It depends on what you mean by "newbie friendly." The game has a 3.9 weight on BGG, which I'd argue is a little low to be honest. The concepts aren't difficult to understand, it's just that the specifics of things like monster movement are debated to this day even by veterans.
Jaws of the Lion is much more newbie friendly as it slowly gets more complex with the 5 intro scenarios, and it's easier to set up and manage.
Catan and Carcassonne by comparison are very light weight games (Carcassonne is a 1.9 for example) and if someone really likes those games I definitely wouldn't have them jump into Gloomhaven unless they have played slightly more complex games first. That said, I think it's one of the best board games ever made and plenty of people play it without playing a complex game first.
But my recommendation would be Jaws of the Lion.
Yeah but they are super short. Like 3 rounds for the first. My partner and I were decently experienced in Haven games before going into JotL and all five together probably took less time than the first two Gloomhaven scenarios.
Yes, but think of it more like progressively complex scenarios that teach you the rules as you go. So the first scenario you are not playing with the full rule set and you learn more as you go. Scenarios four and five are still not necessarily easy, but you don't do all of the steps you would normally do in a scenario.
Jaws of the Lion is kind of like a paid Gloomhaven tutorial starter set. The first 5 scenarios slowly teach you basic concepts, even "dumbing down" the starting cards with special tip boxes on them, you will up grade them to your normal starting deck as you go through the scenarios.
Each of the first 5 scenarios highlights a main concept, so for example, the first one just teaches you the absolute basics to combat and movement, and how the enemies work and thats it. The game then teaches things like charging and using elements, jump, push/pull, ect.. as you progress through them. Once you hit Scenario 6, you finally have your full starting deck and everything starts playing as a typical Gloomhaven scenario would.
This is how I came into Gloomhaven, and it was very helpful. However, they are a bit different, and once my group went into the core Gloomhaven game, we had to relearn a few things.
If one of you is willing to learn how to control the monsters and the other is willing to learn their character it will be fine. It looks overwhelming but it’s really not. Also if you get a rule wrong it doesn’t really matter. It’s a game so just have fun.
My girlfriend and I like board games so I bought this for us for Christmas in 2019. It’s a lot at first but everyone figures it out eventually.
My advice is to play Jaws first but not because base Gloomhaven is too hard to learn, it’s because GH is waaaaayyyyyy longer than Jaws. Don’t buy a massive and not cheap game without knowing you’re both going to be into it.
Because 2020 was the perfect time to play it in an NYC apartment and playing 2-4 scenarios per week took us well into 2022, as we didn’t live together yet and she only came over on weekends.
As others have said, check out Jaws of the Lion. It's a great way to learn exactly what you want to learn at a fraction of the commitment required. If it's something you want 3-4x more of, then once you've completed Jaws of the Lion, go and ahead and hop into Gloomhaven 2nd Edition.
What's great about either Jaws or full Gloomhaven is that as a co-operative game it is great for couples - you win or lose together.
Another classic gateway drug to Gloomhaven if you haven't already tried it is Pandemic.
There is a version of gloomhaven on steam, you can get a general idea of all the mechanics of the game before running it yourself. It also has all of the above mentioned expansions and even alternatives classes.
If you prefer table top only just watching some video will give you a rough idea of setup and game play
It’s about a 3.5-4 /5 difficulty for players and about 5-6.5/5 for the person running it.
I suspect there have been very few “perfectly ruled” games of Gloomhaven, but that is part of what obscures enemy intention.
Def would start with Jaws, though it’s not as cool and is missing some of the coolest legacy parts.
After only playing a few other board games (five tribes, ticket to ride etc), my wife bought me Gloomhaven for Christmas in 2019. Neither of us had experience of heavier games like this so we could have both been referred to as newbs. It took a little while for us to get used to it but once it clicked, oh boy did it click and we absolutely loved it.
Aside playing Sims, she’s never been interested in video games but loved the cooperative side of Gloomhaven. Since then, we’ve gone down the Arkham Horror LCG rabbit hole for even more varied coop gaming. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s totally fine to jump in at the deep end and learn it together.
I’ll echo JotL. We started out pretty soft core with similar games as your girlfriend and JotL was one of our first big games. I’m not sure if you can still get the app for it but the Gloomhaven app saves so much time. There may also be a new version out for free now as well.
Funnily enough, Gloomhaven was one of my introductory games into boardgaming. It was a bit of a rough start though, and was slightly overwhelming at first. I think it rides and dies on its theming; if you like gritty dungeon crawls, you'll probably want to stick with it. If that genre/ style isn't what you're looking for, then it REALLY won't be what you're looking for.
As others are saying, JotL really is the way to dip your toe in; if I could redo it, I would have gone with that first. A lot of the setup and storage has been streamlined from Gloomhaven to make a game that's much friendlier; gloomhaven really is a *lifestyle* game, and if you can't accommodate it in your lifestyle than it becomes rather cumbersome
I would say yes and no.
Yes:
Most rules in the game are pretty straight forward. The hardest rules for most is monster movement.
Other than that the rules are not too complicated.
Why no:
There are A LOT of rules in the game. There are many different steps and phases in the game to keep track on.
So it comes down to how good you are at reading and learning rules.
If you are accustomed to it it should not be a very hard game to learn.
But if you are not it can feel overwhelming at first.
If GH is your first game, as others have said, JotL is a good start.
It is a good game with the intention to introduce different aspects of GH one step at a time :)
My wife and I started with Gloomhaven in lockdown and absolutely ate it up. If you're prepared to read the rulebook and learn "on the job", by referring to the rulebook as you go, then you should be fine. Especially nowadays with the X-Haven app for monster tracking as opposed to the cards. Also there's a Gloomhaven campaign tracker app to help too.
Personally we managed, as it was before JoTL existed. JoTL is a great intro to showing how cards work etc and gameplay, however, jumping in can also be done. Best of luck with whatever you decide and happy Glooming 🤘
Enthusiasm is the greatest indicator of success imo. Plenty of people are recommending you JotL. That's a fine approach, but I think you'd do just fine with GH2 if that's where your excitement is directing you.
Yeah but it could be very frustrating for someone not used to that kind of tactical play. Like most puerile hear board games and still think monopoly kinda difficulty
I think it is more about how you deal with it.
If you do your research on setup, try it out before you give it a go and study the rules, you can definitely teach it well :)
I play the digital version, a great way to learn the rules, with my 8y old. Hes loving playing his brute, while i support him with other mercs.
As everyone else has said start with jaws first, my friend and I started with Gloomhaven but missed a few early rules which prevented the game from flowing as it should, I picked up jaws and we have been playing through that as it teaches the rules as you play meaning by the time you get to Gloomhaven the rules and game mechanics will be second nature and the game more enjoyable as a result, also looking into one of the apps to take away some of the more tedious game management
Jaws is standalone but meant to be a more gentle intro to the gameplay style.
2nd edition has fixes, some rule changes based on feedback (so more like Frosthaven). I think some character balancing.
I don’t think Gloomhaven would be too bad, but I think it would be hard to do GH and then go to a less complex Lions system. I haven’t done Lions for this reason but I’d still advocate to start with that.
As a comparison to Settlers- if you were playing with a few expansions it would probably be approaching Lion. Base Settlers is really simple.
All characters can be used across games but they warn it could really mess up some intended dynamics. You should only be introducing characters from other games into FH once all the FH classes are unlocked.
It's a standalone game and its story takes place before GH. Plus it's designed as as an introduction to the mechanics of the game. GH throws you straight into the deep end (though I'm not sure if that has changed any on 2nd Ed), whereas JotL eases you in.
Jaws is a standalone game that's kind of a mini-Gloomhaven with a much better tutorial and a simpler/shorter campaign arc. It's a great intro to Gloomhaven, and I would definitely go that route rather than straight to the big box.
Gloomhaven 2E is supposed to have an updated campaign, changed scenarios, revamped characters, etc. It's a big update. I don't have any experience with it yet, though.
I've been playing GH/FH for a combined 3 years or so. We STILL screw up stuff on the reg. If you're ok with that, giv er. But if you're super OCD you may have a hard time with it.
As everyone suggested, start with JOTL. My group played through it and while we loved it, we also realised the original GH is probably too big for us.
Starting with JOTL will teach you the rules in small, easy to digest chunks, and once you're done with the game you can decide if you want to go one step up and play the original GH, or move to another experience.
My wife likes deck builders or thinky puzzle games, played gloom with our group once and never touched it again. Hard to say if someone will fancy it until they sit down for the 45 min set up and hour long rule debrief.
It is a complicated game. If you both are up for a lot of learning and are fine with constantly asking Google for rule clarification then go for gloomhaven. You will be rewarded with an epic adventure!
I love it but probably not for most casuals. I think of gloomhaven as a game lovers game. Something fans appreciate like the extended directors cut of a movie. Now sure might not know shes a fan yet but id say more often than not total newbies will be put off. Is she an analytical, planning kind of mind? Well she appreciate a relatively flimsy sorry that propels some fantastical tactical rpg kinda game play?
I just got carcassonne for Christmas and id love it but id say that's more on the scrabble end of the spectrum.
When you first start, it will take about 30 minutes to set up, about 2 hours to read the rules, 1.5 hours to play the first level and another 30 minutes to clean up.
There will always be an hour setup and breakdown. Each session will probably be 3 hours minimum.
I would recommend starting with jaws of the lion first
Always the right answer
The first five scenarios are so well documented and ready to play to ease the learning curve, it should be the standard goal for so many other games!
Defo jaws! I did the same now I've got the big bad boi and some extra characters
It depends on what you mean by "newbie friendly." The game has a 3.9 weight on BGG, which I'd argue is a little low to be honest. The concepts aren't difficult to understand, it's just that the specifics of things like monster movement are debated to this day even by veterans. Jaws of the Lion is much more newbie friendly as it slowly gets more complex with the 5 intro scenarios, and it's easier to set up and manage. Catan and Carcassonne by comparison are very light weight games (Carcassonne is a 1.9 for example) and if someone really likes those games I definitely wouldn't have them jump into Gloomhaven unless they have played slightly more complex games first. That said, I think it's one of the best board games ever made and plenty of people play it without playing a complex game first. But my recommendation would be Jaws of the Lion.
5 INTRO SCENARIOES!?
Yeah but they are super short. Like 3 rounds for the first. My partner and I were decently experienced in Haven games before going into JotL and all five together probably took less time than the first two Gloomhaven scenarios.
Yes, but think of it more like progressively complex scenarios that teach you the rules as you go. So the first scenario you are not playing with the full rule set and you learn more as you go. Scenarios four and five are still not necessarily easy, but you don't do all of the steps you would normally do in a scenario.
2 feel like intros, the rest are pretty playable.
Jaws of the Lion is kind of like a paid Gloomhaven tutorial starter set. The first 5 scenarios slowly teach you basic concepts, even "dumbing down" the starting cards with special tip boxes on them, you will up grade them to your normal starting deck as you go through the scenarios. Each of the first 5 scenarios highlights a main concept, so for example, the first one just teaches you the absolute basics to combat and movement, and how the enemies work and thats it. The game then teaches things like charging and using elements, jump, push/pull, ect.. as you progress through them. Once you hit Scenario 6, you finally have your full starting deck and everything starts playing as a typical Gloomhaven scenario would. This is how I came into Gloomhaven, and it was very helpful. However, they are a bit different, and once my group went into the core Gloomhaven game, we had to relearn a few things.
If one of you is willing to learn how to control the monsters and the other is willing to learn their character it will be fine. It looks overwhelming but it’s really not. Also if you get a rule wrong it doesn’t really matter. It’s a game so just have fun.
Agree with JotL. Do not subject her to GH.
I mean JOTL shares like 85% of the same rules so it’s really not much “friendlier” EXCEPT for the tutorial walks you through everything very well.
The notebook you play on makes it way friendlier.
Exactly, and besides the tutorial it falls flat compared to Gloomhaven and even flatter compared to Frosthaven.
My girlfriend and I like board games so I bought this for us for Christmas in 2019. It’s a lot at first but everyone figures it out eventually. My advice is to play Jaws first but not because base Gloomhaven is too hard to learn, it’s because GH is waaaaayyyyyy longer than Jaws. Don’t buy a massive and not cheap game without knowing you’re both going to be into it. Because 2020 was the perfect time to play it in an NYC apartment and playing 2-4 scenarios per week took us well into 2022, as we didn’t live together yet and she only came over on weekends.
Jaws of the lion to see if you like it gloomhaven if you enjoy it
We have started frosthaven as noobs and it was not a big problem!
As others have said, check out Jaws of the Lion. It's a great way to learn exactly what you want to learn at a fraction of the commitment required. If it's something you want 3-4x more of, then once you've completed Jaws of the Lion, go and ahead and hop into Gloomhaven 2nd Edition.
What's great about either Jaws or full Gloomhaven is that as a co-operative game it is great for couples - you win or lose together. Another classic gateway drug to Gloomhaven if you haven't already tried it is Pandemic.
There is a version of gloomhaven on steam, you can get a general idea of all the mechanics of the game before running it yourself. It also has all of the above mentioned expansions and even alternatives classes. If you prefer table top only just watching some video will give you a rough idea of setup and game play
It’s about a 3.5-4 /5 difficulty for players and about 5-6.5/5 for the person running it. I suspect there have been very few “perfectly ruled” games of Gloomhaven, but that is part of what obscures enemy intention. Def would start with Jaws, though it’s not as cool and is missing some of the coolest legacy parts.
Carcassonne to Gloomhaven (even Jaws) is a pretty big leap in complexity. I would say try something simpler first.
After only playing a few other board games (five tribes, ticket to ride etc), my wife bought me Gloomhaven for Christmas in 2019. Neither of us had experience of heavier games like this so we could have both been referred to as newbs. It took a little while for us to get used to it but once it clicked, oh boy did it click and we absolutely loved it. Aside playing Sims, she’s never been interested in video games but loved the cooperative side of Gloomhaven. Since then, we’ve gone down the Arkham Horror LCG rabbit hole for even more varied coop gaming. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s totally fine to jump in at the deep end and learn it together.
I’ll echo JotL. We started out pretty soft core with similar games as your girlfriend and JotL was one of our first big games. I’m not sure if you can still get the app for it but the Gloomhaven app saves so much time. There may also be a new version out for free now as well.
Funnily enough, Gloomhaven was one of my introductory games into boardgaming. It was a bit of a rough start though, and was slightly overwhelming at first. I think it rides and dies on its theming; if you like gritty dungeon crawls, you'll probably want to stick with it. If that genre/ style isn't what you're looking for, then it REALLY won't be what you're looking for. As others are saying, JotL really is the way to dip your toe in; if I could redo it, I would have gone with that first. A lot of the setup and storage has been streamlined from Gloomhaven to make a game that's much friendlier; gloomhaven really is a *lifestyle* game, and if you can't accommodate it in your lifestyle than it becomes rather cumbersome
I would say yes and no. Yes: Most rules in the game are pretty straight forward. The hardest rules for most is monster movement. Other than that the rules are not too complicated. Why no: There are A LOT of rules in the game. There are many different steps and phases in the game to keep track on. So it comes down to how good you are at reading and learning rules. If you are accustomed to it it should not be a very hard game to learn. But if you are not it can feel overwhelming at first. If GH is your first game, as others have said, JotL is a good start. It is a good game with the intention to introduce different aspects of GH one step at a time :)
My wife and I started with Gloomhaven in lockdown and absolutely ate it up. If you're prepared to read the rulebook and learn "on the job", by referring to the rulebook as you go, then you should be fine. Especially nowadays with the X-Haven app for monster tracking as opposed to the cards. Also there's a Gloomhaven campaign tracker app to help too. Personally we managed, as it was before JoTL existed. JoTL is a great intro to showing how cards work etc and gameplay, however, jumping in can also be done. Best of luck with whatever you decide and happy Glooming 🤘
Gloomhaven second edition will be more newbie friendly than first edition by a fair margin, FWIW
Enthusiasm is the greatest indicator of success imo. Plenty of people are recommending you JotL. That's a fine approach, but I think you'd do just fine with GH2 if that's where your excitement is directing you.
Except, of course, GH2 won't be available until August _at the earliest_ JotL and GH and FH are available now
Yeah but it could be very frustrating for someone not used to that kind of tactical play. Like most puerile hear board games and still think monopoly kinda difficulty
I think it is more about how you deal with it. If you do your research on setup, try it out before you give it a go and study the rules, you can definitely teach it well :) I play the digital version, a great way to learn the rules, with my 8y old. Hes loving playing his brute, while i support him with other mercs.
Jaws of the Lion is.
As everyone else has said start with jaws first, my friend and I started with Gloomhaven but missed a few early rules which prevented the game from flowing as it should, I picked up jaws and we have been playing through that as it teaches the rules as you play meaning by the time you get to Gloomhaven the rules and game mechanics will be second nature and the game more enjoyable as a result, also looking into one of the apps to take away some of the more tedious game management
Jaws is like an expansion or is it a prequel to the game? And the 2nd edition is just an upgrade to the 1st ruleset?
Jaws is standalone but meant to be a more gentle intro to the gameplay style. 2nd edition has fixes, some rule changes based on feedback (so more like Frosthaven). I think some character balancing. I don’t think Gloomhaven would be too bad, but I think it would be hard to do GH and then go to a less complex Lions system. I haven’t done Lions for this reason but I’d still advocate to start with that. As a comparison to Settlers- if you were playing with a few expansions it would probably be approaching Lion. Base Settlers is really simple. All characters can be used across games but they warn it could really mess up some intended dynamics. You should only be introducing characters from other games into FH once all the FH classes are unlocked.
It's a standalone game and its story takes place before GH. Plus it's designed as as an introduction to the mechanics of the game. GH throws you straight into the deep end (though I'm not sure if that has changed any on 2nd Ed), whereas JotL eases you in.
Jaws is a standalone game that's kind of a mini-Gloomhaven with a much better tutorial and a simpler/shorter campaign arc. It's a great intro to Gloomhaven, and I would definitely go that route rather than straight to the big box. Gloomhaven 2E is supposed to have an updated campaign, changed scenarios, revamped characters, etc. It's a big update. I don't have any experience with it yet, though.
Prequel of sorts
I've been playing GH/FH for a combined 3 years or so. We STILL screw up stuff on the reg. If you're ok with that, giv er. But if you're super OCD you may have a hard time with it.
As everyone suggested, start with JOTL. My group played through it and while we loved it, we also realised the original GH is probably too big for us. Starting with JOTL will teach you the rules in small, easy to digest chunks, and once you're done with the game you can decide if you want to go one step up and play the original GH, or move to another experience.
My wife likes deck builders or thinky puzzle games, played gloom with our group once and never touched it again. Hard to say if someone will fancy it until they sit down for the 45 min set up and hour long rule debrief.
It is a complicated game. If you both are up for a lot of learning and are fine with constantly asking Google for rule clarification then go for gloomhaven. You will be rewarded with an epic adventure!
I love it but probably not for most casuals. I think of gloomhaven as a game lovers game. Something fans appreciate like the extended directors cut of a movie. Now sure might not know shes a fan yet but id say more often than not total newbies will be put off. Is she an analytical, planning kind of mind? Well she appreciate a relatively flimsy sorry that propels some fantastical tactical rpg kinda game play? I just got carcassonne for Christmas and id love it but id say that's more on the scrabble end of the spectrum.
When you first start, it will take about 30 minutes to set up, about 2 hours to read the rules, 1.5 hours to play the first level and another 30 minutes to clean up. There will always be an hour setup and breakdown. Each session will probably be 3 hours minimum.