Prompted by the discussion in the Potato Game thread, I've been thinking about explaining games and whether we could work up some sort of explanation guidelines based on our collective experience? And then maybe turn it into a proper Ludocity page. A few initial notes:
Some general thoughts
I think it's good to have both printed and spoken rules, if possible. That way people will be able to figure out stuff you've missed and teach each other; and some people learn better by reading anyway. I tend to give the ruleset out either at the start while people are gathering, or at the end at the same time as I'm giving strategy hints.
Ideally you should be able to stay in one place so people can come back if they have questions - or alternatively perhaps put a phone number on the rules.
If there's a bit of the rules that's really tricky for people to get a handle on, see if there's a different way to look at it (for example "for any group of size N, you can carry N-1 potatoes" versus "in any group, one person needs to have their hands empty"). Kevan is really good at these.
What I tend to do, when I'm being organised; I'm sure there are better ways
1. Establish the setting/characters, if relevant ("you are all lizards"), or else a sentence summarising the game ("this game is a bit like a scavenger hunt, but you're not just the hunters - you're also the hunted")
2. The aim of the game ("to win, you need to be the first person to find all of the people whose minds you can read")
3. How to do this - the bulk of the rules
4. Any twists or interesting bits or difficulties that can be separated from the rest of the rules ("but here's the tricky bit: if the other team figures out your message first, then they're the ones that get the points")
5. 30-second summary: ("So, to summarise: SETTING or PREMISE. WIN CONDITION. SINGLE-LINE SUMMARY OF GAME PLAY. Some explicit THINGS YOU ARE ALLOWED TO DO, possibly. Some things you are NOT ALLOWED TO DO but might try to - the obvious ways to cheat or misunderstand.")
6. Any questions?
7. "Anything else? No? Okay. A couple of strategic hints (HINT 1 and HINT 2)". This bit only if I think there's something to do with how to play that is non-obvious, but more fun if you realise (and if the explanation hasn't already gone on too long).Generally phrased as "you might want to..."
I would also suggest that if it is possible to delay explaining a rule until it's needed, do that... e.g. if the players are allowed to purchase bonus lives in round 3 of your game, but they don't need to take that into account in their strategy for rounds 1 and 2, it might be better not to mention bonus lives at all until you get to round 3.
Hey. This list is just what we (and by we I mean 'I') need!
Do you think you need to explain what is actually going to happen at any point? For example, "You will be split up into teams and given bibs" or "You will need to collect a sticker and a camera from..." or is is normally easier to make that clear in the rules section?
I'm not so sure about the 'not mentioning rules' idea: I think it works OK with children who tend to question less and are used to being told what to do but (in management at least) it's a bad idea not to tell people what's coming up as it breeds a lack of trust and, inevitably, complaints.
Regarding whether you should explain what is actually going to happen - I think if possible it's better to do this at the same time as the thing actually happens, so instead of "you will be split up into teams and given bibs", it should be "okay, I'm going to need you to split into six teams... right, a few more here... okay, that's about even... and now each team is going to get a different coloured sports bib [give them out]". It's easier to take in something when it's happening than to queue it up in a big list of Stuff That Will Happen Later.
Regarding only telling people things when it's relevant - I think it depends a lot on the game. I think it can be really useful to let information become available only gradually - it certainly allows you to have a more complicated ruleset. But if the thing you find out in Round 3 will make you wish you'd behaved differently in Round 1, then I think it's better to let people know in advance; and if you really can't, then at least to say something like "I haven't told you all the rules - in Round 3, there's going to be another rule that comes into play. I'm not going to explain it yet, so remember to keep your options open because things are going to change before the game ends".
The other thing with this is that it's important that the players feel on an even footing, so if half your players have played before and know the Secret Round 3 Rule, you should make sure they all do.
[ Ah, I posted this at the same time as the previous comment, so it covers some of the same points... ]
Delayed rules can be tricky. Even if you've designed the game to make sure that the Round 3 extra-life sale has absolutely zero bearing on player activity in the first two rounds, you can't predict how players will feel about it. If a player thinks that it would have had a bearing - or if they genuinely took an approach you hadn't anticipated, and had somehow used up all their money/stamina/allies by Round 3 - then they'll feel a bit cheated. (Players don't like surprise rule changes, particularly if they've spent some effort investing in a strategy which is suddenly invalidated.)
It can work if you tell the players that some information will only be released later, and if they know what kind of thing it's going to be. An early draft of Minkette's "Prophecy" game required a lot of fiddly "how to survive apocalypse event X" rules - rather than infodumping them on players at the start of the game, they'd have been gradually handed out as government information brochures over the course of play. But the players would know they were coming, and could infer from the first one what kind of thing the others would tell them.
I think the only other contexts it can work in are collaborative games (in Property of a Traitor, a spy setting fire to the whiteboard would be a challenging step forward for the group, rather than setting back the individual players who'd gone for the "write stuff on a whiteboard" strategy), and games cut into clear, scored rounds, where it's more like you're playing the game again but with a new rule (so yes, you can buy extra lives in Round 3, but whoever's winning at the end of Round 2 gets full credit).
I would emphasise the "if ... they don't need to take that into account" bit of my comment.
In one of the possible variants of Ponzi!, players can buy "stock tips" for a small number of tokens from the second round onwards - this doesn't affect the first round significantly (players want to get as many tokens as they can anyway, and half the stock tips are useless anyway) so explaining it up front would just cause confusion.
But I agree that if a rule would give players some reason to regret not knowing about it earlier, then it should definitely be announced at the beginning.