Tried the 'teach games without explaining rules' method with my family and it backfired hard

So I read this blog post about letting players discover rules through gameplay, like just starting and explaining as you go. I thought perfect for my family who hates rulebooks. Tried it with Carcassonne at Thanksgiving. My uncle placed a tile that made no sense and my cousin started arguing about scoring before we even got to farmers. By turn 3 everyone was confused and my sister just quit. Half the tiles ended up in weird spots we couldn't undo. I learned that some people need the full picture first, especially with scoring games. Is there a middle ground that actually works for non-gamers, or are rule explanations just unavoidable?

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1 Comment

aaron_ellis421mo agoMost Upvoted

Yeah honestly just read the rules next time it's not that deep.