WIL WHEATON dot NET

Tabletop Season 4: LANTERNS

Posted: 2 November, 2016

Well, we had to wait an infuriatingly long time, but it’s finally here! Season Four of Tabletop kicks off with Lanterns, a delightful tile-laying game that’s super easy to teach and learn, and a great infection vector for introducing new people to our hobby.

For those who aren’t familiar with Ivan and Becca’s great show, Game the Game, it’s sort of a sister show of Tabletop. They play games every week, live on Twitch*, with interesting people. I remember when we were in production on Titansgrave, I saw Ivan during lunch and asked him if he’d ever played Lanterns, because I thought it was a great fit for his show. He told me that he thought it was a great game, but that he didn’t want to play it because he didn’t want to take something away from Tabletop.

I reminded Ivan that I don’t believe we’re in competition, and that I thought it would be awesome to see him play it on his show, even if I was going to play it on Tabletop at some point. They also do a really cool thing on Game the Game where they talk about strategy in front of each other, because it isn’t about winning, it’s about the experience of playing the game.

“Do you want to come play it with us?” He asked me.

“Yeah, I’d love that,” I said.

So I did, and Becca cheated because that’s what she does.

During that episode, I realized that I could invite them, and their Twitch overlord, Zac (who worked his ass off to get the Twitch channel up and running and was instrumental in helping it grow to the amazing thing it is) to come play Lanterns on Tabletop, as a rematch, and a fun way to launch the season.

All of that was nearly a year ago, and today you can finally watch us play.

Here’s an embed:

And if you can’t see it, just click this link to watch Lanterns.

*or they did, at least. I don’t know if Legendary has moved or canceled it since Alpha happened.

Tabletop News: season four starts on November second

by Wil

Posted: 1 November, 2016

Some damn fine TableDerp.

Hey look, Legendary decided to release Season 4 of Tabletop tomorrow … sort of.

The first two episodes of the season will be on YouTube as usual, then Legendary’s moving the show to their Alpha subscription service.

The show will continue to stream on Alpha, and then, on January 30, 2017, the Alpha exclusivity window will end, and show will pick back up on YouTube with episode 3. So if you choose not to sign up for Legendary’s streaming subscription service, that’s when you’ll be able to find our show where it’s always been.

At the moment, I can’t really share my personal feelings on this whole thing, but I’m pretty sure that I can say this: however and whenever and wherever you choose to watch our show, I hope you enjoy it. It’s a good season, and I’m really proud of it.

Here’s the trailer for S04:

busy busy busy

by Wil

Posted: 28 October, 2016

“Busy, busy, busy” – what a Bokononist whispers whenever he thinks about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.

I’ve traveled over 10,000 miles in the last two weeks, which sounds like a lot, but to be honest I mostly sat in a seat while it happened so it isn’t that impressive.

If you follow me on social media, which I’ve told you not to do, you know that I have been doing some campaigning for Hillary Clinton, part of operation Do Whatever It Takes To Prevent The Worst Human Being Ever To Run For Public Office Yes That Includes Joe Arpaio And David Duke From Being Elected.

I have so much to say about that, but I feel like I can’t do it in less than an hour, and we’re past the point where anyone is going to change their mind so it’s not really worth the time and effort, and I really want to get to work on today’s writing, so I’ll just say this: there are hundreds of reasons to vote against Donald Trump, but I have some very good reasons to vote for Secretary Clinton. Everyone has their primary reason, from equal pay for women, to family leave, to college debt relief, to electing a massively qualified woman, to simply keeping Donald Trump out of the White House. My primary reasons are The Supreme Court, and Hillary and Tim Kaine’s support for mental health care. As most of you know, I live with chronic depression and generalized anxiety disorder. I suffered for at least ten years longer than I should have, because I was ashamed and embarrassed about it, and I felt like it was something I should just get over. I felt weak, and I was afraid that getting medication would change who I was at a fundamental level. But when I heard people who I respected, who were successful and amazing, talk about how they lived with their own mental illness, it gave me the courage to seek help for myself.

It’s a really big deal that people in positions of power and influence, like Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, talk about removing the stigma associated with mental illness that prevents people from seeking help. It’s a really big deal that she has made mental health treatment and access to affordable mental health medication a part of her plan for her presidency. It’s a really big deal that they look at people like us who live with mental illness and say, “We see you. You matter. We’re going to do what we can to help you help yourself.”

So I could go on and on, but l’ll wrap up with this: you all know that I was a massive supporter of Bernie Sanders in the primary. I’m proud of what we did to help him, and I still believe in his mission and his revolution. I can’t vote for him, but because Hillary listened to Bernie and to people like me who voted for him, I can vote for nearly all of the policies he promised to fight for. And if Democrats take a majority in the Senate, he’ll be in charge of the Budget Committee which is a really big fucking deal to borrow a phrase from Joe Biden.

Also, what scalzi said.

Anyway, I’m home now, and working really hard to finish a short supernatural horror story before Halloween, so I can get back into the short story that turned into a novella that is creeping up on becoming a novel.

in a pub, in portree

by Wil

Posted: 14 October, 2016

Anne, in Portree

I can not believe that I have managed to trick this amazing woman into staying married to me for seventeen years.

We have returned to Castle Wheaton. Here’s a story about a different castle.

by Wil

Posted: 12 October, 2016

Driving on the left side of the road was nerve wracking as hell. The roads in Scotland seem to be much more narrow than the roads I’m used to, and Anne kept telling me that I was veering close to the left shoulder, almost letting the wheels go off the road.

It took me nearly two full days of driving, but I did get used to it, and I even figured out the proper way to navigate a roundabout, which was not the victory it may sound like, because it was the final roundabout I used before we returned the rental car.

Scotland was the most beautiful place I’ve been that wasn’t in the South Pacific. The highlands were just breathtaking, and for some reason we got perfectly clear skies and sunshine the whole time we were there. The thing I wasn’t prepared for at all, though, was how dark it got at night. There weren’t any streetlights. Now, Americans, let me be clear: I don’t mean that there weren’t a lot of streetlights, or that the streetlights were dim. I mean that there were literally zero streetlights. When we drove back to the house we were staying in after dinner in Portree one night, I could only see as far as my car’s headlights, which wasn’t even 30 feet, before the darkness swallowed up the light.