One Weird Trick To Speed Up Your Boardgames

Printed Rules

If you're like our household and enjoy playing lots of tabletop games, one challenge that often comes up is getting on the same page about the rules. Whether learning them, looking up a rules question, or trying to ensure everyone's playing correctly, it can be difficult to keep the game moving when there's only one reference set.

So why not print more?

Most games pages on our site have downloadable versions of the rules. Zombie Dice, Munchkin, SPANC . . . well, heck, I'm not going to link to all our games, but poke around – there's a lot of useful stuff there!

Having extra copies is especially helpful when trying to teach new folks, because some players learn better by reading or following along while a more experienced player explains them. And having more sets makes a lot of the "can I do this brilliant strategy" plans go faster . . . or even those "what does this type of card do, again?" questions. (We could probably squeeze in an extra few games at our family's 7 Wonders holiday marathons if we had more copies of the rules to pass around.)

As an added bonus, since they're not part of your "collection" and printouts are easily replaceable, it's trivial to mark them up, highlight them, scribble important notes, or just doodle when it's not your turn.

So if you're looking to make your games faster and friendlier, fire up the printer and wow your table during the next game night. Extra copies of rules rule!

-- Steven Marsh