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Gloomhaven asks you to make a small plan, see what the enemies are doing, and adapt. The challenge is getting your party through the scenario before injuries and a shrinking supply of cards leave you unable to finish.
You do not need a character build or a clever combo to begin. You need to understand what you are trying to accomplish, how your two cards work together, and what happens to those cards afterward. Those three ideas will make your first session much easier to follow.
This introduction covers original Gloomhaven (first edition) and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. Use the instructions from your own box when a rule or setup differs.
Prepare for one scenario
If you have Jaws of the Lion, open the Learn to Play Guide and follow it alongside scenario 1. Its opening scenarios introduce the rules gradually. Start with the level A cards and components it tells you to use; do not substitute the full level 1 hand or add rules from later in the tutorial. You can learn the game while playing it.
For original Gloomhaven, you need to learn the basic round and scenario setup before starting. Choose from the starting characters, follow the recommended initial card selection in your character’s materials, and use the scenario book to set up the first scenario. Keep the rulebook nearby for questions rather than trying to memorize every condition and campaign rule at once.
In either game, give each character the correct attack modifier deck. That is the small deck you draw from when resolving attacks; it is separate from the ability cards you choose to play. Keep monster ability cards and the monster attack modifier deck separate from the players’ decks too.
Before choosing your first cards, read the scenario’s goal and special rules together. Make sure everyone can answer:
What exactly do we have to do to win this scenario?
Sometimes the answer is to kill all the required enemies. Other scenarios ask you to escape, protect something, or complete a particular task. The goal tells you which actions will actually help.
Build your turn around one useful job
At the start of a normal round, choose two ability cards from your hand. One supplies your initiative number, which helps determine when you act. On your turn, use the top action of one card and the bottom action of the other. You can perform those two actions in either order.
Start by giving the turn a job: reach an enemy and attack it, finish something that is already wounded, or move into position for the next part of the scenario. Then find two cards that can accomplish that job together.
Suppose an enemy is two hexes away along an open route. You choose cards that let you combine a bottom Move 2 with a top melee Attack 3. On your turn, you could move one hex to become adjacent, then attack. You do not have to spend the full Move value. You cannot use the top attack and bottom movement from the same card, however; the two actions must come from different cards.
If the printed actions do not fit the situation, a selected card can instead provide a basic Attack 2 on top or Move 2 on the bottom. Those basic actions are useful fallbacks. You are not obliged to force a complicated ability into a turn where a short move and an ordinary attack would help more.
Watch the enemies before committing to the plan
After players choose their cards, reveal them and the appropriate monster ability cards, then work through initiative order. A monster group uses its revealed ability card to determine what it does that round. Do not automatically give every monster a move and an attack: follow what its card actually lists.
Your original plan may need to change before your turn arrives. In the movement-and-attack example, perhaps the enemy advances toward you. You may no longer need to move first. Perhaps a teammate kills it, leaving a different enemy as the useful target.
You choose the cards before the reveal, but you do not have to decide every detail of their actions then. On your turn, check the board again and choose which card supplies the top action, which supplies the bottom, and the order that works now.
Where you finish matters as much as where you can reach. Moving into range of three enemies to attack one may create a problem the party has to spend the next round fixing. Look at the revealed monster actions and ask which enemies could reach or attack you from your intended destination.
During card selection, tell teammates your general intention—such as “I’ll try to finish that enemy early”—without naming exact card values or initiative numbers. That gives them something useful to plan around while respecting the games’ communication restrictions.
Understand why your hand gets smaller
Most ability cards go into your discard pile after use. When you rest, you recover the remaining discards but lose one card. A lost card normally stays unavailable for the rest of that scenario. Some powerful actions also have a loss symbol, so using them can reduce your available cards sooner.
That creates a limit on how long your character can keep taking turns. Spending several rounds on unnecessary movement or an enemy that does not affect the goal uses some of that time. Playing a strong loss action can still be worthwhile if it removes a dangerous threat or gets an important task done; the question is what the party gains from spending it now.
An empty hand does not immediately mean you are out. A short rest happens at the end of a round. At the start of a round, you can instead declare a long rest in place of selecting and playing two cards. Both need at least two discarded cards. If you begin a round unable to select two cards or declare a long rest, you exhaust, even if you still have HP.
In the Jaws tutorial, apply resting rules as the guide introduces them. For now, the habit to build is simply checking your hand and discards near the end of each round so the next card selection does not surprise you.
Make the first attempt useful
Share the work at the table. One person can reveal monster ability cards and call out initiative order while another tracks monster damage. Keep checking unfamiliar monster actions together so one player does not have to carry the entire rules load.
A defeat gives you something specific to investigate. If characters exhausted with plenty of HP, look at extra card losses and rounds spent without progress. If the party took heavy damage early, look at where characters ended their turns and which enemies were allowed to act. Choose one problem to address on the next attempt rather than changing everything at once.
For your first session, aim to follow the round, understand the scenario’s goal, and recognize why a turn helped or fell short. That gives you a foundation for better decisions on the next attempt—and for enjoying the characters and campaign as they develop.
Next: How a Round Works in Gloomhaven walks through card selection, initiative, turns, and cleanup in order.
Rules references
The rules described here come from the original Gloomhaven rulebook, particularly pp. 16–19 and 28 (searchable transcription), and the Jaws of the Lion Learn to Play Guide, which introduces the game through its first five scenarios. Both links are hosted copies of the publisher’s material.