Tablero

The drinking game known as Tablero had its genesis at a party attended by members of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in 1985, or anno societatis 19, as time is reckoned in the Knowne World. The SCA is a worldwide medieval recreation group in which people take on the persona of a fictitious person from that period, roughly 600-1600 CE. A great deal of the focus of the SCA revolves around a martial art recreating medieval combat, but there is also a great deal of work done researching and teaching the history, customs. and arts and sciences of the era. All aspects of medieval life are included, including games.

One person who was very keen on the history and playing of board games was Baron Sir Gerhard Kendal of Westmoreland, as he was called in the Knowne World of the SCA. Gerhard introduced a gambling game played with coins to the group; El Tablero de Jesús, said to have been played by 15th century monks. A couple of folks at the aforementioned party, known as Umeyama Taniko and Guido da Gucci, had the notion that the game could be a lot of fun played with shot glasses of beer instead of coins, and Tablero da Gucci was born. From those humble beginnings, the denizens of the SCA crowd-built the rules of the new game, now often referred to simply as Tablero. Sometime later, Baron Steffano da Gucci published a pamphlet offering a codification of the rules and some of the variants, but house rules and further variations not only abound but have always been encouraged and considered part of the fun.

For forty years the game has been known primarily to these zany medievalists. Our aim is to further share the joy that is Tablero with the mundane world (that’s the rest of you lot).

SCA events are home to Tablero tournaments where many games are played, concurrently and in succession, the tourneys lasting long nights or even days on end. The game has spread around the world; service men have taken it onto battleships, Klingons have been sighted playing it at game cons.

The publishers are long time denizens of the Knowne World, where we are known as Yeoman Lord Aldebaran of Arcadia and Lady Branwen of Cotswold, and were fortunate enough to have been well acquainted with Baron Gerhard and his lady, Baroness Amanda, as well as their mundane counterparts, Gerry and Nancy, all of whom we adored.

We wish to honour the creative efforts of the populace of the Knowne World in the refining of this game. We therefore pledge to donate, for every game sold, one gold coin (a Canadian dollar, or “Loonie” as they’re known) to the SCA to support the organization’s efforts in ‘pursuing research and re-creation of pre-seventeenth century skills, arts, combat, and culture.’

Huzzah!