Curious coincidences catch the eye, and one unusual historical pattern got my attention while editing labels for the 2025 inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame. I learned that Scott Abbott was the co-creator of Trivial Pursuit, and it struck me as interesting because it seems that people named Abbott have been surprisingly important as creators of card and board games.
Anne Abbott
I first began thinking about Abbotts and game making many years ago when I learned that Anne Abbott […]
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Tabletop Role-playing Games as Identity Creation Tools
By: Johnathen Rockwell, 2026 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow
For more than 50 years, players young and old have experienced tabletop role-playing games: rolling dice, eating snacks, and creating stories. Despite their longevity and contemporary boom in popularity, tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) possess little associated scholarship, especially scholarship that addresses their unique culture and material legacies. By examining the interplay and correspondence between players and designers, and the game systems themselves, my work asks the question: Do tabletop role-playing games serve as a […]
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It’s a Hit! Battleship Cruises into the National Toy Hall of Fame
We used to play a lot of Battleship when I’d babysit my little cousin after school. In the game, two players hide ships of various sizes on a grid then take turns announcing coordinates to attack. Since the players begin with no knowledge of their opponent’s formation, most early shots are launched into the open sea. But players mark each missed shot with a white peg, slowly deducing the positions of their targets. It’s only a matter of time until […]
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Nothing Trivial about It
Many of us feel that we have a particular superpower in our everyday lives. For some, it might be detecting the gas station with best price without using an app. For others, it’s finding the prime clothing item on a markdown rack that’s just your size. Back in the 1980s, my special skill was my ability to retain and retrieve all sorts of factual flotsam and jetsam—perfect for excelling at Trivial Pursuit. For a time, Trivial Pursuit became a standard […]
Recreating 100-Year-Old Games for International Day of Play
Have you ever played The Game of Travel? I’m willing to bet you haven’t. It was published in 1894 by Parker Brothers, perhaps most famous for manufacturing Monopoly. How about Hendrik Van Loon’s Wide World Game? That Parkers Brothers game is from 1933. For 2025’s International Day of Play, I teamed up with members of our collections and public programs teams to offer guests the opportunity to play these rare games. Let’s talk about why I chose these games and […]
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Losing at Checkers: A Learning Experience
How to Win at Checkers, How to Beat Grandad at Checkers, Play Winning Checkers. These are the titles of just a few of the books from Alfred C. Darrow’s checkers library, which recently found a new home at The Strong Museum. The literature covers every aspect of playing a winning game, even How to Lose at Checkers, as it turned out. In my survey of Mr. Darrow’s vast collection, I discovered that I knew nothing about how to win—or lose—at […]
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Chores Are More Fun When They’re Fake
As I begin a new decade of my life, I’ve become more aware of the toys that model real-world “adulting.” Pretend play is a childhood staple, and often it involves kids performing what they see adults do. I’ve also realized, with a bit of my now developed adult cynicism, that it was a lot more fun to pretend to be an adult. The real thing doesn’t always measure up.
Take chores for example. Sweeping up with a fake broom or running […]
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Hop to It: The Rise of the Rabbits
As spring makes its way to Rochester, days are longer, new birdcalls fill the air, and I’m newly aware of—rabbits. Yes, there’s the Easter Bunny each springtime, but my rabbit radar ranges much more broadly. Since I’m a gardener, rabbits aren’t always my friends. Cute as they may be, rabbits seem somewhat less charming as they mow down seedlings or nip off the fresh and delicious growth on perennials in my flowerbeds. On the other hand, as a curator, the […]
Teaching Dungeons & Dragons: Continuing the Years of Storytelling
It is always an exciting thing to have your personal hobbies suddenly become relevant to your work. But imagine my shock when I got asked by multiple teams here at The Strong Museum to run Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) games so that my colleagues could get familiar with the game in preparation for working on our Dungeons & Dragons: 50 Years of Storytelling exhibit!
While I have run multiple tabletop role-play games (TTRPG) for friends, I had only recently started dipping […]
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