Tabletop's First Episode: Smallworld - 5 Reasons Why I liked it.

by Derek B, the Savage Duck.

Tabletop's Episode #1 is out. Wil Wheaton's new show on Geek and Sundry's new YouTube Channel launched it's first show. It's the one I was  looking forward to most as it's the the one that's focused on actual games played at the table-top. The featured game for their 1st episode was Smallworld by Days of Wonder.  I must admit that I've seen that game at my FLGSs and always wondered what it was all about. Now I know. It looks like a fun.


Host: Wil Wheaton.      
Tabletop Episodes will be found here.
Game: Smallworld - by Days of Wonder

The other players were:

• Sean Plott - PC Gamer of the year: 2010, Creator of Day[9] Daily ( day9.tv ) site - a daily show about how to rule StarCraft. 
• Grant Imahara - host on Mythbusters. If that's not enough, he worked for ILM on many of my fav movies. Yes, one of those is Galaxy Quest and my wife loves it and insists we watch it at least once a year.
• Jenna Busch - Geek blogger on HuffPost, Host Moviefone Minute

5 Reasons Why I liked it:

• It's a show about GAMES! Finally! I've seen many good game review shows on YouTube and some AP YouTube vids but this was different. 
• One observation that surprised me the most: Wheaton is a lot more like my longtime gaming buds than I would have imagined.  He's not just a geek, he really is a gamer.  I've seen him on several writers and geek panels which lead me to buy one of his books, I get his G+ feed, and yet I still doubted his gaming chops. No longer. I identified with Wheaton's hosting challenge to bring in both gamers and non-gamers and helping them play effectively without taking over their participation. Gold star for a job well done.
• The game rules and hint graphic overlays were very useful.
• It WASN'T a 2 hour slog thru indecision, noobs mistakes, or long rules rants by rules lawyers. The pacing was effective. 30 mins worked for this particular game.
• The participants were genuine and not scripted. Sean Plott was really feeling the pain and ultimate joy.   The confusion of playing something for the first time was offset by a little helping advise from the host.

I could have gone on but I really enjoyed it!  I want to see a Savage Worlds One Sheet played out. Maybe a one hour special at the holidays.

Keep it Savage and let us know what you thought.