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You damn kids these days with your XBox360s and your smart phones and your technological cocoons from which you pretend to have a social life despite any actual interaction beyond a "Like!" or an amusing meme.  Back in my day, if you wanted to play a game, it had to exist in a physical manifestation!  Oh, those were dark days, back when we were forced to walk uphill, BOTH WAYS, just to have the chance to play a tattered game of Monopoly.  We lived for the days that the Game Wagon would roll into town just for the chance to find a Uno deck with most of the cards still in it.

And we liked it!  We loved it!

But now brighter days have returned for table top gaming.  Nerd Messiah, Wil Wheaton, has a YouTube show all about them called TableTop.  BoardGameGeek can point you in about a thousand directions that all lead to great games.  Thanks to this newfangled Internet, people with cool ideas can get their games funded through Kickstarter and send them straight to the people who want them.

All you have to do is know how to play.  That's where, go figure, the How To Play podcast steps in.

Relevant Links:
How To Play Main Site
Support the Show!
Episode Archives

How To Play podcast doesn't throw up any smoke and mirrors when it comes to its premise:  each podcast covers a game's rules and gives a thorough explanation on how to play.  Host Ryan Sturm takes it upon himself to explain a veritable plethora of games to his audience.  A teacher by trade, Sturm's language and method of introducing and explaining each piece of a game are clear, understandable and obviously thought out.  There is a good deal of effort put into How To Play and I think it pays off really well.

Content Rating:  Clean, and tagged so in iTunes.  It's a bit funny to imagine this show with explicit language though.  "JUST MOVE THE #&$*@ PIECE, IT'S NOT THAT HARD!"

Average Episode Length:  I don't want to give you the normal median time for How To Play.  It really depends on what kind of game Sturm is describing.  Simple games require less time, while more complicated games take more time.  You can probably judge the intricacy of a game just by checking the episode's time. 

Drinking Game:  Pick one of the following words, and drink each time it is used:

• Dice
• Card
• Hand
• Banker
• Board

  That should get you there pretty quickly.

How To Play is a podcast of great use to anybody who has ever tried to learn, or teach others how to play a game.  This is a great way to break down what can be daunting instructions (I'm looking at you, Fantasy Flight) and lists of errata into a functioning rule set.  If you have trouble explaining rules, How to Play can help you by either teaching you how to teach others, or you can just play the episodes for your friends while you set the game up.

On top of that, you also get to learn about strategies for how to win each game.  Uh, you don't have to let your friends listen to that part of the episode if you don't want to. 

Music:  A little guitar music that I believe is performed by the host.  Very nice!

Release Schedule:  Monthly, with more episodes if there are expansions to a game that are covered.


Unintentionally Good Part:  Honestly, I really like the guitar music.  It's calming.

Unintentionally Bad Part:  If you don't have, or are not interested in a particular game that is covered by an episode, you're not going to listen to it.  Shortens the library of possible episodes considerably for me, but this really isn't a fault of the podcast in the slightest.  I just need to buy more games!

Unrelated rating:  Three top hats out of three scottie dogs.

Dear Readers,

Let's take a bold step away from podcasts for a moment.  I know,  I'm as scared as you are.

Hold me, reader!

Wash your hands first, though, hygiene is critical in inter-Internet-personal relationships.

Sometimes even I don't listen to podcasts!  Sometimes I do other things!  Especially when I'm a dumb ass and forget both sets of headphones at work.  That's when I'm forced to turn to other forms of entertainment.  Like all them moving pictures on the YouTubes!  There sure are a lot of them.  Allow me to show you one that I like in particular, won't you?

For your consideration, I offer the board game stylings of TableTop.


My major goal behind this site and all of my podcast reviews is to show other people things that I enjoy, in the hopes that they will enjoy them as well.  If I were a dry cleaner or a car lot, that would be the thing engraved on the elegant "Mission Statement" plaque hung up in the front lobby.  I want to promote the works of creative people who do cool things that are also awesome and fun.  Every once and a while I might step outside of podcasts to help give a signal boost to a thing I like.

And of course, I also make sure to promote things that everybody and their mother already know about.  Like TableTop.

Wil Wheaton, beloved nerd who is in pretty much every damn thing relating to geek pop culture, is your Tabletop host.  He provides a setting in which he can gather friends to play board games, card games, and anything that can be played on a tabletop (get it!?) together.  While Wheaton is a well practiced gamer, most of the guests on the show are what the youngins' refer to as "newbies".  The play session is recorded, and hilarity ensues.


Content Rating:  Clean!  Bad words are bleeped.  Might be some innuendo if that knots your delicate panties. 


This show provides a great way for those interested in board games beyond the worn copy of Monopoly in their closet to see how a board game is played, and whether or not they'd be interested in purchasing it for their own collection.  The rules of each game are explained so that viewers can pick up the basics and their are some nice post-production effects to help you see where and why players do what they do.

TableTop has a great feel to it as you watch.  Wheaton is delighted to introduce people to new games and his guests are raring for some friendly competition.  Most of the guests are celebrities of varying recognition and are prepared to be aesthetically pleasing to your senses.  

Unintentionally Good Part:  How the set pieces change in the background to thematically match whatever game is being played.

Unintentionally Bad Part:  I am not there playing games with Wil Wheaton.  Boo.

If you play table top games, if you enjoy delightful people playing board games while you watch, or if you never realized that there were board games beyond Snakes and Ladders and that Ouija board you hid under your bed from your parents, this show is for you.  I highly recommend it and think you should go check it out!

So get to it!