Month: November 2021

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Adventurers & Writers: The November Chapter!

We had just concluded our first, end of the year holiday program where a small band of brave young adventurers stepped out of their comfort zones to try something very new for a change!

Three young ladies and two courageous lads heeded the desperate call for help from a village chief.

Sample “poster” in which they will have to recreate later

Hero miniatures for them to choose from.

Their adventure begins after adding details about their characters with some serious shopping and information gathering as they visited various locations within the village.

Dice were rolled, monsters dispatched, puzzles solved and bandits caught – Including… The Crybaby Bandit!  Name given because he cried running to his mum after the first encounter on Day 1.

Stories will be written about their exploits!

Village chief, Mister Teepot (name given by the children, because he was short and stout), thanked them for their services and hopes that they will stick around. Every village needs a hero, or two… or five, no?

#rpg, #d&d, #adventurers, #writers, #adventurersandwriters, #enrichment, #holidayprogram, #gamerdadsg, #childrenswriting, #storytelling, #roleplaying

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What are Modern Tabletop Games? What’s with this resurgence too?

It’s not uncommon for most people to immediately think of Monopoly, Risk, Cluedo or Scrabble when you mention boardgames. Those are what we’d call classic boardgames. They’re usually the mainstream ones which are produced in bulk and easily available at established toy or departmental stores.

Modern tabletop boardgames however can be classified as an entirely new set of hobby. The way to ‘play’ has evolved so much and moved away from the luck-based dice rolling into the plethora of different ‘game mechanics’. This is awesome because it brings the potential of adding a huge amount of challenges other than just ‘luck’ being the main factor in a game.

What are some of these ‘new ways to play’ or what we call ‘game mechanics’ these days? Well, there’s actually a lot of them… A LOT. Just to list the few which are common these days would be;

  • Auction
  • Dice Placement
  • Worker Placement
  • Set Collection
  • Draft and Pass
  • Draft and Play
  • Tile-laying
  • Push-your-luck
  • Role-playing
  • Social Deduction
  • Dexterity-based
  • I cut, You choose.

Modern tabletop players will also use terms like ‘Eurogame’, ‘Ameritrash’, ‘Gateway’ games in their conversations with the uninitiated. If you’re confused, it’s okay… we look forward to share with you what these terms mean and some of our favourite game examples.

My top 3 gateway games to introduce modern gaming to beginners.

What’s really motivating for us now is to see how many boardgame cafes are still around after the first one Settler’s Cafe was established in 2003. Plenty more has popped up and survived or growing; like Minds Cafe and PlayNation.

Not only that, there is a growing number of boardgame enthusiasts that the local “Singapore International Boardgaming Meetup” is an over 9000 member strong group! This meet-up page is where you’ll find listings of several board game meet-ups happening around the island. The pandemic has dampened this a little but just over 2 years ago, during one of the busiest weekend at Basecamp Cafe, the space was crammed to nearly 80 people on a Saturday afternoon – that people were even playing on the floor!

The resurgence of modern tabletop games has also reached a point where we actually have a lot of titles made and produced by Singaporeans and the region? It’s no longer an industry played only by Europe and America. We will be sharing more about Singaporean and Malaysian games.

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Come to the table!

Ditch the gadgets for a while and play old-school but with modern table top games!

Without hiding behind any screens, players actually can talk and negotiate with each other. Sure there’s a good amount of taunting but within limits because others are in arms reach in case you step over the line, iykwim!

Over the years of being around the table with my children, as competitive as they are, they know when to hold back and make sure everyone’s having fun. It’s all about the joy of being together, making jokes and having fun. Winning is great but not the main objective.

For sure, the elder brothers are in their teens and they play on the computer or mobile phones with their friends – but they do ask, “Are we playing anything later?” every now and then. The young ones have their screen time too but they also look forward to family game afternoons/nights.