The rulebook I skipped for 10 years finally got read after a bad Saturday game

I have this thing where I never read the whole rulebook before playing a new game. I skim the setup, trust someone else to know the details, whatever. That worked fine until 2 weeks ago when my group tried a used copy of a heavy euro. The owner said he knew it, but he missed a scoring rule. We played 3 hours, tallied up, and then someone checked the book and found we'd been doing it wrong the whole time. The scores were basically random. Nobody was mad, but it killed the night. Now I read the whole manual the night before, even for lighter games. Takes 20 minutes and saves all the guessing. Has anyone else had a game night derailed by a rule nobody bothered to double check?

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zaranelson12d ago

Wait, do you really think reading the manual the night before fixes the real problem here? Because in my experience, the issue isn't just one missed rule. It's that the owner said he knew the game and he clearly didn't. That's the part that rings false. You can read every page ahead of time, but if the person teaching still half-remembers it, you're back to the same spot. The real fix is having someone check the book during the game, not just before it. Like, get in the habit of looking up a rule the second something feels off. That saves the night way better than a quiet read alone. It's the difference between being ready and being right.