Wil Wheaton on International TableTop Day and why gaming matters so much (video)

In its inaugural year, International TableTop Day was almost Intergalactic TableTop Day. The March 30, 2013 event — designed to promote the hobby of card, board, and pen-and-paper role-playing games — brought players together for 3,123 gaming sessions over 64 countries and across seven continents. (Yes, “seven” includes Antarctica.) The organizers, video-entertainment group Geek & Sundry, almost got a board game going on the International Space Station as well, but space rules and space red tape got in the way.

Perhaps some zero-G gaming will happen at this year’s International TableTop Day, taking place on April 5.

Geek & Sundry announced the 2014 date at a recent “Play More Games” event in Los Angeles where I hosted a panel with speakers Wil Wheaton, actor and host of G&S’s TableTop web show; Boyan Radakovich, one of the producers of TableTop; and Mark Kaufmann, cofounder of gaming company Days of Wonder. The panelists discussed the games that brought them into the hobby, why tabletop gaming has become such a big deal, Wheaton’s BBQ skills, and more. You can check out highlights from the talk in the video above.

And in case you’re wondering why we’re posting this on GamesBeat, a video game site, well … you’ve seen our “Great tabletop games for video gamers” series, right? The correct answer is “yes,” so you already know that we’ve crossed over into that realm before. Also, our boss said it was cool — so there.