Plan for teaching Torres rules

(Based on "The Finer Points of Teaching Rules" by Mario Lanza)

Set up the board and components.

Distill the game down to a few sentences. (Less than a minute.) "We will be taking turns moving knights around the board and adding blocks to the board, trying to get the knights as high as possible on the biggest castles."

Paint an overview for the whole game. (1 to 3 minutes.) "Core Rules & Mechanics. On your turn, you have five 'action points' to spend. You can use these action points to bring a knight onto the board, move a knight on the board, bring a block onto the board, play a card, or advance your scoring marker one space. Scoring. Your score will be the height of your knight multiplied by the area of the castle. (Example). Chronology. When you've spent your 5 action points, it will be Dale's turn, then my turn, and so forth in a circle. After we've each had three turns, we will score. Then we will have another three turns, and score. Then a final three turns, and score. Game end. Then the game ends."

Expand the overview using details—the finer points: Highest knight scores (show). Other players' knights score. King's bonus (show). Action costs.

Cover the exceptions, if any. Fiddly details about each action (show). Choose any stack; redistribution (show). Who starts. Master card.

Teach basic strategies and offer "fair warning." (1 or 2 minutes.) Try to stay in a castle someone else has built rather than expending effort building one yourself (show). Make it hard for others to move higher than you e.g. with guard knight (show). Prevent others from shimmying (show).