How to read a game chart
Every game on Tabletwin has a chart at the top of its page: one line through the game, drawn from the game's rules, with the same symbols for every game. Learn to read one and you can read the next game you have never seen.
One line through the game
Read from left to right (on a phone from top to bottom). The line starts at the circle and ends at the flag; what lies on it happens in that order. A game too long for one row goes on in the next row, like a line of text.
The symbols
- a decision: a player chooses
- chance: dice, a shuffled deck
- a decision that involves chance
- a secret decision: the others don't see it
- a decision with a menu: see card A
- skill: a physical shot or throw
- automatic: the game does it
- an option, settled before play
- repeats: what is inside, 13 times (×~3: about 3, ×≤10: at most 10)
- a turn for each player, one after another
- phases: where one ends and the next begins (green: players may react in between)
- done only if this holds
- the game checks and goes one way or the other
- players may react here
- the end: ✓ a win, ✗ a loss, = a draw
- deck → handwhat moves: from → to
First example: tic-tac-toe
- The box ↻ round holds a turn for each player (the person mark): the players take turns, again and again.
- A turn is one blue diamond: you decide where to place your mark.
- The flag shows how the game ends: three in a row wins (✓), a full board is a draw (=).
Second example: Yahtzee
- Before play, the open diamonds are what is settled first: how many players, and who starts.
- The game is 13 rounds, and in each round every player takes a turn.
- In a turn you roll five dice (a purple ball: chance), then you may keep dice and roll the rest again (a diamond with a ball: a decision that involves chance), and then you decide which box to score.
- When the rounds are over, the highest total wins.
Reference cards
When a decision has a menu, its diamond carries a letter. The card with that letter has a line for every option: when you may take it (if …) and what it does, in the same symbols: ◆ you choose, ● chance, from → to what moves, → ✓ what a success brings. Here is the card of Bellwake:
Aplay · toll · stop
| Play a card | if a card in hand that can be played now · a playable card · pay echo · the card says |
|---|---|
| Toll the bell | if once per round, for echo · pay echo · −1 hush |
| Stop playing cards |
Phases, conditions, reactions
A phase is a named stretch of the line: a thin line across it marks where one phase ends and the next begins, a green one that players may react in between. A short green bar on the line is another moment to react. A dashed stretch is done only if the condition above it holds. A check splits the line into lanes, and they join again after it.
Now open a game you don't know and read its chart before anything else. All games