Marit

A good game at the wrong table is the most common failure and it looks exactly like a bad game.

Taught a heavy game by reading the rulebook order and watched four people disengage in twenty minutes. Taught the same game a month later with goal-then-turn-then-play and it was fine.

Same game, same people. The rulebook is written to be complete and referenced, not to be read aloud, and using it as a script is the single most common way a good game dies at a table.