Silverchase @ NG Zine

[Excerpt] How to Teach Root

Teaching guide for Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right

This is a guide for Root players who want to create more Root players out of their friends. The Teach is the notoriously difficult part of introducing a new board game to a group. They may not be familiar with “heavy” board games, but if they’re willing to learn, I hope this guide can help you teach them — I extracted it from my mental notes from having taught the game multiple times.

Requirements for this guide:

• You have the Root base game (duh)
• You’re already familiar with Root
• You have a table of four players
  • Everyone is willing to learn a more complex board game and pay attention to the teach
  • Perhaps you’re one of the four at the table
• You have about three hours to play (everyone’s first game takes a while)

Outline

This is the general structure of this teach.

1. Introduction
2. Objective and key ideas
3. Common rules
4. Faction rules
5. Recap
6. Start playing

Tips: keep in mind before starting the teach

• Do setup if you can. Do most of the setup ahead of time if you can. Don’t set up the player boards so you can hold them and pass them around.
• Welcome questions. Let everyone know that it’s okay to ask questions. You may want to delay answering a question because an upcoming part of the teach will cover it.
• How to invite questions: Ask players something like, “What questions do you have about XYZ before we continue?” Note that you should ask “what questions”, not “do you have questions”, so people must actively answer you instead of saying yes or no.
• Connect flavour to mechanics. Emphasize the thematic flavour in your explanations. This helps players connect abstract game mechanics to familiar concepts from Root’s theme.
• Save some explanations for after the game starts. Some details (like crafting) are better explained later, once everyone’s experiencing the game live and those things start becoming relevant.

Introduction

Introduce the theme, describe the gameplay, and explain why you like Root (and why they should like it, too). Here’s an example of how to deliver the introduction. Of course, change it to fit you.

• Introduce the theme:
  • After decades of rule under the birds, they collapsed in civil war, and now there’s a power vacuum in the woodlands
  • [Show player boards] Marquise is here to colonize the region, Eyrie is back to reclaim their realm, Alliance is fighting for home rule, Vagabond is making their own story out of the war
• Describe gameplay broadly:
  • Asymmetrical war for territory and control
  • Table talk and inter-player politics
  • Threat assessment: who is your biggest obstacle?
• Explain why you like Root:
  • Cool art
  • Rich in flavour: gameplay tells a story

Objective and key ideas

• First to 30 points wins
• There are general rules for everyone
• Asymmetrical: unique rules for each faction
• There are shared ways to earn points and each faction also has its own way

Common rules

Start the explanation with just the rules that apply to everyone. Don’t worry about the exceptions during this part. It’s super helpful to give examples; those are also good moments to quiz the table on the rule you just explained (“Now who rules this clearing? Why?”)

• Suits. [show cards] Cards have one of four suits; bird is wild. Note how clearings also have suits. Many effects want you to match them.
• Rule. You rule a clearing if you have more warriors & buildings there than any other player. If tied, no one rules. Examples:
  • Warriors and buildings: your two buildings will rule vs one opposing warrior.
  • Plurality rules, not majority: your three pieces will rule vs Alice’s two pieces vs Bob’s two pieces
• Moving. Choose 1+ warriors in a clearing and move them to another connected clearing. You must rule either end of the move!
• Battling. You can battle in a clearing where you have a warrior — choose an opponent who has any kind of piece there and they’ll be the defender.
  • Attacker high. Attacker rolls both battle dice and takes the higher roll, defender lower. The die is the number of hits dealt.
  • Hit limit: max hits = warriors. The number of hits you can deal is limited by the number of warriors you have there. Example: rolled 3, only 1 warrior → deal 1 hit.
  • Ambush cards. [show an ambush card] When defending, spend a matching ambush card to deal 2 extra hits (extra hits ignore hit limit). Battle is cancelled if attacker has no warriors left. Ambushes can be ambushed.
  • Remove warriors first. When you take hits, remove warriors first, then remove cardboard of your choice.
  • Extra hit if defenseless. Defender has no warriors → you get 1 extra hit.
  • Removing cardboard is 1 point. Making an opponent remove their buildings and tokens (aka cardboard) earns you 1 point for each.

Whew! That was a lot! Remember to invite questions from the table: “What questions do you have about XYZ before we continue?”

Faction rules

Pass the player boards around. While that happens, explain each faction broadly. Focus on their gameplay, main source of points, and (if possible) compare them to something your friends are familiar with.

• Marquise de Cat
  • Start the game in control of the woodland
  • Manage army and logistics
  • Earn points by building buildings
  • Think Starcraft or Risk
• Eyrie Dynasties
  • Fight to reclaim the woodland
  • Plan and execute increasingly complex turns
  • Earn points by building roosts and defending them
  • Think RoboRally or programming
• Woodland Alliance
  • Guerrilla warfare for the revolution
  • Obstruct opponents, invade their clearings
  • Earn points by placing sympathy tokens
  • Think… I don’t know. IRL guerrilla warfare?
• Vagabond
  • Lone wanderer, mercenary, wildcard
  • Navigate a woodland at war, manage your inventory, and profit
  • Earn points by completing quests and interacting with other factions
  • Think an RPG, like Skyrim

Ask the table what they think of the factions. As a group, work out who’s going to play what. You choose last.

Once everyone has a faction, explain to each player the details of playing their faction. The others don’t need to pay full attention.

Go through each player’s board with them. Draw their attention to the box detailing the phases of their turn. Use that box as the base for your explanation. You can also quiz them on how they can earn points.

The rest of this Faction Rules section is my outline for explaining each faction. Not all rules and details of the factions are included! I explain the deeper things when they come up in-game.