More hobby. Less noise.
A sideways look at the tabletop hobby, written from the UK. We find and promote the games we like and the people who build the hobby.
Daily news and events coverage across RPGs, wargames, miniatures, board games, card games, LARP and the conventions that hold the whole thing together.
No algorithm deciding what you see, no autoplay.
What we cover
Roleplaying Games
Tabletop roleplaying games, from D&D and Pathfinder to indie and story-driven systems.
Boardgames
Board games of every stripe, from family favourites to heavyweight strategy titles.
Card Games
Standalone and customisable card games, including living card games and deck-builders.
Trading Card Games
Collectible and trading card games such as Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon and Lorcana.
Miniature Gaming
Miniature games, painting and modelling across fantasy, sci-fi and historical ranges.
Wargames
Tabletop wargaming, from skirmish clashes to grand historical and mass-battle systems.
Live Action Games
Live action roleplay (LARP) and immersive, in-person game experiences.
Industry News
News, business and announcements from across the tabletop gaming industry.
Events
Conventions, tournaments, releases and other tabletop gaming events.
Actual Play
Actual play shows, streams and podcasts featuring tabletop games played live.
How we cover it
The rules we're trying not to break.
No algorithm manipulation
Our story begins with us being very unhappy that social networks were stealing our audience to sell it back to us... or worse. You should NOT have to pay for your followers to read your news - the clue is in the name: FOLLOWERS.
New ideas should flourish without some greedy algorithm/Dragon sitting on a pile of gold strangling your efforts and selling your audience to the highest bidder.
Stay off the beaten-track
The majority of the market, in all sectors, revolves around a small number of systems run by large corporations with all the conflicts of interest that brings. We want to provide a fertile environment for new ideas and careers to flourish without having to compromise on vision, or sell your soul to a corporation. We champion the new, the unique and the absurd.
We provide a novel combination of services, and believe we can do this without being extractive or predatory.
For people who play and people who make
We treat our customers the way we would like to be treated. Our customers are both the creators and the players - not shareholders. We actually only have two shareholders, and no-one cares what they think.
We relentlessly focus on customers, which means you, your games and your audience.
The Team
Angus Abranson
(he/him)Angus is a writer, publisher and poet who has spent over 30 years in the tabletop role-playing games' industry with a career encompassing nearly every corner of the hobby.
Our story begins with a 14 year old Angus bagging a weekend job at Leisure Games, one of London's biggest game retailers. Rumour has it he just hung around until they gave him something to do. This began a 24-year career culminating with leading the company as a director, whilst also launching Valkyrie magazine as assistant editor and writing for various RPG magazines.
In 2003 he co-founded 'indie darlings' Cubicle 7 which quickly turned into success as titles including The Doctor Who RPG and The One Ring were brought to market. During his tenure the print output was the most Ennie-nominated in the industry, outstripping every publisher by volume except Paizo. In his quieter moments he also found time to run Londons' Dragonmeet convention, as you do.
He founded Chronicle City in 2012 to publish and support board, card and roleplaying games and now he brings that decades-deep publishing experience, enthusiasm and a penchant for polished electro-metal, to Tabletop Sentinel.
steev
(he/him)steev designs and builds all the bugs and unfinished features in the web, backend and mobile apps.
He's been building web apps since the 1890s, ran Anticulture Records, directed Terrorizer.com, produced the 'Maz Star Radio Show', built a social shopping network, consulted for various magazines (Time, Wired, SI, People, Harrods and others), helped Disney to scale and many other more boring things. Now he consults for video pioneers Axonista, occasionally works with Steve Blame, and has an extremely forgiving taste in so-called 'music'.
Jodie
(she/her)Jodie keeps the ship running and makes sure the team is on track - which, given the team, is a full-time job.
Twenty years as a project manager in the tech, music and print industries. Jodie is famous for launching death metal and hardcore bands in the UK: Gutworm, Malefice, Happy Face, Interlock, ArnoCorps and a host of others.
Whilst not actively ‘on the run’ it’s unknown if the authorities in Trondheim still want to discuss ‘The Incident’ with her. You can find her propping up the bar wherever Greg Puciato is playing.
How we got here
Sheffield & Beers
steev, Colin and Gavin had an idea. They had some beers and more ideas. Something about gaming and enshittification and how much we disliked billionaire backed social media.
Daily Gaming News
Paul Mathews started our daily news and its a habit thats stuck. Ofcom and the govt decided to make independent media and social networking 10 times as hard, Colin and Gavin went back to their day jobs. The future was uncertain.
More than twenty stories a week
15,000 readers a month, new stories every weekday, heavy-weight writers from the industry and we’re still growing. We’ve built world class systems completely independent from rogue nations, hyperscalers and billionaires.
Send us your news
Launches, crowdfunders, convention announcements, studio news, garden parties; we read everything. Even the golf spam.
- Embargo dates honoured, no exceptions
- Review copies logged and declared
- We’ll say no politely if it isn’t for us
Reach real people who are actively engaged
15,000 human tabletop readers a month arriving because they want all of the news. Not just the bit a billionaire thinks will make them angry enough to click.
Sponsored placements are always labelled and never dressed up as editorial.
The week's news, without the noise
One email a week. Unsubscribe whenever you like. We won't take it too personally.
We won't sell your data and we won't spam you.
Credits
- Paul Mathews
- For writing the news for nearly two years
- Colin Richardson
- For the beers and the origin story
- Gavin Moorcroft
- For dreaming up the MVP
- Niki Kunze
- For the tag-line
- Tom McTomFace
- For setting up the email
- Dizzy the Bard
- For helping us ask the right questions
Icons made by Delapouite, Lorc, Cathelineau, Skoll, DarkZaitzev, Lord Berandas and Sbed, from game-icons.net, licensed under CC BY 3.0. Recoloured and set on a coloured disc.