Category: Tabletop

New Tabletop: Betrayal at House on the Hill

Posted on 17 October, 2013 By Wil

This week, Ashly Burch, Keahu Kahuanui and Michael Swaim join me to play one of my very favorite RPG-in-a-box games: Betrayal at House on the Hill.

I’m a huge fan of Ashly’s work in Borderlands 2, and after I met her at Valve last year, I became a huge fan of her as a human. She’s really awesome and a hell of a lot of fun to play with. If you like things that don’t suck, check out Hey Ash, Watcha Playin’?

Keahu and I have a ton of friends in common, but we’d never met until just before we shot this episode. Since then, we’ve become very good friends, and I even get to be a Bad Idea Bear for him from time to time when giant pizza is involved. Thank you, Tabletop Gaming, for helping me make a new friend. Oh, and Keahu is on some TV show about wolf hunters or something like that. I think it’s animated.

Michael Swaim knows Felicia, and is a lifelong tabletop gamer, just like me. He also writes for Cracked.com. Felicia suggested that I invite him to the show, because he’s hilarious and fun to be around, and she was pretty sure we’d like each other. I hate to admit it, but Felicia was right.

This was so much fun to play, and so much incredibly awesome stuff happened, we ended up cutting it into a two-part episode (but fear not! Part two comes out next week, because we love you and don’t want to make you wait two whole weeks for the second part. Did I mention that it was awesome? It’s awesome.)

When I get home from Texas, we’re shooting a Very Special Episode of Not The Flog, where I’m going to share some of my favorite horror-themed tabletop games. I have a pretty big list in my head, but I’m sure there’s something awesome that I’m forgetting, so if you wanted to maybe get onto Not The Flog, tell me the title of the game you love, why you love it, and what your favorite Halloween candy is. I’ll pick some and put them into the show, which is coming out sooooooon.

Soooooon.

Soon.

Anyway, turn down your lights (where applicable) and enjoy the show!

Congratulations to Tabletop!

Posted on 15 August, 2013 By Wil

Last night, Tabletop won the most meaningful and genuinely prestigious award in the gaming industry, The Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming.

I don’t care about awards, and prefer to just let the work speak for itself, but it’s not hyperbole to say that it’s the Stanley Cup of gaming awards, and it is given by a group of people who I deeply respect and admire.

This show would not and could not exist without some very wonderful people, and all the work they put in from the very beginning of the first season. I owe them an incredible debt of gratitude for the work they’ve done and continue to do, and for making it possible for me to share my love of gaming with the world. We’re making something that’s more than just an entertaining show; we’re bringing families together, helping kids with learning disabilities, and this weekend in Chicago, a lady told me that Tabletop made it possible for her to communicate with her autistic son for the first time in his life. So it is my great honour to share this with

Our Director, Jennifer Arnold
Our First AD and Associate Producer, Adam Lawson
Our Executive Producer, Sheri Bryant
Our Associate Producer and Games Guru, Boyan Radakovich
Our amazing editing team, lead by Steve Grubel
Everyone on our fantastic crew
My dear friend and partner in crime, Felicia Day

I also want to thank everyone who watches Tabletop, plays Tabletop games with their friends and family, and creates the games we love to play. We will keep making this show as long as people will watch it, and as long as we can somehow pull together the funding to make it possible.

Congratulations, Team Tabletop! I’m so proud of us!

Chicago comicon wrap-up

Posted on 14 August, 2013 By Wil

I had a truly wonderful time at Wizard Comicon in Chicago this weekend. I met thousands of people who love the things I love, and spent a whole lot of time geeking out about the games we love to play and the universes we love to visit.

Here’s some of the really awesome cosplay I saw:

Rick Grimes and Darryl Dixon Cosplay Captain Planet Cosplay

I love love love that these young women decided to cosplay as the characters they love, even though those characters are male. I’ve seen tons of Doctor Who cosplay from women, and I think it’s extremely awesome that these ladies are not letting gatekeeper dipshits tell them that they can’t cosplay as the characters they love because of their gender. Kick ass!

I also got to see some really great examples of people getting excited and making things:

LEGO Tabletop painting! — LEGO Tabletop painting. Please enjoy the photobombing.

Wooden Gordie — This guy made this with a wood burning thing.

Watercolour Wesley — This young woman (I think her name is Amanda) painted this Wesley in (I think) Watercolour. I wish I’d taken a closer shot of it, because it’s beautiful work.

I also made some custom Cards Against Humanity cards, that you shouldn’t look at, because they’re kind of NSFW.

They don’t all have to make sense, you guys.

The is the underlying premise of my script "Doctor Screw". — The is the underlying premise of my script for “Doctor Screw”.

I got to see some really neat stuff that I didn’t know existed, like Cosmic Boy action figures (I was excited because I played Cosmic Boy on Legion of Superheroes).

Cosmic Boy

I also got to sign a bunch of Robin stuff, because I play the Tim Drake Robin in DC Universe Online, as well as a bunch of cool Blue Beetle stuff (I played Ted Kord on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and so far I’m the only actor to play that particular role!) that I wanted to just keep for myself.

Finally, some of you may remember Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant. If you do not remember Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant, I suggest you go look at Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant right now. GO NOW I WILL WAIT.

At the con, I met a delightful young woman called Marty. Marty’s friend Hannah is the creative genius who made sure the world knew about Wesley Crusher’s Sweet-Ass Motherfucking Bouffant. I was so excited to meet her, I had to sign special pictures for the two of them:

Wil Wheaton's Bad Ass Motherfucking Fez

To Hannah: Look at this fucking sweet bad ass motherfucking fez. And what the fuck?! That’s right, it’s a false fucking moustache on top of a real motherfucking hot shit panty-dropping real moustache!

Back Right the Fuck Up And Look At This Motherfucking Picture

To Marty

Back right the fuck up and look at this sweet-ass motherfucking non-bouffant.

Fuck.

Yes.

In gold, Wil fucking Wheaton

We laughed really hard while I was writing these things down, which made me very happy, on account of me being easily amused.

I had a great weekend, and I though I have a few more stories to recount, I’m in the airport waiting to go to Indianapolis for GenCon, and it’s time for me to get on my plane and go PLAY MORE GAMES!

next time on tabletop: star wars x-wing

Posted on 2 August, 2013 By Wil

My editors at Geek & Sundry are amazing, and work very hard to turn hours of footage from several cameras into an awesome episode of Tabletop.

This is what the timeline looks like for next week’s episode, Star Wars X-Wing.

You can click that to embiggen and get a closer look. For those of you who do editing, you are probably going O.o right now. For those of you who don’t, each one of those boxes and lines represents a cut or a graphic or some other thing my editor, Steve, had to do to create this episode. I think he spent about 40 hours on this one episode.

All creative work for television and movies is a collaboration, and everyone is working together in service of something that’s bigger than all of us individually. Everyone works hard on their specific part of the process, and if we’re lucky, it all comes together to be something awesome.

Not the Flog 3

Posted on 1 August, 2013 By Wil

We are having entirely too much fun making Not The Flog.

This week, I’ll discuss some smartphone and tablet app versions of games we’ve played on Tabletop, forgetting to mention one of the very best, Forbidden Island.

Oh, and the intro that Sean Becker made is maybe the best thing on the Internet today.

Enjoy!