My number one Must See London Sight is the Cotswolds
(he/him) Author, podcaster & tabletop games writer. Books: The Game Changers, Coward, The Honours & The Ice House. https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-game-changers-how-playing-games-changed-the-world-and-can-change-you-too-tim-clare/7687024
2,726 followers 254 following 6,953 posts
view profile on Bluesky
My number one Must See London Sight is the Cotswolds
Bluesky is genuinely the best social media experience I've ever had. Many people have been generous & kind to me, I've been able to find interesting, insightful people to interview for my work, & the amount of discourse / quote-dunking is low. Perfect? No. Least-worst? Absolutely.
Same, & honestly, if I thought you had said something out of line I would say so but in a much more good faith way than the other poster.
I felt you quite clearly expressed it as an opinion not a decided scientific truth. I'm super picky about that sort of thing & I thought your framing was unproblematic
Good luck! I hope you have lots of fun with it
Do you mean legendary named sword or sword type?
As someone with a PDA profile who resonates a lot with experiences autistic people share about hating & fearing anything that feels like a demand, I feel like the worst thing you can do is try to box someone into a corner with counter-arguments & evidence. Give them space. Don't chase.
I'm not saying that attitude will magically overcome anyone's objections or misgivings around playing games, but that's because the point isn't to override their preference, it's to make them feel heard & respected. Which builds trust & safety, which happen to be good foundations for most activities
You'll always be welcome as a beginner, you won't be expected to know rules or be some tactical genius. But also we can hang out in other ways, because the main thing I want to do is hang out with you, in ways we both enjoy, because you are great.
You can also make it clear, & this is how I feel about all my friends & loved ones who don't play regularly with me: if ever you see a game you'd like to try, something intrigues you, or you just want to join us one night, you are always deeply welcome. That's a permanent open invitation.
I think all you can do if someone gives a clear no, is listen & respect that. That immediately takes the pressure off them, & creates a space where reciprocity & trust are easier. You can say: 'Cool. I hear you & believe you. There are other ways we can hang out & spend quality time together.'
Sure, a hard sell *might* work where you just wear someone through wheedling & manic, relentless campaigning, but they're likely to go into it full of dread because you've already shown you're not great at respecting their feelings. It will feel like a chore. They're unmotivated.
As the dad of two wonderful, independent girls, I've learned that if I march in & announce 'right, we're all learning origami' they will not want to. But if I sit in the corner & start furtively folding, & when they ask what I'm up to I say 'making a jumping frog' they will bite my hand off to join.
I've been thinking about this a bit. Most people hate feeling like they're being Recruited - that they've expressed a preference ('no games, thanks') & the other person responds by trying to overcome that clear preference. It turns the interaction from offer to sales pitch.
You can't make them, you can only make them welcome.
Your mileage may vary on this. Remember I'm autistic so if I've snagged any invisible social tripwires by speaking my mind please don't hear what I didn't say.
If I were stopping people in Norwich City Centre & offering to teach them A Feast for Odin I'm sure I'd struggle. But my wife learned Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small in minutes despite having never played a worker placement game before. How? Because she's an adult & was up for it.
In my experience, all that matters is willingness, & welcome. Would the person like to play? Have you made them feel welcome? That's it. Pensioners learn Bridge & Mahjong. Kids I teach on creative writing retreats learn boardgames & Pathfinder (first edition, for goodness sake!) in moments.
I learned to play games with my dad. I still play games with my dad. I wanted to play because it was a space of connection, imagination & love. People of all ages play games of all complexities. I don't find teaching non 'hobby' people (such a weird term) any harder than seasoned veterans.
The thread is about selling games to people who think they don't like games. That's all it claims to be. It is not a thread about introducing people to games who think they don't like them. That is not a sale. It is an invitation. Most of us did not first encounter play in a shop, thank God.
The question is whether you think our job is to evangelize or to lay a place at the table. If you want strangers to purchase a game from you, of course you have to go for instant gratification. But I don't think the heart of gaming is generating economic events. It's community.
Some hobbyist gamers seem to imagine we're nuclear physicists or something. Like modern games are impossibly recondite & arcane & no outsider could ever learn them. Nonsense! Demonstrably untrue. The vast majority of people are more than capable of understanding.
Even at dedicated tabletop cons, plenty of games are too weighty & ambitious for most attendees. They want to keep moving. It's not that they don't enjoy or understand Twilight Imperium, they just want to see a bunch of stuff. But board & card games are everywhere, across all cultures.
This myth of the median ding-dong who supposedly can't understand games is so ahistorical & bizarre I don't know what to do with it. Kids can learn draughts, chess & mancala at 5. I play 'hobby' games with my 8 year old all the time. In the 80s 50% of UK adults played cards at least fortnightly.
People are resistant BECAUSE YOU'RE SELLING THEM SOMETHING. How many times in my life have I interrupted my day so a random salesperson can demo a product to me? I would guess less than once a year. This is no index of my interest in mini drones or cheaper WiFi or Greenpeace. It's the dynamic.
Introducing people to games where you are a retailer & your implicit goal is to get them to make a purchase isn't like sitting down with a family member. It's the difference between having a conversation with a friend & flyering for a show on the Royal Mile at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Certainly the data provided gives very good insight into the kinds of games that are best to demo when you're trying to sell product to non-specialist costumers who are just passing by. It's not reasonable to conclude this tells us what kind of games the average person is capable of enjoying.
Lots of folks have been sharing this thread. I think it's interesting & useful. But I have some points of disagreement or at least caution about what conclusions we might reach about what kinds of games do & don't resonate with a 'general' audience. Here are my thoughts:
Look at this guy: 'a monster was born in Germany having a head in the middle of its stomach; he lived to be an adult; and the head took nourishment just like the other.' Do we think he just drew it on & pushed raisins into his belly button as a party trick?
When I first played the original Diablo I had no idea what to expect, & I didn't watch the explanatory opening cutscene. So it was a wonderful discovery when the church just kept going down & down
I do not understand some of the logic of the movie vis a vis the thinking behind the twist
Paré's third reason is too much cum which, while admittedly original, is a bit less atmospheric
It's such a punchy way to express the dual nature of monsterdom. & my absolute favourite narrator trope is 'autistic essayist absolutely unfazed by the pyrotechnic intensity of the events they are describing'
If a Fantasy novel opened with those lines, I'd be like yes. In. Lock the door. I. Am. Committed.
Ambrose Paré's 1573 book 'On Monsters and Marvels' has one of my favourite openings ever: 'There are several things that cause monsters. The first is the glory of God. The second, his wrath.'
One of the most important bits of writing contemporary nonfiction is the intro where you anticipate any possible criticism a reader might have & attempt to disarm it in advance. Nothing better to whet a reader's appetite than fastidiously disarming minor objections by imaginary bad faith reviewers.
What if my apparent failure to get that your post is a joke is itself, in fact, a joke that *you* didn't get? I call this 'Bluesky Judo'. In this series of training videos I will
So sorry. We have been going through a similar thing for some time & yes. It is a lot.
I'll be honest - I also find making arrangements & doing things outside of my normal fixed routines really challenging & stressful, so this will be a hard thing to do, too. I make plans then feel *incredibly* crushed & stressed by those plans, even though it's so valuable to go out & see people.
I wish I could make it to Tabletop Scotland!
Anyway. That is one smaller ambition on my list. To nudge a few people & say 'hey, when I'm in your neck of the woods next, can we push some cardboard?' while also opening my doors for folks who come here
But anyway. I like hanging out with people around a table. & I could make more of a conscious effort to make that happen, & not just with my regulars at home. It is a good way to spend time with new people or folks you don't see so often, especially if, like me, you're a bit peculiar.
I used to travel all over the UK to do gigs, & it meant I was always seeing this village of around 100 people that materialised Brigadoon-like everywhere from Cornwall to Denmark populated by friends & acquaintances. I think hitting up tabletop events has been an unconscious attempt to recreate that
I'm going to spend some time listing my ambitions big & small, as I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed & it's the kind of thing that gets me thinking about positives & possibilities. One thing on that list will be: travelling to see people & play games. & inviting people to visit me & do the same.
Sure, just complete this assault course designed specifically to foil ADHD
To be clear, I'm delighted to be feeling positive about what I'm writing again. It's a bit weird but lots of great books are. Feels like the right track, just need to get the gears to mesh so I write it all down.
They don't answer phone or email
I've been waiting for nearly a year but the provider didn't show for my online appointment & now I'm stuck in limbo
I have had a very onbrand couple of days of sitting at the computer & despite feeling positive about writing, mostly procrastinating. I would love to try ADHD meds to see if they have any effect on my ability to do stuff I notionally want to do. But that requires actually getting assessed.
See I try to coast on that last 30% & that's why I am Bad At The Teach
I've never heard anyone mention it before I played it, let alone say it was bad, so your memory is a surprise to me
I like the little guy photobombing you in the corner
Issue 20 is out now! Featuring an in-depth interview with Castles of Burgundy creator Stefan Feld, by @timclare.bsky.social. (Portrait by Ian Wright.) Go to senetmagazine.com to order your copy or subscribe. #boardgamesarebeautiful
At some point you have to accept no one capable of forming a sentence could be this thick. With 4 years left & a massive majority, if all your major policy moves are about appeasing bigots... you may be a bigot. Who actually likes transphobia & self-destructive isolationism for their own sakes.
People universally want a lower cost of living when it comes to groceries, lower energy bills, & an NHS that works. Starmer has decided to lead with criminalising protesting genocide while lionising gangs of spouse-abusing racists. The polls reflect the wisdom of this strategy.
You can't prove that you're tough against a completely made-up threat because the people stoking fear & those responding to it don't live in reality. Treating the electorate like a delirious elderly relative whose hallucinations you have to continually humour is a bizarre strategy.
If there is 'a widespread perception among much of the public' that egg-stealing goblins hide in their attic you don't address their 'legitimate concerns' by declaring a war on attic goblins, you point out loudly & confidently the truth: that their beliefs are insane, propagated by nasty crackpots.
I'm so sorry for your loss. That is terrible.
Solidarity!
I don't know when this mass shunning of Joraku happened but it has a good BGG rating & everyone I've played it with has rated it
The ongoing campaign to make everyone in the world play Joraku at least once continues...
Yesterday everyone in the family found out we had nits & we had to do the full stinking ointment & nit comb business. 2 of us had meltdowns (or near) from the sensory overload then my wife slipped in a puddle of spilt nit spray & got a wicked bruise on her shoulder. Makin' summer holiday memories.
Amazing work!
It’s a trivia quiz ‘fact’ that the game began as an anti-capitalist critique.. but the truth is even stranger than that ✏️ Tim Clare
The big revelation of ChatGPT is there is a whole demographic who are so unused to someone being nice to them that if it happens they become floridly psychotic
Avoiding accusations of using AI to answer work emails by beginning each reply 'what a stupid idea, asshole'
Someone might come to that conclusion but it wasn't something I said.
I don't understand how this is a disagreement with what I'm saying.
I do not currently have a cat. I am involuntarily catless. When I got the call to say my cat died. from my reaction my wife genuinely thought it was my parents
I'm not saying they're bad people, I just want to see a flurry of articles titled 'CATLESS BY CHOICE' that demand they account for themselves
Weird how 'childlessness' is regarded by some as this eccentric lifestyle choice but there's no such word as 'catlessness'. People without cats who aren't trying for a cat or waiting until they move into a bigger place before they can have cats are the ones we should be writing probing profiles on.
It's lush isn't it
I am forever baffled that churches seem to think their strong suit is drama skits & not... immortality
They always seemed squirmy & embarrassed about the actual faith. I was very impressionable & I expect if they'd said 'ok so you're going to get to live forever with your loved ones, & the meantime someone loves you & He'll help guide you to care for others' I'd have been very receptive.
I spent a lot of time in Christian youth groups growing up, & had religious assemblies all through school, & they never really talked about kindness or the whole living forever in paradise bit. Instead it was very shit rap videos & wordsearches about Bible stories.
A vicar doing a twee bit to make an analogy about the resurrection is the most plausible event ever. Especially when he explains why he did it afterwards.
Barbecubes is such a good name & made me realise I hadn't noticed Tinderblox is a pun
Our local vicar once walked onto stage at assembly, sat down, silently poured himself a bowl of Fruit n Fibre, ate it, then announced that no one would believe us if we told them & wasn't that a bit like Jesus. Which I think did more to cement my atheism than anything else, because no.
Miracle of miracles, today I'm actually going to do some work on my new book. I'm in a place where I don't hate it conceptually, I like scraps of what I've written so far & I'm accepting that there's lots of editing necessary to assemble the pieces later. How long will this 'normal brain mode' last?
Wanted to & repeatedly did! They're so smooth!
Someone rethemed a Knizia?!
I'd like to see a Button Shy edition of Zombicide
Well, we're sometimes a bit limited by potential outlets & finding a receptive audience. Longform was one way I tried to get round that.
It may be even truer of certain strands of video game journalism! I often read people arguing for the value of games then using as examples only the most esoteric indie games that are close to visual novels where the theme is delivered via sledgehammer. Which I often love, but they're not all games
The work isn't dead-eyed influencing to shift product, nor is it removing all appeals to sensory experience & fun like a toxic pufferfish liver. It's about splendid intimacy with the game in its totality. The moment you raise one part above all others, you miss.
I love games that make me think, that implicate me & spark thoughts & make me head off afterwards to learn more. I also love rolling acrylic polyhedrons & smelling the ink on Magic cards & flipping the tiny cardboard tokens in Twilight Struggle as control of a country shifts. These are indivisible.
Not to get all Marshall McLuhan about it but you can't extract meaning like a tooth from systems & production & community & the snap of a linen-finished card as if the art survives in theme alone & isn't an emergent property of all these elements working in concert.
If tabletop games were *only* a dry interrogation of theme, they would hold no interest for me. Ditto with ttrpgs. What is the embodied, 360 degree sensory experience of play? Not our post-hoc stories about it, which can read suspiciously like forelock-tugging justifications.
I feel very vulnerable when I write about games as I actually experience them, rather than the more detached, objective mode I adopt for most of my reviews. My actual true game experience reads like I'm tweaking off trucker crank. Every sensation is magnified. Every dice clatter a Vince McMahon meme
I get the continual impulse to perform intellect as a kind of adult alibi for play. Engaging with explicit theme is our most direct, point-to-point route for producing criticism that looks intelligent & rigorous by the received standards of academia. But alone, it's incomplete.
Theme is the juice & where no explicit theme exists humans have always imagined one - hence Senet boards gradually acquiring more religious iconography across the centuries as players imagined a journey to the afterlife in a formerly abstract race. It's so important. But not *supremely* so.
I have politely but immovably disagreed with self-styled purists who assert the only true games are folk abstracts. Nonsense. I love the historical undertow driving Joraku, the gut-wrenching stakes & rich texture of Votes for Women, the cutting satire driving you to armageddon in Twilight Struggle.
I feel like the elevation of theme to the top of the analytical pyramid is evidence of literature envy, basically. A feeling that literary criticism is the model & maturity in the field of tabletop criticism equals engaging with the most explicitly book-like (& grown-up) elements.
People joke about wanting to eat the pieces in Azul. We've all felt the reassuring heft of the jewel chips in Splendor. These are not ancillary details! They *are* the game. How they inflect your experience & interactions is the game. These aren't lesser aspects of the art.
I love theme. I am a theme guy. I am also autistic. & human. & sweet Satan am I bewildered when people create this odd hierarchy where the art & the culture are all instantiated in theme, & not the rattle of a dice box, the clatter of warri seeds in wooden hollows. It's bizarre.
For what it's worth, a tabletop writer who talks about game components or mechanics or strategy is engaging just as deeply with the game as someone who writes about theme or history or uses a game as a jumping off point for a personal essay. Tactility *is* the game. Colour is the game. Sound. Smell.
Yes, I know. I'm not wielding it as a self-contained truism in this case, but rather shorthand because this is a shortform medium. I just feel like it's particularly important in a medium where most folk games are literally 'authorless', or rather crowd-authored.
Do you think even that is a necessary defence, though? Like, Death of the Author ought to free us up to view art through lenses that aren't necessarily intentional or ratified by the creator, not because they're 'true' but because those lenses are useful or revelatory.
