Whenever I have trouble getting back into a game I like to make my own setup and rules summary to make it easier in the future. These are intended for myself only so they take shortcuts and make assumptions about how I think about the setup and play and even our typical player count (2). I will share an example in a comment.
Do you ever do something like this?
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Example summary for Tiletum:
setup
- board:
- populate action wheel with action tiles (optional) and bonus tiles
- 3 bonus tiles for king track (no tile for last round)
- bonus tiles for map spots based on player count
- town and fair tiles on track, fair order marker on the picked towns
- cathedral tiles and random build reqs. Remove unavail cathedral
- contract and character markets
- 10 dice in bag (2p)
- players:
- markers on score track, turn order track, king track (p1 on bottom!)
- place houses and pillars on their spots. There should be 2 of each left for each player as their available supply
- 1 of each resource
- 1 gold for p1, 3 gold for p2
play
- prep: draw, roll and place 8 dice (2p)
- action:
- p1 flips and applies corruption token
- dice values +/- for 2 gold. affects action and # resources
- pick die, get bonus tile and resources, perform action
- king: points, bonus tile, player order. bottom wins tie. from negative snap to 0 after
- fair: merchant or house in town to qualify
- cleanup: refill wheel tiles, rotate wheel
Tasks (free actions) at any time:
- gain a resource for 2 gold
- fulfill contract
- place crest (food cost). Apply bonuses
- build cathedral (only 1 of each type!)
- use helper tiles from storehouse
Important:
- many house spots are only for higher player counts. With 2p there is at most 1 spot in each city
- some house spots have bonuses
- players can only get 1 cathedral piece per type!
(should add a section about scoring too)
- board:
Yep I do this. The game can take 15 minutes to teach, but an hour for me to re-learn if I have to read the rules again. If I write my “teach” into a cheat sheet it’s so much easier to replay because it removes the mental barrier of having to read yet another 39 page manual.
Plus, there’s always some tricky rule that everyone gets wrong the first time I explain it. My notes help me ensure I teach it “right” the first time.
@donio I have done lesson plans like that for teaching a game (I used to have them saved in google drive so I could pull them up on my phone). I haven’t done it for setup though outside of one instance; for Ginkgopolis, I had a sticky note with with player count and resources in the game for each but I think I have a note in the print out of the english rules now for it.
Most of the time, I can open the box, and look at the components and that’s enough to jog my memory for setup.
I have not done any personalized rules, setup or play reminders. So far it has been enough just learning the game. We tend to play the same games a lot before committing to a new one and that usually helps to cement the details. Sometimes I need a tiny refresher which I usually go to the handbook fore.
I don’t usually do but when ever I do it it ends up making the experience so much better so maybe I should do it more.
I regularly do, especially for verbose rulebooks or rulebooks that are badly designed for quick reference while playing.
