Mark Caldwell

Tabletop game design tip of the day: don't mistake a situated experience for a marketable product

Something I’ve seen repeatedly in tabletop game design is designers mistaking a "situated experience" for a marketable game.

It looks like this:

🎲✂️(1/19)

A song from Sing Something Simple played when anyone loses san

Age verification?

I bought a penny mix for a penny and was upset when inflation made it 2p

Also The Flashing Blade was school holiday TV but we never got the last episode

Perfect timing - just about finished current book so saved deciding what to read next

Book in open box , bubble wrapped and held in place by packing paper

Cosmic Dark hardcover RPG book

Extremely well packaged delivery of @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social Cosmic Dark

Happy Birthday!

Absolutely nailed it

Absolutely

And in the great Venn diagram of blond bloke in Telefantasy he ticks many of the boxes

Sahara DVD Bogart holding Thompson SMG with desert battle in background

Next up The Muppets then Bogart's Sahara

It presents itself as a UN liaison to International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIMP) but actually a cover for investigating all things Unusual or Remarkable

Actually a cover for investigating all things Unusual or Remarkable

And threats known as "Strangers"

A bit of digging in word lists and I found the Scottish word Unco which I really like

Agents of UNCO

Backstory for UNCO that it was named by a Scottish diplomat who is now its figure head

On paper its United Nations Chronology Organisation

Noodling Telefantasy RPG setting - sort of Men / Girl from UNCLE but with time travel / aliens (a bit Men in Black maybe)

Was calling it Agents of UNTIL (United Nations Time Incursion Liasson) but realised that Champions has that already

Panel 1: Some social scientists (five stick figure portraits of scientists) Economist Archaeologist Geographer Psychologist Anthropologist Panel 2: Some antisocial scientists (five stick figures scuttling out of the panel) Introverted Astronomer Solitary Mathematician Reclusive Biologist Misanthropic Chemist Withdrawn Physicist

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.com

It includes jokes for adults that they have been told are woke/political

I've not watched it yet and I'm not convinced they have

I did not expect the return of the Muppet show to be such a good shibboleth for detecting friends of Facebook who used to present as woke but who've been suckered by the Daily Mail's world view in their 50s

I'm not someone who watches reality TV, Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity destroyed the ratings of a drama I was enjoying so it didn't get renewed

There are talented people working really hard to make Reality TV

LLM fiction is just be slop it out hope something sticks enough to make a quick $

Random thing I came across today when SMS Goeben was sold by the German navy to the Ottoman navy during World War 1 the German crew stayed with the ship to wear their German uniforms but wore Ottoman red felt fez with a black tassel

And that should be a missing Matt Smith Doctor Who episode

Of course today when I have chores I'm having all the ideas

Codename: Broadsword

Codename: Danny Boy

Code XX (For the 20 committee)

Not going to meet your name rule but I've toyed with Men of Action which was the made at the time making of for the Dirty Dozen

Tonight at dinner, my daughter asked if there were flagpole extenders for people to fly the flag at double mast when someone passes and everyone celebrates instead of mourning.

I want to know if some of the crew deliberately put the music in as an act of subversion or if it was a total lack of self awareness or both

Canal, Manchester, 1926, photo by E.O. Hoppé, German-born British photographer (1878-1972).

Hey! Delta Green guys! Over here!

Loot that drops after defeating me:

AA Maglite *
Pen
1962 10p
Random note
Worn Wilko's reusable bag
Empty plastic bottle

We hear about fiction that started as an RPG but I wonder how many RPGs start as fiction that's never published or produced?

It's ok but I do find some downside

A tool I use daily had a UI redesign and I missed they'd moved a key status indicator from top left to top right

I find since I started using screen glasses that I can end up focusing in on parts of the screen and not seeing the whole

I was looking at the website homepage - now seen the longer explanation on Facebook

Just seen Dragonmeet announced for 28th November 2026 :-)

And it's Happy Birthday to you!