Should I make a full How to Play for TES?
The more I think about it, the more I feel like I should make a proper How to Play video for TES.
There are already some great tutorials out there, but from what I’ve seen (and from questions people keep asking), quite a few smaller nuances get missed. That’s usually where confusion starts, and people end up digging through BGG threads for clarification.
My concern is the scope.
A full, thorough teach done the way I’d want to do it would be a huge project – my how-to-play video for Too Many Bones took me over 100+ hours of work, so I can imagine a similar video for TES would be even a bit more. And if I include all those smaller (but important) details, the video would probably end up 2+ hours long… which might be a bit intimidating for newer players.
So I’m a bit torn.
On one hand, I think there’s real value in having a clear, complete, beginner-friendly teach that doesn’t gloss over things. On the other, it’s a massive time investment, and I’m not sure how useful it would actually be compared to what’s already out there.
Curious to hear your thoughts:
If you (or anyone in your group) have learned TES recently, how did you find the existing materials (Dized, videos, rulebook)? Did they feel sufficient, or did you still run into a lot of confusion?
And overall – do you think it would be worth me putting together a full How to Play for the game?
Comments (12)
Always love your videos and I do think there is value in a detailed "how to play". Like you said, it will be a huge time investment, so maybe consider taking a different spin and make a beginner video, post Dized and tutorial, on "the rules that most mistake or miss". Like, I thought I had to take a light fatigue for each engagement post round 1. I didn't even realize I could do multiple engagements through my first few playthroughs (thanks to TMB). This could be beneficial while also not being a huge time investment. Just a thought.
Thanks for the suggestion – and for the support as well, really appreciate it! 🙂 On the topic of mistakes, I’m also planning a separate “Top 15 beginner mistakes I made” (or something along those lines) to highlight exactly those kinds of smaller oversights you mentioned. But yeah, that would be quite a different video from a full how-to-play
You have done a great job already just by showing example playthroughs, class guides, and so on. So you might not need to go into great depth for a basic "how to play" video. I think you would do a great job, you are easy to listen to and explain things well. I've trained my friends on the game and there are like three levels of questions. There's the first level: Will I enjoy it? What's the general purpose? How long does it take to play? How complicated are the rules? What the components? The different dice and chips? Items? What happens on a turn? What are the online resources if we need a hint? And you could cover that in about 15 minutes. Then there's the second level: What is a session versus a campaign? How do we set up a session? Regional/native skills? What is the flow of a session? What happens each day? Towns, unstable, peaceful, battles, and delves? XP/tenacity and how to budget and spend it? How do I pick a race and skill line I'll enjoy? What dice can I roll together? Cooldown management? Do all these dice have separate rules, any hints? And then for the third level questions you can point to all your detailed videos.
This is great input, thanks a lot Brian! 🙂 I think the challenge (at least for me, haha) is that once you start properly explaining even those “basic” questions, there’s actually quite a lot to unpack – especially when it comes to things like what dice to roll and how all those systems interact. It’s one of those cases where once you start pulling the thread, you kind of have to go fairly deep, otherwise it ends up being more of a surface-level overview. What I’m considering now is doing a _review_ video that includes a general overview of the game, which could hopefully cover at least those “first level” questions. Then we’ll see if there’s demand for a deeper teach
The "How to Play" series of videos are very useful. 1. There are always new TES players who enjoy watching the videos. 2. The new major expansion, Tamriel, is coming soon. 3. The Russian localization is coming to a very huge new audience. Overall, the audience is growing rapidly. And the videos in this series will always be relevant and in demand. Moreover, no one else even comes close to creating such amazing TES guides. You truly are number one, and who better than you to create complete guides for this divine game?
Thanks Vitalii, I really appreciate it 🙂 Just to clarify, I’m thinking more about a single video rather than a series. I feel it’s more convenient to have everything in one place (with proper timestamps, of course), instead of splitting it across multiple videos
If I was looking at it from when I first started, I would have learned a lot from your video style. Provided you had proper bookmarks that allowed people to jump to relevant sections, it would help mitigate the length issue. With the new content coming, it might help with viewership as well. For selfish reasons, I would prefer more class guides but it’s great to help new players as well.
Sure, timestamps are non-negotiable for me – I include them in all my videos, even playthroughs. Looking at the class guides playlist, it seems most of them are already covered (with Arcanist and Rogue coming up soon), so there actually aren’t that many left 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5_33-tH3n6vQ2j_Nz8zo3kDdEfR3BuIP
I can usually find everything I am looking for if I have any questions about the rules, even if I do have to go through some forums. I would definitely still watch and enjoy the entire video even though I have already learned the game for the most part but I would rather have 100+ hours of your work resulting in other Botse videos to be honest.
Well, that how-to-play video wouldn’t replace the other BotSE videos I’m planning, so it’s not really one or the other 🙂 But yeah, the time investment is definitely real. Out of curiosity, is there any specific BotSE video you’d like to see, like maybe a particular class or general topic I haven’t covered yet?
I think a how to play could be valuable, but it would need to be different than dized and need your own spin. I learned through dized and thought it was awesome amd well throught out. Of course i still confuse certain nuances. I wonder if it would ne enough to just do charcater creation and then the tutorial dungeon escape thing?
Yeah, I think the Prison Escape tutorial isn’t quite enough on its own and probably not the best way to teach the game. Don’t get me wrong – Dized is superb, and the existing tutorials are good, they’re just not detailed enough in my opinion