Details Emerge on Wheaton-Hosted "Tabletop" Gaming Web Series
By now, you've probably seen the news about Felicia Day's new YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry. Yesterday's announcement featured a lineup of six new original web series, but one in particular piqued the interest of hobby gaming fans: Tabletop.
Featuring host, executive producer, and all-around geek icon Wil Wheaton, Tabletop is described in Wheaton's own words as "Celebrity Poker meets Dinner for Five, " where interesting people and geek celebrities come together to enjoy tabletop games. Now, Wheaton has taken to his blog and provided fans a lengthy preview of what they can expect to see during Tabletop's first season.
Wheaton has picked a wide range of hobby gaming titles to play in front of the camera. His board game selections include everything from euro classics [Settlers of Catan and Alhambra], thematic adventures [Last Night on Earth], fantasy wargames [Small World], party games [Dixit], and good old "take that" card game fun [Munchkin]. Green Ronin Publishing has also provided some detail of RPG play on the Tabletop set, tweeting that the show will feature the Dragon Age RPG and one other pen-and-paper title this season.
For the actual players in these games, Tabletop will be featuring Mythubster's Grant Imahara, actor Phil Lamarr, X-Play's Morgan Webb, comedy musical act Garfunkle and Oats, web series veteran Veronica Belmont, actor Colin Ferguson, and many other names yet to be announced.
In Wheaton's own words:
My ulterior motive with Tabletop is to show by example how much fun it is to play boardgames. I want to show that Gamers aren't all a bunch of weirdoes who can't make eye contact when they talk to you, and that getting together for a game night is just as social and awesome as getting together to watch Sportsball, or to play poker, or for a LAN party, or whatever non-gamers do with their friends. I want to inspire people to try hobby games, and I want to remove the stigma associated with gaming and gamers.
This is a noble goal, and the end result will hopefully hit home with viewers of the Geek & Sundry channel. Wheaton's Tabletop show is added fuel to the flames of a hobby gaming community that is rapidly growing beyond its very niche roots. Even in just the past two years, hobby gaming has started to enter mainstream geek consciousness between Rich Sommer's board game segments on Attack of the Show, screenings of Lorien Green's Going Cardboard gaming documentary, oh, and hobby gaming coverage on MTV!
If you're as excited to watch Tabletop as I am, head over to the Geek & Sundry website and check out the first official trailer.
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