In Praise of Tabletop

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Michael R. Underwood

I’ve been enjoying the Geek & Sundry YouTube channel, especially the Sword & Laser video show, but today, I want to talk about the awesome that is Tabletop.

I’ve been a gamer nearly all of my life, but I became a Gamer at the tender age of nine, when classmates at school invited me to play D&D with them. My first character was a Barbarian with a Dune Buggy, and it was all downhill from there.

Like many geeks of my generation, large portions of my teen years were spent in front of dining room tables, consoles, and PCs, playing games of all types: video, board, collectible card, strategy, miniatures, and so on.

Wil Wheaton had a distinctively different upbringing than I did, having been a child star and all, but this thing we have in common: a great love for tabletop games. Wheaton brings this love to Tabletop, a web series where he invites friends and colleagues to hang out and play board games, card games, and strategy games. Wheaton has taken up a role of advocacy for these games, touting their ability to train critical thinking, strategy, teamwork, and to strengthen social connections. But rather than doing it in a Suzanne Somers “Please adopt this hungry d12. Just a quarter a day can help it get the crayons it needs to have clearly defined numbers…” kind of way, more a “this is really fun, let me give you the jist and then we will show you!”

The gameplay shown in Tabletop is intentionally heightened, as the players are clearly ‘ON’ in terms of giving a performance to maximize watchability, but it is usually not a huge stretch from an animated game between good friends.

One of the benefits of the show for me (and I hope many others) is the chance to introduce loved ones to the joy of tabletop games. I’ve bought several of the games featured (at my friendly local game store, of course), and shared them with my girlfriend, who is very gracious about sharing my passions, and whom I hope to turn to the Dork side of the Force (at least a little, if she wants).

I’ve embedded the first episode here to give a sense of the show.

What are some of your favorite tabletop games? Anything you think would be especially good for the show?

The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers

Posted on July 7, 2010 by Michael R. Underwood

The Uprising has begun.

After a year of build-up and promotion, the LXD webseries has debuted (on Hulu.com and on the LXD website).

LXD first caught my attention with the pair of trailers that have been available for quite some time, displaying clips of incredible feats of athleticism through dance and promising a superhero-style story. In the time that has passed since, more details have been unveiled:

Director John M. Chu is the spokesperson for the series, which displays a group of talented dancers by creating a narrative which casts the dancers as superhuman — after all, these people are perfoming at a level which cannot be matched by more than a handful of people around the world. And many of the feats do appear superhuman.

The LXD then is a super-team of people who have discovered their powers through dance and are gathering their forces for…something — which I imagine puts John M. Chu in the role of the Professor Xavier to the nascent Legion. Also, there seems to be a creepy dancer bad-guy who would then be the series’ Magneto. From origin stories to secret powers and a group of heroes seeking out talented youth to train and add to the team, the superhero motifs are already well in-place.

Two episodes have gone live so far, “The Tale of Trevor Drift” and “Antigravity Heroes,” both debuting on July 7th on Hulu and the LXD site. “The Tale of Trevor Drift” is the longer and more narratively meat-y of the two, showing the origin story of a young man whose powers manifest through his skills as a b-boy, which he reveals when he pursues his crush (Alice Wondershaw) at prom and is opposed by her boyfriend, Brendan Broman. (His name is seriously Broman. As in “Bro, Man.” I find this hilarious).

The second episode, “Antigravity Heroes,” focuses on two friends who gain anti-gravity powers when they horse around in an abandoned warehouse. There’s far less characterization, and it’s mostly a showcase episode until the end when the friends are pulled apart by circumstance…and evil plotting. Let’s not forget evil plotting.

As of yet, the narrative is not terribly sophisticated, but I’m intrigued by the superhero framework and consistently amazed by the level of the dancing. Dance Crew as Super-Team is a great metaphor, and I’m eager to see more.

For those unfamiliar with the series, here’s what to watch:

http://thelxd.com — You can watch the first two episodes here, as well as many of their promotional appearances, including The Oscars, So You Think You Can Dance, and their appearance at the TED Talks.

The episodes are also playing at http://hulu.com/thelxd

I think I need their T-Shirt. When they come for me, I will be known as Turbo, with Tactile Telepathy (via Tango Dancing).