Live Q&A - with Tom Vasel - March 30th, 2026

1:03 Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Dice Tower. I'm Tom Vasel. And uh we're doing that here at the Dice Tower. March 30th,

1:14 2020 26. All righty. Well, you know what? This is the worst week in the world for doing a news. When we do our news on Friday or Thursday, we're going to be careful that we don't pick up all the nonsense that is proclaimed on Wednesday cuz it's April 1st. Huzzah. Uh but hey, spring is here. That's a good thing. I'm sure it was a long tough winter for many of you. So, I'm glad to see you coming out of that. April is also a nice month because there's not a lot that's going on at the Dice Tower. Don't Let me wrong. We're always busy doing things and we but there's no conventions, nothing to plan for. I mean, again, we're planning in the future, but we have 1 month of a breather of sorts. So, that's always good. I had a good weekend. I hope all of you had a good weekend. If you have any questions, this is your chance to ask them. Um we got a bunch of different reviews coming up this week. I think we're doing the top 10 games that start with the letter N. No. Uh we'll be doing So, we've been doing some voting things.

2:17 We decided to take a break from games briefly. And so, on Wednesday, we're going to do voting for the top uh superhero movie of all time. So, join us Wednesday morning to vote for your favorite superhero movie. Out of 64, which is the best? Um I'm curious what will win this. I I I can There's I did 64. Um but I can tell you like 40 of them are not have no chance. But we'll see. You never know. And uh yeah, so uh that's what's coming out this week. Let me know your questions. Okay. Did I get to see Project Hail Mary? Did not. I I really have a hard time going to the movies these days. It's just so expensive comparatively. I I mean, there's other things I can do with my money rather than movies. And I Okay, waiting home. I have a nice big TV, nice sound.

3:07 Is it okay that I just wait to it then? I don't know. We'll see. Um I also might read the book. But I Yeah, I don't go to the movie I What's the last movie I just went and saw? I don't know even. I love the midgame video concept. Do you know yet to which number the BGG ranking you plan to continue this? Well, I was thinking about going to 7,000. So, uh that's what uh Let's see. So, two 20 20 40 60 I'm up to 8,000. 80, that's 80 videos. So, I can do that for basically 2 years, that series. We'll see. Maybe I'll get tired of it after a while.

3:53 When are you taking Jimmy to see the new Mario movie? Well, that movie I'm going to be taking him to see. He definitely wants to see it, so that's going to happen. Let's see here. No one's really asking questions.

4:14 Three months are gone and I haven't bought a single new game yet this year. Is the golden age of board gaming over? Well, I don't know that the board golden age with all due respect, I don't believe the golden age of board gaming revolves around you buying a game. But I don't even know what the golden age of board gaming is. I I do know this. People like to tell you what the golden age is and that's when they got into games and games were great and they loved them and that's it's kind of like what's your favorite era of music? That's the era that you when you got into music. Um and the same thing I think it is with board games. Was 2025 a lower year than previous years? I think so. Lots of great games came out in 2025. I swear this is my doctor. Nope. It's my pool guy. That one actually does matter here, so I do need to let them in.

5:01 My doctor has called me twice now over the uh the past um the past week and both times it was when I was live and they they left a message that said, "Please call back." I called back and sat on hold for 30 minutes each time. So, I don't know why they want me to call back.

5:27 Hang on. Okay. Let's see here. But anyway, back to the golden age of gaming. So, I don't think 2025 was as good as say 2024, but that doesn't mean that the golden age of gaming is over. Are we in Is there problems with gaming right now? Sure. Between shipping costs, between tariffs, between um the even the it it we're we're living in a weird era because even though shipping costs have gotten incredibly expensive, cost of making games has gone progressively higher, cost to ship games is really high, and yet companies are still making gigantic, huge games. Blows my mind. It just keeps happening.

6:13 And there are currently three humongous crowdfunding projects going on. There is the um the Brass: Birmingham, which is gigantic. There's the Here to Slay Kickstarter, which is doing really, really well. And then the um the Slay the Spire. They're all doing millions of dollars. So, it's hard to say that the golden age is over. I I think I think at the end of the day, it comes down to you. I mean, the history of gaming is I mean, it's clear that before 1990, there just wasn't that many great games. There was a lot of interesting games for sure. There was a lot of cool things. And if you liked war gaming, you were probably fine. But gaming has developed technologically.

7:00 Um people have come up with new ideas in gaming since then. So, some people are going to tell you the '90s were when it was pure or the '00s were when it was great then the '10s and who knows? The fact of the matter is you really can't gauge these things until years down the road. Apologies if this has been asked before. Would you ever consider holding a Dice Tower convention in the UK for those of us that love the Dice Tower but can't afford to fly over? How do you know it's that um there's those of us who love the UK but can't afford to fly over. If it's expensive for you to fly here, imagine how expensive it is for us to fly there with the library and everything else. An overseas convention for the Dice Tower, I'm not saying we haven't ever toyed with the idea, but we've never toyed with it realistically because it's just so expensive. It's expensive for us to go to Dice Tower West. Our expenses for that are quite a bit more in many ways than it is for Dice Tower East because we can drive there.

7:56 And since we're running the con, that kind of that's where that's at. Sorry. Why don't you and your colleagues in the profession invent a game? Well, I've designed a couple games. I'm not saying they're very good. And Chris has designed a few games and Mike has designed a game. So, we have done it. Um What am I currently reading? I'm reading a book series that I kind of don't like that much. But I I don't know. I I feel like I've invested too much. I'm going to finish at least this book. It's called Heretical Fishing. Mhm. It's It The problem with Heretical Fishing is the main character is too powerful. You normally I complain I'm I get tired of seeing the person get beat up the whole series, you know? I want to see them do win. But this guy never loses.

8:45 So, if you like that, how is the weight loss journey going? Well, I mean, there was a small setback at Dice Tower West, obviously in Vegas. But I I knew this going in. I walked a lot when I was there. Um I'm down as of Saturday, 37 lb. Right? Yeah, 37 lb. Mhm. It's getting a little slower now going through and I knew this would happen, but I'm feeling healthier and so still still trying to I would like to lose another minimum I'd like to to lose 23 more pounds minimum. Um That would be That would be my favorite. If I could get down that that'd be amazing. But we'll see. We'll see.

9:35 Uh What's on the table for Easter dinner? I haven't decided yet. Um other than I'm pretty sure it's going to be seafood. So, I will be making some seafood something or other. We've got already got a live stream going. You are early risers. Well, first of all, I don't believe 9:00 a.m. is particularly early. I am an early riser. I got up at 5:00. But I don't think 9:00 is early. 6:00 a.m. would be early. Um Over Easter, I'll bring my shelf of shame down to zero. Time to be proud of myself again until the next Kickstarter comes in. Do you consider about half the Dice Tower library your shelf or whatever?

10:21 No, I played the majority of the games in the Dice Tower library. There's a lot I haven't played, but I don't feel any shame about that. I try to get games played as quickly as I can. Thanks for your time. Are there types of board game mechanisms, drafting, area control, hand management that you find easier or more difficult to teach? Yes, it depends. That all depends on the players playing. For example, if someone plays a trick-taking game, has played them before, it's very easy to teach. But if someone hasn't played trick-taking before, it's a tricky game to teach. That that kind of mechanism. So, you can say that with most mechanisms there. Over the weekend, I uh played a lot of uh over the last two weekends, actually. I played a new video game called Crimson Desert. I was very much enamored with the the um advertisements for Crimson Desert.

11:12 Gigantic open world game type thing, and that sounded a lot of fun to me. The it looked like you could go and do anything. Uh they didn't I bought I pre-ordered the game, and then the reviews came out I think the day before the game released, and they were middling to good, right? There was a few negatives and a few very positives, but mostly they were like sevens, sixes or sevens. And I thought, oh well, it is what it is, you know. Played through it, and I don't know that I've ever played a video game that has had so many problems with it, so many things I'm like, uh but that I have played I played it for 35 hours. And I looked at it last night, and I was like, huh, that is a lot of times to play this, but man, it does things. And there's a couple of reasons why I'm still playing.

11:58 One, they keep updating the game. I've never seen a company update a game so quickly and do exactly what people want it. Like for example, they updated it yesterday, and there's these you find these there's a lot of locked doors in the game, and you find these keys for these locked doors. They're just random keys you find, and when you walk kind of door that's locked, you can go through it with the key. Well, I would just be walking around be like, oh there's a door, I'll go into it. And be like, you've used the key to unlock this door, and go into someone's bedroom, and there's nothing there. And I'm like, what a waste of a key. But you didn't know the door was locked, and you just walked in, and like, well, there was a wasted key. I would just not use them for most most of the time. But now, they've changed that to, hey, when you get to a door that's locked, it now says, do you want to use a key? And I go, no, I don't really care about this room.

12:43 That's small quality of life, and they have made hundreds of these in response to what everyone has has said. I like the game because it is this massively huge game. I mean, it's one of the biggest worlds I've ever seen. Um some people have said it's similar to Red Dead Redemption 2 in the sense that it's a horse riding simulator, and that's really true. I'm just riding my horse all over the place looking at stuff. There's a train that goes around half the map. I sat on that train and just watched the scenery go by. I just had a good time doing that. You can fish, you can chop wood, you can mine, you can start your own business, you can and then you fight. There's enemies, and there are hundreds of enemies, and you can just go through like they're the day I went and fought a quarry, and probably killed 150 guys straight just fighting through. And then you get to these bosses, which are Elden Ring powerful bosses. So, the whole thing is kind of fascinating to me.

13:39 There's issues. There's not a great story scene. There's quite a bit of cursing sometimes for no reason at all. The the story is meh. Um But the exploration is the best I've ever seen in a game. You're like traveling and through the world, and you'll find some weird things somewhere. You'll find a trapdoor in the middle, and you'll be like, well, let's go down there and see what's down there. I haven't felt like this since Skyrim. I I feel like this is the best exploration, the most fun I've had just going out and seeing what I find that I've ever felt in the game. I'm I'm pretty happy with it. Um I will I'll admit, there's definitely flaws in the game, but man, is it fun. But also uh yeah.

14:26 With how much you love seafood, do you ever go fishing? No, because there's a difference between I I I like I like venison, too, but I don't want to go hunting. I Fishing's I've done fishing in my life, although I think I believe the last time I went fishing was when I was 16. Um so, it's been a really really long time, but I just don't really have any desire to do so. Um Years ago, the Dice Tower West library wheels racks could not transport the library. How are the racks holding up now? I I don't know about the Dice Tower West ones. Oh, uh years ago, the ones that broke were Dice Tower East uh wheels, and we transported them across the country. Uh we bought mega powerful heavy duty wheels that were put on the bottom of them. That's why they're much more sturdy.

15:16 I have not read the comic Radiant Black. Sorry. I would put Fallout and Oblivion games into so flawed but so good category. I Yeah, I I I think you're right in that. They're definitely Bethesda games have always been that way. Skyrim has its weird oddities, too, right? But you just got to like it. Um Do you find that you're more generous or harsh in rating games depending on the time that you play them? I I don't think so, but I mean, one always thinks that one is unbiased in how you do it. I mean, at the end of the day, your enjoyment of the game is going to be affected of the mood you're in, the food you ate, the people you play with, how tired you are. Are you sick? Are you hot? Are you cold?

16:03 Hopefully, your viewer, you can overcome those things and see if a game is good or not. Definitely, usually for me, it's it's the it's the negative part of this that gets me, where I will have play a game and come out of it going, that wasn't an amazing experience. That was one of the best things I ever did. And then later, play it be like, hmm, maybe that was just such a fun group I played it with, you know. Sometimes the group can transcend a game. I tend to try to avoid people who do the opposite, bring things down. But uh

16:44 The audio for the podcast during Dice Tower West was very clear, but the top 10 seemed to be recorded differently. Um I don't know the how much differently we recorded them. Oh, I know why. Actually, I do know why. Because when we did the podcast, Eric had microphones for us to record the Dice Tower audio into. Oh, right. And and and so, we were speaking into those. And we also did not use since there was not a ton of people there, let's say it was 30, 40 people there. Um I said, hey, can everyone hear us? And they did. I said, we're not going to use the mics for the room then. And that makes a big difference for recording purposes. But I can't do that in a big show and be like, we're just going to talk. We are I say this every time, and people get annoyed, and I don't know how to fix it, is that we do our shows at conventions for the people who come there. They're our number one priority.

17:37 We then record it and put it online in case you would also like to see it, realizing the audio is not going to be as good. And then people complain, I'm like, well, I didn't have to show it to you at all. I didn't record it to put online. It's just a secondary thing. It is incredibly difficult to record something live for the the the people that are watching it, and have it streamed at the same time. It can be done, and sometimes it works really well. And sometimes, it's the Oscars. Go watch the Oscars. They're doing the exact same thing. They're doing a big live show. It's recorded live and streamed live, and they make mistakes, and these guys have millions, if not billions, of more dollars than I do. So, we do our best, but again, my my my main focus is always the people who are there.

18:31 What are the odds that if your younger kids would join the Dice Tower review staff, ratings of six and seven will shift to refer to mid average games? I don't understand the question there. I Are you Is this a six seven joke? Is this a Is this a thing where kids think giving something a six or seven is average? My kids don't. They know they know exactly where those numbers land. I don't know.

19:03 Was the gaming machine the one that destroyed you in Food Chain Magnet? Yes. Um Have you ever done a top 10 favorite faith-based game list? I don't think you mean faith-based game. I think you mean a Christian themed game there. I only say that because faith-based, first of all, can mean any any faith, but I don't know that the games are based on faith. The games are based on mechanisms. I know I'm being pedantic here. But if you mean Christian themed game, I think most of them are terrible across the board, unfortunately. Um there are a few good ones, but no, I've not made a top 10.

19:46 Um Have you ever thought about making a video explaining the different stages of being a board gamer collector, buying games to please the masses, finding a preferred niche. Actually, I would, but I don't want to copy Paula Deming. Paula Deming has made a really good video that shows this off. If you've never had a chance to see her um her channel, it's really funny and she does some skits and I thought that one was really well done. Has Marvel United fizzled out for you or have you played it over the last few months? Well, never look at have I played something over the last few months as whether I like a game or not. You really I I don't know how did like I want to like hear people like, "It's not possible." If I played my top 100 games, let's say I played my only my top 20 games. My top 20 games every few months, I would not have much time for other things beyond that. If I played a game every day for 2 months, so let's say that's 60 games, and 20 of those were my favorite games, that leaves only room for 40 other games to play. So, I could play my 20 favorite games and then 40 new games and then that game that's 21 would never get played.

20:56 And so, that's why I do play games I like a lot. I just recently played a game in my top 100 last Tuesday. I played a bunch of new games and I said, "Well, these were all kind of okay games. Let's play a good one." And I pulled out a good one and we played it. But, I just don't play games as often as people think. I mean, I play games a lot, but I don't play I don't get to go back to games as much as you might think you would want to. I play them as much as I want to.

21:28 What was the biggest change you noticed this year at Dice Tower West compared to previous iterations? Well, I think the library really leveled up its game. I think it did a really good job on that. Um And it was also you can tell the second year uh conventions that it's location because people kind of ah, this is how things work now. Because the first year you're there, everything's new, everything's in different locations. The second year, things go smoother. Ah, I see. So, Robo Rally Rover just needed the right group. Yeah, that's again, that's what people This is one of the biggest complaints that people say is that you didn't play it right. You needed to play it more when we don't like a game. People very rarely say that when we like a game. Ah, you like that game? Play it some more and see if you still like it.

22:13 But, when we don't like a game, yeah, people are like, "Hmm." How many Thunder Quest expansions have you played? Hmm. I played a lot of them, but not all of them. There's just so many of them. I don't care about the co-op one. I like playing it the way it is. I and maybe this is me being old man shaking his fist at clouds, but when a game has an expansion that changes it to co-op or whatever, I usually am not interested in that at all. There's a gazillion cooperative games out there. If there's a game I love competitively, why would I want it to be co-op? It's just not for me. I played Arctic Scavengers the other day and I do enjoy the three different ways to get cards including holding back for the fight in the end. Is there any other newer deck builders doing the same?

23:01 I don't think so. Arctic Scavengers is a good game. I like it, but it's it does what it does fine. I don't know that other games need to copy it per se. Hi Tom, looking forward as well to Lord of the Rings: King's Gambit. Interested to see how they will do the 3D Minas Tirith and Mordor components. I am also. It will be exciting to see how that comes out. Hi Tom, how do you pair together people to do reviews? What games go to studio reviews when done in pairs or big review style with three reviewers? Would like to know the inside on that. There's no real inside on anything. We have a pile of games here that we play. Different people play them. I might be like, "Hey Mike, I think you'd like this game." and he might play it or what have you. But, we don't get together each week with meeting and say, "These are the reviews that are going up. I'm reviewing game X." and Chris will say, "Oh, I also played game X. I join me for a review."

23:54 That's it. The only time I put my hand in is sometimes if there might be a small game, I'll say, "We don't need three people reviewing that. Two people's fine." But, for the most and if one person's reviewing it, you know, just not everyone is no one is people are basically self-selecting games, not me picking who does what review. Which means our reviews should shift more positive than not since people are playing the ones they want to play. And yet, not always. How many of your top 100 would end up in each of the alphabet top 10 lists? I don't know. I mean, it'd be a really easy thing to do. Just take the top 10, sort by letters and see. Probably all 100 will make it on those lists cuz those lists are going to be 270 games, 270 different games. So, even if my top 100 does make it, you still got 170 games that aren't on the top 100.

24:49 How many games will I win at Dice Tower East? Three. What is the fun ratio between setting up and playing HeroScape compared to your younger years? I don't know what you mean by that. Um I like both of them. I think I like the setup more back in the day, but I don't know. It's a big deal. Are you happy that Zee reviewed the latest Magenta Line game so you don't have to hurt your eyes as much? I'm glad he reviewed them because I did not want to keep I felt like at it comes a point you can only harp on the same thing so much. It got to the point where I used to review the Tiny Epic games and every time I would start reviewing a Tiny Epic game, people are like, "We get it. They're small. They're too small. They should be bigger." And I don't want to keep saying the same complaint over and over again. So, the Magenta Line, I hate how they look a lot.

25:39 Am I going to say that every time they come up with a game? I think it gets more egregious the the newest ones. No thanks, I didn't like how it looked at all. I have a really cool German version of No Thanks that I think looks fun. I'm not like defending some of the other versions of No Thanks, the Mayfair one and the Z-Man one are meh. But, the Magenta one is ugly. But, the other one, I'm out, that was a remake of 13 Leaves, a game that was published last year also. And 13 Leaves is gorgeous and functionally cool. It works. It has things in the cards telling you how many are in the deck. I'm out is is so such a bad version of that. But, I give props to CMYK. They're like, "We made this line. We're sticking with it." So, they're sticking to their guns.

26:25 That's great. But, yeah, they're pretty terrible. But, I don't want to keep I guess I just did it again here on this show. But, I figured it'd be better have someone else in the reviews. So, it was either that I was happy. I hope you do a top 10 on games that aged well. Well, maybe. You never know. I know many board games that can rust. Yeah, maybe. I'm excited to see a review for Flip Pick Towers and will love a top 10 blanket rights from Joey. Well, I think I don't know. Maybe you maybe you'll see that from him at some point. What game was Joey reviewing when you caught him in the wild? I don't know, actually.

27:06 I showed him that video later and like, "Did you even know I was there?" He did not. Oh, did I catch up on questions? I did. Well. Of course, this is telling me that there is only one person watching. That can't be that cannot be correct number-wise. Now it says there's three people watching. Did I lose everyone? Hmm. Yeah, weird. Alrighty. Um Howdy Tom, have you ever considered a top 10 underutilized mechanisms? I know you've always said the Robinson Crusoe card mechanism, but do you think you could pull off a full top 10? I could if I put a lot of thought into it. So, that would be an interesting thing to do at some point.

27:52 Do a top 10 games that weigh as much as the weight you have lost. Thanks, B.

27:57 No. Um What happened to your copy of Robo Rally Rover 27? I did a short where I threw it into the trash and I did not pull it out. Someone Someone said, "Ah, this was just a stunt." No, I threw it in the trash bin and didn't get out because it's worthless. It's a terrible game. I'm not going to pawn it off on somebody else. And that someone said, "You should use that big hunk of junky plastic as a toy for kids." What are you talking about? People think that that happens more often than not. You're like, "Hey kids, here's this junky thing. Play with it." And the kids are like, "Thanks. Our imagination will go wild. We can't wait to play with this." And you know I know kids don't think that cuz you go to kids' houses and they have a bunch of these giant He-Man castle {slash} Justice League headquarters {slash} whatever whatever in their closet that never gets pulled out. And those things are cool. It just doesn't happen that [clears throat] often.

28:51 Um Speaking of rust, do you dislike metal board game boxes much as I do? No, I probably dislike them more than you. Are you intending to visit UK Games Expo at any point again? I'm not intending to visit anything at a at a point again. I And I don't mean it in a negative way. It's just that I don't plan my conventions until we get closer to the end of the year then I'm like, "All right, what conventions am I going to the following year?" Like, I'm going to the Philippines in May, which will be exciting. And then I have the Dice Tower four conventions, Gen Con and Essen this year. That is it this year. Um I have no plans for next year. I'll probably start, you know, if someone emails me and says, "Hey, you want to come to this con?" I might consider it, but I definitely have no intentions to go or not to go to different things.

29:54 So many better Christian games coming out, maybe a top 10 biblical games? Well, the same thing, right? Um Top three underrated sauces? How is a sauce underrated? Um My current favorite sauce, I think, I had it over the weekend on a salad. It was a It was a habanero vinegar from a company called Golden Leaf. I ran into them at a seafood festival in Homestead. And I know their name's Golden Leaf because I looked it up cuz I want to order some more from them, but it was really spicy. That was pretty good sauce. This has nothing to do with underrated though. Um I think the new flavored vinegars, this is a new trend. There's these flavored vinegar stores quite in quite a few spots, flavored vinegars and flavored oils. I love them. I think they're great. I'm sure they won't last, but I like that a lot.

30:45 Um I know that my kids, over the weekend we ate something or other. Oh, we had we bought some chicken bakes from Costco and then heat them up in the oven. They're great that way. Um and they they used uh Chick-fil-A sauce on that. That's a good sauce, Chick-fil-A. Also called Thousand Island. And um but yeah, I just like sauces in general. My favorite sauces, that would be a a fun top 10 list. I know that right now I'm in the mood for some some chili, that that Vietnamese chili sauce. I love that stuff. I could have that all the time.

31:24 Any recommendations on a TV series you're streaming watching right now? I don't watch a ton of TV. Um me and the kids are currently going through the One Piece uh live-action series. We watched episode six and uh five and six last night. It's such a dorky show, but I'm amused by it and I think it's amusing. I mean, my daughter just has to like My daughter Claire loves One Piece and we basically have banned her from talking because I'll see something like, "Who's that guy?" She'll be like, "Well, actually that guy's about to die."

32:00 I didn't need to know that information. Um and my son has really gotten into Survivor. He likes watching Survivor. Likes the gaming aspect of that. But we don't watch much more than that. Um I occasionally watch Oh, I'm I'm currently binging with my son. Each week we watch We've been going through Malcolm in the Middle, all the old ones, so that when the new ones come out, which I think is this week, so I'm a little bit behind. I still have a season of Malcolm to catch up on. But uh yeah, we like Malcolm in the Middle.

32:40 Have you tried Nemesis Retaliation? I have not, so I can't I can't really speak to it. Has your weight loss inspired other Dice Tower crew members to go on a similar journey? I feel like Zee is getting slimmer too. Uh I feel like that too, but at the at the end of the day, I don't ever want what I'm doing to be a push on other people. You know, I got you got to be really careful on this cuz I I think about how I'm feeling. I'm sitting there, I'm eating a a burger from Five Guys, right? And the person next to me is like eating a carrot stick and they're like, "I'm just trying to lose weight." You're like, "I get it." You know,

33:16 you know, you don't want to be like constantly in other people's face about it. Even me talking about it feels a little It's also a little braggy and I don't mean it to be that way. I mean, I'm proud of of of doing that, um but I don't ever want it to be a thing like that, right? So So No, I'm not trying to inspire other people. I just The doctor said, "You should do it." So I am. I can repurpose a lot of stuff for miniature games, Pringles cans and everything, but I looked at that Robo Rally and thought, "Nope."

33:50 I remember way back in the day, me and and me and some guys played uh Warhammer 40K at our church and so many hymnals were terrain. Hymnals everywhere. Um If I have some interest in a football game, do you think I should get Battle Ball or just play at Dice Tower? Yes, well, if you're going to Dice Tower, yes, play it there. See if you like it, then get it.

34:17 Have you ever thought of replacing Shut the Door with some new catchphrase? Just saying that I kind of miss it though, I understand retiring it. Yeah. Yeah, I always keep things in my back pocket. Did you keep your Dominion first edition cards, the ones that were not reprinted for second edition? Some, maybe. I don't remember. I just went through all the cards and said, "I like this one. I don't like this one." So if some of them were first edition, so be it, but I don't remember. Are you still wanting hot takes? Yes. And how about non-game Kickstarters? Definitely. Tom@dicetower.com. You had me at flavored vinegar. Yeah, flavored vinegar is great. Um my current favorite is I have a watermelon flavored vinegar that I mix with some lemon flavored olive oil for my salads. It's a really good combo.

35:10 But I also have some um some apricot apricot balsamic vinegar, which is also good, and some jalapeno balsamic. Those are both really delicious. That's my lunch every day. It's a salad where I take some of these flavored vinegars and put it in it. Ever try HP sauce? Help me out. What's HP? Harry Potter? Um What is HP? I maybe I'm I'll just look it up. Sorry, I don't know why I'm I'm blanking here. Oh, it's called HP sauce. Oh, brown sauce. Yes, sorry. Yes, I just forgot what it was called. Uh HP sauce is the brown sauce from England. Yes, I like it so much that I I hunted some. In fact, when I was in Fort Lauderdale a couple years ago, there was a British store there for whatever reason. I went in and saw that sauce and I was like, "Got it." It's really good on on like uh hash browns, I find.

36:11 It's a better version of ketchup in my opinion. Um Did we go to Benihana at this past Dice Tower West? We did not. Well, I didn't. I think some of the guys did, but I I did not go. Are you sure you don't want to watch the over 1,000 episodes of One Piece? I I've watched a couple. I'll be sitting there, my daughter's watching them, and I just I just don't like that style anime at all. I mean, there's so much crying and screaming and yelling and the fact that a single fight will last six or seven episodes blows my mind how just drawn out it is. So, no.

37:04 When is the next episode of Gaming Poopery with V and Z? What? Um Just want to say I appreciate you and the other Dice Tower doing these Q&As and the time you guys put into it. Well, thank you. They're not particularly difficult to do. Um Which of the FFG LCGs have you liked the most? Which Fantasy Flight Living Card Game have I liked the most? I'm not a big fan of the Living Card Games necessarily. Not anything negative. I just haven't had one that really gripped me. So, like the most, I guess I guess the uh Android: Netrunner, probably.

37:42 Going to Manila, you'll need to learn helpful phrases. Um well, I appreciate that, but I'll I'll be traveling with translators, so I'm going to trust them a little more, probably on that. You mentioned how difficult it is to find time to play games. That said, when someone from the Dice Tower rates a game a 10 out of 10, like Camille with Grim Covenant, do you try to see what the hype is? Maybe. Um uh yeah, if someone I mean, if someone says a game's amazing, we all stop and kind of look and see maybe we should play that game. That definitely happens.

38:18 Is it possible to make it easier to search the crowd surfing videos for the products covered? I find the insights really helpful to know if I should back stuff, but scrubbing through videos is tricky. Well, we do add show notes to them. They don't necessarily go up right away, but they're uh definitely up within 24 hours. I'm not 100% sure what more you'd want than that.

38:41 Oh, HP is brown sauce, big in the UK, said the Dice Tower. Too late. Um Hit point sauce. You are packer. Why play Manila in Manila? Probably not. I mean, if someone has it there, maybe I will, but I don't normally do that sort of thing. That's I don't I don't get the appeal that that's not something to be like, "Hey, we're in Let's go play Carcassonne in Carcassonne." Okay. I guess. I I don't know. It just feels It's like the people who pretend they're holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Everyone's doing that. It doesn't seem particularly unique.

39:27 Are there any good board game stores that carry good selection in Florida? There are good game stores in Florida. There is unfortunately, I have not I've yet to find a good game store in the Fort Myers area. I don't believe there's a good game store in the Miami area either. There's an okay game store in Fort Lauderdale. I'm just I don't know, man. These game stores are just they're just not a Florida thing at this point in time. Um Well, I guess Roy has a game store now down in Homestead. Uh but it's more of a it's anime / game store. But like these amazing game stores that I see sometimes on videos, I haven't seen them in Florida, but they maybe here. I haven't been everywhere in Florida.

40:16 Will I be going to see Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day? I don't know what Disclosure Day is. What's it based on? It's based on a screenplay. Well, what's the plot? Mhm. Just tell me who the actors are. It doesn't tell me what the plot is.

40:47 A UFO Well, I don't know what it's about. I guess I'll watch the trailer for it, but I don't know. I'm not watching it now. So, probably not. Again, you'd be surprised how few game things I've seen in theaters. You know what I will go see in theaters? I'm going to go see the new Spider-Man movie. That looks amazing. I love Spider-Man and that just looks like a lot of fun. And I'm almost definitely going to go see Doomsday. Those are two movies and then Mario. So, those are three movies I'm going to see. There was something Joey said I had to go watch, too, but I don't remember what it was. So. All right. Well, it looks like I've caught up on questions. There's now only two people watching, but 15 thumbs up. Hey, if you're there, give me a thumbs up because apparently that's the only metric that it's measuring.

41:36 Or ask a question. Maybe it's being hidden for some reason. But I've had like 20 different people ask questions. Meh, I don't know. All righty.

41:56 Any older game you would like Restoration Games to pick up? Oh, there's lots of different games I've I've tossed to them. And what is up with Fireball Island? I don't know. I cannot get it anywhere. I live in Netherlands, Europe. Maybe it's just more popular in America. I don't think it's particularly hard to find here. Get your fun on in Melbourne is the best game store I've ever been to. Well, I haven't been there. Maybe it is. You won't need a translator. English is understood and spoken very well by Filipinos. All right, good to know.

42:32 Season 4 of the Bob Lazar story being released this week on Amazon Prime about his work on secret projects reverse engineering UFO tech. Okay. Cool Comics in Cape Coral and Darkside in Sarasota are the three best we have. Those are two. But um which are fine, but pale in comparison to other places. I didn't think Cool Comics was that great. I went there. They had a decent selection of board games, but they didn't talk to me the whole time I was in that store, which was for probably 15 minutes. I just wasn't very impressed by that. I've not been to Darkside in Sarasota, so I would not know.

43:18 Have you completed the radio campaign? No, I have not. Um Seems like more people in the chat than watching. I agree. It's just a weird thing. There must be something going on with YouTube later on. That way they can tell me very few people watched it. Well, I wouldn't ask you to do a top 10 top 10s on the spot, but are there any that stand out to you among the years? I remember distinctly doing the first top 10 overrated games. We did that live at Dice Tower, too. And the people laughed so much and had such a good time. We did it live and it was such a thing I was like, "Wow, live stuff is so much better." And I like doing live. And now we do our top 10s live with an audience, but it does make it more fun to see the reactions of people make doing one of these more entertaining.

44:17 Besides Gory to Rome, is there another unreprintable game left according to Tom Vasel's Law? Ah. I am very amused by this. Um games that defy Vasel's Law. So, someone made a BoardGameGeek list about this and a Reddit thread. So, let's go through the BoardGameGeek list. This was made in 2019 of games that defy Vasel's Law. So, they had number one, they said Battlestar Galactica the board game. Said probably won't get a reprint cuz of licensing issue. The Unfathomable game doesn't count here. But it does count. It's the same game basically, it just doesn't have the Battlestar Galactica theme. Chaos in the Old World. Well, again, that was kind of redone in some way that shape, um but I get that one is not going to be probably redone.

45:09 Gory to Rome, yes. The designer and publisher won't let that happen. Endeavor, that won't happen. Dune, that won't happen. Blood Bowl, that won't happen. Tobago, that won't happen. Finca, that won't happen. Napoleon's Triumph, don't know. A Study in Emerald, just came out with a new Cthulhu theme. Star Wars: Queen's Gambit. And here underneath he goes, "This will never be reprinted." Huh? Pueblo, that won't happen. Cathedral, that won't happen. Ascending Empires, that won't happen. Key Market, that won't happen. Advanced Civ, well, they made Mega Civilization, so I think that counts. All right, let's take a look at the Reddit thread here. Ha! I like the Reddit thread. I thought Vasel's Law was wear a dorky hat.

45:56 Yes, that is Vasel's Law. Gory to Rome is the biggest one here. Um Let's see. Oh, it's pretty hard to read these ones here. Unfortunately, sorry. This is a Blood Bowl Team Manager. Yeah, that one may not happen. But at the end of the day, it's pretty much true. If a game is fantastic and great and there's even a chance it will get reprinted. Yes, licensing and intellectual properties will stop it occasionally. That's for sure. At least they'll stop the exact theme from getting made. But the game itself, it's very rare to see the game itself. And if no one reprints a game that you love, it probably didn't sell that well to begin with. That's really the case of it.

46:51 All righty. Oh, I forgot about Mandalorian and Grogu. Yeah, we're probably going to see that. Masters of the Universe, nope. That I can wait to see at home. I Tom, I met you once at Geekway to the West in St. Louis. Does any of Dice Tower crew still travel any of the smaller cons around? I know Chris is going to one soon. I apologize if I forget the name of it. Um but uh Geekway to the West, I wouldn't consider a small con. It was a pretty good size con. Isn't it like 3,000 people? Do you ever get games based on intellectual properties or themes you like even though the game might not be so great? No. No, I would not do that.

47:36 I don't care how much I like the intellectual property. If I if the game isn't good, I'm not getting it. I don't care what the how good the property is. Why would I do that? I want Vasel's Law to get us a reprint of Automani. I think that will happen someday, but here's the thing. As much as I I love Automani, but I don't think it sold particularly well. So, maybe it's not a great game for everyone. Good morning to Frank. What makes a good friendly local game store? Well, we've done a top 10 list on that before. Honestly, if there's so many factors, it needs to be clean. It needs to be welcoming. Those are I mean, it's huge to be welcoming. When people come in your store, you need to be welcoming to them. That's one of the biggest problems with I went to a game store a few months ago, walked in, and some people looked up from the back and I was like, "Are you kidding? Again?

48:31 This is still happening where people look up and be like, 'Hey, need anything?'" And it's not welcoming. No other No other store does that. Well, maybe they do, but they shouldn't. You know, I don't I don't go to the local fishing store and the guy's in the back and he's waiting pool going, "Uh I'm busy." So, not to answer the ladies, need to be welcoming. They need to be clean. They need to have a selection of good games and games that aren't good, but games that people want to buy.

49:05 What drove you to South Korea for missions amongst other places such as Japan? That's where we got invited to. My father-in-law was in South Korea and invited us to come work at his school. So, that was the country I knew. What long gone publishers would you most wish would make a comeback? I don't know if we've ever really seen a long gone publisher make a comeback. I'd like to see the blue box series come back from Day Cart. How's that for an esoteric answer?

49:51 Oh yeah, Goa's coming back into print this week. We are thinking about closing in our garage to make a game room. Any lessons learned you can share from making a Dice Tower studio at your last location? Well, make sure you follow code.

50:05 Make sure um AC is a big a big important part or heat depending on what part of the country you're in. Um I don't know. I would just talk to contractor and see what they recommend that you do. Will Dice Tower return to PAX Unplugged? Probably uh well, so not this year. I'm not planning to come back. PAX Unplugged is tricky for us because it's at a really bad time of the year. We have holidays coming up. We've just got back from Essen. We're planning the cruise in January. We're getting ready for our our crowdfunding project that we're uh launching in January. There's so many things going on and to go to PAX Unplugged just makes that very difficult.

50:52 What Garphill game would you recommend to begin with for someone who's a light medium weight gamer? I would recommend uh Architects of the West Kingdom. Well, no no, I'm sorry. Uh Raiders of the North Sea probably. I'm now reading Lightbringer of the Red Rising series. I'm sure I heard you have read the series. Which of the books has been your favorite and are you anticipating the final book for this year? I read the series. Probably the first book is is my favorite, but I don't know that I love the series. They ended really strong in book three. It was a good ending of sorts and I really liked it. And then I saw they started another trilogy and everyone or quadrilogy. And everyone said, "Don't read it.

51:38 It's more brutal than the first one." And so I ignored that and I read the first two books like maybe the first book and a half and I stopped. I just I don't care about it. They There's a lot of reasons I don't like the new series as much. They have multiple multiple uh points of view which I was fine following the one person. They took the main character I had liked and made him pretty bad actually, I thought. I mean, I was disagreeing with things he was doing. And they just They're like, "There were there existing characters besides the first series who you like? Don't worry. We'll off them." I don't know. I just found it to be maybe the last book will bring everything back together, but I doubt it. I just don't care anymore.

52:26 That that brutality Look, I'm okay with characters dying and things that you need that to progress a story sometimes, but good grief. Does it have to be that bad all the time? Not a big fan. Is there a Reiner Knizia game out there that he hasn't got three different versions yet? Yes.

52:56 Man, the whole entire Dice Tower crew is amazing. You all make me laugh. Where did you guys find Mike? Uh he contributed to one of our shows for a while and did some solo reviews for us. And then we met him at Gen Con. A lot of game stores act like they don't want you there. I agree. I don't understand that. Do you know what happens to the rights of a board game when the designer passes away? I'm not 100% sure. I know that they often pass down to their kids. Although it's very possible that uh that will not happen too, but I don't know all the ins and outs. I would ask a board game lawyer about that.

53:38 How do you feel about the AI backlash Awaken Realms is getting for Concordia? Well, I mean, considering Concordia is doing incredibly well, right? What is it doing? Um They They raised how much for that Oh no, they haven't raised it yet. But there's 24,000 people following it. It's going to do incredibly well. I I think at this point it doesn't matter. There's no the the mobs are out there and the mobs are going to hunt you down and no matter what you say. They're like, "It's AI artwork." And Gamefound will say, "Well, we're not going to use AI artwork." And people are like, "We don't believe you." Okay, well then why make a statement at all, you know? And people just it's it's the age-old story that every board game company as soon as they start getting big, everyone hates them. I shouldn't say everyone, but the people go after them.

54:30 Are they using AI? I don't know. I'm not good enough artist to tell. I do know that people though nowadays I find it annoying that different Kickstarters and places people have to like show original sketches and stuff to prove they're not AI. It has definitely become a witch hunt in many ways where people like as soon as they hear the word the letters AI, they're like, "I'm out." And they just start screaming and yelling. I'm like, "What What are you talking about?" So I I don't think um I think the backlash is and people going and rating games one on BoardGameGeek is kind of ridiculous. The number of people who went and rated Brass: Birmingham a one. There's a good chunk of people did that because the price is more expensive or they don't like how they did the stretch goals. That has nothing to do with the game. It really doesn't.

55:18 That's that's just nonsensical. And they're also making a lot of money Roxley. I don't have anything to speak on. I'm also just I'm kind of mind-boggled with how much people complain about prices of games. Yes, games are expensive. They're really expensive to make. They're really expensive to make. They're expensive to ship, to design. There's tons of costs that go into games and people don't seem to realize that. You don't go yell at your gas station attendant, you shouldn't when gas goes up. That's not them who are doing it. But when the price of the price of everything is going up. I don't know. Backlash. We um My local game store is so unwelcoming the last time I went, the guy didn't even look up when I came in. It was so off-putting I left without purchasing anything. I agree.

56:08 That that should just it should be it should be a friendly place to go to. Hi Tim, I started playing Ark Nova and I'm loving it. Do you have a favorite animal that you must have in your zoo when it comes up? I always try to put some monkeys in my zoo, period. Just so I can say I have some monkeys. Have you read the Dungeon Crawler Carl? I've read several of the books. I don't really care for it. I know I'm in the minority, so I'm not going to go I'm not going to talk about it more. Just I dislike the cat character a lot and I found it to be okay.

56:42 My husband and I dream of opening a brick-and-mortar store to do it well. Welcoming to families, clean, smells nice, employees, people that know how to talk to other people with clean language. Sure. But I will warn you, I noticed that a lot of people when they do this, they also forget about the part where they you should make money. You know, the I I've I've seen a board game store and he was like, "Well, I don't sell Magic cards." Well, I was like, "Why?" Well, "There's other people sell them and you know, we just don't want that kind of clientele in our store." Okay, but do you want money for those Magic the Gathering cards? I would sell them. So, you have to keep that in mind. What's the best way to clean a playmat? I don't know. Wash it in the shower?

57:30 Are you excited about the Artemis launch this week sending people to moon? I'm definitely interested in it. I'm definitely going to be watching that.

57:54 Do you think BGG should have a verified user rating? I don't know. It seems like a pain in the neck to implement, so I'm not sure how they can do that. I'll just tell you this. If I ran BoardGameGeek, if I saw someone rate a one with a comment of "I hate what they did here." I would just delete that rating instantly. I would. It's probably too much work on their part, but uh this the war I I don't know if you guys remember when Brass was going to be number one, it was going to pass Gloomhaven and the number of people who went in and rated one of them a one and the other a 10. I think are you kidding me? This is so nonsensical. It It was happening to both games. Um

58:41 Let's see here. I'll answer one more question and then we'll shut down for the day. In comparison to my favorite local game stores, are there other types of stores you enjoy going to? I think we did this one time as a I did a short top 10 list on the subject and maybe it was part of a board game breakfast way back in the day. I love going to bookstores. If there's a bookstore, used bookstore, new bookstore, I love bookstores. I will always go into them. I like toy stores. I think toy stores are neat to go into. I think they're fascinating to see what toys people play with. I always go check out a toy store. Any store that sells spices {slash} tea {slash} vinegar whatever it might be, I will always go check those out. Um I love flea markets. I will always go to a flea market, but not flea market. Let me see. Flea markets are okay. Farmers markets. I love farmers markets.

59:29 Any place that has unique interesting thing, a hot sauce store, a a beef jerky store, whatever. If there's something like that, I'm always fascinated by it. So, and the Container Store, of course. All righty, folks. Well, that is it for today. Thank you, everybody, for watching. We got several reviews that we're going to be posting. Things going up over the next few days. We'll be live tomorrow. I think we're doing a catch-up-ooza in the morning, and then Zee will be doing what's happening later on. Wednesday morning, we'll be doing our top, you know, letting you vote on the best superhero movie of all time. And then the afternoon is crowd surfing. Then Thursday morning is the news. And then in the afternoon, our top 10 games that start with the letter N. So, all that and more coming to you this week from the Dice Tower. Thanks for watching. I'm Tom Vassal.

1:00:24 And also, for those of you who contributed to the Jack Vassal fund, I really do appreciate it. We'll see you next time.

1:00:36 Hey, folks. Thanks for joining us for that video. If you haven't yet, like the video, subscribe to the channel, and hey, make sure you check out what's happening, where I'll cover an app on an iOS or a Switch device, and you can check it out along with me. Thanks very much. You've been watching the Dice Tower.