Words Worth Knowing: Table Top Gaming
Words Worth Knowing was a vertical I wrote weekly explaining key pieces of gaming jargon to parents, guardians and teachers, as part of the larger overall GameHub outreach effort. The column ran for nearly two years and resulted in around 60 WWK articles. GameHubHQ.com closed in late 2017. This piece originally appeared on Sept 26 , 2016.
What It Is: Table-Top = Board Games
What It Means: Table-Top gaming simply refers to board or card games played on a flat surface in the real world, as opposed to video-games/computer games played by looking at a screen. In the modern world, however, the lines are often blurred, with some table-top games having digital elements added to them.
Why You Care: Table-Top gaming shares some similarities with video-gaming. People who enjoy one form of gaming may enjoy the other, or alternatively may have no interest whatsoever! The two should be treated as separate hobbies, rather than as a comparison of old vs new, physical vs digital, social vs anti-social etc, as all games are different and no hard and a fast rule can be applies to all. Table-top gaming is an alive and thriving sector of the overall gaming market, with dedicated and enthusiastic players, it's own culture, cliques, cliches and communities, just like video-gaming, or indeed any hobby.
