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[teamlyle]

Hi everyone!

I am signed up to teach a 1.5 hour class on how to play Dominion for this event at my school. A few questions:


* Are there any big things to keep in mind? Common misconceptions about the game that people have at first?

* What kingdoms should I set up? Do you think it would be possible to construct 2 mutually exclusive kingdoms of base set cards for 2 groups to play at once? Or should I order 2 copies of the base set?

* How much strategy should they be informed about before their first game?

Any input is appreciated, thanks!

[Wizard_Amul]

1.5 hours is a good chunk of time--does that include play time? I would suggest you watch Adam Horton's tutorial series, as he has redone it at least a couple of times (last time redone this year), and it is pretty good:

If you have the second edition of the base set, the first two suggested kingdoms are nearly mutually exclusive, First Game and Size Distortion--instead of workshop in Size Distortion, I would replace it with Harbinger.

I used to give a couple of strategy suggestions before the first game, but I think it's almost better if you don't--figuring things out can be a big learning moment. That said, these were my go-to basic strategy tips:

1. Estates and copper are not really good cards, so trash them if you can.
2. If you buy victory cards early, think about how many times you will draw them throughout the game, making it that much harder to do useful things on your turns. A major part of Dominion is figuring out when to stop buying actions/money and start buying victory cards.

[hhelibebcnofnena]

I usually like to emphasize the alphabetization of the different phases: Action, Buy, Cleanup (and Draw, which is technically part of cleanup). It's a nice mnemonic. Also, I find it usually helps to go over what each of the vanilla bonuses actually mean before playing. (e.g. +1 Card means draw 1 card, not take a card from the supply. + means the card gives you in the buy phase, not that you take an actual Copper card. etc.)

Edit: Also, just out of curiosity, is this a specifically Dominion event, or a general board game event?

[Wizard_Amul]

I usually like to emphasize the alphabetization of the different phases: Action, Buy, Cleanup (and Draw, which is technically part of cleanup). It's a nice mnemonic. Also, I find it usually helps to go over what each of the vanilla bonuses actually mean before playing. (e.g. +1 Card means draw 1 card, not take a card from the supply. + means the card gives you in the buy phase, not that you take an actual Copper card. etc.)

Edit: Also, just out of curiosity, is this a specifically Dominion event, or a general board game event?

I forgot to mention it, but I also agree with going over the basic bonuses--I usually go over them if I remember. Market is perfect for that.

[Donald X.]

I usually teach people the game three times in a row. Just, it goes so fast. It starts out, "This is a game of building a deck of cards. You have your own deck, your own discard pile, a hand, a play area. The deck is face down, the discard pile face up." You will be saying that three or four more times as people put their discard piles face down anyway. "We take turns. On your turn first you can play one Action card from your hand, doing what it says; then you can play any number of Treasures and buy a card for however much money you have; then you take everything you played and everything you didn't and discard them all, and draw a new hand of 5, shuffling as needed." Well that's not enough so back over it again. "First you can play one Action card. They say Action on the bottom. You follow the instructions on it. If there's a dividing line you stop there, stuff after the line happens at some other time it will say." And so on. After the slightly longer version of the rules, it's back to explain the terms: the four +'s, gain, trash. "So if you played Militia you'd be done, but you could play a Market and a Market and a Market and then a Militia, because they each gave you +1 Action." And so on. Then, man, what were the rules again? It takes no time to repeat. "We take turns. On your turn first you can play an Action card..." Now maybe I mention ABC. A key thing is that buying cards doesn't do anything (except when it does), it just puts them into your discard pile; after you shuffle you'll start to draw cards you actually picked out, and will be doing those things. I explain that the money is income; some people expect to lose a treasure when they buy something, like in some game that made more sense.

I am teaching somebody who showed up to play, but I am playtesting and it's not the main set. So then I explain whatever new stuff is going on.

I do give some strategy advice. "Your initial ten cards are bad." "If you had a hand of 5 Silvers, that would make $10. A hand of 5 Coppers makes $5. One way to get from the $5 hand to the $10 hand is to buy better cards... another is to get rid of weaker cards." "If this weren't your first game, you'd be trying to figure out how things would go this game, given the cards dealt out, what strategy to pursue. But you aren't winning anyway, so just buy some stuff to try it out and you'll see how the game works."

Then of course I am there during the game, so when they play a Lab directly to their discard pile or something, I can say, no dude, into play. And they'll watch our turns too.

[Joseph2302]

I usually like to emphasize the alphabetization of the different phases: Action, Buy, Cleanup (and Draw, which is technically part of cleanup). It's a nice mnemonic.

This forgets the Night phase - obviously it's ABNCD

[markusin]

I usually like to emphasize the alphabetization of the different phases: Action, Buy, Cleanup (and Draw, which is technically part of cleanup). It's a nice mnemonic.

This forgets the Night phase - obviously it's ABNCD

Ey-bee-knee-see-dee

[hhelibebcnofnena]

I usually like to emphasize the alphabetization of the different phases: Action, Buy, Cleanup (and Draw, which is technically part of cleanup). It's a nice mnemonic.

This forgets the Night phase - obviously it's ABNCD

Well, yes, but I'm not teaching anybody with Nocturne. Learn the game first, maybe a few simpler expansions can be in the first game, but not too many complicated things. Then I can introduce the complicated stuff, a little bit at a time. Definitely leave out Night cards and Nocturne (and many of the other later expansions) until the person is thoroughly familiar with the game. Components, Card-shaped things, and Concepts all Confuse.

[AJD]

I'll lay out the basic Treasure and Victory cards and go, your turn has 3 phases, Action, Buy, and Cleanup, I'll come back to Action, that's complicated, here's how the Buy phase works. And I explain Treasure cards, costs, buying, and then cleanup. I'll do a mock-up of two or three turns: "on this turn I have four coppers, there's nothing costing 4 that I want right now; I'll buy a silver, it goes in my discard pile, even though I didn't spend all my money I still clean up all the cards I played," etc. I go until I get to "now I need to reshuffle to draw my next hand, and look, now I finally draw the silver I bought a few turns ago, so now I'll be able to buy more expensive cards."

Then I introduce Action cards. I usually talk through the kingdom cards in the First Game set one at a time in a specific order so as to introduce what kinds of things Action cards can do in a sensible way:
* Smithy: what +Cards means
* Village: what +Action means
* Market: +$ and +Buy
* Workshop: what "gain" means
* Remodel: trashing
* Mine: "when you gain a card it usually goes to your discard pile, but some things override that"
* Cellar: discarding
* Poacher: be careful, some cards have complex instructions that depend on other things
* Militia: "some cards are Attacks"
* Moat: Reaction, and the difference between its on-play and reaction effects

I also tell them "the two central strategic tensions of the game": you need Victory cards to win, but they make your deck weaker, so you need to figure out when you can get them without ruining your deck too badly with them; and terminal Actions have cool effects but you can only play one at a time unless you get villages.

Sometimes I also tell them, BTW Coppers and Estates are bad, trash them if possible.

[chipperMDW]

First Game set

* Poacher

I thought Woodcutter had been replaced by Merchant, not Poacher, in the First Game set. Did this change in a later printing?

[scolapasta]

For me, part of the joy of Dominion (and games in general) is discovering strategy on my own, so I focus mostly on mechanics for the first game or two, though I try to demonstrate the strategies with my play.

"Why is he trashing his Estates and his Coppers? Aren't they valuable points and money?"
"Why didn't he buy a free copper with his second buy? I mean it's free."

After a few games, if they're not seeing it on their own, I ask if they want some tips.

[AJD]

First Game set

* Poacher

I thought Woodcutter had been replaced by Merchant, not Poacher, in the First Game set. Did this change in a later printing?

Oops, my mistake, I was doing that from memory. Well, same principle: some cards have complex instructions that depend upon other things.