In this tradition-setting bonus episode, Freya debriefs about the mechanics and tabletop experiences of seven games she played, two she ran, and one she designed (!) at Contingency 2026, the UK’s premier seasonally skewed seaside TTRPG convention.

As always, a massive thank you to all the GMs and players who make this con a highlight of my year ~

Timestamps

Immediate digression about competitive tabletop games - 0:07:04

The Code of Steam and Steel - 0:13:35

Tournament Arc - 0:22:42

Guest appearance from my cat - 0:29:53

Nibiru - 0:33:42

Inhuman Game Jam - 0:38:51

Phoenix: Dawn Command - 0:49:28

Goblonia - 0:57:26

Digression about games for actual toddlers - 1:05:20

Demigods - 1:08:55

Slugblaster* - 1:12:49

Rivers of London - 1:14:42

Break!! - 1:27:14

Con Haul - 1:35:10

Digression about settings where you’re just a lil guy - 1:38:32

Wrap up & what we’d like to play again - 1:42:48

Games discussed

Wildsea

Cosmere RPG

Shadowdark

Black Code

Black Rune

The Code of the Space Lanes (briefly)

The Comics Code

Belonging Outside Belonging

JourneyMon

Interstitial

The We-ness

Warhammer (briefly)

Wanderhome

Vampire: The Masquerade

Spire

The Sprawl

The PBTA genre in genre-al

Call of Cthulhu

D&D

Pathfinder

Delta Green

The One Ring

Die

Avatar Legends**

Cypher System (2019 edition)

Magnus Archives RPG (briefly)

Genesys

Mouse Guard

Mausritter

Mythic Bastionland

Other media discussed

Warhammer

Magic: the Gathering

Battletech

(Is Tarot “media”? Hmm.)

Megaman: Battle Network

Yu-Gi-Oh

Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged

The works of Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Mind

The concept of the mechsploitation genre

Leverage

That children’s memory game where you flip and match pairs of cards

Baby youtuber thumbnails

Various other infant toys, sorry, we got stuck on A Thing

Rivers of London (the novels themselves)

Inscription

Iron Lung (briefly)

Waters of Leith***

Battlecon: War of Indines

Millennium Blades (briefly)

Hollow Knight

Roadside Picnic****

STALKER

Notes & Links

* You may have noticed this section is short. There’s not much to say about Slugblaster! It’s good. More verbose and video-oriented reviewers have talked much about it already.

** Mild spoiler warning in the final few minutes for some of the season premises (and a canon ship, ha) of Legend of Korra.

*** I have now *finished* listening to Waters of Leith. It’s a fun and competent production… but despite the GM’s stated intentions, it doesn’t really engage with the anticolonialist antagonist in an interesting or nuanced way. Which is not great, considering it’s set in (a version of) the real world and names real locations, peoples, and cultural artifacts.

**** Spoiler warning for a seminal 1970s sci fi story.

Wolfram Alpha reports that the probability of at least one 4 on 4d4 is a bit over 2/3rds. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=probability+of+at+least+one+4+on+4d4

“Nibiru” is an Akkadian term for “point of transition”. Nice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibiru_(Babylonian_astronomy)

Games For Crabs is running July 18th - 19th, 2026, in Sheffield (UK). https://gamesforcrabs.co.uk/

Toast Tea in Edinburgh is indeed a good café, and they are not - unfortunately - paying us.

Violet will be at Conpulsion in April - https://conpulsion.org/