Illuminati: Tips for Teaching New Players

[laughingfuzzball]

So I got the Deluxe Edition as a late Christmas gift, and watch to teach it to my friends and dorm mates. I thought it was pretty straightforward and intuitive, but then the gaming bug bit me more than a few years ago and with what I've since learned were notoriously complicated games.

So far I've tried to get through a couple two-player games with my girlfriend (who ALWAYS beats me at munchkin, regardless of set or number of players) and she finds the rules frustrating and confusing, even after reading the rules a couple times and going through a couple of heavily-coached games.

The usual way I would go about teaching a new player would be to have them join a game with several more experienced players (it's the way I've learned and taught Munchkin, Catan, and other similar games), but there aren't any "experienced players" here.

One poster here is trying to pare down the Deluxe Edition into the older-edition sets it's made up of, but it's been my experience so far is that the confusion is in the rules themselves, not in the cards (the exact opposite of Munchkin in that regard).

Any tips?

[StormyWaters]

I usually show them the basics (what all the things on the cards mean), show them how the "power structure" works, and how attacking works (leaving out alignments). Then we jump in and play, and I explain the rest as we go.

"Okay, since you control Democrats, and they're Liberal, you get a bonus to control other Liberal groups, since it's easier to take over groups with the same philosophy as you. It's harder, however, to take over a Conservative group, since they're so different in ideology."

[MIB 9966]

I find that making photocopies of the back of the rulebook and handing everyone their own copy of it and pretty much going down the left hand column, then the right hand column to explain the game with some example cards in front of me helps. It still takes a good 20 mins of explanation, but taking it easy helps a lot. Just remember to add an explanation of Privileged attacks in the explanation somewhere, and that you have a free money move on a successful attack to control from the attacking group to their newly controlled group. I think those are the two rules not shown on the back page.

[smurf]

It's based on a tension board.

All players are ordered by a tension. The best player is in control and the players below will need to get rid of it, the bottom player usually tries to accumulate enough to get into the game.

When the best player is kicked in the proverbials the tension board snaps and suddenly the new best player is the problem. The old enemy is an ally and the old ally is an enemy.

Always, if nothing to do, hassle a player if you have a good bonus to neutralise or kill a group in their possession.

Power Cards:
Bavarian and the Network

Watch out for Cards:
Cuthulu and Gnomes

Collecting Cards:
All the rest

Subgenius could also be a Watch out for Card. Although great attacks can be done if the CoS sets up a trick where they lose a lot of cards due to a 'nasty neighbour' and then attacks the lead player with a few megabucks from the loss of service.

Sangri La
Bloody difficult, Best is to wait and pitch in. Eventually those cards will come up other wise create extra tension on the board.

[ian king]

I usually explain the basics using the back of the manual in the same order its written and pull out some random cards to give them visual examples. Try to start with a couple of Illuminati cards and a few groups. I find people start to get it when I say "it's like Dominoes mixed with Risk" to give them a cheap idea.

It gets complicated for new players when you explain transferable power, alignments, defense bonuses and those sorts of things so I usually go through that stuff quick and let them figure it out during the game with guidance from more experienced players. It takes most people two or three games to really get the hang of it so I don't put too much pressure on them.

Always keep the back of the manual out for reference with new players. I think I've taught around 10 people how to play in the last two months, we've got a tournament going now :). Remember to make it fun and you can't go wrong.