that have a certain logic to them that's just self-evident (point at target and pull trigger) and speak a sort of shared language that's designed to be as ergonomic as possible and on top of that, teaches you as you go with contextual instructions.
Even very complex games like HOI4 (or any Paradox or Paradox-type game) with enormous amounts of intertwined highly complex systems still simulate a real world activity to some degree, I don't actually have to have any game-specific knowledge to understand that if my government budget is in the red my immediate solutions are to cut costs or increase income (tax) and borrow to invest in infrastructure to increase income long-term and if the menu is intuitive enough, (e.g. Victoria 3), you can just find it.
And games with just absurd amounts of knowledge required like Warframe don't necessarily expect the player to actually know all, most or really any of it to play at the most basic level, and it's kinda understood that learning the ins and outs of later content takes hours and hours of periodic wiki perusing and game progress.
So board games that force completely abstract thinking among arbitrary rules going on half understood words of someone with an ever-thickening accent instead of the safe warmth of wiki text on a screen are actually a fun challenge, if you're the kind of person that likes to blast yourself with ice cold showers to wake up (me).
On the other hand - unfortunately I feel apprehensive about it due to past experience where sincere engagement probably gave my gf's friend circle the impression that I'm a stunted or something, it kinda sucks to feel like my game performance is judged, when obviously such things are intended more as a mutual activity to stimulate conversation and alcohol consumption rather than some cutthroat assessment of skill. I don't even know if it's the case, but I felt that way, so now I've just learned to say no completely out of hand to any and all interactive things at any social gathering for the most part.
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