Welcome to the TDA blog

What is the Tabletop Designers Association?

Currently in the process of being established, the Tabletop Designers Association is a non-profit organisation found with the single purpose of bringing together and supporting designers of tabletop games*. This support, much like Chandler’s time in the box, is threefold:

• With the help of sponsors and donations, we will be providing financial backing to designers to help them take their projects off the ground and into production. We will work closely with each designer individually to find the publishing approach best suited to their game’s genre and determine the amount we can support them with. More info on that as we announce sponsors and disclose budget, as these things come up.
• As we make strides towards assembling a database of resources and materials, we will be able to provide free access to interested parties for educational and developmental purposes.
• By nurturing a collaborative environment, we want to provide a platform where designers can network with each other and form positive relations with people in the industry. Easily connect with artists, writers, proofreaders, graphics designers, and more.

With these three primary goals in mind, the main purpose for the founding of the Association is to help boost current and aspiring tabletop game designers and bring more and better games to the people. We are experience a renaissance in tabletop gaming and a true golden age for the medium, which means there are more opportunities now for anyone and everyone to leave their mark on the gaming world than ever before.

Blog content

To help with the above goals, to further our knowledge on all things design, and to help assemble the knowledge base needed, the Association provides this blog, an open platform for designers to share their knowledge and experience.

Currently, it’s very hard to get into game design, especially for indie devs, because the know-how of the field is scattered throughout books, sites, personal blogs, defunct forums, etc. In order for everyone to not have to start from scratch and stumble onto good design by reinventing the wheel or relying on randomly bumping into the correct content out there, our goal is to bring all of it together in one place, and more importantly – advance it further. This is why we invite designers to share their work here. Good practices, experience from the trenches, new and old ideas, and more.

The articles you can expect to see on this blog will be as varied as their authors are, but most will fit into one of several categories:

• Design – Work focused on the theory that goes behind designing tabletop games and good practices for its application.
• Development – The evolution of a project and the steps for its realisation from idea to product.
• Showcase – Shining a spotlight on work done, work in progress, goals and plans to accomplish them, etc.

With this last point, notice that the blog is as much a platform for sharing knowledge as it is for showcasing and promoting talented design and existing work.

Each designer will have their own intro article outlining what they are going to write about, and not everything must fit these broad categories.

Invitation for collaboration

With all of that said, if you’re a tabletop game designer, we invite you to join us! Whether you are an aspiring indie dev, a designer with experience and published products, or a design studio, publisher, or even a publishing house. We want to showcase your work, projects in development and finished ones alike.

Start networking with other devs! We;d be thrilled to have you over at the ttrpg design discord server., and we’ll be constantly adding more networking opportunities for other types of games.

Or, if you want your voice to be heard, you can write articles for the blog! It’s open to anyone that has something to say which can elevate tabletop design, help other devs with a fresh perspective, or otherwise contribute to the knowledge pool we’re trying to create and unify.

Already have a blog? Well, if you’re willing to cross-post and share your articles with us, so that they can reach a wider and more diverse audience, we’d be more than happy to publish them while driving all engagement towards your own platform**.

For more information on how to do that, shoot an e-mail to contact@tabletopdesign.org with some info about yourself so we can open a channel for communication.

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading, welcome to the blog, and let’s make better games together.

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*While there is no one official definition, it’s generally understandable and widely agreed-upon what that means. Most non-digital, non-live action game, can be called tabletop games, which doesn’t mean they can’t have digital gameplay aspects, components, etc., or live-action elements. The four biggest categories of tabletop gaming are board games, card games, pen & paper roleplaying games, and wargames. Most titles can be described as one of these, barring other types of definitions (such as “party games”, “political games”, etc.), though fitting into one of these categories is not a strict requirement to qualify as a tabletop game. For the most part, the distinction from digital titles is enough.

**For more information and details on how that will be handled, please feel welcome to engage with me directly if I haven’t already put up a blog post explaining the process in detail. Find me on Discord at Hegemon™#7835 or via e-mail at contact@tabletopdesign.org
– Hegemon, admin of the TDA blog