the.com/tabletop
Where imagination rolls dice against math and usually loses.
means A game played on a physical surface with boards, cards, or miniatures, rather than on a screen — think D&D, chess, or Catan.
from A straightforward compound of 'table' and 'top,' literally the flat surface you'd play on. The gaming sense sharpened in the 20th century mainly to distinguish these games from video games — 'tabletop RPG' as a label only really made sense once there was something else to contrast it with.
- origin era
- wargaming hobbyists in the 1960s and 70s
- d&d link
- birthed modern tabletop RPGs in 1974
- renaissance cause
- streaming shows made watching dice rolls entertaining
- true cost
- minis and rulebooks often outprice video games