Hey guys, welcome to episode 154 of Maple to Maple.
It's the 5th in my Community content creator community
series, so thanks for joining me.
My guest today lives at the crossroads of social content,
tabletop gaming, and audio storytelling.
I'm really excited for you guys to hear this conversation.
He brings a very special wit and insight and an infectious energy
that I am so jealous of to everything from life reflections
to board game breakdowns. He has recently built a devoted
following by being unfiltered, curious, and deeply rooted in
the world of modern tabletop. Just a true, true gem in the
community. Here's the thing though.
He isn't just playing games, he talks about them.
He's been featured on board game podcasts such as board game Hot
Text, where he dives into his favorite dice mechanics.
He's also growing his own podcast ambitions, aiming to
bring the same warmth and authenticity to the mic that he
brings to the table. So today, we're going to tap
into those threads, his path from gamer to content creator to
tabletop guru of podcast magic. What inspired him to lean into
the podcast, the stories behind his favorite games and what's
next in the universe of rolling. Reggie.
Reggie, thanks for joining. How are you, man?
I'm doing all right. Thank you.
Oh, my gosh. It's like when you're when
you're at a your birthday party and everybody's singing Happy
Birthday to you and you just have to smile and like, please
stop saying nice things. Please stop being good to me.
I can't handle it. I'm doing great.
Thank you. So excited to be here.
You have picked some amazing folks, like a lot of my favorite
people in the hobby and some people I haven't met.
So I'm very excited to learn about them.
Yeah, when it happens. So.
By the way, Merry Christmas. As Christmas has just passed and
we've got the new year to look forward to, I am happy to say
that by the time that we've recorded this, I've decided this
is probably going to be the permanent direction of the
podcast. Early in the series I had some
amazing responses and I've had people you want to talk about
humbling. So humbling.
Recently I've had several people who asked to be on my show like
what? You know, people actually are
listening and y'all want to join me?
This is this is incredible. But enough about me.
Let's talk about you, Reggie. Awesome.
No, you are awesome. And that is great.
There's no better feeling like going to like a convention.
Someone's like, hey, Rolling Reggie, I'm like, why do you
know me? Like, please, here's a sticker.
But that feels good, yeah. That's the content creator
obligation. Have a sticker.
Got to give everyone a sticker. I mean, if you I give away one
or two every convention because I'm like, if you are really
going to go out of your way to say hello to me, you are an
awesome human being and I appreciate it and it warms my
heart. And yeah, yeah, people DMS.
That's the thing about our well, we'll talk about this, but just
yeah, everybody feels so approachable.
You know, it's like you're yes, people feel com feel comfortable
sending you a DM and saying hey, like I'd love to be on your your
show. Your show is also.
I feel like it's not that way in a lot of industries or
communities either. No, it's definitely not one
thing I struggle with. Yeah, you are.
Whereas I've been doing this for almost 4 years, so every week.
But I always think about the problem is, is that I haven't.
So when I'm at a convention, nobody comes up to me.
And we're like, oh, you're from meeble to Meeble or oh, you're
the Cajun gamer, which is separate from the podcast.
But no one, you know, no one recognizes me.
So I always think about having like a catch phrase if you see
me at Gen. Con or insert your favorite
convention, yeah, I'll have like a special thing to give away to
the first person, right? And maybe that's what I need to
do to get people. Shit, that's how you.
Do it, you rock. Yeah, I, I have stickers.
I always have stickers. You get, you got to do.
I have friends everywhere, you know, have a little, have a
little secret passcode. Yeah, it'd be great.
I also have one one thing at conventions, I always have
Colorado. Are you a fan of Colorado?
Do you know that game? I'm aware of the game.
I've never played the game. So I don't know box like this
big great little drafting set collection game from like 2003
and I love it so much and I just always have it.
It's just one of those. I brought it to my very first
convention and I just always have it to bring out because
it's just so easy to teach and play.
So if you ever see my convention, we can play Colorado
together. Colorado OK, so here's the
problem, and we're going to get this out of the way early in the
episode. Everybody knows my favorite
board game is Obsession, and so the one request I usually get is
people want to play Obsession with me.
I can't pull that out of my pocket.
Yeah, I'm sorry. It's too much.
Too many meatballs in there. It's too big.
Oh yeah. You know, I've actually never
seen it in real life. It's a it's hard to find it.
It it like it is tough to get your hand on.
I've I've played on board game Marina several times.
I think it's really cool, but I really want to.
I feel like I would enjoy it way more if I played it IRL with
with accents and yeah. Top hats and a tuxedo.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you got it. You got it.
So, Reggie, let me ask you. I've been starting this
conversation with this question asking to everyone, what was the
first board game you ever played as a kid?
Wow, that's a great question. I mean, if you count chess.
I mean, my dad taught me chess pretty young.
Yeah. But like I have very distinct
memories of like sorry and trouble, you know, anything that
you just moved around a little Popomatic are probably when I
was a little kid and and then another, I played all the big
mainstream games. I've talked about this in many
videos of like I loved Monopoly, I loved Clue, I loved risk.
Like those were the games that kind of, I thought that was all
board games could be. And I always thought they were
fine. You know, I enjoyed that.
But when I got older, I was like, why would I ever go back
to board games? Like, that's the ceiling, you
know, But it was fun. I always think about, I feel
like people do hate on Monopoly a lot.
And I just made a dedicated video on it like not too long
ago. And like, me and my mom and my
sisters especially, we would always have our like your Pete.
Like what was your piece in Monopoly?
You know, I think I was the top hat.
Actually, Speaking of top hat, I think my mom was always like the
iron and and my sister took the dog.
And it's just like, there's so many cultural touch points to
it. As much as we want to hate on it
now, like we all had some good memories.
Yeah. Play a Monopoly.
It's true, but I think that those early classics are the
reason why we as gamers today in the hobby struggle with when we
meet non gamers, you know, they think they're just toys, they're
for kids and they don't because it's like you said, you were
going to grow up. Why would I play these games
again? Little did you know.
Little did we. Yeah, That's a great.
I mean, there's so many. I have so many aha, moments like
that that I'm sure we can get to in this episode here, too, where
I'm like, well, what board games can do this?
Yeah. Well, you know, we're going to
talk about that because that's that's my next question.
So first you said chess. Sorry, trouble.
There was no surprises there. I'm always interested in my next
question. OK, I get some interesting
answers. So what was the first board game
that got you into the modern game hobby?
OK, so you know, without giving the full history, I do like to
talk about the modern game. That really hit me, Yes.
There's two that I could answer and one that everyone knows.
If you watch my top ten, it's King.
Domino is one of my big ones. OK.
Yeah, was a modern game that really blew me away.
And I gave the whole story on on the Punch Board Cathedral
podcast, Ken and someone, you know, Yep, Yep, him and all
that. We did this and it's beautiful.
I really just encourage you to go listen to that actually.
But the thing about King Domino that blew my mind, especially
when we talk about these games, we just talked about Monopoly,
Risk, Clue, Sorry. First and foremost, it's it was
a board game that we were playing at a board game cafe.
My, my girlfriend at the time, now wife, always known as Her
Majesty the Queen, you know, to bring out the obsession vibes as
well. We were sitting down.
We were sitting down and playing at a board game cafe and they
said it's a game that won some German board game award.
And they put it down in front of us and there's no board, you
know? And I was like, wait, how are we
playing a board game with no board?
And like, Carcasson had been out at this point.
This is 2016 when King Domino came out.
So like, at this point, Carcasson's been out for 15-16
years, right? But I hadn't experienced it.
And I was like, OK, so let's see what we do.
Then they told me that when you draft your tiles, sometimes
that's going to change the turn order.
And now I might take two turns in a row and my wife took two.
And I was like, you know, when I was a kid, the craziest thing
they could do is the turn orders would go clockwise and if they
wanted to be wild, they'd go counter clockwise.
There was never like turn order drafting, which I have found.
I love, love, love and. Then.
And then the biggest thing was that you started learning.
It was a game that it started. You started playing it and
drafting the tiles, and then you started learning like, oh wait,
I am actually paying attention to what my opponent is taking in
front of that, like hate drafting and also just knowing
what's left face down. There was just a lot of things
that way that just kind of blew my mind.
With King Domino, it was just something I really, really
loved. But what predates King Domino
actually, if I'm being honest? OK, my first job out of college,
I'm working at a university and I have a Co worker named Emily
and she has a partner named Jeff.
And Jeff is he has like a vision impairment.
Like he's legally blind. He could barely see any.
He's very, very, very light visuals.
He would totally be APC video game guy if he had, you know, if
he did not have an impairment, right?
But he could play board games and he played miniature games
because he get the tactility of it.
He's able to participate in board games and enjoy it like
that, right. So I knew that about him.
I'd never really played a lot of board games and so I asked him.
I said hey I'm having a game night.
It's my first apt. I have like 8 people coming over
and he's like oh wow, that's a lot of for a game night which I
know now it's like once you get over 4 like you're pushing it
with game. So he handed me a game called
Bang the Dice game. Have you ever played this one?
Yes, as a point of fact, that was one of Gareth, my partner in
the podcast. That was one of his first games,
really. Yeah.
I have it right here with me bang the dice game here, we're
looking at it here and I have one expansion in here.
This is you can kind of see my corners are like beat up on this
for the visual watchers. You know, this is the same copy
I bought like immediately after that weekend and we, me and my
buddies, my close friends referred to as the dads we every
time we get together on a weekend, we will always make
sure we sit down and play at least one game with this just
for the nostalgia. And it's got a Yahtzee
mechanism. That's true.
Yahtzee is another game I loved as a kid.
Oh yes, Which was roll and lock is what you would know that
mechanism now, you know, and that is just, it's like Yahtzee
but battle Yahtzee, but also with Werewolf because you're
trying to figure out who's the deputies, who's the outlaws and
that game. And I think the thing that
really blew me away was a lot of people tried to get me into
board games before Bang the Dice game.
But the asymmetry was actually the thing that I was like, wait,
we all have special powers in a board game?
That really, really shocked me and I really loved that about
it. So yeah, Bang the Dice game.
Yeah, Yep, I love it. And so I'm listening to you,
Reggie. And you're just like, OK, so
bang the dice game king domino, right.
Like the list just keeps going. No, there's really something
magical about the asymmetry, asymmetrical nature of board
games that's so different from when we were growing up with
Sorry and trouble, etcetera. Exactly.
So tell me, here's here's the controversial question.
Let's get it out of the way real quickly.
What's your favorite player color?
That's a great. I mean, that's not controversial
at all. Yellow.
I've always been yellow. I play yellow every time.
If you want to be yellow and you're at a table with me, I
will most likely move your meatball accidentally.
You know, it's just going to happen.
Yep. So yeah, I like it.
I do like Gray, which is like really, which is weird, but if
I, if a player, if a game has Gray, I really do gravitators
that Imhotep, Babylonia, those come to mind.
And then like creature comforts has Gray and yellow, which is
like, and Pan Am and I'm like my only two colors.
Yeah. So yeah, yellow I, I, I feel
like it's more more popular. What what's your color?
You're you're purple. Nice.
I'm purple. Yeah.
And, and I've told that story so many times.
It goes back to my days at undergraduate LSU.
Go Tigers to go Tigers. Shadow Shack.
Yep, I bleed purple and gold. Nice.
Also Mardi Gras purple, green and gold.
So it's nice. First I'm purple.
My wife is usually gold, but if there's a pink, she's going to
be pink. So if I can't be purple, then
I'll be gold. But if I can't be purple and I
can't be gold, then I'll be green.
But usually you can't be green. So then I just, it just kind of
it falls apart. After, yeah, there's a tier
list. I randomly I like to be orange
if like if there's none of my colors, you know, I'll throw
like a random color out there. But yeah, my buddy, one of my
closest, but he's Joey. He's also a purple player, so
purple's always taken. He loves purple.
Yeah. I mean, you know, it's it's a
color of royalty. Yeah, color of the the Bayou
Bengals. I mean, so out here it's you dub
in the, you know, a lot of our a lot of people where I grew up
are big Husky fans. The university, which is purple,
purple, which is also purple. Yeah.
So. So that's why.
Yeah, so, yeah, nice. So for our international
audience, Reggie is talking about the University of
Washington. That is the state of Washington
in the Pacific Northwest, which you might know by another name,
Cascadia. Cascadia, There you go.
That's how we get board gamers to know US geography, but also
not to be confused with Washington, DC This is not the
capital. This is very, very far away.
I know you talked to one of my good friends, Iris Crimson board
games. Yeah.
And she lives in the Netherlands, and we talk all the
time. My board game bestie and
literally explaining to her the size of the United States and
driving, you know, I, I'm on, I did a video with Chaz, Chaz
Marler. He's game night picks.
We live in the same state and we're about 2 1/2 hour drive
away. And we did, you know, so it is,
that's just how it is. It's really funny because and I
promised Iris that I was going to make fun of her with you
talked about this because she when she was on earlier in this
series, she was talking, I think I was asking her about another
player in the Netherlands and she's like, that's a 45 minute
drive. That's nothing.
So far. Hey man.
And you have public transportation, right?
And you have bikes, no? No, no, you good.
Good, good, functional, clean. Yes.
You have nothing to complain about Europeans.
That's right. Yeah.
It's so funny. Yeah.
It is really interesting the the perspectives that we all bring
to the table. Yeah, I mean, cuz like I am, I'm
in the middle of Illinois and I am 3 1/2 hours from Chicago.
I mean. That's so that's crazy.
Same state and people are like, wait, what?
Same state. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That is such an interest. Well, I will say, do you have
any? So are you from Louisiana?
I am. I am so like I am from Baton
Rouge, born and raised. Yeah.
Are there any games that like represent your region, like
where you grew up or like did you have a lot of pride in
because they're they're like located there?
You know, it's really interesting.
I'm I'm there's one game that I absolutely love by weird draft
games, and that's Big easy busking.
Yeah, I've played that. I've actually played that game.
Yeah. I will tell you that.
They captured the feel of going in the French Quarter, the
different colors, listening to the buskers on the street
corner. Or in the case of the game, you
actually are the buskers, Yeah, trying to get money.
But like, they really captured the feeling.
There's nothing great. Colors in that, too.
Like, it's very vibrant, yeah. Absolutely nothing about Baton
Rouge proper, but you know Baton Rouge is.
Isn't there a game also called French Quarter?
There is. There, yeah, rolling.
Right. Yeah, that's that's an
interesting that that's 25th century games.
Yeah, that's a that's an interesting game.
They packed a lot into a rolling right.
And while they like they got a lot of things right, they got a
lot of things wrong. Yeah.
But you know what? If you've never been in New
Orleans, you wouldn't know the difference.
So it's fine for sure. Yeah, that's trying to.
When I went to the England, went to England for the the England.
When I went to England for the first time, I met Gareth and he
pulled out French Quarter and we played it.
I had to explain to him what a second line is.
OK. Which is.
So a second line is a funeral procession that's usually led by
a rambunctious jazz orchestra, Yes.
Yes, right, I have seen. These particularly, particularly
all right because you you see it on TV all the time to be honest
it's mostly amongst the African American and Caribbean
communities yeah in. It's more of a celebration of
life you know it is, than like a depressing funeral.
Yep, you do see. Second lines in like after
weddings, like you'll have a, you'll have a jazz band lead the
the wedding party and all their guests from the church to the
reception hall. Yeah.
Wherever. Yeah, it's going to be.
Yeah. So you see that the other
concept of the second line our our Mexican neighbors with Dia
de Los Muertos and another good, another good board game is
Potsuara, which captures that really well.
Ofrenda's coming out here soon, too.
That looks beautiful. About Dia Los Muertos, Yeah.
So. So there's always the procession
to the grave sites during the Day of the Dead.
And when the procession passes you, the spectators follow
behind. They follow the procession to
the gravesite. Those spectators, they are the
second line. That's why we call it a second
line. That's awesome, yeah.
So. That's really cool.
That's see now we're getting some nice Louise here and
history in here. I, I will tell you when I when I
was asking the question about the region is there is nothing
that will make me buy a game faster than it being Pacific
Northwest team, which we have been spoiled.
We have a glut of them right now.
I will say there's a lot of true great designers out here to Beth
Sobel, you know, like artists that are from here.
Yep, I very very much love love the PNW theming too, so that's
great. Love that.
I really want there to be a Mardi Gras board game.
Yeah, why? I can't believe there isn't 1.
So I I can tell you what mechanics it would incorporate,
but I'm not a board game designer.
You would you would think after as many designers that as
designs I'm friends with, that I've spoken to, I listen to them
talk about their design story, you think I could design a board
game? But yeah.
I'm really, I'm really good at talking about board games, not
designing. Yeah, those who can't talk about
it. Of course, those who can't pod,
Yeah. Exactly.
No, you got it right. That's good.
That is why you're joining the podcast community.
Yeah, yourself. Right.
Hey, so let me ask you, in all the laundry list of games we've
just gone through, do you have a favorite board game mechanic
that you just you're in? That's, that's a great question.
I think the easy answer for me would be like tableau building.
Like I love building a tableau. You know, I, I think if I'm
being truthful because you, you asked me what, what got me into
the modern board game earlier. But you know, when I was
thinking about this, like, how did I get into the hobby as a
gamer, I couldn't help but think I have to go back to TCGS.
And I think like I discovered Yu-gi-oh when I was like 11 or
12 and just know, you know, there was, there's an era, you
know, it, uh, in a home in the church, a God fearing home,
there was number Yu-gi-oh, no Pokémon.
They were Japanese demons. You know, there is a tradition,
there's a trading card game out there called Redemption that is
literally like biblical card games.
And I had all these cards and no one in my, no one in my friend
group would play with me. So I had to play my mom and just
like cast pillar of salt on her all the time.
You know, it's like Noah's Ark cards and stuff.
But Yu-gi-oh was like the worst culprit because the back of the
card, you know, it sends you to the shadow realm or whatever.
But you know, but by the time I got 1112, it's anime, it's
everybody's doing. Like I loved Yu-gi-oh and the
card, looking back on it now, the cards are tiny.
They're, they're like Japanese size.
They're not the size of a Magic card.
And there's so much text on them.
And The thing is, it really is a tableau building.
Trading card games are tableau building, engine building games.
You know, it's like you're getting a lot of cards out,
you're triggering off of other cards.
And that is the games that I gravitate towards.
But my top five games are all card games, you know, very much
card based. I, I really do love engine
building, tableau building, I would say my like, not my
favorite, but one that I've been just every game I've played in
this genre I've been really liking lately is auction and
bidding also. So I want to give auction and
bidding a shout out. I've been really.
Enjoying that too. Yeah.
So Reggie and I are going to take you on a journey across all
mechanics and all board games. Yes, we will name the entire
oeuvre of board games. Yes, by the time.
Every single one. The whole board game geek
mechanism catalog. Yep.
So now I got now comes this is evolved.
If you guys remember 1111 weeks ago I had I had bands on bands
and she helped me launch the series.
Since then, this question has evolved and many of you have
heard this question. It is A2 parter.
It's a 2 parter because I love you and have compassion for you
and I realize that the first part is difficult.
Do you have a favorite board game of all time?
Yes. If not, OK, great.
And I want to hear about it because I also want to hear the
second part. Do you have a favorite board
game right now that's hitting your table constantly?
That's great that I love. I do enjoy both of those.
I have great friends, but my. Favorite.
Be on a lookout for that. My favorite board game is
Wingspan and I think people, you know, people within the hobby
can have love worms band more. I've got the dragon on the
T-shirt here. Fin span came out this year as
well at the very beginning of this year.
But wingspan for me is my favorite podium.
And I I think if I were to, it's going to be tough for me to do a
top 10s in the future because I just don't see a game
supplanting it because it has so much emotional and sentiment
like it, it really dove me into the hobby.
I love birds. Like that's a big thing.
Like I got into two hobbies around the pandemic, seriously,
and that was bird watching and board games.
And then and then I discover a game that is literally both of
those things together. And it has three expansions.
And so Wingspan is my favorite game.
It is, it is, you know, sold 2 million copies.
It's very popular. It's like saying you like
Superman, which you know, is kind of tough, but it is it just
is my my favorite board game. Nice wingspan.
I don't think we've talked about Wingspan in since the beginning
of the series. Oh, great.
Yeah, it hasn't. It hasn't come up.
Solid game. It's a strong game.
Yeah. I don't have anything to say,
good or bad about him. It's it's like liking Superman.
You're you're it. Is it is it really?
And that's what's so funny is like, you know, I like Batman, I
like Iron Man, I don't like Cap or Superman.
But but wingspan for me, you know, it just evokes so many
feelings. And I think when I really sit
down and think about my favorite games, a lot of it comes down to
just I like that every single time I play, I'm going to have a
different combination of things in front of me, you know?
And that I think that's what what you might call BDE games,
big deck energy games. Do they have a lot of cards, you
know, and that's what TCGS do. It's like, I can make 100 deck,
commander deck for Magic the Gathering and it's going to play
so different every single time I play.
So I really do enjoy that a lot. And, and by the way, commander's
the only way to play Magic. Yeah, of course it is.
Yeah. OK.
If if it's the only way my wife will play Magic, then, you know,
for. Yeah.
That's the way to go. Wow, I I even have a bird themed
commander deck after Bloomberg came out.
And then there's a lot of the Lord of the Rings eagles are in
there. It's really fun.
It's actually a solid deck. So my wife has my wife has a
cat's only great commander deck. We got to get some birds
together. That's just going to be I could
just sit here. I could sit here and commentate
while you play and that'd be great.
So Reggie. Reggie just tapped 1 green mana
and two blue to play his. I don't know, whatever.
I don't know what the birds are. Yeah, that's like Esther versus
Tweety, the match off. What about a board game today?
That's like hitting your table a lot right now.
Oh, man, this is so this is a tough question that I feel like
this is tougher. Yeah.
Because OK, so I'm between 2:00, I'm going to go.
And I've talked about both of these.
That's why I was trying to come up with something maybe I
haven't touched on lately, but I I gotta this is a game that like
I haven't been smitten by a game in in a long time.
That's a good feeling. Yeah, it was just like when when
you're a game where you're learning the rules and this is
the cool thing about being so well versed in the hobby is when
you're learning the rules and someone's teacher, you're like,
I'm going to love this, You know, I love being able to like
read a rule book and be like, oh, this is my kind of game, you
know, or it's not. But that game is a Stefan Feld,
my second Stefan Feld ever. I I love Castles of Burgundy
rolling Reggie. The second one is Carpe Diem.
Have you have you played Carpe Diem?
I have not. OK.
It has. A very similar depot kind of to
castles of Burgundy, but it's it's more like a Rondelle.
It's it's very easy drafting thing.
You're taking these tiles. They make these buildings we're
kind of like Roman patricians or something like that.
And you build these tiles and a lot of the buildings are a size
of two and when you cap, you know, the half of the building
with the other half of the building, it triggers an effect,
you know, very Stefan Feld, you know, you get all these
different things. But there's also like like this
prestige track, excuse me? And on the prestige track, the
person who's on top or furthest is going to be a first player,
also straight out of Castle Burgundy.
But my favorite thing is it's got every single time you play,
it's got all these random scoring cards that come out in a
random order and they each have a half a semi circle on either
side. And at the end of each round, I
think it's 4 rounds, who get to take whoever's in first player
turn order gets to take their disc and puts it between any 2
cards. And they get to score those two
specific conditions, you know, And so then they score those two
conditions and then that location is blocked for the rest
of the game. So that might be, you know, 3
grapes and how many yellow buildings do you have?
And I have both those things a lot.
But now I can never get those two again the next three rounds,
and neither can anyone else. But I can get, you know, any
other side. It's really, really clever.
I wish more games did that. That one little scoring
mechanism is so clever. It's like 40 minutes completely
language independent, which I'm finding I like a lot more too.
I love cards, obviously, but games that are just like boom
symbols, great Carpe diem. That's been one I I've blinged
it out a lot by the way, too. I play I play with ironclays
instead of the victory point cards.
That's a big important thing. It comes with these like tiny
cards that just are are just not it and and I and I learned it on
Ironclay. So that's the problem.
Then I bought these cinch bags, like silky velvety bags to pull
the tiles out of because sure it didn't come with those.
There's no. My wife, because she crafts a
lot. She's so quilts, she
needlepoints, she crochets, she makes all those bags for us for
games. You know what my wife is an
amazing crochet IST or whatever you want to call it.
I should have her make some bags.
You should crochet, crochet, crochet, crochet in.
OK, so it's all right. So it's funny that we're talking
about this because I'm going to talk about someone who is a
crafter, who's a mistress of cosplay and yet she works for
Queen Games. So guys, if you guys go back to
episode 145, she's the second in the series.
Is Rachel Mullen awesome? She works for Queen games.
That's awesome. And so, you know, Stefan Feld
is, I mean, he's. Always got the city collection.
Yeah. He's got so much there, yeah.
So she and I, after we were done recording, she's going to try to
help me, help connect me with Stefan and get him on the show
in 2026 because that would be cool.
I'd like to be in this room. I'll be silent.
My mic can be off. I'll just listen.
I just want to be there live, you know, to talk to.
It it's in the live audience. I want to shout out crafting
though. I have I've always felt myself
as just not artistic. You know, I, I never played an
instrument, but since board gaming, you know, I do a little
print and play, you know, I like to do, I like to laminate like
player aids and stuff. I do, I, I do a lot of different
things crafting wise that I think I never would have done
without this hobby. You know, and I, I'm, I'm like
on the precipice of becoming a miniature painter and I just
can't afford another hobby because that's a hobby within a
hobby. It is.
But there's a lot of overlap.
There's a Venn diagram of like crafting and board games that I
think is bigger than people might give credit for.
I've got Nemesis Retaliation that's unpainted.
I've got Legends Academy finally came in and it's partially
painted. We've got Ether fields by Awaken
Realms that is unpainted because these campaign games, because my
wife's the primary. What has happened is my wife and
I were doing painting together. Yeah.
And then we realized that I don't have the pages for it, so
she's relegating me to priming and lacquering at the end.
Oh man, you're just a prime like machine.
Yeah, right. Look, I can prime Mini.
It's like nobody. Nobody.
'S business. If you're gonna, if you're gonna
play a campaign game with us, she's gonna have everything
painted beforehand. Awesome.
Because what she loves is you're playing Frost Haven or Bloom
Haven, and you retire your character and you open up the
miniature box. She wants that mini to be
painted. Yeah.
And you get the joy of watching you go.
Whoa. Yeah.
Yeah, cuz so you're you love it. You're a two player like you and
your wife play mostly together, right?
Almost exclusively we've got a we've got a local group here
that comes. So we're in the middle of a
Frost Haven campaign. We play awesome a bunch of other
games as well, but we're the we're the couple where so two
things are guaranteed to happen. One is if we're talking to a
vendor, publisher, designer, etcetera.
My wife's going to ask the first question.
How does it play it too? Yeah, great question.
If you say there's a dummy third player, she's going to turn
around and walk away from you. I also am not a big fan of the
dummy third player, I have to admit.
Yeah. Yeah, just it's it's not good.
So we love, we love two players. The second thing that will
happen. This has been a this has been a
frustration for me for some time now.
When we go to big conventions. It is unfortunate not to be a
downer, but I like to be realistic.
Let's keep this conversation there.
We're still victims of systemic sexism.
Mm hmm. In this industry.
And if we go up to a vendor at a convention and that person looks
at me like if my wife asks about tell your new game and they talk
to me the whole time. Yeah, let me talk to the real
gamer, is what they're thinking subconsciously, Yeah.
Yeah. And, and to be honest, I kind of
clock out. Yeah.
I get more angry than she does now because as a woman, she's
used to that, unfortunately. And I just kind of, I walk away
or I pretend like I'm looking at something else.
And those are the two things that happen.
She's gonna ask that question and that will inevitably happen.
And it's just. That's such an interesting thing
that it's it is still pervasive and I and I was going to talk
about solo gaming here. So I'll I'll lead into that and
say, but I want to address what you said.
That's interesting. Like my wife is the most
gracious, lovely person when it comes to my hobby.
Like this is not her hobby. She just played more games with
me than according to my BG stats.
She's played more games with me than Eddie, what even my closest
buddies, and she's never going to say I'm excited to play a
game tonight, right, which is why my biggest reason why I
think I am a solo gamer also. But because of that, I think,
and all my buddies who are video game guys, which is what I came
from the video game world. You know, I, I think of men, you
know, so I know when I started in this hobby, I was ready to
like explain games and be like, Oh, here's what you can do on
your turn and all this thing to women.
And then I'm like, I start going to conventions and I start
hanging out with women who are gamers that are way, way more
intense gamers than I am and have way, way higher tastes, you
know, so it's just like you learn really quickly if you're
actually paying attention that it's like that dynamic.
But but you know, you have to be, you have to be aware.
But but like I said, my wife is, you know, we will play weeknight
games. She loves a sea salt and paper.
That is what she's in the mood for.
And she's always in the mood to play a game that she knows, you
know, and I am, I get that, yes. And, and I unfortunately, I'm
just like, I'm an addict. I want, I would rather play 10
new games than a game I love 10 times.
Like it is just how my brain works.
Like I like discovery. I like the potential of learning
a new mechanism. That is where my and my wife's
the opposite. So that being said, sometimes
it's just like Wednesday night and I'm just like, I want a
crunchy complex experience and my wife is not up for that.
And I don't want to subject and torment her to that.
And so that is where, you know, I sit down and I play a wingspan
solo against the Otima, which is a very, very good Otima or a
Marvel champions against the villain deck.
You know, those are the type of games that I think I really get
satisfaction out of solo. And that's the biggest reason
that there's there's more nights where I want to play games than
my partner in my player 2 in the house does.
So that's fair. I end up, you know, that's how I
kind of like relented on solo games.
And now I've kind of gone, gone in the deep end there.
Yeah, I get that. So that means that when you meet
somebody at a convention, the first question you ask is how
does it play at solo? Well, and that's the thing, if
I'm buying a new game, I do actually take that into
consideration. You know, if I so Speaking of
Stone Meyer games, you know, I think they do a great job with
the Ottomas. They just came out with a trick
taking game called Origin Story. It's a trick taking engine
building tableau building game that superhero themed, which I'm
also a big I love Cape Cape stuff, as the Internet calls it.
I mean I'm censoring Cape stuff and it's the worms band artist
who she does this like amazing watercolory.
I don't know if you have seen the origin story stuff and I was
like about a lot of trick takers are three to five, three to six.
And I'm like it has a solo mode. Whoa.
And I'm like, how does that work?
You know, but I was able to, I was willing to buy that sight
unseen for very cheap, $20 if you're a Stone Meyer champion,
by the way, we're not, we're not, we're not, we're not
sponsored. We're not, we're not chilling
for them. But I'm just there are no but we
are looking for sponsors both regions of.
Course we'll take them, yes, but my point is I am more willing to
buy a game sight unseen if it is solo mode.
That that's my big thing is like, I got it.
Yep, if it's two only if 2 is the minimum and I can't even
learn it on my own. Like I like even just learning
games of solo mode because she also doesn't want me checking
the rule book in the middle of the teach, you know?
I have to know it really well to present it to her so that she's
not like that. That's wasted time.
That's not efficient and that's how that's how it gets there.
So. I am fortunate in that I married
a woman who is both 1000 times smarter than me and same is all
about the rules and the rule book.
So I'm the, I'm the. I'm the tabletop Princess.
Yeah, yeah. Like a passenger Princess.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I'm just want to show up and play the game.
She reads the rules. She boy if I even think about
picking up the rule book to check a rule.
Wow, yeah, that we are the complete.
Opposite, you know, roles in our households.
That's crazy. That's it happens.
But this is what I love about the community.
This is what I love. It's awesome.
So because I want to get to your thoughts on the community.
Yeah, talk to me about your transition from becoming just a
casual gamer to being an intentional content creator.
Great question. Yeah, I, I, I really, I was
listening to one of your episodes about something like
how in the it's one of those weird things you said the same
thing. I was like, how did I even like,
why did I start? But I will go back to just like
I was always a video game guy like that was it that I think
that's the biggest reason that board games were off my radar
that I didn't become a board gamer earlier is that it just
didn't hit me with enough stimulus at the time of like PC
gaming like I was. I went from Game Boy to GameCube
to Xbox 360 competitive games and then PC like about 2013 on
I've been a PC Gamer. I still play PC games with my
buddies. So I started streaming video
games actually. And so I started on Twitch under
the moniker Chrono, which is it comes from a League of Legends
reference, actually is what it is.
And so I played video games and in COVID era, I was, I was like
working from home on my computer all day.
And then I would stream, you know, for three or four hours at
night, like I was on a screen so much.
So I, I think that kind of helped me go towards board
games. But in that same era when I
wanted to make an Instagram account, which I think was like,
I wrote this down here, June 2022, I made an Instagram
account and I did not. Have the For the record, I have
the same date because I I checked.
You went and looked. OK, Great.
Thank you. You went and saw my first one.
Yeah, of course you're thorough. You would have done.
You would have done your research.
Like this guy knows his stuff. This is 150 plus episodes here
peeps. But funnily enough, with your
meeple to meeple too, I was like, the one thing I don't want
to name myself after is a meeple because at the time I want to
give a shout out to Foster the meeple.
They were like the biggest YouTube channel that was on my
feed and I was watching them like all the time and Jeff and
Jamie. And so I was like, you know, I
should just do a different. I was like, should I be punny?
But also with Chrono, like people when, when people would
say my name Reggie, like it was so weird to them.
Like people could not see me as anything but Chrono.
Like when you stream under a moniker, you know, like that's
your name, you know, it was like a stage.
And so I wanted to put my real name in it.
So rolling was like rolling dice.
And that's where that came from. I like it though.
Yeah, I like it. I like it too.
I I think it's, it's people think people mix it up with
rolling with Reggie a lot. I think there's a couple people
who do rolling with so and so, but just rolling Reggie.
That was Instagram, and I just started posting pictures of
games I was playing. You know, I got to that.
You know, I had a couple games and then I you bang the dice
games in there, King Domino's in there, Sushi Go.
You know, my shelf was like, it was one shelf in the linen
closet of our town home. And my wife was like, this is
too much. You need to stop.
Now. I have an entire room like
little. Yeah, talk about little.
Did she know? Like I had one shelf and that
was like, what are you doing? You think this is too big of a
connection? So you were a streamer before
you were a tabletop gamer? Yeah.
So it was, yeah. It was a natural fit for you.
Yeah, Yeah. And I don't know why, I truly
don't know why I started Instagram.
I just was like, I just wanted to share the board game.
And so I started doing it. And then I have to give a big
shout out to, you probably know them, our families plays, our
family plays games, games Nick and Starla.
And they invited me to do some videos for their channel while I
was just an Instagram account. And that was a huge impetus to
get me confident behind an iPhone camera.
It was just just on an iPhone, like I wasn't doing anything
special. And so, yeah, my first YouTube
channel or video came out in January 2023.
So I've actually only really this is go.
We're going on three years here now that I have been making
YouTube content. But yeah, that that was kind of
the story went from like Twitch video games to making an
Instagram to making videos. So what's your favorite or your
preferred platform that you like to create content right now?
I still think YouTube is my favorite platform.
Yeah, I just enjoy the process of making a video.
I have a trillion ideas, you know, I have so many ideas that
show. Yeah.
But just no time to make them all and I consume and The thing
is YouTube is, is my biggest, you know, consumption as well.
You're like, I don't even have Instagram on my phone anymore.
Like I just check it on my browser because it's just just a
time sink. You know, if I'm going to do
something on my phone, it's usually watching YouTube or just
just looking at my BG stats collection.
You know, we all we all we all know that I get my screen time.
It's like it's like messages YouTube BG stats most like how
in the world are you spending two hours a week on BG?
But I do, and I think that's why because I watched Youtubers
first. You know, I love sure.
And like shout out to all you can board.
Those guys haven't made videos in a lot.
They've been they they're on like a long hiatus.
I love them. They the 2 Canadian they made,
they basically shaped my taste. I think a lot of my like family
weight, medium weight tastes come from them and actual all
British one who you've probably watched too.
Very funny, big YouTube too. He's solo also, which I think
having a partner, which we've talked about with your podcast,
you know, it's it's more fun and I will tell you like the lat.
The other, the third platform I have now is podcast, which you
already mentioned board States and jazz and I have just been
doing this because we're on opposite sides of the country.
You know, PGI, we're talking about this before because it's
like we it's tough, you know, you got to plan time zones, you
gotta, you know, being on a platform like this, you know,
it's you got to have rapport and and so, but we've been really
enjoying it because it's just more long form.
You know, you can, as you are all witnessing right now with
your ears, you can yeah, for extended periods of time.
So. Boy, I've.
Been really, yes, yeah, yeah. So I do like podcasts too.
The time zones is I don't know that people people realize it's
really funny. So when we first approached the
podcast and decided that this is what we were going to do, right?
What I have experienced is people are like just do a
podcast or people are like, you should just do a podcast.
I hear that all the time. I'm like, you don't just wake up
and do this. This is not like it's not.
We talked about this has come up so much throughout the series.
Content creation. Yeah, right, is hard work.
Thing is hard work. And if you're going to have a
global audience and your guests are all over the world, you want
to talk about. So you're lucky because your
partner on your on your podcast is in New Jersey.
So there's a three hour time difference.
There will always be a three hour time difference.
I have no idea what's going to be the time difference from
day-to-day and week to week. When I'm recording, am I talking
to Australia? Am I talking to?
Yeah, that's you. You're 2 hours behind me.
Where am I going to be this week?
Right. So my wife is always like, when
are you recording? Don't know, you know, I mean,
that's more work. That is true.
I didn't even think about that. Like I I think that's one thing
about bringing on guests like you are doing, you are doing a
lot more pre emptive work to bring those guests on than jazz
and I are. It's like we can meet at like
we're meeting usually at like 6:00 my time.
So it's 9:00 PM for him and it's not too bad.
But I'll I'll say talking about tick tock and Instagram, like
you were saying, just content creation, like saying what's my
favorite? Instagram is my least favorite.
If you go to my Instagram, like there's not that many posts on
there. I I like to post on my story.
I like to tell people what I'm playing day-to-day.
But like making reels and making TikTok for me is exhausting.
Like it is that attention to detail on a phone or doing it on
an iPad or whatever. Whereas like doing a long form
podcast or doing a long form YouTube channel like editing
that I find more relaxing, less, less stressful that that is
interesting. Yeah.
It is less stressful, but I think it takes up more time.
Yeah, of. Course, yeah.
Because you have to listen to, you basically have to listen to
the entire episode unfiltered so that you can catch everything,
right? Yeah.
You don't. You don't want to rely solely on
the automation. Plus trying to find that really
sweet sound bite for that Reggie.
What was that really cool thing that Reggie said?
Yeah. Where was that?
Because I'm not sitting here taking notes, going at at 51 at.
51 minutes, he said, yeah. And there's nothing worse than
your own voice. Like I, I hate listening.
I hate listening back to it. Like that's one thing maybe that
the Instagram or like if you're because like there's some great
people out there who are making like beautiful reels that are
like beautiful. Thinking of the number of shots
that you have to do to do this look blows my mind, yeah.
Yeah, let's let's shout out Dana from Better Mood Board Games.
I want it to be that That is who I was thinking in my head was
Dana. I'm just saying that out loud.
OK, I knew who you were talking about.
That's why I'm referencing. When I when I think about the
best reels and the most beautiful images and
cinematography on Instagram right now, hands down, I'm going
to say it. It's Dana from Better Mood Board
Games. There isn't anyone that comes
close and she does it all using her phone.
IPhone yeah crazy and I just when I see what just knowing
what it would take to do that I'm just like you're you're
better than me. I can't I just can't do it.
I can't do it. That's.
Awesome. And I've been promising it.
Dana will be on in the new year. Awesome.
You know, it's really funny because she's like 3 1/2 hours
north of me and just trying to trying to get, you know, just
the holidays. It's it's been a tumultuous
year. I'm ready for 2025 to be over.
Yeah, yeah. At least it's not 45 minutes,
you know, in Netherlands, you know what I mean?
Right. That would be tight, so.
If if you could hop on a train and nether that would be
different, way harder right? That's so hard.
It's. So hard there with the free
health. Iris, 45 minutes is just so
long. You know, if Reggie packed up
his family and I packed up mine and we moved to the Netherlands,
we never see you because we live 45 minutes.
But by the way, we love you. Iris Yes, that is why we that is
why we do that. So let me ask you, I want to ask
you about the community. Cool.
What is it? What is it that you think the
community does really well, that you're so proud to be a part of
it? Yeah, I think we kind of
mentioned it earlier, but like the approachability, like people
are truly so nice. And so, you know, I came from
Twitch video games and like I would, you know, you'd you raid
somebody on Twitch, you know, and you try to get into their
video game thing and it's just they'd be like cool, awesome
things. But it's like, it just felt so
transactional, you know? And I feel like I can message
somebody's story that we follow. We don't know each other.
We live literally across the world, and we can start having a
conversation. I think the common language of
board games, for whatever reason, maybe because it's
niche, it's more niche, It's smaller.
The common language, it there's just, it's better.
Yeah. And I also think we do
conventions really well. I think.
I mean, I went to Twitchcon in like 2019 or something like that
and it was, you know, I had fun, but like nothing compares to
like my, I go to Dice Tower W typically every year in Vegas
and it's a smaller con like relative to the big boys, but
you know, 3 to 4000 people and there's enough of a hall to
check out. But also you just sit down and
play with so many people you know.
You know, yeah, people, people talk about, they talk about the
big boys, right? They talk about Gen.
Con, they talk about S and Spiel, they talk about UKGE.
Here's the one thing about those big conventions, you know what
most of them don't have Is that open gaming.
Gaming or or just there's no tables available if it if there
is one, yeah. I have.
I have one criticism of Gen. Con, and I guess I'm vocalizing
it for the first time. Great.
Having having gone to Gen. Con since 2017.
Wow. I have one complaint.
Gen. Con touts itself as the four,
the best four days in gaming. I don't believe that that is
true at all. I believe.
He said it here first, people. Yeah.
He said it. Yeah, it was true.
It's not true anymore. It is the best four days in the
gaming industry. That's interesting.
That's a distinct. That's a distinct difference
though. I don't get much gaming done at
Gen. Con.
Yeah, but I can go to Origins and there's open gaming with a
beautiful games library and it is right adjacent to the vendor
hall because it's all there. And either food carts were
amazing this year or food trucks or whatever was that was that
the food trucks origins the. Food trucks are a Gen.
Con. OK.
That's Gen. Con.
OK. And the food trucks were amazing
at Gen. Con.
OK, I mean, Gen. Con's a bigger beats.
To give them credit, yeah. To give them credit, right.
I just I want to gain for me, and This is why I do the
podcast. This is how the series came
about. It's all about nurturing
community. It's all about overcoming my
personal failings. Yeah, which I talked about in my
announcement, little 4 minute video back in October.
It's about sitting down across the table and having a shared
experience with Reggie. Yeah right.
Seeing you in the flesh. That's just, that's real.
I want that. I don't want a hug.
And oh, you got a meeting? Yeah.
Now there is a business. I understand there's a business
behind all this, so I don't take any.
That's why I say Gen. Con might be the first best four
days in the industry, but it's not the best four days in gaming
anymore. That's interesting.
I origin, just to put it out there, I probably origins will
be the convention I go to next year instead.
Good, because I will be there. OK Oh, that's awesome.
OK, so we'll have to make sure we touch about this I and I'll
you know what I'll give a big announcement here.
You I hopefully have told my community by the time that this
episode drops. Yeah, but my lovely wife the
queen is like due in January with a baby girl, our first
child. Yes.
And so my normal conventions, which again starts.
First of all, we're so excited. This is going to be amazing.
I can't believe we got a player 3 coming in the house.
Player 3 at the beginning of 2026.
How amazing is that? It's gonna Yeah, like I'm so
excited and petrified, but also I go to Orca Con usually in
January. I go to die * W is in March and
like none of that's going to happen.
I have made the agreement with a newborn is like maybe by June
I'll be able to go to Origins. That's probably going to be my
only convention of the year, you know.
But anyway, that just there you go, there's an announcement, the
meeple to people, meeple to meeple people know that there'll
be a little little rolling. Reggie, that's exciting in the
hub. Yeah.
But board games do three things for me.
And so I wanted to address that like and, and so engage my brain
and I think and stimulate it in such a way that I just not much
else has done for me in my adult life.
It's an excuse to socialize. I think that's a big thing.
It's like, Hey, let's cut, let's have a game night.
And it's like, I can, we can open up a bottle of wine, I can
make some dinner and then it's least we, we're not just sitting
around yap and we can at least do something while we're while
we're hanging out. And also it's an analog
activity. And for me, increasingly all I
want to do is like get, like I said, not down deleting social
media apps on my phone. Like I want to get off of my
phone. Like it's just something that
I'm doing. I'm on it too much.
So those three are big and I I just can't help but agree with
you. I love that.
That was a really succinct
description of not only what the community does well, but why it
why it brings it to you. I love it.
Let me ask you about the flip side.
Yeah. What does the community just it
needs to work on? Yeah.
I have one big one which you kind of touched on with the
industry part and I would and I was trying to look up what it
what the term is called. It's called choice overload or,
or, or another term for it in psychology, analysis paralysis,
actually in real life. But like there's so many games
and there's so many posts like this is if we're talking about
the content creator side and also the community side.
Like there's just so much hype. There's the hotness, there's so
many kickstarters like, and at the same time, there's these
amazing gem games, you know, that have been tried and true
from 2011, you know, that are amazing, right?
And, and I can't pretend like I'm not a high priest in the
cult of the new because I am also, but at the end of the day,
like half the hobby is like shopping and storing your games,
you know, more than it is actually playing the games.
And like, I keep a really lean collection As for a board gamer,
But when I tell my normal people they're like 200 games, like you
are a, you're a psychopath, you know, and, and I think your idea
of playing backlogs that you mentioned a long time ago now is
so genius. And that like, we need to start
an LLC like back the backlog boys.
You know, we're going to come in coveted player game.
But Bonds was right because she was like, you have to also be
willing to teach it, you know, and if you're not the rules guy,
like so we got to, we got to figure that part.
Out it is true. You know who else is going to
join that group? And that's Lincoln Hot.
We from BGG. Everything.
Yeah. Yeah, we talked about this.
I, I shared with him the whole concept of the board game
backlog and how we play all of our games once a minimum, once a
year. And yeah, 300 for us seems to be
the sweet spot. Yep, you know, good for you.
So you're you have 300 games and you're getting them all played
at least once a year. Yeah, so.
Crazy. Yeah, we're at least we're at
like 94.2%, yeah, which means we got to be hurrying because we
got like 2 days left in the year, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. But we're close.
Yeah. Last year we played it 100% was
the first time, but we're usually in the upper 90s.
It also helps you to know what games you need to just sell.
Of course, and I think that's a great and that's a great.
I go back and look. I mean, that's why I love I made
a video on like why I use BG stats and that was one big thing
is like I love be able to look at and see like when's the last
time I played this game? Oh, I haven't played this since
2023. Like can I justify keeping this
in my collection? Like is it sentimental or or
what? So, yeah, that that's big.
The only other thing I would say, you know, I think we talked
about, you know, women and diversity, I do think is a big a
big factor that we can we can be more welcoming.
That's always a given. I think we should be more.
But one thing about the welcoming side that I really try
to combat is people. And this is something that's in
a lot of hobbies. You know, it's happened in golf,
it happens in billiards, probably.
I don't know. But people forget what it's like
to be a beginner. You know, it's that they call it
like a the curse of knowledge or the curse of expertise.
You know, you have that math professor that's trying to teach
Algebra 1, you know, and they can't do it because they, they
just can't even imagine what it's like to not remember.
And so with board games, I think it's really pronounced.
And one sentence I've been really trying not to say is it's
super simple. Like I when I'm teaching like
it's super simple because then as soon as you say that, people
feel dumb because you're and, and my, and we're going to bring
up Wingspan again, but like infamous clip.
Do you know what I'm about to say?
The infamous clip, Mandy Patinkin, you know who played in
Inga Montoya, his son is teaching him and his wife
Wingspan. They're reading the rules and
they are laughing with hysterics.
There you go. Because because it's so complex
to them and any board gamer would say Wingspan is a gateway
game. And I think that's one thing
that I made a video on being the absolute beginners guide to
board games. Like, I just think there's a lot
that you now have subconsciously on the on the under the iceberg
that you're not realizing when you say it's a trick taking game
or you say it's a deck building game.
You automatically know half the rules as a as a veteran board
gamer, you know, and so then you're like, this is so easy.
Like, why are you confused? You know, like that's a baby
game or that's a gateway get like the the snobbery of veteran
hood. I think is something I that that
get that grinds my gear since you since you gave me a
platform, you know? That that is, that is fair.
We dedicated an episode. I really wish I could tell you
which one it is. We talked about how do you talk
to non gamers about our hobby without losing board game lingo.
It was a great conversation guys.
Go back and check that out. Yeah, I gotta find that myself.
I will tell you that it's before episode 100, so it's audio only
because it was. That was back in the day.
Speaking of, back in the day you referred to yourself as the High
Priest of the Cult of the New just a moment ago, which I love,
by the way. I stole that.
I stole that from Big Pasti. You got to give Big Pasti his
credit. Yeah.
On YouTube, yeah. I am, I'm the hierophant of the
classics. Beautiful.
So it's the opposite, right? Love it.
What when? When this whole concept of
community, this whole concept of this series came about.
We were talking about back then tariffs on China, 140% what's
going to happen, the cult of the new that our content is
completely dependent upon, right?
It's like, and yet you hear people talk about it all the
time, but we don't play Catan anymore and we don't play name
name the classic right that we don't we don't get to play.
And I want to see those games hit your table.
My challenge to the community is that you pull out Alhambra, you
pull out aka Romana, you pull out Twilight Struggle, right?
Play that with your spouse, right?
Let's let's they're on your shelf for a reason.
You fell in love with them. That love did not disappear.
It just got buried by the new. And 100% and they build, I mean
they're building on the like shoulders of giants a lot of
times too. You know, I am, I am very much
getting to the point like Carpe Diem is only like 6 or 7 years
old. But I've really been trying to
get into these old school games. There's a Guild on board Game
Geek called the OGS which stands which is old school German
style. Do you know this one?
I know them. Yeah, and like every game on
this list I love. And it's like I'm finding that a
lot of game, again, this is this now.
Now we're talking about problems of the industry where I'm just
agreeing with you here. Something I find is that every
game that comes out, a lot of the games that come out are
adding complexity for the sake of complexity, you know, And I
think a game that has streamlined rules, I mean, my
ideal game is like a medium weight 45 minute per player game
like that is perfect for me. And so I I just think sometimes
with all the more complexity and if it's got an hour long set up
like I am out, you know, so I think those older games like
they it's old because it's good. It's the test of time.
Are you prepared? Because this is real talk now,
right? Please understand this is coming
from someone who does not have a child so I do not understand
what fatherhood is like. Are you prepared for how much
that's going to change in the new year when your child
arrives? No.
Yeah. OK, no, Alex.
OK, no, I'm not mentally prepared.
I I already feel so time poor, to be honest, but it's one of
those things where I'm like, I just just by the age of five.
A shout out to board game blitz. Again.
We were talking about talking about podcasting and everything.
They do a great like 30 minute episode.
But Andy, she's got two sons and she always talks about all the
games that they play and like teaching them games earlier and
just like modifying rules and stuff.
So I'm very excited about that. My wife is like trying to tamper
my expectations. They're like, she's not going to
be playing a big euro at two years old, Reginald.
No, no, she's definitely not. So I think what's going to
happen here is based on my understanding, and I would send
you back to, I think it's Episode 127, OK with Susie from
Games with Beanie. We talk about bringing your
family to game conventions and the strategies of being able to
the go to the board game as a content creator, but managing
your parental duties and ensuring that your kids are
having a good time as well. Now you've got a few years
before that I understand. I got some time and what people
tell me who are parents is like newborns, you know, they kind of
just sit around a lot, you know, So there's time to, if you're a
solo gamer, like that's a good time to get some stuff in.
And it's also not putting on headphones, like I'm, I'm being
attentive. I can hear her, right.
And also, again, this is all in theory.
This is all theoretical, you know, in practice.
We'll see. We'll see.
What happens? But you know, you've got it,
you're going to do well. So getting to the end here, I
want to ask you, I've got two more real kind of questions I
want to ask. First of all is when you got
into, when you pivoted your content creation from video
games to board games. And I think you've mentioned
them, but who really inspired you the most?
Got it. OK.
I'm sorry. I'm going to shout them out
again. Yeah, Thank you.
Yeah, definitely have to give our family plays games a big
shout out. You know, their their OFPG
Voices team was inspiring, even though I was on it, because
there were just so many people from so many different walks of
life. And it was just all about, like,
showing how diverse the amount of the gaming community actually
is. You know, more than what you
might think of when you say, imagine a board gamer in your
head. So they're great I got to give
them because they really inspired me to like make videos
because I had to make some for their channel first.
I got all you can board if you guys are listening to this.
I think one of them had a kid, which was a big reason why they
stopped making content. So I'm like, I hope hope that's
not me deadline, but who knows. But but they did so many great
videos. I thought they just were so
awesome on YouTube and, and my personal favorite YouTube is
actual LOL, who is a British guy and he makes these just
incredible videos that are just so well produced and he's got an
editor now and everything. But I was watching them really
those three, I was watching really early on and that kind of
was like inspiration for that. But I will also say as just a
content creator tip, which again, I still don't really view
myself as a content creator, but because I consume so much
content is that, you know, I, I watch video game people, I watch
like sports channels, I watch booktubers, you know, I watch
these people in different fields and I get, you know, you can
learn from anybody, you know, and I think that's a big thing
that I've learned when it comes to making videos is that I, I've
taken complete, I do a board game tag in the middle of the
year. It's like one of my most
successful videos. Every year I tag a bunch of
people, the mid year board game tag every year in about June.
And I took that strictly from a booktuber.
You know, that was someone who the booktube community did that
and so I don't know what we are BG tube, Maple tube, I don't
know what our what the YouTube give you to do.
That's a. Great question.
I'm not really. I don't know.
My last question to you is what advice do you have to someone
who approaches you is like, hey, Reggie, I'm thinking about
really getting intentional about my content for my board games.
Wow. Yeah.
Definitely learn from anybody. Like consume a lot of content.
Of course, it's like they always say, like good directors have to
watch a lot of movies, you know, and I, I do think that like good
authors have to read a lot of books.
You do have to consume a lot to actually, I do think there's a
lot of people out there and I sometimes get my feelings hurt
because I'm like, I'm watching all my friends out there, you
know, and I'm commenting and I do those things and sometimes
I'm like, where are my big content creative friends that
I'm watching their videos? But it's not, again, it's not
transactional, but sometimes I'm like, what what what's what's
going on with that? But what I will say is numbers.
I think the biggest thing is like, you just, and this goes
for anything like my football coach used to say, like the most
insignificant score in football is at halftime.
You know, like you should not be looking at the scoreboard to
influence how you do things. So what I'm saying is you
shouldn't be looking at the subscriber count.
You shouldn't be looking at your followers, how many views that
thing got. Like yes, you can use analytics
to like inform what videos are doing well or what posts are
doing well. If it's reels or tik Toks or
whatever, what podcasts are doing well.
Like maybe I need to do a better title or do something, try
something. If it's a lot of
experimentation. It's a lot of trial and error.
And I just noticed my friends who focus on the numbers too
much, it's just, it's just so hard on your mental.
Like it's just such a negative loop where I'm just like, it's
OK. And I can tell them all the
time, like, why do you care so much about it?
But they just do, you know, And I, and it's so hard for me.
I'm, you know, I see this as a hobby and so like taking it too
seriously. If you do have a day job, if you
are paying your bills to as a caveat is is a lot, but then
same in that same vein, content output is like just do it when
you have the capacity. Let let's shout out my my board
game bestie, Iris Crimson board games started a channel like a
year after me has like 100 more videos than I have on my channel
and and she's just doing great and she has more subscribers.
She does great and I think that's awesome for I just I have
less videos because I just sometimes I'm in a spurt of
making. I'm making a video a week and
sometimes I haven't made a video for two months and it's just
depends on what's going on with life.
So I think that's that's the big thing like when you have
capacity and just really don't care about the numbers too much
because it just this is not good for your mental health.
There's no way. Well said.
Well said, Reggie. Thank you so very much.
This was just, this was a treat for me.
It was treat for me. Thank you.
Thank you for all these amazing people you're bringing off to on
your platform. Like thank you, keep.
I love this. I love this idea, like giving
people a space to talk and also keeps it fresh for you.
But like, it is more work for you.
So I want you listeners to know he is doing way more work than
we are doing to bring you this lovely content.
So yeah, I really appreciate it. Yeah, so Reggie, remind everyone
where they can find you if they want to reach out to you or
collaborate or anything. As I always say, I am found at
Rolling dot Reggie all over the interwebs, but primarily
YouTube, Instagram, Blue Sky not X.
And I'm also on a lovely podcast on all platforms with my buddy
Jazz called Bored States BOARD States with the best logo in the
biz designed by Ken and it's very cool.
So Bored States Pod is where I would direct any new people to
check us out right now. Excellent, guys.
Don't forget to hit the like and subscribe.
I know we just talked about that the numbers don't matter, but
I'm doing all this hard work. Still help, still give some
dopamine. I need feels good.
I need a little bit. I also need to know if this is
gonna be the thing for the future.
I need to see that you're watching so you know and
comment. I will comment.
I give them some new questions, give them some fun questions to
ask. Like that's great.
Like get, get some, get some ideas out there.
There's going to be a lot of That's great.
Podcaster, how about that? My God, I'm my God.
I'm old. That's great.
It's a great reference. But as always, guys, remember,
be kind to each other. Let's play more games, those
Vamos.