I'm scared to spend so much time on the deductions of the sketch or to make additional options. It makes sense to me but I feel like I would take too much time. How do you know when it's ok to make a few sketches?
It'll just come intuitively with practice I think. Eventually you'll learn which ones to spend extra time drawing out the other diagrams, and which ones don't need the extras drawn. It comes with practice.
What @harrismegan said. Also, something that I do before I start every game is look at the questions. If 6/7 questions are conditionals, then I know I need to go straight to the questions. If there are like 3/4 rules, I know that that also means that I need to go straight to the questions.
If there are 6/7 conditional questions with like 5 rules, that's when I know I need to make deductions. Alternatively, if only half of the questions are conditionals but the other half are MBT/MBF, that means I know I need to spend time making deductions upfront.
What helps me out is to see how many rules the game has. If the rules are really restrictive and I don't have too many variables to play around with, I generally try and put the items on the game board to make more sense of it, and if possible, complete the game board through splitting it up based on the rules. If I see the game has less rules which are more open ended, I draw my game board, try to see if I can map out any inferences from what I've been given, and go straight into the questions.
After practicing with the various types of games that are on 7sage + printing 10 copies when you don't get a 100% on a game will really strengthen your approach on LGs.
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If there are 6/7 conditional questions with like 5 rules, that's when I know I need to make deductions. Alternatively, if only half of the questions are conditionals but the other half are MBT/MBF, that means I know I need to spend time making deductions upfront.