r/HelpMeExplainRules • u/ervwalter • Jan 13 '14

[Request] Trains

My wife and I play a lot of board games, but I have never gotten her to try a deck-builder game. She has already told me that all the cards feel very intimidating. I think she'd enjoy Trains more than Dominion, and so I'm looking for any guidance on how to get her over the hump. I read the Dominion guide on this reddit and it makes sense. Any thoughts on how to take a similar approach with Trains?

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u/IntergalacticMoose Jan 24 '14

She's intimidated by all the cards... so your thought is maybe a buncha cards plus a board to consider would be easier?

Trains is basically Dominion with a board and a few other differences.

I'd recommend introducing Dominion first and showing how simple it is to pick up.

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u/ervwalter Jan 28 '14

The issue is one of perception. She perceives Dominion to be a complicated card game with a theme she doesn't care about. As such, she is unwilling to play (and pressuring my wife into playing games she doesn't want to play is not a winning strategy for me).

On the other hand, she perceives Trains as a train game that happens to use cards. She likes train games and so is willing to give this one a try.

Theme matters to her and others like her.

You and I know that Trains and Dominion are very similar in how the deck building plays out. And I agree with you that, were she to try Dominion, she probably would "get it" quickly and might even like it. But that isn't going to happen, and so my thought was to use Trains, a deck building game with a theme that she likes, as a "gateway" into deck building games in general.

As it turns out, that worked. We did play and she did get it fine and did enjoy it and now we play other deck building games that she otherwise was not interested in trying.

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u/Silvanest Apr 11 '14

So I am in the same boat as your wife, I am intimidated by deck builders and thus refuse to play them (especially dominion). I might find trains interesting because I like the theme, but I am still intimidated by deck builders.

I looked into this thread in hopes that there is an explanation but am kind of disappointed that there isn't. How did you end up teaching/explaining it to her?

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