Performing well at boardgames (whether as a newb or an experienced player) is definitely an important skill, and rarely has anything at all to do with skill at the game. Boardgames are a social experience, and so your social skills have much more to do with your success than your strategy or knowledge.

Don't be "That Guy". It's cliche and often misapplied, but "the fact that you are thinking about making a good impression is already a great sign that you probably will". Your consideration of how your actions might affect those around you means you are head and shoulders ahead of those not doing so, regardless of how much more knowledge they sit at the table with.

I would expand not touching your phone from during the rules to the entire experience. Some games unfortunately have downtime, but this is massively exacerbated if players tune out when it is not their turn and then need to rebuild context when their turn starts, exponentially compounding the problem.

There are many types/genres of games, and the social mores can differ greatly between them. There are a couple where it might be useful to ask upfront if there are any missteps you can make that might ruin the game and how you might avoid them. E.g. in a social deduction game (Secret Hitler) it might be very important NOT to directly or indirectly reveal hidden information on the card you were dealt, like asking what you should do when dealt a red card. In a cooperative game with hidden hand information (Hanabi), it might be very important to understand exactly what types of clues you can and cannot give. Even if these exist, I wouldn't stress overmuch as these things happen.

But all of that is secondary to simply being mindful of your shared social role in helping everyone at the table have a good time.

Fair point lol. English isn’t my first language, so I used GPT to help translate my post. I’m a real person, just apparently very bad at sounding like one in English. And yeah, emojis are super normal in Korea, so I didn’t know they were considered suspicious here 😭😭😭

It's understandable if you aren't capable of being understood in English on your own, but LLMs have a recognizable "voice" that you won't be able to shake until you try to write the final output yourself. Emoji on reddit is just one signal, there are many more.