Jane Espenson - writer/producer Buffy, Caprica, Game of Thrones
Game Blurb:
The Settlers of Catan from Mayfair Games is an award-winning strategy
game where players collect resources and use them to build roads,
settlements, and cities on their way to victory. The board itself is
variable, making each game a little different from the next. Each round
of The Settlers of Catan is intended to keep three or four players ages
10 and above engaged for up to 90 minutes.
5 Fun things I learned:
Each player's dice roll can end up giving others new resources. Nice!
Roll a 7 and the robber comes out. "The robber is a d*ck," sayeth
the Wheaton. There were ALOT of 7's rolled in this game which moves the
robber around. If it sits on your property, you can't get any resources
from it. Ouch. 20 minutes into the show a 7 was rolled 29% of the time
instead of the 18% that statistics say should happen.
Goals: Build: Settlements, upgrade to Cities, build the longest road, build the largest army, and buy Development cards. Get 10 victory points and you win.
Coolest trivia discovery - in the Neil Grayston bonus interview:
He just finished making a Syfy Movie called "End of the World" with
Greg Grunburg (the telepathic cop Matt Parkman in Heroes) where they play
two video store clerks trying to avert the end of the world with their
disaster movie knowledge. Tongue in cheek fun coming soon.
Grayston
credits his playing DnD in High school for prompting him to become a
professional actor. His group loved drama and it was a natural fit.
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.
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.
Exclusive audio recording of the panel at bottom of this blog page.
Wondercon 2012, Comic-con's little sibling that's usually in San Francisco, was in Anaheim this year. One of the panels was "Geek & Sundry". Without knowing it, I was there for the launch announcement for their new YouTube channel.
Why is this news on a blog centered around Savage Worlds and Maptool? One of the shows on their new channel is called Table Top. It's a show about playing games, our kind of games. Wil Wheaton hosts the show with TV and media folks as quests. It's a huge step forward for the industry. And yes, he'll actually tackle RPGs. The first RPG listed is Dragon Age. We have to get him to do Savage Worlds. Since this was the most important announcement to me, here's the ad for Table Top. See how many games and guests you can name.
The Wondercon Panel was about all the shows coming to the G&S Channel. The host was Kim Evey (G&S Exec. Prod.) and the panelists were:
Felicia Day - Dr. Horrible, The Guild, Eureka - G&S Channel Exec. Prod.
Wil Wheaton - StarTrek:NG, Eureka, Big Bang Theory - Show: Table Top - Gaming
Mike Richardson - Founder and Pres. Dark Horse Comics: Producing a new form of motion comics.
The Shows launch in April. In order of Savage Duck interest, they are:
Table Top: Launching April 2nd and my favorite show listed. Hosted by Wil Wheaton and featuring table top games including at least one RPG. See the ad above. Dragon Age was the first RPG Wil identified to be covered on Table Top. 30 minutes episodes every other week once it launches.
Dark Horse: starting April 2nd and every Wednesday following. Mike Richardson promises that Dark Horse is bring something entirely new to this motion graphic approach. Hellboy, The Goon, and The Umbrella Academy kick off this channel.
Sword & Laser: Starting April 13th and every other Friday following...the popular book review podcast is coming to life in video with their very cool set that looks like a dungeon. Hosted by Veronica Belmont & Tom Merritt and they have a cyborg dragon that breathes fire and talks too.
The Guild: Season 5 coming April 10th. If you don't know this one, smack yourself. When episodes move to G&S they'll reformat them so we don't have to watch the intro music/animation between episodes.
Flog: Felicia Day's video blog on stuff she's interested in.
Written by a Kid: July 16th and every Wednesday following. Original sci-fi, fantasy and horror stories by real kids are transformed into stunning shorts by today's coolest directors. These original live-action and animated pieces truly capture the madness and magic of the 4-to-9 year old mindset. This could be a surprising hit. A lot of unknowns but The Troll has more to share with Chaos Lord Zach, his son.
LearningTown: Starting sometime in the fall, this smart offbeat musical, nerd duo Paul & Storm blend vocal harmonies with comedic scenarios as they are tasked with reviving the flagging educational show of their childhoods.
Here's a YouTube of the first 6 minutes of the panel. It covers what G&S is and Wil Wheaton's segment introducing Table Top. Just below this video is a link to my own audio recording of the panel recorded for our Savage Troll folks.
The Exclusive audio recording of the full panel is here. I call it Exclusive as the first 2 minutes are what really happens at a live panel before the show starts. I didn't see anyone else that had it on YouTube so it's something special we can share. I've recorded a minute and half intro to explain whats happening in this first 2 minutes that would otherwise be hard to understand. Enjoy!!
Coming next: Art from Wondercon! How you can go to a Con and get new art for your gaming.
