When I stay up later in the summer(I’m a teacher), I find that end up watching Tabletop on youtube quite a bit. It’s a show created by Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day. Wheaton is in every episode, while she appears quite often.
Basically, they get people together and play board games. It’s a lot of fun, the production value is really nice, and it is more fun than it sounds.
I have discovered some new games from the show and it’s a lot of fun to watch other people play games.
Anyone else enjoy it?
I generally enjoy the show. But it’s controversial in the gaming community.
I like it but it depends on the game and the mix of guests. I have stopped episodes part way through if I found I didn’t care for one or the other. The RPG spin off I couldn’t get into.
Generally favorable, but as **Quimby **says, depends on the game / guests.
The main controversy as far as I know is there was a serious game rule mistake (not a minor one - everybody makes those). When people pointed it out, Wil blamed his producer. That didn’t sit well with folks.
Brian
I was thinking of checking it out. I like Wil and Felicia although his attempt at a talk show was pretty bad.
I enjoy it. It’s a fun way to discover new games. Some games/episodes are better than others, but it definitely seems like they are having fun and not taking it too seriously.
Also, I could watch Felicia Day all day (ha!). Major nerd crush.
I’ve never seen the show but they’re not playing for money or prizes or anything, right? Just 4-6 people p[laying a board game?
So… uhh… who really cares if they flubbed a rule, even a major one or who gets the blame for skimming the booklet?
I love the trophies the winners get. I can’t say they set the tone perfectly, because they come at the end, but they’re just perfect.
I didn’t see the episode in question, but I think the mistake was enough to change the flavor of the game. Let’s say they played chess where you rolled a die and that determined which piece you can move. The viewer may think the game is too random, where the actual game is nothing of the sort.
I don’t think it was that bad though. But many game players are sticklers for the rules (some take them too far, but that isn’t relevant here).
I think the man complaint wasn’t the mistake, but shifting of the blame.
Brian
I too watch but it also depends on the game/guest whether I watch the whole thing. I also gave a little cash on their kickstarter campaign for season 3.
I’m curious about this controversy. Anyone have more details?
My kids and I watch it together and have purchased games because we saw them played on the show. My son also loves the RPG spinoff show.
I’m actually happy they messed up rules in a few of episodes. There were some games I own which just sat on the shelf because I’d be so worried about screwing up the rules but didn’t really having time to memorize the minutia of a new game. Seeing them screw up and still have fun got a bunch of those games off the shelf at our house where we game them our best effort, considered any deviations house rules, and just had fun.
The controversy is basically that they have a “producer” whose sole job is to make sure that they get the rules right since they film 3 or 4 episodes a day, sometimes with multiple games in each episode, and for a lot of the players it’s the first time they’ve played the game.
Recently they messed up the rules in a few games and Wheaton posted on reddit that the rules producer had fallen down on the job.
The “controversy” is that some people wanted him to say, “Mistakes were made, but I’m the boss so the buck stops here. Mea Culpa.” Instead he said, “I trusted my rules producer to do his job and he let me down.”
That’s the long and short of it.
Pretty much, although that producer had other duties along with checking the rules. Wil said next season they will have someone devoted solely to checking the rules.
We change the rules on games all the time for some reason or other to make them more fun.
A recent one was on Mille Bornes:
It’s a road race card/board game. There is a rule that if you get an accident or flat tire or some other hazard you have to play a card to fix it and then you have to play a “Go” card so you can move again.
One game four of us sat there for a solid 10 minutes with no one drawing a “Go” card so nobody could move and it stalled the game. So we said the hell with that. No more “Go” cards needed after you fix your hazard. The game is more fun now.
Edit: and that’s a dumb thing to have a controversy about.
Like the show a lot. We discovered Taekenoko through this series.
How good is that game for 2 people?
It’s playable with two, but much more fluid with three or more. With two, it’s much harder to force the panda or the gardener out of position.
I love tabletop, and it is really well edited and shot so that you get a real idea of what is going on (what the dice rolls are, what the cards read). They pace it nicely so that the dragging parts don’t slow down the show.
I picked up Forbidden Desert based on his episode. Lots of fun, and I loved his Diplomacy rant at the start. 