Today is the end of our first week of production on Tabletop’s third season. I’ll probably sleep for a thousand hours tonight, have my version of the weekend, and start the second half of production on Thursday. I’m so very, very tired, and it’s entirely worth it.
I thought I’d round up all the games we’ve played so far, as well as the guests who’ve joined me for them. Please note that this is just the order in which we shot the episodes, and will likely not be the order in which they are released.
- Tokaido – Jason Wishnov, J. August Richards, Chris Kluwe
- Concept – Joseph Scrimshaw, Rett and Link
- Roll For It and Sushi Go! – Jason Ritter, Jennifer Hale, John Ross Bowie
- Forbidden Desert – Felicia Day, Alan Tudyk, Jon Heder
- Love Letter and Coup – The Fine Brothers and Felicia Day
- Hare & Tortoise and Council of Verona – Jessica Merizan, David Kwong, Alison Haislip
- Sheriff of Nottingham – Meredith Salenger, Ashley Clements, Derek Mio
- Stone Age – Nika Harper, Jesse Cox, Jordan Maron
Today, we’re shooting a two-part episode, and I’ll post photos of the game and the guests from the set in a few hours.
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Hang in there Wil. Have a relaxing weekend.: )
Is there a timeline for when episodes will start airing?
Yes, but I don’t believe that we’ve announced it, yet.
Oh WoW!!
REALLY looking forward to the Forbidden Desert and Concept Eps.
:-))
I’ve only heard of Forbidden Desert, so looking forward to learning some new time sucks! :)~
It is a ton of fun, but can be ever so brutal.
You’ve been working really hard, enjoy your rest and know you’re making thousands of people happy by playing games 🙂
Hare & Tortoise? Like, first Spiel des Jahres winner Hare & Tortoise or IELLO’s Hare & Tortoise?
Has to be the IELLO version as the other is not in print, and Wil said all the games must be in print.
So excited to see that you are working on new episodes of Tabletop. Such a fun show. I have found a few games that I now play with my daughters thanks to Tabletop. Keep up the good work.
There are some very odd choices in here, if I must say. Forbidden Desert when you’ve already played Forbidden Island AND Pandemic? Why not a much more involved story-telling semi co-op, like Dead of Winter or BSG? The Shadows Over Camelot episode was much more interesting than the Pandemic/FI one. Love Letter you’ve already played on your live show. Coup is effectively Love Letter set in the Resistance universe (but not as good). Roll For It is about as involved and exciting as Zombie Dice, and that was only a third of an episode, not half.
I am excited for Stone Age though, as a nice step up from last season’s Lords of Waterdeep. Not sure how interesting it will be as a spectator though, because LoW was the least interesting episode last season. Only once I had played the game and new the rules, did the episode make any sense.
I have the same concerns with Tokaido, too. As beautiful and engaging as the game is… how well will it work to watch? I suppose we can only find out.
I understand that most of these games were put to a public vote to decide on, but they were obviously clueless, and a little more input on the part of the producers would really have done wonders. I can only thank the lord that you’re not playing Cards Against Humanity.
A very hit and miss season line up.
A strong set of opinions there. Go you.
Not sure I agree with, well, any of them. But it’s great you got to share.
Lots of love
One of the clueless voting masses.
The producers of the show had way more input than the public, the public call was looking for games Wil might not have heard of, they still did extensive playtesting to choose the final list.
There are also major restrictions on what types of games will work on TableTop due to the format. Wil has an oft-linked “Not the Flog” on this, and I’m pretty sure he’s explicitly called out the BSG game as not being well suited to the format.
I’ll also point out that this is 8 of 20 episodes, so there is still a lot of unknowns for the season.
None of this is to say I completely disagree, Forbidden Desert has never seemed sufficiently distinct from Forbidden Island to me, but a lot of people disagree, and given the cast of the episode, I’m actually looking forward to it.
I was going to say almost the same Jeff. Wil has already made it clear via Not The Flog and on here that as much as he enjoys games like BSG and Arkham Horror, they wont work within the format of the show.
Also, as Wil has noted here and on twitter, etc, the crew went through extensive playtesting before deciding on the games that would work on the show. Yes they asked people to suggest games, but those suggestions still had to meet the relative criteria before even making the playtest phase.
And yes, 8 of 20…there’s still plenty more eps to come, including the 2 parter that Wil mentioned (which obviously indicates “epic” game).
Big fan of Pandemic, and enjoy Forbidden Island as the easier, quicker cousin. I’ve not played Forbidden Desert so can’t comment on it specifically, but I have had a number of people tell me how good it is so and prefer it over Forbidden Island so I have no problem seeing it here, and with those guests it’s sure to be an hilarious episode.
The thing we have to remember is that TT is as much about the guests as the games themselves – if you think about it, something like The Resistance or Gloom could have been lamesville if not for the guests making it hilarious, so I’m happy to wait and reserve comment until I actually watch the episode…. but that being said,yes, I’m glad I’ve not see CAH on that list (I still feel nauseas when I think of the last game of that I played)
coup is nothing like love letter. its amazing. love letter is totally random. coup requires social deduction and bluffing.
Actually there are plans to do a special episode where Cards Against Humanity.
Yay! that Jesse Cox joined you again!
Looking forward to seeing the fruits of this labor!
By my pretty floral bonnet may there be a Firefly game episode.
Hi Will,
I’m very happy to see you’re muscling through – thanks for taking the bullet for us 🙂 Regarding the list you compiled, just now…heh…
I have, hanging on my wall, a poster sent to me by Beverly with all the autographs from Season 1 on it. Ironically, it replaced the (almost) exact same poster (from the ‘Beat the Founders’ event you held in Silicon Valley at the AOL campus). My dilemma…I have no idea who a lot of these people are by their autographs. Do you have a similar listing for Season One so that I can get a little brass plate made up for this?
I’m curious if you played Machi Koro while test playing for season 3. If so, what did you think of it? It’s one of our new favorites. Thanks for all of the updates! We just bought Sushi Go and love it!
Excited for Season 3!
Alan Tudyk…Jennifer Hale… 🙂
I have to admit to having a crush on Ashley Clements ( no restraining order needed im in the uk ) so happy to see her in the lineup
Jennifer Hale? That’s Awesome! Now if you could just convince Alton Brown to join you for a game…
Alton would be so entertaining to watch!
Hmmm, how to say this… I really like the show, the games sound awesome and the work you do is wonderful… and I was wondering if for future seasons you plan for more … ehm… non-white guests? I am not trying to offend or accuse or anything, because I know it’s probably difficult to get guests at all, it’s just something I was thinking about in regards to representation…
Seriously? –– So much concern about something so trivial. SMH. And NO, I’m not white, so I’m not biased. Just a person who enjoys games, watching and playing. Of all the things. –– I have no words.
I’m glad you brought this up. The short answer is: absolutely, and it’s very important to me that people of all races and backgrounds are represented on the show. I invite as diverse a group of people as I possibly can, every season.
The slightly longer version is that we shoot on a very tight schedule, and while a traditional show could simply move a guest who is unavailable to a different day or even week, we can’t do that. We have to shoot two shows a day, with six different players. Those players have to be familiar with the game they’re going to play, so moving someone who doesn’t normally play games from, say, Gloom to Settlers of Catan isn’t an option for us. I also can’t move a guest out of a game on Monday afternoon to accommodate a guest who isn’t available Friday, but can join us on Monday.
All of this is to say that I always invite a diverse group of people to play, because I fully support and believe in the importance of representation in entertainment, but if we can’t make a player’s schedule work with ours, we have to find someone else.
Thanks for watching, and thanks for your question. I see that some people are giving you a hard time for it, but I think it’s a valid concern.
Thanks, Wil, for taking the time to answer my question. I can see how difficult it must be to organize Tabletop on such a tight schedule. Keep up the great work and thanks again!
Super stoked to see a lot of the games on here. Tokaido and sushi go are gorgeous, simple games that are great for getting folks into gaming. Maybe for next season you could look into Polterfass if it gets distributed in the US? It’s a fairly simple dice game involving beer, thirsty patrons, and a bartender. Given your love for craft beer, I figured it might make it’s way on the show once it’s more available in the US
Did you have to buy Kluwe an ice cream cone?
Shame you had to include spiders in your latest Twitter picture. I can’t turn off previews of images in my browser on my laptop and I’m seriously phobic.
Clapping my hands and skipping around the living room! Now, must focus and catch up on seasons 1 and 2…
You and the Table Top crew have done an amazing job keeping everyone updated with who is attending, what’s happening, the art, the laughs you’re having… it’s like being there. Thanks so much for being engaged and all you are all doing!
Looking forward to the season 🙂
Still hoping for Jeph Jacques to make an appearance on Tabletop S3. Since it’s going to be 20 episodes, I figure there’s still room to hope 😀
I wish! Jeph is on the other side of the country, though, so that’s not happening this year.
Should I be embarrassed that I had to look up who half these people were? Naaah! I’m over 50 now, I’m allowed to be out of touch. It’s all good.
only half ? your lucky it was three quarters with me and im under 50
Is this still under G&S or will you guys be branching out under your own YouTube channel? I only ask because G&S YouTube channel only displays four shows on their banner and TableTop isn’t one of them. I assume they’re only listing shows that are CURRENTLY being aired as new episodes until more shows come along, but was curious if the successful Kickstarter meant that TableTop would be separating itself this season to do more under its own name.
Hooray, Alan Tudyk! That guy has to be a blast to play a game with.
glad to see Rhett and Link as well…appeared to be a typo in the original post
Yay for Chris Kluwe! I’m a Packer fan living in Minnesota. Kluwe’s a cool guy and a gamer to boot.
So excited to hear you’ll have new episodes soon! Any chance of getting an episode of you guys playing Ascension? I know it’s got a lot of expansions, but it’s one of my favorites!
So, why are you not in Essen, Wil?
Filming Tabletop is important, I know (or otherwise I wouldn’t have contributed to the crowdfunding campaign), but if there’s one thing board game enthusiasts are going to accept as a reason not to be filming Tabletop it’s got to be a trip to the board game Mekka.
Oh, Coup! I just played that for the first time a couple weeks ago. Great fun!
Meredith Salenger!
Excited to see Hare and Tortoise on the list! As an older game (the very first Spiel des Jahres winner EVAR), it doesn’t get much love – too many Cultists of the New, I suppose. And nicely balanced out by the brand-spanking-new Sheriff of Nottingham, because lying to your friends is fun!
Hey Wil –
Not a Tabletop question, necessarily, but are you or your Tabletop crew planning on participating in Extra Life (extra-life.org) this year? I’m sure you guys would raise a ton of money for the Children’s Miracle Network.
For those not familiar with Extra Life, it’s a 24-hour gaming event to raise money for the Children’s Miracle Network. Everyone is welcome to join – either as an individual or as part of a group – and ALL gaming is encouraged – PC, console, board games, and role playing. Extra Life has an underwriter in place so that 100% of money raised goes directly to helping sick children.
If anyone wants to check out my page or group to see what we’re doing, here are my links: http://extra-life.org/participant/christinly and http://bit.ly/ussartemis_extralife.
I encourage everyone to participate! Gaming for good! 😀
I would LOVE to see Abyss, Mice and Mystics, and/or Winters Tale played on here. GAHHHHH!!! PLEASSSEE lol. The last two seem to have awesome story potential, and abyss just looks amazing.
Is there still a chance of getting Jonathan Frakes on an episode? Even a 2 minute beard-contest would be awesome.
I am looking forward to the new season. I use a lot of game-based learning in my college classroom (I teach history) and I also use Reacting to the Past (Historical Roleplaying in the Classroom) – tabletop is a wonderful talking point as most of my students and a lot of my Reacting colleagues love the show.
Wil, You might want to look up Extra Life. It is a charity for the Children’s Miracle Network that has a fundraiser on Oct 25th to 26th. 24 hours of gaming. Right up the Table Top alley.
Heroes Wanted could be an awesome Tabletop game, especially with all the quirk cards. Those seem like they are comedy gold in the making. Keep up the great work spreading the joy of gaming.
Well shoot, looks like Firefly isn’t gonna make it on the show. Oh we’ll, I love this show anyway and can’t wait to see all the new games…well new to me.
Just bought Pandemic: The Cure the dice game, and I’ve gotta say, that would make an awesome Tabletop episode!
Ahhhh! I want to watch Rhett and Link play a tabletop game so bad! Yes, the game itself will probably be fun to watch, but I’m anticipating the funny crap they are going to say and do.