Learning a new game, a micro-tip

Recently we started a new campaign using a new system (Reign) that none of us had ever played before. Before this, I was a bit nervous, because it was a game I've been looking forward to try out for a long time, and I felt a little pressure from the rest of the group that it should be good.

So, in order to make it easier for both me and the rest of the players to get into the game, I decided to write a short summary of the game. A kind of cheat-sheet, with all the important stuff written down.

What I wrote down was

• The general dice-mechanic (since it's a bit quirky in the ORE-system) and basic rules. Including the most common exceptions / special cases.
• Basic skill usage, and some special cases
• Healing and dying. (since these are things I tend to forget when I learn new games)
• The combat system (or the most important bits of)
• The different combat maneuvers that can be used in a combat, abbreviated

I left out lists of things, and also character creation, magic and similar. This was because it's not used in the game as such. 

I found this had a number of advantages

• It served as a handy reference sheet for both me and the players
• It forced me to go through the entire game. Since I wanted to write a summary of all the rules, I also had to think them through so that I understood them. This in turn made it easier for me to remember the rules even without looking at the cheat-sheet.

After the first game session it was definately a help, in many ways. However, I also did notice that somethings where missing. But after looking those things up, it was of course no problem adding some clarifications and additions.

I used Google Docs to write it, and also invited the rest of the group to that document, so that they could read it through, clarify/format some bits, and print it out directly if they wanted to.

My only complaint so far is that Google Docs lacks even basic layout-tools. I would like to be able to make the sheet a bit more compressed, so that more elements could be fitted into one page. Overall though, it has worked like a charm, and I'll do that again whenever it's time to play a new game.