Hi everyone.

I'm new to FFG forum but could really use some advice.

I have played Arkham LCG (core set) solo quite a few times now and love it. My husband is interested in learning and has tried a couple of times but is struggling to understand the game. He is not a natural game player and had not even heard of RPG's, CCG,s and LCG's until a few years ago.

I have an ability to pick games up quickly but often forget that not everyone can so often lose patience when teaching games to others (my fault and I admit it). But this time is different - my husband finds AHLCG so different to any game he has played that he just gets more and more confused and I end up keeping track of two hands and making his decisions (he asks me to).

I think that maybe I need to change my method of teaching. We played The Gathering as Wendy and Roland but quit because he couldn't cope, I then played solo with Skids (The Gathering) and talked him through the game but he was no clearer at the end, so finally we played again as Skids and Rex Murphy. This time we played all the way through The Gathering to a resolution but he still does not understand it!

Any ideas how I can teach him? Anyone use different ways to introduce newbies to the game?

Yeah, I wish I had better advice for you... teaching new or unfamiliar players to love games as you do is one of the hardest challenges in the hobby. In co-op games it's easy to find your ally saying 'just tell me what to do', and I've experienced the same with some players.

Now, there's a few things you could do though... First up -and you're not going to like this- is Don't Play This Game. I know. But getting people who struggle to understand games is difficult, and the Arkham Horror line of games doesn't pull any punches. They're for people who understand games rather well. It might be easier to start with a different game, one that's easier to understand, while he gets used to some of the basic mechanics of board games. Pandemic is good. I am a fan of Atlantis Rising to ease new players into co-op games (though I modify the rules slightly, message me if you go this route). You could try another Deckbuilder. Maybe Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, a good game for teaching, but lacking in similarities to Arkham. Ticket To Ride (any variant, they're all the same) is another game that's good for beginners. Once he's more comfortable with board games, come back to Arkham.

But I understand you might not want to do that, so let's just talk about Arkham itself. So, I need you to think hard about whether your husband doesn't fundamentally understand how to play the game, or if the problem is that he lacks confidence in his ability to play the game. These are two massively different problems. Let's suppose it's the first one: He doesn't understand the rules, or is confused by the mechanics. This is something that will get better with practice. Still, you might want to make sure he has an Action Quick Reference sheet handy, describing what he can do on his turn. Just keep playing.

Let's tackle the hard one last. So, I run into a lot of players who do understand -at least more or less- the basic mechanics. They know they get 3 actions on their turn, what they can do with them, etc. But they'll constantly ask what they ought to do, or essentially ask you to play their turn for them, even if it's not in so many words. Probably this means he lacks confidence in his ability to make the right decisions. He doesnt want to feel like he's a liability to the team, or that he's going to make you lose. Therefore, he just asks you what he ought to be doing. My advice is don't help him. Seriously don't. Don't "outline his options", or say anything except "do what you feel is best". This can be infuriating for both parties. I know there is going to be a time where there is an obviously good move that he just isn't seeing and you're going to want to scream at him to just go kill the cultist or something. You can't do that. You have to sit back and wait, and be patient while he takes 20 minutes to decide he wants to gain a resource. It's going to be painful, boring, long, awkward, and he's not going to like it any better than you. Do it anyway. The more you help him the more he will rely on you. You have to break him of that habit.

You might also want to put the game on a lower difficulty. Players have more fun if they feel they have a good chance of winning. Play on easy mode until he builds some confidence, and then once you are winning (and doing it as a team) kick the difficulty back up to normal.

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I'm re-reading your post and trying to cover anything I didn't mention. You say that he feels it's vey different from other games you've played and that's why he doesn't understand it. You might consider playing an internet video tutorial first. Sometimes hearing another person's voice explaining the same thing you've said ten million times actually helps. I know it seems like it shouldn't but it does.

It's important in Night of the Zealot that you are the "lead investigator" yourself. The Gathering makes the Lead investigator make an annoying choice almost right away (lose 2 sanity or each player discards a random card) so just make sure you do that yourself. I'd suggest your husband does not play Roland. Roland has weak sanity and a crippling weakness, so he's fairly easy to become frustrated with. Being a Seeker/Guardian means a lot of the games burden is also on him. I would probably suggest he play Jenny Barnes (you mentioned you had Rex so I'm guessing you have Dunwich). Jenny has average stats on everything, decent health and sanity, and her ability of "just get another resource" is easy to remember and very helpful. I think she is far and away the best investigator to give to a new player.

i agree, you probably want to start him off with some easier games if he is not understanding Arkham, or letting him make more of his own decisions while playing Arkham.

He also doesn't need to understand all the little management things you do for the game. All he really needs to know is the basic goal, and what he can do for his actions. Which actions are pretty basic in that, if you want to do something, you have to spend an action (in general).

Legendary is also a great, easy game to teach as well.

The cheat sheet cards for this game are really well written, concise and comprehensive so I would have him rely heavily on his copy. Also like others said, maybe have him watch a demo/playthrough video. This is a good one because it is a demo with a trained person explaining as they go.

I'm mostly with awp on this, good post man.

I'd just like to add that it's important to give him a clear and easy single goal to work to so he will feel he has accomplished something.

My advice is to let him play seeker, and focus on clue gathering. Be sure to mention that this is a important job. You need this to progress.

3 actions per turn: move, investigate, investigate, et cetera. And just that to start with. It's what I did teaching someone.

Keep his deck simple, with the easier clue gathering cards; and don't play the game for him. Let him learn from his mistakes.

Stick to him like glue with a guardian, and pluck the monsters off. Show him that it's a team effort.

Explain step by step to him what you're doing when engaging in a fight every time and he'll learn the fighting part in time.

One thing I changed for my non-gamer wife was to pull the chaos tokens BEFORE committing cards to the test. If you're in it for the story and having a good time, this helps a lot. It makes decision making easier too: do I let this test fail and keep my cards in my hand or is this test really important so I can use my cards to buff my skills? This makes some cards kind of wonky or even useless, but just don't put them in your decks.

Once your husband masters this version, you can up the difficulty or play by the actual rules. Just remember it's about fun!

Great posts guys, thanks.

Most of these suggestions we already do. We play Pokemon (our daughter insisted we learn), MTG, Munchkin and Dice Masters D&D. I also have D&D Castle Ravenloft which we have played a few times (and enjoyed). My OH likes Munchkin so we now have the Cthulhu set. He also likes Dice Masters because - well - it's dice?. When we played Ravenloft he said the map tiles and figures helped him visualise what was going on (maybe a few more games of that then?)

Back to Arkham, we already play easy and I play lead investigator. We both have crib cards next to us and the booklets handy for any queries. I am a big fan of 'rules are there as a guide and not as a law' so we just play and deal with issues as they arise - no going in heavy on the rules. Both times we played I gave a brief explanation "we are investigating weird goings on and hoping not to become victims ourselves. We are a team and working together to find the clues we need" , I then suggested OH (playing Skids) watched my back while I gathered the clues. It should've been a quick and easy game but OH became obsessed with "I take a resource and draw a card, ok, I'm done", he was then forced to discard a card due to hand limit but would just repeat the next round. He had First Aid in play but (even when his sanity hit 4) he refused to use it, when I asked why he would not his reply was "why should I?"

I like the idea to draw a token first, then submit cards. So many times cards have been used to boost skill total only for a +2 or elder sign to be drawn so good cards were wasted.

If he likes dice, maybe you should try switching to Elder Sign for your AH fix. They did a TableTop episode on it one of the previous seasons.

Ah, so the problem is that he's not very good. =D

Well, that too will improve with practice. If he wants to draw a card and gain a resource every turn, let him. Perhaps you could gently ask what he intends to spend his resources on? Or what card he is looking for? If he has an answer, you might be able to help the issue with deckbuilding. For example, if he's drawing cards like crazy because he doesn't have a weapon and he wants one, you could try to add more Weapon cards into the deck. If he doesn't have an answer, remind him of the scenario goals and that the team needs to work towards completing them, and he should take his actions accordingly.

I don't really know if I'm a fan of committing cards after tokens are revealed, to me the risk of dumping a good card you ended up not needing to get rid of due to a good token pull is an important part of the mechanic. Playing cards afterwards would rob the decision of playing cards of its risk and therefore its meaning, that is to say, its fun. I won't tell another player how to play though, so try it if it suits you.

6 hours ago, SallyLindsey said:

OH became obsessed with "I take a resource and draw a card, ok, I'm done", he was then forced to discard a card due to hand limit but would just repeat the next round. He had First Aid in play but (even when his sanity hit 4) he refused to use it, when I asked why he would not his reply was "why should I?"

So he's just role playing Skids.

I agree, I think it would take away some of the fun of the game. Having to decide what cards to commit, if they will be a waste, or if you need them.

I am surprised if he understands magic, pokemon and dice masters, but doesn't understand AH. He might not like the game, so is unwilling to put forth much effort into it. Just a thought, because I have some friends like that. They will play a game with me to be polite, but won't really learn how to play. And just make random decisions until the game is over so they can play a game they want to play.

8 hours ago, SallyLindsey said:

Great posts guys, thanks.

Most of these suggestions we already do. We play Pokemon (our daughter insisted we learn), MTG, Munchkin and Dice Masters D&D. I also have D&D Castle Ravenloft which we have played a few times (and enjoyed). My OH likes Munchkin so we now have the Cthulhu set. He also likes Dice Masters because - well - it's dice?. When we played Ravenloft he said the map tiles and figures helped him visualise what was going on (maybe a few more games of that then?)

If he liked Ravenloft, there are 2 more sets of the same game out there. Wrath of A....something & a Drizzt set. The rules are very straight forward, but the game can be quite brutal.

If he likes tile games like that, I'd advice you to take a look at zombicide. It very very good. Easy to learn and loads of fun. And you're in luck, they just started a new kickstarter named the green horde. Great bang for your buck. Downside is that you will have to wait a while to get it. But you could always get a older set from a store.

If it's a visual thing you could try to find miniatures. I use miniatures with the Pathfinder Adventure Cardgame instead of character token cards to better show what location my characters are visiting.

Ha ha. I'm laughing coz when we play Munchkin we grab our box of assorted Lego mini figure parts and build Lego munchkins, I'm now visualising Skids and Rex as little Lego men ?.

When I said he played, I didn't say well (lol). He wins often enough to keep it interesting but, like monorico's friends, no real strategy- just luck. I asked (a while ago) if he played just to humour me or if he was genuinely interested in playing and he said the latter one so maybe just need to get him to play more.....

Some interesting game suggestions to look into. It was a choice between AH and Pathfinder when I was deciding which new game to get, AH won because the horror part appealed (I have not been disappointed). OH likes Zombie Dice game (a fun little game - be the first zombie to eat 13 brains) so maybe Zombicide would appeal to him.