The newest Tabletop features a really fun dice game set in the Arkham Horror universe called Elder Sign.
Fantasy flight Games publishes an epic game called Arkham Horror that I just love. In the game, the players assume the role of Lovecraftian Pulp Investigators who are all working together to stop one of the Great Old Ones from devouring the world.
You know, like you do.
Arkham Horror is a complex, intricate, incredibly difficult, beautiful game. It's more like a guided role playing game where the board itself is the GM, and there really isn't another boardgame out there (that I can think of off the top of my head, anyway) that plays like it does. I would love to play it on Tabletop... but it takes a minimum of three hours, and if I put it on the show, I wouldn't do the game justice. There's just no way to edit a 3 or 4 or 5 hour game into 30 or even 45 minutes, while staying true to the heart and soul of the game.
Luckily for us, Fantasy Flight also publishes a cooperative dice game set in the Arkham Horror world called Elder Sign. Designed by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson (who also designed Arkham Horror), it takes about an hour to play, and while it isn't a scary and complex as Arkham, it is still beautiful and challenging. It was perfect for my show.
Follow this link, if you don't see the embedded video above, to watch Elder Sign at YouTube.
While I have your attention:
At GenCon last weekend, the most frequently asked question I got was "When do you start the second season of Tabletop?"
The next most frequently asked question was, "What are you going to play on the second season?"
My answer to both of these questions is: "I have no idea, because we don't know if YouTube is going to fund a second season."
What usually followed was a series of confused noises and some stammering before the final question was asked: "How do I help you get a second season?"
Here is the answer:
The best and most effective way to support Tabletop -- in fact, the only way that Google even cares about -- is to subscribe to the channel, like and comment on the episodes (if you, you know, actually like them) and encourage everyone you know to do the same thing.
Google cares about interactions like that on their Premium Channels (like G&S), and while we all know we're never going to get the same numbers as the longtime YouTubers who are getting five million views per video, I think that if we can stay up in the six digits, we'll get another season.
It's amusing to me that we're not dealing with a studio or a network, but we still have to hit certain numbers to get more funding (just like we would if we were on broadcast television.)
Finally, I'll leave you with this:
You'll have to watch Tabletop's Elder Sign episode for context. But beware... there are some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know.
