Tabletop Scotland 2025
By Alex White
- 6 minutes read - 1129 wordsNormally I wouldn’t be visiting tabletop Scotland as it is the other end of the country from me. However, the timing coincided nicely with taking one of my children back up to Scotland for their second year of Uni, so the two of us visited on the Friday afternoon. This is a short write-up of our experience and things which were notable.
It’s worth noting that I’ve got a pile of about seven unread TTRPGs at home, so I had a strict rule - no buying anything new! It was very hard to keep to that rule though!
Delivering to Compose Dream
The first thing on my agenda was delivering a collection of my books to Compose Dream, a Canadian based distributor who have decided to take on three of my games - Love & Barbed Wire, The Long Road Home, and Tail-End Charlie. It was lovely to meet Joshua Kitz face to face, and look at the range of indie games they had for sale.
West End Games
Had a great chat with the two folk here - one of them is at the same uni as my daughter, and was singing the praise of the RPG club there, which she will probably take a look at!
I asked if they would be interested in stocking some of my games, and I agreed to send them a copy of my catalogue after the event finishes. First time I’ve remembered to bring business cards with me, and I’m glad I did.
https://www.westendgames.co.uk
Playing in the Bomb’s Shadow - Seminar by Malcolm Craig
We were a couple of about ten people who attended the fascinating seminar by Malcolm about the study of the Cold War through the cultural medium of RPGs. He covered the broad sweep of the Cold War, and gave a lot of interesting detail about the period 1983/84 which historians now consider the most dangerous time in the 20th century if I recall his words correctly. He was an active and dynamic speaker, and his enthusiasm for the subject came over very clearly! It was fascinating to hear about arguments in the letters pages of White Dwarf magazine of the day between Brits and Americans about the ins and outs of post-apocalyptic gaming!
It was a shame we were not going to be around on Saturday to hear his seminar about the results of his ‘oral history’ interviewing of people about their memories of gaming during the Cold War.
Pelgrane Press
Great to have a chat with Cat again at Pelgrane press. I shared how excited I was about the agreement of Pelgrane to publish Ballad Hunters by Tristan Zimmerman (Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/moltensulfur.bsky.social) and her enthusiasm is infectious too. I’ve been involved in a couple of playtest adventures with Tristan, and I love the atmosphere he has managed to build into the game!
We also talked about Seven Wonders, which is one of my favourite games that Pelgrane publishes, and I’ll miss no opportunity to talk it up. Seven games by women TTRPG designers which include games about:
- how the children from Narnia coped back in the real world?
- what it’s like to voyage into a black hole?
- how dystopias are created, and destroyed?
- what you would sacrifice to protect your family?
- what heroes talk about on the eve of a life-altering battle?
- how to defend your village, when your heroes are away?
- who protects your home when you’re not looking?
Find out more about that here https://pelgranepress.com/product/seven-wonders/
Free League / Effekt Publishing
Another lovely conversation (I think it might be a benefit of the quieter Friday rather than the crush of the weekend?) I was chuffed beyond belief when the chap at the stand (Matthew) recognised me and wondered how Tail-End Charlie was going!
We spoke a bit about how much I’d enjoyed Alien and my daughter had a number of questions about The One Ring (such as ‘do you have to play the characters from the book, or are there other characters? When and where is it set?’) and we heard about the Hope mechanic which sounds interesting - a powerful resource which can gradually ebb away during the adventure.
We then spent a lot of time talking about the new “Tales of the Old West” game by Effekt Publishing which they are clearly excited about. Amazingly there are no zombies, tentacles or supernatural in there, it is ‘just’ about living in the Wild West. Inspired by Deadwood, it sounds as though there are some interesting mechanics to enable the players to shape the community they are living in, and watch it grow over time. Very cool.
https://www.effektpublishing.com
Deep Regrets
We spotted this early on, and came back after the seminar had finished and signed up for a 4pm slot. We were the only players, and it was the last game of the day so didn’t feel rushed. Our playtest game was started halfway through the game so we already had a number of tools and rods and reels in place, as well as a bucketfull of regrets!
The game was fun and lighthearted as we angled for fish both fair and foul. I cornered the market in jellyfish, and would have done better if it were not for the mountain of regrets I’d accumulated by the end of the game which cost me my best fish. Setting of an old sea-mine didn’t help either! My daughter managed to get the high score of the day though, which was satisfying.
Although the expansion didn’t really add much that appealed to me, the base game seems super and I’d definitely like to add it to my board game collection!
https://tettixgames.com/pages/deep-regrets
Blackwell Games
We had a long chat here, and my eye was quickly drawn to “For Small Creatures Such as We” about a human starship captain with an alien crew. It’s a solo /co-operative game with lots of creative tables, beautiful design and lovely art. It’s gone on my birthday wish-list (even despite my rule about no new games!)
https://www.blackwellwriter.com/products/for-small-creatures-such-as-we
My daughter’s eye was taken by Apothecaria - the example journal with lots of little bits of incidental art and things really appealed to her artistic side (and apparently a number of other games she had seen in other locations were actually produced by Blackwell games!)
The Old Kings Crown by Eerie Idol Games
I’m a sucker for big complicated, political board games, and this looks absolutely amazing. It was great to chat with the designers about their design and development process. One of them used to be an animator for games and it shows in the dynamism of some of the character artwork. The overall art theme reminded me very much of my favourite manga/Studio Ghibli film, Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind.
https://www.eerieidolgames.com