Tabletop Scotland 2025 – Convention Report

When I attended Gothcon in Gothenburg Sweden in 2024 I wrote that if ‘gaming was a religon, conventions would be our churches’. I still like that sentiment and recently attended my local church in the form of Tabletop Scotland. We’ve been going to this convention since its inception in Perth and haven’t missed a year. For the last 3 years we’ve been a bit more involved, taking over running the pub quiz and helping out wherever we can.

In 2024 the team made the decision to expand the convention and take it down the road to Edinburgh. Now at the Royal Highland Centre out near the Airport, it was quite a leap that the team landed with style. This year saw them building on that success, with more exhibitors, a very generous play space, and lots of events. We arrived on the Friday and had a blast.

Friday

Friday was a half day at the convention with the doors opening at 12. I arrived at 7:30am to help out where I could and spent a few hours helping to wrangle exhibitor cars into places they could unload. Come 11 my work was done and I headed into the halls, dropped some games at the Bring & Buy, then started to get the lay of the land. As the exhibitors were getting setup I didn’t want to disturb anyone, but I got a chance to say hi to a few friends.

I hadn’t quite decided at this point how to approach the convention this year. We were less heavily involved in the event itself with only the pub quiz as a commitment. Last year I had the pleasure of helping out with some of the seminars as well but that wasn’t needed this year. I eventually settled into a more relaxed attitude to my press privileges ths year, speaking to a few publishers, getting the occasional demo, and spending more time with friends just playing cool games.

My first stop was Peregrine Coast Press to pick up a game I had bought before the convention had even started. They had been good enough to bring a copy of The Zone with them for me. This is a ‘Play to lose RPG’ about heading into places of liminal horror and weird occurences, where most of your team are fated not to return. Most importantly it is GMless and prepless, a space I am looking explore from a critical perspective. Peregrine Coast Press are really worth checking out for your weird indie RPGs with lots of cool games on offer alongside their excellent customer service. I would return to them, but that can wait a little.

Jamie and I had played Deep Regrets from Tettix Games at last year’s convention. While it didn’t totally grab me, I recongised that it was a really solid production and a lot of people were enjoying the game. I took a dive into the designer Judson Cowan’s next game called Personal Demons alongside Jamie and Iain Chantler, former co-host on Brainwaves.

Personal Demons is themed around confronting your personal demons through the medium of card placement on a large octagon. Effectively you were looking to place demon cards, representing sins, in such a way as to make seals that would score you points. You had to draft these, so there is an element of player interference but not a huge amount. The central puzzle of how to place these cards was really compelling and then there was a few systems on top of that allowing you play even larger cards worth more points, grab special cards from various piles, and generally tackle the game from multiple angles. As you play the cards get progressively harder to play, requiring you to have certain seals in play to score most efficiently. We all really enjoyed it and felt it was pretty polished as it stands. Judson told us it would be crowdfunding sometime in 2026. I’ll be keeping an eye out for it myself!

I wandered the halls a bit speaking to some of the RPG publishers I wanted to see and grabbing a physical copy of Rising Star that I had been recently sent a PDF for a look at. That was from the Indie Connection stand a group of local RPG designers that is well worth checking out.

We eventually found ourselves over at Hachette and got a full game in of Kingdom Crossing. This is an adorable worker placement style game, where you are moving a piece around an animal kingdom in order to build a scoring engine. The way you move is based on the seven bridges problem, and there were loads of ways to score those game winning points. I think we all enjoyed it but weren’t absolutley enamoured with it. I have trouble telling who this kind of game is for. It is very well priced, I think retail will be around £35, but there are so many of this kind of intricate puzzle game out there I am not sure it will get any attention. It’s adorable and evokes Everdell/ Animal Crossing vibes, but the puzzle doesn’t feel unique enough to truly stand out.

After a bit more wandering, and a return to Peregrine Coast Press to pick up Deadline and Dialect, and chatting we retired to the bountiful free play area and broke out some games.

The first game we tried out was a new Oink title called Whale to Look. Stupid name, great game. Basically you are all playing whale watching tour boat owners and trying to make sure your tourists have the best experience. This is represented by a sort of bluffing, detective game where you are trying to position your boats where the most fish or least fish will be to see orcas and whales. I don’t know why it is like that, but it is. Your boats are surrounded by 4 numbers which are on cards facedown. You can see some of these over the course of the game but not all, so you have to deduce where the best/worst numbers might be. We played this a couple of times over the course of the con and I was really impressed out how much game there was in this simple idea.

I was delighted to get in a physical game of Innovation. This is a game we are thinking about covering on Cult of the Old and I picked up the 4th edition just before the con. I’d played it a couple of times on BGA with my co-host Nate Owens but it was good to feel the flow of the game in the real. It is one of those games that you are going to love or hate due to its powerful card effects and chaotic turns of fate. I don’t know where I lie yet, but I do find it fascinating.

We got a chance to show Iain Chantler The Gang, a game I have played more than any other this year. It is really interesting playing it with a new group as the social dynamics at play are totally different. We were joined by a random person at the con, sorry I forget the name, and they brought their own perceptions of the game after mutliple plays with their own group. I am sure there is a psychological paper or two in the dynamics of this game amongst different groups.

We rounded off the day with a game of Joyride where we played 4 player on a two player map. It was absolute carnage and a blast as always, even if I was starting to flag a bit. My job means my bedtime is usually 10 at the very latest and we were pushing to 10:30 plus the drive back home round the bypass. Once home we had a nightcap and headed to bed.

Saturday

Saturday was going to be the big day for the team as the pub quiz loomed at the end of the day. As usual I was overly prepped but still nervous about how everything would go. Jamie and I got ourselves going with a good fryup in the morning then headed to the convention with pub quiz and prizes in hand. Iain Chantler would meet us there and he and my wife Cath would be our scoring team. My friend Iain Galloway was going to be setting up our audio once we got access to the bar around 7:30pm and his wife Megan would be along as well who is my main climbing buddy. Till then, the day was ours.

With Saturday being the main trade day for the exhibitors I didn’t want to bug people too much and cause them to miss out on precious sales. I did make the rounds of some of the indie RPG stalls and see what folk like Beyond Cataclysm and Compose Dream Games had on their stalls. With a few games in my ‘want to play’ list at the moment I didn’t pickup anything more, but the sheer breadth and variety of games on display was brilliant. I did pick up a magazine with lots of articles and games from the trans community called Visibility, which I just hadn’t heard of before. Also had a chat with the folk behind Aegean and Action Potential, the latter of which is very much on my radar as a Blades hack that has an eye on transhumanism and stories in the style of Altered Carbon.

I didn’t feel like doing audio interviews this year, so there will be no cast. I don’t know why exactly but I just wasn’t feeling the motivation to do that again. I may do at future conventions, but I think I enjoyed talking to folk without them, or me, having the pressure to ‘perform’. I may switch to this style and more note taking for furture events. We shall see.

As the halls filled the team retreated to the free play area. I had picked up a copy of Leaders, a game launched at Tabletop Sctoland by Hachette Boardgames UK. The production of this game blew us away. The tray to hold all the components, the spot gloss on the box and cards, and the nice chunky standees. It’s essentially an abstract with a sort of Moba theme. Starting with a single leader, your aim is to capture your opponents. You draft heroes to fight alongside that leader, each of which comes with an ability of some description. As you build your team, you gain more options and combos until you have a complete team of 5. Then it is just down to manuevering and manipulating your team to get into the winning position. It is a really solid game and I played it a lot over the con. I suspect I was responsible for a few more sales and I’ll get a review out soon.

I had the chance to teach Iain Chantler Compile and Imperium both of which are becoming firm favourites. Despite owning all of Imperium I am still on the classics box. Looking forward to trying out more of the weird civs within the other two. Compile is just a really solid lane battler that I feel I have only scratched the surface of. I finished the game portion playing of the day with Dougal from Ancient Robot Games showing me Duel for Cardia. This was a really fun two player game that saw you playing cards down to win battles. The highest card wins and gets you towards victory, but the lowest card gets to do its action. This was a really fascinating desicion every turn, with lots of cool combos and powers.

As the evening approached I engaged in the traditional pacing and worrying that accompanies me doing this kind of event. I liken it to that feeling just before the lights go up on stage, that deep breath as you dive into something you have prepared for but the outcome is unknowable. In the end the quiz went very smooth and we had a blast. We are allocated two hours, but we always aim to be done in an hour and a half and we got that done, including a little break for everyone. There were a couple of technical glitches with integrated score sheets. and my get a clue round mostly worked but needs some tweaking to be smoother still. Thanks to everyone who came, wonderful team that helped Jamie and I run it and to the generous folk that gave prize support. Congratulations to our winners who will no doubt be back next year to defend their crown!

Sunday

Sunday morning I was definitely feeling pretty fried, but I still managed to get some gaming in and get some surprises along the way. We ran into Flavien Losier, head of Hachette Boardgames UK, early on and he affected an introduction with Bruno Faidutti, famed designer of Citadels amongst numerous others including Whale to Look, and Hugo Frenoy, the designer of Leaders. I also learnt that Leaders was Hugo’s first design, which is incredibly impressive for such a polished game, one to watch!

I soent a little bit of time with Bruno who had many of his prototypes along with him. I ended up playing Point Salad with him and talking to him about his work a little. The game was a really fun two player puzzle about manipulating the value of various fruits in a market, while taking cards that would get you the highest value fruit. He still seemed to be enjoying the craft of making boardgames and was telling me about several titles that had just gotten picked up by various publishers across the globe. Although he has been known for a controversial statement from time to time, I found him very engaging and personable.

Most of the day however, well up till about 2 or so when we left, was spent playing games. Jamie and I got a best of 3 Leaders game in, and I then showed it to Richard Simpson from We’re Not Wizards. In return Richard took me through Flesh and Blood, a duelling themed CCG that he had become enamoured with. I could honestly see why and enjoyed the attack and counterattack of the game. That you can pick up preconstruted decks and just play some short sharp rounds really appealed to me. Might end up getting a few bits and pieces. We finished off the games with a round of Trailblazers and some more Whale to Look.

Homeward bound

After taking Jamie back to Glasgow I got home knackered but happy. It had been a pretty busy August for me with the brewery being busy for the festival and not really getting my usual gaming downtime in for one reason or another. It was nice to be back in the fold, to experience that joy that simply comes from moving weird pieces around strange boards. To engage in banter, conflict, and chats with people who are as at least as enthusiastic about games as I am, and sometimes moreso. Conventions are a way of telling us that although we may like different games, at our hearts tabletop games bring folk together more than they push us apart. In a world that is increasingly divided, ruled by people who would rather see us hate than love, it is worth being reminded of the ties that bind.