Tabletop game is a general term used to refer to board game

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

s, card game

Card game

A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...

s, dice game

Dice game

Dice games are games that use or incorporate a die as their sole or central component, usually as a random device.-Collectible dice games:Patterned after the success of collectible card games, a number of collectible dice games have been published...

s, miniatures wargames, tile-based game

Tile-based game

A tile-based game is a game that uses tiles as one of the fundamental elements of play. Traditional tile-based games use small tiles as playing pieces for gambling or entertainment games...

s and other game

Game

A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...

s that are normally played on a table or other flat surface. The term is used to distinguish these types of games from sport

Sport

A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...

s and video games, which today enjoy more popularity than most tabletop games.

The term is also used to distinguish role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

s from role-playing video game

Role-playing video game

Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

s, although role-playing games may not necessarily require a wide playing surface.

Types

Tabletop games can be classified according to the general form, or equipment utilized:

• Board game
  Board game
  A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...
  
  s
• Card game
  Card game
  A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
  
  s
• Dice game
  Dice game
  Dice games are games that use or incorporate a die as their sole or central component, usually as a random device.-Collectible dice games:Patterned after the success of collectible card games, a number of collectible dice games have been published...
  
  s
• Miniature games
• Paper and pencil game
  Paper and pencil game
  Paper-and-pencil games are games that can be played solely with paper and pencil .In some board games, including some abstract strategy games like Gomoku, a piece once played will not be moved on the board or removed from the board...
  
  s
• Tile-based game
  Tile-based game
  A tile-based game is a game that uses tiles as one of the fundamental elements of play. Traditional tile-based games use small tiles as playing pieces for gambling or entertainment games...
  
  s (e.g. Mahjong
  Mahjong
  Mahjong, sometimes spelled Mah Jongg, is a game that originated in China, commonly played by four players...
  
  , Dominoes
  Dominoes
  Dominoes generally refers to the collective gaming pieces making up a domino set or to the subcategory of tile games played with domino pieces. In the area of mathematical tilings and polyominoes, the word domino often refers to any rectangle formed from joining two congruent squares edge to edge...
  
  )
• Role-playing game
  Role-playing game
  A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
  
  s

Games like chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 and draughts

Draughts

Draughts is a group of abstract strategy board games between two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemy's pieces. Draughts developed from alquerque...

 are examples of games belonging to the board game category. Other games, however, use various attributes and cannot be classified unambiguously (e.g. Monopoly

Monopoly (game)

Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker...

utilises a board as well as dice and cards).

For several of these categories there are sub-categories and even sub-sub-categories or genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

s. For instance, German-style board games, board wargame

Board wargame

A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer, or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The hobby around this type of game got its start in 1954 with the publication of Tactics, and saw its greatest popularity in the...

s, and Roll-and-move games are all types of board games that differ markedly in style and general interest.

Classification according to elements of chance

Alternatively, a more systematic classification results when distinguishing tabletop games according to the elements of chance involved. Two fundamentally different elements of chance can play a role in a game: chance due to outcome uncertainty (e.g. due to dice rolls or due to unknown cards being dealt during the game), and chance due to state uncertainty (e.g. due to the opponent's position or cards not being visible, or due to the simultaneous move character of the game). Games in which outcome uncertainty plays a role are referred to as stochastic games (as opposed to deterministic games), and games in which state uncertainty plays a role are referred to as partial (or imperfect) information games (as opposed to full information games). Examples of the chance classification for some well-known tabletop games are given in the table below.

	Full/Perfect information Perfect information In game theory, perfect information describes the situation when a player has available the same information to determine all of the possible games as would be available at the end of the game....	Partial/Imperfect information
Deterministic	Chess Chess Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player... , Shogi Shogi , also known as Japanese chess, is a two-player board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, and Chinese Xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of chess variants native to Japan... , Xiangqi Xiangqi Xiangqi is a two-player Chinese board game in the same family as Western chess, chaturanga, shogi, Indian chess and janggi. The present-day form of Xiangqi originated in China and is therefore commonly called Chinese chess in English. Xiangqi is one of the most popular board games in China... , Draughts Draughts Draughts is a group of abstract strategy board games between two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over the enemy's pieces. Draughts developed from alquerque... , Go Go (board game) Go , is an ancient board game for two players that originated in China more than 2,000 years ago... , Gomoku Gomoku Gomoku is an abstract strategy board game. Also called Gobang or Five in a Row, it is traditionally played with go pieces on a go board ; however, because once placed, pieces are not moved or removed from the board, gomoku may also be played as a paper and pencil game... , Hex Hex (board game) Hex is a board game played on a hexagonal grid, theoretically of any size and several possible shapes, but traditionally as an 11x11 rhombus. Other popular dimensions are 13x13 and 19x19 as a result of the game's relationship to the older game of Go... , Mancala Mancala Mancala is a family of board games played around the world, sometimes called "sowing" games, or "count-and-capture" games, which describes the game-play. Mancala games play a role in many African and some Asian societies comparable to that of chess in the West, or the game of Go in Eastern Asia... , Reversi Reversi Reversi is a board game involving abstract strategy and played by two players on a board with 8 rows and 8 columns and a set of distinct pieces for each side. Pieces typically are disks with a light and a dark face, each face belonging to one player... , Dots and Boxes Dots and Boxes Dots and Boxes is a pencil and paper game for two players first published in 1889 by Édouard Lucas.Starting with an empty grid of dots, players take turns, adding a single... , Phutball Phutball Phutball is a two-player board game described in Elwyn Berlekamp, John Horton Conway, and Richard Guy's Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays.- Rules :... , Abalone Abalone (board game) Abalone is an award winning two-player strategy board game designed by Michel Lalet and Laurent Levi in which each player is represented by marbles of opposing colors... , Lines of Action Lines of Action Lines of Action is a two-player abstract strategy board game invented by Claude Soucie. The objective of the game is to connect all of your pieces... , Domineering Domineering Domineering is a mathematical game played on a sheet of graph paper, with any set of designs traced out. For example, it can be played on a 6×6 square, a checkerboard, an entirely irregular polygon, or any combination thereof. Two players have a collection of dominoes which they place on the grid... , Nine Men's Morris Nine Men's Morris Nine Men's Morris is an abstract strategy board game for two players that emerged from the Roman Empire. The game is also known as Nine Man Morris, Mill, Mills, Merels, Merelles, and Merrills in English....	Duplicate Bridge Contract bridge Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table... , Battleship Battleship (game) The game Battleship is a guessing game played by two people. It is known throughout the world as a pencil and paper game which predates World War I. It was published by Milton Bradley Company in 1931 as the pad-and-pencil game "Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy".-Description:The game is... , Stratego Stratego Stratego is a board game featuring a 10×10 square board and two players with 40 pieces each. Pieces represent individual officers and soldiers in an army. The objective of the game is to either find and capture the opponent's Flag or to capture so many of the opponent's pieces that he/she cannot... , Mastermind Mastermind (board game) Mastermind or Master Mind is a code-breaking game for two players. The modern game with pegs was invented in 1970 by Mordecai Meirowitz, an Israeli postmaster and telecommunications expert, but the game resembles an earlier pencil and paper game called bulls and cows that may date back a century or...
Stochastic Stochastic game In game theory, a stochastic game, introduced by Lloyd Shapley in the early 1950s, is a dynamic game with probabilistic transitions played by one or more players. The game is played in a sequence of stages. At the beginning of each stage the game is in some state...	Backgammon Backgammon Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits... , Monopoly Monopoly (game) Marvin Gardens, the leading yellow property on the board shown, is actually a misspelling of the original location name, Marven Gardens. The misspelling was said to be introduced by Charles Todd and passed on when his home-made Monopoly board was copied by Charles Darrow and thence to Parker... , Craps Craps Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank... , Roulette Roulette Roulette is a casino game named after a French diminutive for little wheel. In the game, players may choose to place bets on either a single number or a range of numbers, the colors red or black, or whether the number is odd or even.... , Yahtzee Yahtzee Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley , which was first marketed by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games, such as Yacht and Generala. The object of the game is to score the most points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations... , Pig Pig (dice) Pig is a simple folk jeopardy dice game first described in print by John Scarne in 1945. As with many games of folk origin, Pig is played with many rule variations. Commercial variants of Pig include Pass the Pigs, Pig Dice, and Skunk... , Scribbage Scribbage Scribbage is a classic dice word game published in 1959 by the E. S. Lowe Company. 13 dice are rolled which have various letters on each side. Each letter is given a point value depending on its frequency in the English language. A timer is flipped and the player has to put the dice into words... , Parcheesi Parcheesi Parcheesi is a brand name American adaptation of the Indian Cross and Circle game Pachisi. Created in India perhaps as early as 500 AD, the board game is subtitled Royal Game of India because royalty played using color-costumed members of their harems as pieces on large outdoor boards. Such a court...	Poker Poker Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker... , Blackjack Blackjack Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world... , Gin rummy Gin rummy Gin rummy, or simply gin, is a two-player card game created in 1909 by Elwood T. Baker and his son C. Graham Baker. According to John Scarne, Gin evolved from 18th-century Whiskey Poker and was created with the intention of being faster than standard rummy, but less spontaneous than knock... , Scrabble Scrabble Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list... , Canasta Canasta Canasta is a card game of the rummy family of games believed to be a variant of 500 Rum. Although many variations exist for 2, 3, 5 or 6 players, it is most commonly played by four in two partnerships with two standard decks of cards. Players attempt to make melds of 7 cards of the same rank and... , Risk Risk (game) Risk is a strategic board game, produced by Parker Brothers . It was invented by French film director Albert Lamorisse and originally released in 1957 as La Conquête du Monde in France. Risk is a turn-based game for two to six players... , Mahjong Mahjong Mahjong, sometimes spelled Mah Jongg, is a game that originated in China, commonly played by four players...

Organizations

Numerous groups exist to play tabletop games, with most being local independent groups run by gamers. Exceptions include company-sponsored groups, such as Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...

 own RPGA

RPGA

The RPGA , is part of the organized play arm of Wizards of the Coast that organizes and sanctions role-playing games worldwide, principally under the d20 system...

 or White Wolf

White Wolf

White Wolf is a publisher of role-playing games, notably the World of Darkness.White Wolf may also refer to:*White Wolf , a location in Yosemite National Park*White Wolf , a Canadian heavy metal band...

's Camarilla

Camarilla (fan club)

The Camarilla is the official worldwide fan organization of White Wolf Publishing. White Wolf is an Atlanta based company that specializes in fantasy and modern horror and is best-known for its role-playing games set in the World of Darkness...

, as well as the international gamer-ran O.G.R.E.s - The Organization of Gamers & Roleplaying Enthusiasts.

Additionally, Many colleges have student run organizations pertaining solely to table top gaming. The Collegiate Association of Table Top Gamers

Collegiate Association of Table Top Gamers

The Collegiate Association of Table Top Gamers , is an international college-student run organization for table top gaming clubs at universities whose interests span paper and pencil RPG's, collectible card games, and board games of all shapes and sizes...

is one such organization that has a few chapters at different schools.