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This is where you'll find my incredibly erudite insights into life, board games and stuff. And nothing says erudite more than triple emphasis and the word 'stuff'.

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Games for Schools: trick kids into learning vital skills through board gaming.

This week's blog responds to questions from teachers and behavioural support workers who provide a safe space in secondary schools at breaks and lunchtimes for vulnerable youngsters. The answer to whether you should have games and which games you should buy is a relevant one in all learning environments. Games are an excellent way of enabling young people to connect: games have a clear and certain set of rules; there is a focus to your interaction which removes the need for having to 'do chatting' and in addition winning and losing are both valuable. Winning and losing are opportunities to teach pupils socially acceptable behaviour, where we are able to demonstrate how to be a gracious winne

Which one of us can be said to be truly to blame? Well, it's not me.

In fact it all depends on who you ask: May blames Corbyn; Corbyn blames the Tories; Trump blames Obama, or members of staff he sacked, or a book, or just a straw he's clutching with his tiny baby hands. He also denies climate change, being racist and being secretly fat. And it's not just people who are in the blame and denial game: rats deny they were to blame for the plague; a horse called Hashtags blames his rider for their defeat in a recent competition and the whole of Australia denies that it's their fault the UK has flu. Denial and blame are endemic and it has been ever thus. In medieval times however, if you cast about blame in a random and unconvincing manner it might cost you your h

Push Your Luck Games - warning: mild peril.

Push your luck games are the marmite of tabletop. Often involving little or no strategy, instead they rely on risk calculation and a large helping of luck. You can calculate that the odds of being shot in the head are low and then... boom... no head! I know. I've been there. Frequently. I guess that's the other marmite element; I lose my head and then just have another game. It is high speed risk taking with the consequences removed. In these games I assume an air of confident optimism (sadly lacking from other areas of my life) usually resulting in my sudden demise and perhaps reinforcing the theory that in real life everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Stun 'Big Risks for High Roll

Matchmaker: Pride and Prejudice meets Five Card Stud.

2-4 players 60 minutes Object of the game Gain the most prestige (scored using tokens) by creating successful matches, playing host and impressing the most influential people. Matchmaker The ladies and gentlemen who keenly await your matchmaking expertise have four traits: charm, virtue, rank and fortune. Each character values one trait above all others in their potential partner. (The symbol on their portrait indicates this). Jane for instance values virtue, while that cad Wickham cares only about his fortune. The game seems simple enough. You propose a match, which another player accepts or declines. You score based on the traits shown on your opponent's card. The next phase involves rolli

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