It's a NEW ACADEMIC YEAR and despite all the hardships that have been thrown at everyone in this awful 2020, Tabletop is back in action bringing you a place to chill out, hang out, and get your games out. Not that we weren't playing anything over the holiday, but our schedule, while still entirely digital, is now (almost) back to normal.
Oh yeah, hello and welcome to our newsletter! For those of you who aren't regular readers, I'm Ares, your Communications and Operations (and Graphic Design) exec, and I write and distribute this newsletter every week in term-time on a Monday morning (hopefully). It is filled to the brim with important announcements, upcoming events, reminiscing about cool things that happened recently, and frogs (yes, frogs). Our newsletter is an opt-in service, and we recommend you opt-in if you want to keep up to date with what's going on in the society! "But Ares", you say, "how do we opt-in?" I'm glad you asked! First, you head on over to your notification settings on our website. The first drop-down menu is called "newsletters." To receive this newsletter by email, you should select either the "full email" (to get the whole newsletter via email), or "summary email" (so that you're reminded to pop on over to the website to read it) option. You could also select "online only" to be notified on our website instead of by email. Or, of course, you can select "none" and use your powerful remembering skills to check in every Monday. GG easy! Now, onto the news!
What's happening this week?
This week is Welcome Week, so, despite us not being in term-time just yet, we're offering as full a calendar of events as we can given the digital format. All games are organised via our Tabletop Discord server, so please join that via this invite (xdDZnYQ
) to take part!
Welcome Week is particularly geared towards introducing new players to games and to the society. If you're a regular, please put on your nice hat and welcome our newcomers, and if you're new, please don't be afraid to dive in! If you have any questions, we have many exec who are around to offer a helping hand, so please don't hesitate to @ us on Discord.
- Monday 5-10pm: Online Wargames
- Tuesday 6-10pm: Online Draft - Core Set 2021 (M21) - free! (as it's online) - you must sign up here to take part
- Wednesday 10am-5pm: Societies Fair! We'll be chatting to anyone interested in the Society over on Meet and Engage.
- Wednesday 5-10pm: Online Board Games
- Thursday 5-10pm: Online CCGs
- Saturday 12-6pm (approx): Introductory RPG One-Shots!
Introductory RPG One-Shots is our big start-of-term-1 event which offers a huge host of different RPG one-shots for you to play in. This beginner-friendly event is a one-day obligation only, which allows you to dip your toes into the world of RPGs without having to make any huge commitment. It's also a fantastic way to make new friends and find new playgroups! If you want to take part, first you need to sign up to this main event. Then, you can browse the long list of games available on our Events page, which are all helpfully marked with [Intro to RPGs]. More will become available leading up to Saturday, so make sure to check back occasionally.
What's happening during the rest of Term 1?
Unfortunately, the current state-of-affairs is that we likely won't be able to run any in-person events during this term. Obviously, this is a huge disappointment both for you and for us. We all really hoped that we could see each other face-to-face after such a long time, and we wish we could welcome our newcomers in-person. However, running all of our games online is the safest option, and allows everyone to join in, even if self-isolating, vulnerable, or not near campus.
We'll be offering a calendar of events that is close to what we would usually offer, but slightly different, so please make sure to check out the calendar below, which is also available as per usual on our Schedule page (board games is now 5-10pm as 8 hours of screen time is a little too much to foist upon our poor board games rep, and LARP is still a WIP as to what we can offer but I promise to keep you updated on that).
- Monday 5-10pm: Online Wargames
- Tuesday 6-10pm: Online Draft (a separate schedule for this is also available on our schedule page, and sign ups will go out each week on our events page)
- Wednesday 5-10pm: Online Board Games
- Thursday 5-10pm: Online CCGs
(Holiday flashbacks)
We've had a reduced calendar of events over the holiday which has, with the pre-welcome weeks this past fortnight, now ramped back up. We've had a small crew of board gamers and wargamers, and I'm exceptionally pleased that we've cultivated an amazing little group of commander players - it's given me something to look forward to every Thursday evening!
But in bigger news, we also had our second ever (and first ever digital!) Megagame! It was a tremendous effort by a small team of Control, who created the game entirely from scratch, including the story, art, and an entirely new bot/submarine AI courtesy of Finnbar. It featured the return of Hammerhead Shark #3, the immortal urchin, the death of an innocent dolphin, and absolute chaos as everyone refused to kill the Big Bad at the end.
If you missed this one, never fear, because while the Megagame may be a yearly event, we're going to be running a new and improved version of this one sometime in the near future. A new story, a new sea, and an upgraded submarine AI for a second adventure in The Depths. Thank you to everyone who took their submarines out for a spin (or who created works of art for the newspapers) the first time round, we hope you had fun. And we hope to see you next time!
One final thing! Our privacy policy
We're obligated to let you know when things change in our website's privacy policy. Also known as "you won't BELIEVE what we've put in this privacy policy," ""here's one thing we learned about EU privacy laws (#1 will surprise you)," and ""top ten most common spelling mistakes (provided as a spot the difference between the old and new policies)" (thanks Finnbar). That being said, not much will change: data handlers for the website hosting have been moved to PythonAnywhere EU, so the data is now stored inside the EU rather than the US. Some spelling mistakes were also squished. So go read the privacy policy if you're privacy-oriented (there's a banner at the top that will direct you to the new version). Otherwise, carry on as usual.
Wash your hands, stay inside, and come play some games with us <3
Ares Osborn (Communications and Operations, Rest In Peace Hammerhead Shark #3)
@dovahbutt#7544 on Discord
e.osborn@warwick.ac.uk
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