Build a 5-minute teach script for any board game so the table starts playing instead of listening — theme first, goal second, a turn third, exceptions only when they come up. Use when someone says 'how do I explain Catan/Wingspan/this game', 'teaching my family a game tonight', 'my rules explanations kill the mood', or 'make a teach script'. Produces a spoken-word teach script with a first-turn walkthrough and a what-to-skip list.
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Use teach-the-game to write a spoken five-minute teach for [game, edition, and rules summary if needed] for [player count, ages, and experience], considering [teacher familiarity and time limit], with a first-turn walkthrough, skip list, and table-tuning notes.
Required inputs
[game, edition, and rules summary if needed]
[player count, ages, and experience]
[teacher familiarity and time limit]
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SKILL.md
name: teach-the-gamedescription: "Build a 5-minute teach script for any board game so the table starts playing instead of listening — theme first, goal second, a turn third, exceptions only when they come up. Use when someone says 'how do I explain Catan/Wingspan/this game', 'teaching my family a game tonight', 'my rules explanations kill the mood', or 'make a teach script'. Produces a spoken-word teach script with a first-turn walkthrough and a what-to-skip list."
Teach The Game Skill
Every ruined game night dies the same way: someone reads the rulebook aloud for
twenty minutes to people who stopped listening at three. Good teachers invert the
rulebook: theme → goal → the shape of a turn → play immediately, rules arriving
only when they're needed. This skill writes that teach as a script to say out
loud, tuned to the actual table — the 8-year-old, the spouse who "doesn't do
complicated", the friend who min-maxes everything.
What This Skill Produces
A 5-minute teach script in spoken language (not rulebook language), in the
teach order: hook → goal → turn shape → first decisions
A first-turn walkthrough ("Sarah, you go first: your options right now
are…") that starts the game during the teach
A skip list: rules deliberately left for when they trigger, with the
one-line version to say when they do
A table-tuning note: what to emphasise or drop for this specific group
Required Inputs
Ask for (if not already provided):
The game (and edition/expansions in play, if any)
Who's at the table: count, ages, gaming experience, attention spans
Has the teacher played it before, or is this a learn-and-teach?
Time pressure: casual evening or a tight slot?
Process
Verify before teaching. State the rules from knowledge of the named game,
but flag anything uncertain with "check the rulebook here" rather than
guessing — a confident wrong teach is worse than a pause. If the game is
obscure or heavily house-ruled, ask the user to paste the rules summary and
build the script from that.
Open with theme + goal in two sentences. "You're settlers on an island;
first to 10 points wins. Points come from building." Never open with setup or
components.
Teach the turn, not the rules. Describe one full turn's shape, then what
the interesting decision is. Rule of thumb: if it doesn't happen every turn,
it goes to the skip list.
Script the first turn live. The teach ends with the first player taking a
real turn with coaching — playing is the last third of teaching.
Tune to the table. Younger/newer players get the "you can't really break
anything" line and one strategy hint each; experienced players get the
edge-case locations ("scoring exceptions are on the back page when you want
them").
Output Format
## The teach: [game] in ~5 minutes
[Spoken-word script, with (stage directions) — point at things, deal things]
## Start playing here
[First-turn walkthrough with the actual first player's options]
## Saved for later (say these one-liners when they come up)
- [rule]: "[one-line version]"
## For YOUR table
[2-3 adjustments for this specific group]
Quality Checks
Goal stated in the first three sentences of the script
The script survives being read aloud in under 5 minutes at talking pace
(~700 words max)
Nothing in the skip list is needed to take the first two turns
Uncertain rules are flagged for rulebook verification, never bluffed
The script asks the teacher to put components in players' hands early —
hands busy, attention held
Anti-Patterns
Do not follow the rulebook's chapter order — it's a reference document,
not a teach
Do not front-load exceptions and edge cases; that's what the skip list is for
Do not invent or misstate rules for a named game — flag uncertainty; a
table can wait ten seconds for the rulebook, not recover from a wrong teach
Do not write a lecture — it's a script with the table participating by
sentence three
Do not exceed the table: an 8-year-old at the table changes every sentence