GeekDad & TableTop Contest Winners!

WIL WHEATON: Hi, I'm Wil Wheaton.
I am the host and co-creator of TableTop,
and I am a geek dad.
Geek and Sundry teamed up with Wired's GeekDad this Father's
Day, and we asked geek dads and geek kids to make videos
about gaming together.
Some of the videos are just phenomenal.
All of the videos are wonderful because at their
core, they're about love.
And they're just delightful to watch.
I was given the unbelievably difficult task of choosing
five videos from all the submissions to choose to
highlight on this playlist.
I did that because it was my responsibility, but it was not
easy at all.
Every video that we've got is really worth watching, so if
you have some time with your kids, when these videos are
over, sit down and watch the rest of them.
And if you're a geek dad or a geek mom, you might want to
have some tissues nearby, because some of them really
yank at the old heartstrings.
Before I get out of the way and let you watch these videos
that were sent to us, I want to tell you a very short story
about gaming with my kids and how it
really brought us together.
When my kids were small, we spent a ton of time playing
board games together.
We played games like Talisman and Give Me
the Brain and Munchkin.
And when Zombie Dice came out, we started
playing Zombie Dice together.
But one of the greatest things ever for me was teaching my
kids Dungeons and Dragons.
And sitting down and telling a story together.
And watching the excitement come out of them as they went
through their first Dungeons.
And for me, seeing myself reflected in them as growing
RPG geeks was really, really wonderful.
I wrote a story on my blog a few years ago about how my son
Ryan wanted to roll up his own D&D character, and I was
really excited about that, until I realized that he was
using my dice.
The dice.
You gamer dads know what I'm talking about.
He touched my dice.
Well, it turned out to be a really funny story that I
actually wrote about on my blog.
And when Ryan graduated from college last year,
I gave him my dice.
And it made both of us cry.
And it was the best dice experience I've ever had.
And I've had a lot of dice experiences.
So Happy Father's Day, geek dads.
And I hope you all enjoy the videos that we chose.
And I hope you really get to watch all the
videos that were submitted.
And when they're over, kids, go find your dad.
Maybe he's in the other room, maybe he's on the other end of
a phone, maybe he's at the other end of an email, just
get in touch with him.
And tell him you love him.
I guarantee you, it's going to make both of your days.
Thanks a lot for watching, and thanks for watching TableTop.
And I'll see you around.
Bye.

ALEXIS SCHANTZ: When I was little, my parents and I used
to have a family game night.
When I was about seven, my dad brought out D&D. While I could
spend the remaining time talking to you about that, I'd
rather talk about this.
This would be my dad's painting desk.
He would spend many an hour down here, painting the scary
monsters, the heroic heroes, and really whatever
else he felt like.
And I was always a welcome audience.
I could sit and watch and tell him about how lame school was,
and how cool my friends are, and how bad my
knee hurts right now.
And he'd listen.
A lot of things changed after his first deployment.
But even then I knew I could sit next to him and tell him
about my day.
He doesn't paint as much as he used to.
Yet I know, there will always be room for two at this bench.
I love you, Dad.
Happy Father's Day.

JOHN KAUFELD: We only have an hour of tape on there.
BECCA KAUFELD: Oh no!
JOHN KAUFELD: Seriously.
BECCA KAUFELD: Oh no!
JOHN KAUFELD: Hi, camera.
BECCA KAUFELD: Hi.
JOHN KAUFELD: Hi, I'm John.
BECCA KAUFELD: I'm Becca.
JOHN KAUFELD: And we're coming to you to talk about our
favorite topic, board games.
BECCA KAUFELD: Board games!
JOHN KAUFELD: Board games with, you know, parents.
Like me.
I started playing games with my dad.
And there's some irony to this, because my very
favorite, if only real game memory of me playing with my
dad was playing Monopoly.
BECCA KAUFELD: And of course, the irony of this is that
Monopoly is now officially outlined in our house because
there were way too many tears and too much shouting between
my older brother and I. So instead, we play all sorts of
other games.
JOHN KAUFELD: All sorts of European board games.
BECCA KAUFELD: That's true.
And my personal favorite memory of playing with you is
that when I was 11, there is this game, a very high
strategy game called Puerto Rico.
And when I was 11, I decided that I needed to learn it.
And dad didn't tell me that I couldn't, he didn't tell me I
was too young, he didn't tell me it was too high-level
strategy for me, whatever.
And I sat down and I started to play.
And I since then, I have come in third in a championship,
and it's one of the greatest games I've ever played.
JOHN KAUFELD: And there you have it.
Life, board games, and our house.
Ciao!
BECCA KAUFELD: Ciao!
BAYDEN WOODLAND: My favorite game to play with my dad--
DARIEN WOODLAND: My favorite game to play with my dad--
CANDACE WOODLAND: My favorite game to play with my dad--
SEBASTIAN WOODLAND: My favorite game to
play with my dad--
BAYDEN WOODLAND: Hmm--
CANDACE WOODLAND: --is Slamwich.
DARIEN WOODLAND: --is Descent.
CANDACE WOODLAND: Because I always win.
SEBASTIAN WOODLAND: Star Trek ships battling each other.
CANDACE WOODLAND: Geeky star things--
BAYDEN WOODLAND: Munchkin
DARIEN WOODLAND: Puerto Rico.
CANDACE WOODLAND: Catan.
BAYDEN WOODLAND: Ticket to Ride.
DARIEN WOODLAND: Carcassonne.
BAYDEN WOODLAND: Star Wars Epic Duels.
CANDACE WOODLAND: Star Trek Interactive VCR Game.
BAYDEN WOODLAND: RoboRally.
SEBASTIAN WOODLAND: Citadels.
CANDACE WOODLAND: That game with the hexes.
DARIEN WOODLAND: Space Beans.
SEBASTIAN WOODLAND: The something quest.
CANDACE WOODLAND: No, we got rid of that stupid one.
DARIEN WOODLAND: Race for the Galaxy.
CANDACE WOODLAND: I don't want to insult Steve Jackson.
BAYDEN WOODLAND: I've never played any of them.
DARIEN WOODLAND: Space Beans is the best.
BAYDEN WOODLAND: We roleplay a lot.
CANDACE WOODLAND: I remember the first time I played
roleplaying games.
SEBASTIAN WOODLAND: Who was going to marry the princess?
CANDACE WOODLAND: I work in a geeky board game store.
DARIEN WOODLAND: He paints miniatures.
CANDACE WOODLAND: Because he always reads the rules.
BAYDEN WOODLAND: He's very imaginative.
CANDACE WOODLAND: How awkward it is when we play Bang with
his friends.
SEBASTIAN WOODLAND: All the fashion changes in that game.
CANDACE WOODLAND: Then they say I'm going to Bang you.
BAYDEN WOODLAND: We will duel at dawn.
CANDACE WOODLAND: And I'm like my dad's right there, this is
really awkward.
DARIEN WOODLAND: He plays everything.
CANDACE WOODLAND: It would be Wil
Wheaton to come to JohnCon.
DARIEN WOODLAND: The convention that my dad runs.
SEBASTIAN WOODLAND: Then I could hang
out with Wil Wheaton.
That'd be sweet.
ORIN: Hi there.
This is Orin from Los Angeles.
When I was a kid, my family, we had game nights on a
regular basis.
We would play everything from Monopoly to Yahtzee to more
obscure games like Dungeon Dice and Chutzpah.
But my dad and I played Scrabble.
Since I was 9 or 10, we would push those little wooden tiles
across the table like armies on a battlefield.
The bitter struggle to deploy the Q and the
Z in the same word.
The petty little schemes to deny each other the access to
the triple word score.
But for the first 10 years of our ongoing battle, I never
once walked out of that Scrabble thunderdome alive.
I read voraciously.
I consumed vocabulary like a congressman
spending taxpayer money.
While the learning was good for its own sake, it also
served to prepare me for my dad's
inevitable Scrabble downfall.
After years of fomenting Scrabble revolution, I was
finally able to overthrow the Scrabble dictator.
But the tug of war has continued ever since.
My dad, he made me the geek I am today.

BRADLEY ROSE: Hello there.
My dad and I don't play a lot of games together, but when we
do game, we love to play chess.
Now I know when comparing the experiences of say, Small
World with chess, it can feel very different
for a lot of people.
Like say, when you pick the wealthy dwarfs, and you put
some coins and put it in your pocket and compare it to
"check," it can be a noticeable difference.
But when me and my dad spend time together,
it's always in silence.
So when we play chess, it's just--
it's just for us a normal
extension of our time together.
That quiet male bonding . experience.
And I think that's awesome.
Now my dad doesn't know I'm doing this right now, so Happy
Father's Day, Dad.