Robert Thompson can be forgiven for being a little stressed out.
By his reckoning, the self-described “Gamemaster-Storyteller-Nerd” has been working 18-hour days for the past year between his construction business and running Titusville Tabletop Games, described on the business’ website as “A friendly, local game store featuring a cozy play space, a curated games library, a private role-playing game room, and a host of special events.”
Fortunately, Thompson’s commute to the cozy, inviting game emporium at the Titusville Marketplace on Route 29 is just around the corner from his home, the former site of the Titusville Fruit and Vegetable Canning Company, which he shares with his spouse, Lisa. “It’s a magical place,” notes Thompson. “The canal is my back yard, and the river is my front yard, and the grandkids absolutely love it. We have a great time there.”
The first anniversary of Titusville Tabletop Games was on Sunday, May 4 — a date that for Thompson, a huge “Star Wars” fan, holds special significance. “’May the 4th be with you,” he explains. “I worked very hard to make that my grand opening date. It took a couple of all-nighters, but now we will never forget when our anniversary is, and we’ll also have double the reason to celebrate and dress like ‘Star Wars’ characters and have lightsaber fights, which we did on that spectacular Sunday. We were jam-packed, wall-to-wall, so many people in costumes, ‘Star Wars’ games on every table, the kids out back with lightsabers fighting all day long. It was joyful, it really was.”
Thompson, 61, describes Titusville Tabletop Games as his first truly retail business, which he has positioned as a club versus a game store, and he is learning as he goes. “I’m surprised at how differently a retail business operates from a construction business,” he admits, “and I have made every mistake, and probably will continue to make mistakes. I came into this with very naïve views about how retail operates, but we’re learning, and we’re getting better.
“So many of my neighbors have come to me over the past few months and said that when they heard what I was doing they thought I’d lost my mind, until they saw our parking lot full of cars and our tables full of people. It’s a huge industry with a fanatical following.”
Industry statistics back up Thompson’s claim. According to the website marketresearchfuture.com the market for board games was estimated to be $12.76 billion in 2023, and is expected to grow from $13.5 billion in 2024 to $25 billion by 2035.
Why a tabletop games club? “I’ve always been fascinated by mini-cultures, by sub-cultures,” Thompson says. “Music is that way, so many genres within genres. Tabletop gaming is that way. These kinds of clubs have been around for hundreds of years, starting with people with little lead Napoleonic figures having war games. The British actor Christopher Lee was a fabulous gamer. When he traveled to make movies he brought his little kit to paint figures in his down time.”
But why did Thompson decide to open his business? “I was hanging out with my friends at a friend’s cabin,” he says, “old men sitting around the fire, and what do we do? We reminisce. In one of those moments I realized that I made almost all of my best friends because I got to know someone sitting around a table that had a game on it. Bits of cardboard and plastic. And it struck me that the game was just social lubricant. A fun game is great, but for me it’s the social interaction. I was never drawn to video games as a kid, I like human interaction. And the lack of it never felt quite real to me.
“A light went on,” he continues. “I came home on fire and told poor Lisa (Robert’s spouse) that this is what I’m going to do with my retirement, build this club. And she said to me ‘Sweetie, that’s an idea, that’s not a business.’ And she was right, it wasn’t, but it started that fire. I did quite a bit of construction work for David Earling, who owns this property and Gravity Hill Farm up the street. The super short version of the story is that part of the arrangement for building this would be that I would get to have this space.”
Thompson makes it clear that his primary vision for the space was the creation of a club, versus a retail store. “Technically, we’re way too small to be a game store,” he elaborates. “We’re 1,100 square feet, the size of the retail section of most places. But I wanted a club, not a store, and we did a lot of math and spent a lot of time with pieces of paper and rulers and figured out how we could make this space work for us. It was at that moment that I knew I had a lot of friends around here, I just hadn’t met them yet. This was the way to make that happen.”
In the beginning, Thompson admits to being less than confident that his idea would indeed turn into a viable business. “I will tell you that the first day I unlocked the door I had this feeling that I can still feel in the pit of my stomach,” he says. “‘Have I made a huge mistake? Will people get it? And I am blown away at how people get it. People walk in the door, and as soon as I explain what we’re about I see the light go on, like ‘Oh! It’s a club!’ Yes! It’s a club, a place to meet people, a place to make friends, and maybe learn a game along the way, but that’s secondary to what we do.
“Our anniversary came and so many people brought me presents, baked things for me, gave me hugs. And some of the magic that I’ve experienced here, like watching our chess classes, and watching a seven-year-old play a 70-year-old, learning the same game. These two humans who never would have met come into their class and say hello to each other and ask each other about what they’ve been practicing. That’s what I wanted to happen when I opened this place.”
Since “club” implies membership of some sort, I asked Thompson to elaborate on the membership options. “There are a couple of things that make us a club and not a store,” he explains. “The first thing is that our focus is on getting together, and the way that we do that is by having a calendar that is just jam-packed every month. And I always like to reassure people that if you just want to come in and play Catan (a highly popular multiplayer board game) I’ve got a table for you.”
What are the membership options? “We have two levels of membership, individual and family,” he says. “If you have an individual membership I have an unofficial policy that you’re always welcome to bring a guest, because you need two people to play a game, but if two kids from the same family come to play a game, their parents usually take a family membership.
“There is always something every single day on the calendar for someone to jump into if they want to try it. Kids play for free here, your first-time is free here. If you don’t bring a friend and want to play a game, we can facilitate that. If someone doesn’t wish to pay the $10 stay-and-play fee, for $21 a month they get access to everything on the calendar, except for the classes, because we have to pay the teachers. Members get a 10 percent discount on everything we sell here and first access to sign up for all the events, half of which typically sell out.
“The other benefit of membership is that members take ownership of the place. Last Sunday, when I needed a few people to help me run demo games, people jumped right in. They see this place as their club, and they want to support their club. So there’s a financial benefit to being a member, but there’s also a need to want to be a part of this and see it succeed.
“Somewhere along the line, my friends and I realized we were weirdos who didn’t really fit in anywhere, as my daughter put it ‘fitting in nowhere we go.’ So I created a place where we can all come in and be weirdos, drop all the societal pretense, and just enjoy being grown people playing with toy spaceships.”
I asked Thompson the difference between tabletop games and board games. “Someone tried to lecture me about the difference, but I don’t worry about those definitions,” he admits. “To me, if you play a game on a tabletop and don’t need a computer or a screen, it’s a tabletop game. It’s funny, people come in and see that I’m a big nerd and immediately start talking about the newest sci-fi show or book and I have no idea what they’re talking about, and they’re always surprised.”
OK, but what about role playing games versus a traditional board game, like Parcheesi? “Role playing games that are not played on a computer are called TTRPG’s, or Table Top Role Playing Games,” he explains. “The most famous one is Dungeons and Dragons, and it is still a great game, but there are so many others. Call of Cthulu and Pathfinder are two we run here, and we run a Star Wars role playing game.
“Then there are a lot of one-shots,” he continues. “We have Monster of the Week coming up. We have a game called Pulp Cthulu. In Call of Cthulu you’re trying to stop the elder god from rising, because if they rise the earth is destroyed. In Pulp Cthulu you’re an action hero, so you’re actually going to fight these elder gods. I just played one that I loved called Brindlewood Bay. You are all old ladies that are part of a tea club, and some horror is arising that you and your group of old ladies have to stop it. It’s just so much fun. Me and my buddy Ken showed up in our shawls and carrying our teacups, ready to play!
“I think that role playing games are the ultimate tabletop game,” Thompson enthused, “because you can do anything and be anything. It’s cooperative storytelling, it’s improv. And the magic that happens when you’re in that level of creation is indescribable.
“As a musician, I’ve experienced that same feeling when trying to put something together. You put a couple of chords together, you’re scratching around, you’re starting to hit hour two and sometimes magic happens, and all of a sudden this sound is coming out and you don’t even know where it’s coming from. That happens here, where you start with a ‘yes, and’ and ‘no, but’ and you’re taking turns around the table. Pretty soon you’re all laughing or cheering or screaming. The roar that comes out of the room makes me so happy.”
Introducing younger people to the world of tabletop games is one of Thompson’s goals. “On Monday and Tuesday nights I run Dungeons and Dragons for middle school kids,” he says. “The rules aren’t any different, just the story telling. On Friday evenings I run a role playing game for little kids aged about age five to nine called Hero Kids. It’s funny that kids may not exactly get the rules or follow the rules precisely, but they’ll out role-play the grownups all day long. Mermaid, unicorn, wizard; they are instantly in character.”
How does Thompson stay current with the latest games? “I don’t always,” he admits. “We advertise that we have a curated selection of games. I will say that trading card games like Magic the Gathering and Pokemon are the kings of tabletop games. Stores make almost all of their profits from these games and the events that occur around them. I made a decision very early on that I would not carry trading card games. They’re very competitive and expensive to keep up to date because they’re always issuing new releases. There are so many great game stores around here that carry these games, and I wanted this to be a social club.”
Most games are manufactured overseas, and the tariff issue seems to change minute by minute. How could it potentially affect Thompson’s business? “Because we’re a club, because we’re member-based, because our primary pillar of cash flow is from members and membership, I will survive this. This is all passion for me, this is all joy for me, and I have another business that I make money at. I feel really worried and sad for my friends with game stores, some in business between 10 and 20 years, not just for their income, but for their staff of employees that rely on them. What will they do? My heart breaks.”
Thompson sees some benefits of playing games that may not be obvious to the non-gamer. “Too much screen time is hurting our brains,” he says. “We’re losing neuroplasticity, and these games help undo that. I don’t care if you’re playing chess, or backgammon, or some of these insanely complicated games that we play here. They force you to think differently, to keep making those neural connections and build brain power.
“Then there’s the joy that comes from this goofy hobby,” he says. “I think the goofiness is what makes it great. I’m delighted to see the diversity of humans laughing, smiling, encouraging each other, challenging each other, interacting with each other face-to-face in a game where body language and a change of tone is part of playing the game. By the end of it you realize that you had fun, you met all these cool people, and for a few hours you’re in a different world.”
Titusville Tabletop Games, 1460 River Road, Titusville. Open Monday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Tuesday, 12:30 to 10 p.m.; Wednesday 3:30 to 10 p.m.; Thursday 12:30 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. 609-770-6040 or titusvilletabletopgames.com.
