Category: Games

Games

Tabletop Season Four Day One: Fury of Dracula

Posted on By Wil

Tabletop Season Four Day OneI’m probably not going to have the time or energy to do this for every day of production, but I do right now, so …

Today, we started production on season four of Tabletop. It feels strange to me, like I’ve been doing it forever, and like I just started it for the very first time. There’s a lot about last season that was a pretty big bummer for me, but all of those things were addressed and corrected in the off season, and if today is any indication, this will be the most fun I’ve had doing a season of the show since the first one.

We made a number of production and personnel changes, but the production change that’s most important to me is that we’re only doing one game a day for most of this season. We’ve always shot two games per day, and it felt like a race against time before we even got into the set to start shooting. A schedule that’s less aggressive means that we can play a couple of bigger, more complex games that take longer, and it also means that when we play a most games, we aren’t racing against the clock to start the next one like we’ve done in the past. I’m hopeful that by the time we get to the last few days of production, I’ll be as happy, focused, relaxed, and satisfied as I am right now, instead of the usual exhaustion and mental numbness.

But today? Today was awesome. I played Fury of Dracula (third edition) with Amy Okuda, Grant Imahara, and Ify Nwadiwe. We had so much fun! It was as intense as you’d want this game to be, and we played enough to probably make two dramatic and entertaining episodes. I know someone’s going to ask what roles we played, but I’m not going to say right now, because reasons.

Fury of Dracula was one of the games that helped make me a Gamer in the 80s, and it’s a game that I would have loved to play on the show. So when Fantasy Flight reprinted it and updated to this new edition, it was one of the first games I put on the list.

If you’re curious about it, and don’t want to wait months to see us play it, I highly recommend the Shut up and Sit Down How To Play video (which I watched myself, while I was learning this edition), because it’s informative and entertaining. For those of you wondering, we played with the advanced rules today.

Also, if you’re into Dracula and RPGs, you may like Dracula Unredacted, which is what happens when Night’s Black Agents and Dracula collide.

Dracula is not a novel. It’s the censored version of Bram Stoker’s after-action report of the failed British Intelligence attempt to recruit a vampire in 1894. Kenneth Hite and Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan have restored the deleted sections, inserting annotations and clues left by three generations of MI6 analysts.

I mean, seriously. Even if you’re not going to play it, it’s a hell of an enjoyable read.

And since we’re talking vampires for a moment, some of my very favorite vampire movies, in no particular order:

  • Near Dark
  • The Lost Boys
  • Nosferatu
  • What We Do In The Shadows
  • Fright Night

I’m proud of the work we did today, and hopefully tonight I will actually sleep all night, instead of waking up again and again from panic attacks and nightmares like I have for the last week, while I was stressed as fuck about getting production off the ground, and could only think about the stuff that made me unhappy from last time. It’s good to have something positive and awesome to build on, so my brain will hopefully focus on that now.

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Here’s The Game Lineup for Tabletop Season Four

Posted on By Wil

Agressive BreedingWe looked at eleven million games, and playtested ninety-six thousand games, for season four of Tabletop.

The exact order that we’re releasing episodes and the exact timeline for the release isn’t set yet, and it isn’t up to me, but here are the games we’ve settled on for Tabletop Season Four:

  • Lanterns
  • Fury of Dracula
  • Mysterium
  • Code Names (with six players for maximum funtimes)
  • FATE Core RPG
  • Dragon Farkle
  • Flashpoint
  • Harbour
  • Eldritch Horror
  • Star Realms
  • Monarch
  • Star Trek – 5 Year Mission
  • Champions of Midgard
  • Steam Park
  • Tiny Epic Galaxies
  • Welcome To The Dungeon
  • Misspent Youth RPG

This season, I wanted to play games that were accessible to families, indie games, more RPGs, and at least one or two games that broke the rules I usually use to choose games. We start filming in a few days, and the season will be released starting in June or July. And because I know it’s going to end up being a FAQ: Titansgrave’s second season is in development right now. We’re aiming to film it in a couple of months, and release it in Autumn.

I hope there’s at least one thing here that you’re looking forward to, and PLAY MORE GAMES!!

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demons worry when the wizard is near

Posted on By Wil

Still tired, and the pollen plus wind minus humidity has given me a headache that refuses to go away … but I’m better than I was.

If you’re one of the hundreds of people who reached out and offered a bit of kindness, thank you.

I wrote a story. It isn’t done, and it may never be published, but for the first time in ages, I felt like I needed to write it and get it out, so I could get my mind around what I have to write, so I can finally get back to what I want to write.

And actually doing that, instead of sitting around and actively not doing that … well, it was kind of a big and important thing for me to accomplish.

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Tabletop Season 4: Status Update

Posted on By Wil

Reader T asked me in an email if there were any updates about, or news I could share about Tabletop Season 4. T mentioned that he liked the constant updates Geek & Sundry sent out during the production process of last season, and that he missed that sort of thing.

I began to reply that there “isn’t much to share, because there isn’t that much going on, except” … and then I wrote a bunch of stuff that disproved my original thought.

So, considering that T may not be the only person on this planet who wants to know what’s going on with Season 4, here’s the stuff that’s going on with Tabletop Season 4 which can be announced now:

We’ve taken a longer than usual hiatus because I was burned out, frustrated and unhappy after a really terrible experience with a (formerly) trusted friend last season, and wondering if I even wanted to do another season of the show. After a long hiatus that has allowed me to work on other things and rediscover the joy of playing games for the sake of playing games, as well as time to heal the wounds from Season 3, I’m back to work with my team, and starting to get things together for Season 4. We are in the game review process right now. From an original list of over 450 submissions, we’re actively play testing about 85 games, and that will be reduced to 18 or 20 games for the season. It’s 18 or 20 because we’ll probably do another one or two episodes that are two parts, but we won’t know for sure until we get down to about 20 games.

We’re not going to do gag reels and stuff this season. I don’t think they’re necessary, and they’re more trouble than they’re worth. We’ll still have a bi-weekly release schedule. I’m not sure if there will be something different to release on the off weeks.

One of the biggest changes this season affects me on a personal level as well as a professional one. We have asked the game publishers to send someone from their company to consult with us on rules and gameplay during production, so we don’t have to rely on one person to know the minutiae of 18 to 20 different games.

We are going to focus primarily on boardgames, as usual, but I have a couple of RPGs on my list that I really like, that I think could be really fun to showcase. We’re also going to look at more family games than we have in the past, because it turns out that families who watch together make up an enormous part of our audience. This doesn’t mean that I’m going to choose “kiddie” games, but that I’m looking at games that are fun for parents and kids to play together. For example, Tsuro, Ticket to Ride and Sushi Go! are all games that are really fun for adults and kids to play together, but they’re also fun for just adults to play together.

I have chosen two games already. They are Lanterns and Code Names. I’m also looking very seriously at Tiny Epic Galaxies.
We are planning to go into production near the end of April. We’re going to shoot for three weeks instead of two, so our schedule is a little less grueling. We don’t have an official release date, but I think the first episode of the season will be around the beginning of June.So, as you can see, maybe there’s more to share than I thought, and there it is. Play more games!!

 

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treasure type n

Posted on By Wil

I’ve been enjoying being home so much, I haven’t made the time to sit down and write. Even though I want to write all the time and make lots of stories and stuff happen, I also sort of needed a vacation to just … exist, for a little while.

So I have produced many words (mostly on my stupid Tumblr thing), but I haven’t put them together into stories. It’s turning out to be even more difficult than I expected to switch gears from the long hours and specific demands that go with being an actor to the different hours and self-discipline that go with being a writer.

But I’ve been doing some stupid creative stuff on Instagram and Twitter, I guess, which is sort of goofing off and like eating junk food instead of preparing a healthy meal.

Still, I’m going to give it a try.

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