Just as an FYI: from the perspective of someone who very rarely plays card games this sentence is absolutely incomprehensible. The explanation would have been better without it. (For me.) It leaves me thinking what the heck a trick might be. I know card tricks where a magician asks you to pick a card and then things happen and later they magically identify the card. Or i know “tricking” people in the bluffing with card sense. But the heck would anyone “take” any of the above? Maybe the goal is that someone will bluff and we are supposed to “take it” as in believe othes bluffs and that is somehow the game? Oh but now from the description it sounds the goal is to not “take” the points so then isn’t that a “trick not-taking” game? Or a “trick forcing” as in the active thing is to force others to take the “trick” when they would rather not?
Board game geeks do this often. They have seen so many games before that they learned to identify patterns in the rules and they learned names for those patterns. They say something like “this is a pool bulding, hidden movement game with the added twist that your blurbs can smorg on backturns too, let’s play”. Which is fine, as long as they play with other board game geeks. But if they also want to play with us non-boardgamegeeks these sentences confuse more than explain. Because i might be just sitting there trying to figure out where will i find water for my pool, when actually what they meant… i don’t even know what they meant. Same way as i have no clue what is a trick and why would anybody taking it in the game you are describing.
> Board game geeks do this often. They have seen so many games before that they learned to identify patterns in the rules and they learned names for those patterns.
I think it's worth its weight (or rather, with the time it takes to say).
It clarifies a lot for those who know what it means, and for those who don't know, the remainder of the explanation proceeds without assuming they know what it means.
Yes, it's quite important to know your audience for this (also, Hearts is in some ways a good example, because someone who knows what a trick-taking card game is will very likely know Hearts in the first place, it being one of the most well-known examples after probably Bridge).
Just as an FYI: from the perspective of someone who very rarely plays card games this sentence is absolutely incomprehensible. The explanation would have been better without it. (For me.) It leaves me thinking what the heck a trick might be. I know card tricks where a magician asks you to pick a card and then things happen and later they magically identify the card. Or i know “tricking” people in the bluffing with card sense. But the heck would anyone “take” any of the above? Maybe the goal is that someone will bluff and we are supposed to “take it” as in believe othes bluffs and that is somehow the game? Oh but now from the description it sounds the goal is to not “take” the points so then isn’t that a “trick not-taking” game? Or a “trick forcing” as in the active thing is to force others to take the “trick” when they would rather not?
Board game geeks do this often. They have seen so many games before that they learned to identify patterns in the rules and they learned names for those patterns. They say something like “this is a pool bulding, hidden movement game with the added twist that your blurbs can smorg on backturns too, let’s play”. Which is fine, as long as they play with other board game geeks. But if they also want to play with us non-boardgamegeeks these sentences confuse more than explain. Because i might be just sitting there trying to figure out where will i find water for my pool, when actually what they meant… i don’t even know what they meant. Same way as i have no clue what is a trick and why would anybody taking it in the game you are describing.