In my gaming group it always falls to me to learns the rules to a game and teach them to everyone else.

This is especially problematic with FoD because I also always end up playing as Drac, and then use my endless cunning to pull a slick move using a power like Hide, confounding the hunters who think they have just closed the net on me, and then I struggle with the moral dilemma of whether I should tell them the rule about that power AGAIN, effectively giving myself away, or let them get pissed off at the game and too frustrated to play.

Has this happened to you? What do you do or what would you do?

Hi,

That's not the only problem. It turns out the game has tons of situations which are not described in the rulebook and for which you should have house rules.

In your case - I only tell the rules once. If someone didn't get or remember them it is his/her problem. If they disagree with my move I show them the rules or just let them find and read the specific rule. Sometimes I have to remind them how did we agree to play certain situation and so on.

The main solution is that everyone should know what fairplay is, players should respect each other and try to enjoy the game instead of aiming on winning it and arguing all the time. Hopefully my group is understanding and respects me enough, so it is almost perfect harmony here (excluding the times that we argue all the time during the game...)

This is a tough situation. Normally I don't hesitate to remind people of rules they forgot, but if doing so gives me away and essentially means I throw the game, that's no fun either.

What I would probably do is stay quiet and let them get confounded. After the game is over (or at least several turns later) I would remind them of the rules in question. Only if they were pounding on the table demanding an explanation and accusing me of cheating would I explain myself in the moment. I would probably also request some sort of "timeout" to let me get away, too, since it is after all THEIR problem that they can't remember the rules that have already been explained to them.

If this was a consistent and reoccurring problem, I would begin insisting that someone else play as Dracula next time. Maybe if they play the other side of the fence they'll remember his options more clearly.

Well, my friend has special manners in telling the rules ... sometimes he is only one that reads the rules, because i dont have time to, or i dont get very excited about that specific new game to read 30 pages of rules. And often he forget to tell us something ... and he does so only just before he uses that rule ... to piss us off "I forget to tell you that you can use this, to do that .... so... Im doing it" :-D

Rasiel said:

I can understand how that would be annoying. Short of sitting down and reading the rules yourself, however, I'm not sure how you can stop him from doing that. Odds are he legitimately forgot about the rule until he was about to use it.

It should be noted this is distinctly different from the OP's situation, where he said he has repeatedly explained the rules and the other players aren't remembering.

With specific regard to the Hide card, if I'm playing with a group that hasn't played before, when I'm teaching them how movement works via Road, Rail & Sea, and then I explain how Dracula (invariably me) moves, I then explain that I can also hide (and show them the card), and stress to them that they need to remember this because once the game starts I won't remind them about the hide card again.

People seem to accept this, and I've had the occassional game where the hunters have completely forgotten about the hide card, but more often when I'm not where they are SURE I should be, one of them will suddenly remember the hide card.

In situations where many people are present, I have played referee and coached both sides. In this instance, one must not look at secret cards so that your advice is not based on any special information.

god i know the feeling , i dont get to play games as much as i would like , because if i dont set things up and run them noone else will , and then we dont play anything . so it all falls to me all the time .

Yeah, I'm in the same boat with my group of gaming friends. Several of them will always forget the important rule that could 'save them'. Not just for Fury of Dracula but for many other games as well... Hmmm. I feel a BGG geeklist coming on