tabletop Glossary
Welcome adventurers, to the tabletop – where deck building has nothing to do with the patio, and worker placement isn’t part of a recruitment agency. If the terminology used to describe the games we know and love can feel like trying to learn a new language, let our glossary demystify the terminology, and have you speaking tabletop in no time at all
Words by Emma Garrett
Deckbuilding
A game mechanic where you select cards to create a bespoke deck that you then draw from when playing.
It’s a minefield, defining ‘deckbuilding’. It’s not an alleyway of the gaming universe I have spent much time exploring (yet) so my first steps of research were befuddling. It felt like a barrage of acronyms, secret passwords you had to decode before you were allowed any further. Internet explanations referred to MTG, TCG, CCG, TL;DR (though you’ll know these yourself by the end of the article!). This is more than just a mechanic, this is a world within a world.