You bought a new game.
And it's gorgeous! Oh it's going to be so much fun!
So you read the manual and start to figure out how it works. The manual is a work of art - the whole game experience unfolds before you as you read it.
Finally you feel ready to host a game, and invite friends over to play.
And what happens next?
Do you give everyone a copy of the manual and order them to read?
Or did the manual explain to you how to be a good "game master" - organizing all the details of the game in such a way that everyone feels compelled to keep going forward with the process of learning the game?
The Indescribable Importance Of The Wiener Pattern
At this point, a game will either "magically" be great and everyone loves it, or half the audience at your house will want to play and half will have no clue what is going on and wander off with confused looks on their faces, or nobody even shows up in the first place. Oh sad.
This is why the wiener pattern is so important. And why game manuals usually fail. It's not that the game manual is at fault - it's that someone else usually explains the rules to the players. And that person probably likes the game, but doesn't know how to propagate that "like" to other players.
The answer is the wiener. How can a game be designed that the whole learning process is a continuous stream of wieners for all skill levels and not rely on a "game master" to do the work of producing wieners himself?
A Gigantic Pile of Details
My experience has been that some board games are so detailed the first few minutes involve hearing a gigantic pile of rules and explanations of "this is what this card is" etc. It can be overwhelming.
And overwhelming makes me feel dumb.
Now sometimes it's my job to feel dumb - but not everyone is so forgiving. They might not want to come back next time to visit such unfamiliar territory.
Organize The Piles Into Easily Digestible Categories
One way to incorporate wieners into a board game, is to make the game unboxing itself part of the learning process. There can be a specific order that items have to be taken out of the box - so that everyone watching isn't overwhelmed with "everything all at once". Instead, there may need to be boxes within boxes, to allow categorization of game concepts.
Put The Game Master Into The Game Itself
This offloads the burden from the game master and shifts it back to the game explaining itself, in it's own way. It can be as dramatic as it needs to be - but it no longer relies on the game master's dramatic skills. This way the game is it's own game master, inviting everyone to learn in a consistent way regardless of how much exposure they've had.
