It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That’s right – con season. And con season officially kicks off whenever Origins Game Fair rolls around in Columbus, Ohio. This year was even bigger and better than last year; the crowds were up, the games were plentiful, and the Dice Hate Me Games booth was totally rocking. Come on in and check out all the hip happenings at our summer home away from home.

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And now for something completely different. In a fit of momentary madness, myself and five other brave boardgamers – Dan Patriss of The Geek All-Stars, Paul Hetrick, Shawn Purtell, Michael Harrison and Daniel Solis – decided we wanted to settle once and for all who would rule the galaxy. And, so, we set out on a half-day mission to get a full six-player experience of Twilight Imperium on the Dice Hate Me table. This is our story.

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Greetings dear readers – and prepare for something completely different! This weekend at Dice Hate Me HQ, six of us will gather in the wee hours of the morning to face off in an epic, full-day battle for galactic supremacy playing Twilight Imperium: Third Edition. Some of us are veteran TI:3 players, while others have only stared longingly at the limousine-sized box on the local game store shelf. This event promises to be so epic that we’ll be live-Tweeting the super showdown this Saturday, talking about our experiences on a future State of Games, and I’ll even have a session report on how the whole thing went down next week on Dice Hate Me.

But before we can get started, we need your help! We all want this to be an interactive event, so we’d like some input into what Twilight Imperium race is best suited for each player. Below you’ll find a brief breakdown of each opponent and their playstyles. Beneath that, you’ll see the poll; fill that out and you’ll help decide who gets to play what – and possibly decide the fate of the galaxy! If any of you are unfamiliar with Twilight Imperium and need a good summary of the races, you’re in luck – I happen to have one right here on Dice Hate Me!

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After the last beast of a podcast, I figured it was time to just take everything back to formula, give all of you dear listeners a little break, and just chat about some board games. And that’s just what we did. Of course, what was intended as a brief, 30-minute foray into some titles that Darrell, TC and I played during a recent visit soon stretched into an hour. Hey, give us a microphone and just try to stop us.

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A little disclaimer: This podcast is insanely long, but you get two great podcasts, all for the price of one! This time around, Darrell, TC and I invite Dan Patriss and Tom Gurganus of The Geek All-Stars to come over to Dice Hate Me HQ for a little round-table discussion of all things superhero. What was originally planned as a nice, breezy bit of podcast crossover time turned out to be an epic and passionate discourse on one of our favorite topics. We had a blast – I know you will, too! Just be sure to stay hydrated and find a comfortable chair.

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Hello, dear readers, and welcome to another installment of The Crowded Table. It’s been quite awhile since the last iteration of the Crowded Table, but still there have been plenty of interesting games to grace the gaming surfaces at Dice Hate Me HQ. Some of them have been mentioned a few times on The State of Games and The Geek All-Stars, but I felt the games below deserved a little more written attention. Some of them you may just see (or hear and see) more about in a future feature on Dice Hate Me! And away we go:

Coup

Dedicated readers and listeners will immediately know that I am a social gaming junkie. If there’s a system to be gamed by gaming the other gamers through sly promises and double-talking, I’m all in. Since you know that I know what I’m talking about I’m here to tell all of you, definitively, that Coup is one of the best social games I have played in several years. In Coup, each player controls two secret cards that could be one of several different types of characters – each with a special ability to cancel the powers of another character. Each round, players take turns announcing what character they are using and activating that ability. It doesn’t matter if the player has that character, it just matters if the other players believe that they do. Otherwise, any other player can call the alleged bluff and attempt to cancel the action with one of their face-down characters. Of course, if the calling player is wrong (or are themselves bluffing), there’s usually a steep price – and lots of cackling around the table. The winning player is the one left with any face-down characters in front of them. It’s a simple system that does what any great social game aims for: Steps back and graciously lets the players transform the game around them. The original Coup design has been scooped up by Indie Boards & Cards and is currently on Kickstarter with a retheme from The Resistance universe. The production and art is top-notch, but I tend to prefer the quirky original to this new Hunger Games-like rendition. Still, if you don’t have it, you need it – particularly if your idea of a good time is to watch everyone around the table sweat while you’re bluffing your butt off.

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This podcast is a little break from the recent norm, as I give usual co-hosts Darrell Louder and TC Petty III a tiny break (but they’ll be back!) and bring on some new knuckleheads in a fun and different Q&A format – turned on its quirky nogging. So sit back and enjoy some banter with two of the gaming industry’s nicest guys ever, Matt Riddle and Ben Pinchback.

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