Hello, I’m Moe Tousignant, the Tabletop Bellhop, your Cardboard Concierge.

What is the Tabletop Bellhop?

The Tabletop Bellhop is my effort to put my gaming experience to use for the benefit of the gaming community.
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The core concept is a question and answers session. A Dear Abby for tabletop gaming. I want to use what I know to help make your game night better.
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I want to put my years of gaming experience to use improving that community. I want to help people find new games to play. I want to help people make informed decisions about their game collections. I want to help organize game nights for maximum fun and entertainment. I want to inform people about new and hot titles. I want to save people money. I want to help you and your game group have more fun doing that thing we all love: gaming.

How can the Cardboard Concierge help you and your game group?

I’m here to answer questions and offer gaming advice. I get questions from the gaming community and then answer those questions publicly.
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First on the  Tabletop Bellhop Blog, then we will discuss the topic on the  Tabletop Bellhop Live stream on Twtich. The next Tuesday an edited version of that video is released on Youtube.  Finally, an even more edited and streamlined version is released as a podcast. In this way no matter how you like to consume your tabletop gaming media we have you covered.
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If you have a gaming related question, you bet there are others out there that have wondered the same thing. In addition, there are a ton of things that you just never think of until they come up. I want to get your questions, give you my best answer (including doing the research needed if I don’t know the answer off hand) and then share the answer with the community for the benefit of all of our gaming groups.

What do I get out of it?

Number one is growing and improving the gaming hobby. Getting more people out gaming and having people have more fun when doing it.

I also admit that I’m trying to make a living on this. Pay the bills, buy groceries, provide for my family. I lost my longtime job in the automotive industry in July of 2018, this gave me a chance to think about my life and what I’m doing with it. My wife and I discussed it and thought now may be a great chance to see if I can turn my love of gaming into an actual career.

There are a variety of ways I will be attempting to monetize the Tabletop Bellhop brand. Many of the links used on this site are affiliate links. Ads you see on the site have been paid for. I can and will accept sponsorships. Some reviews will be paid for in the form of copies of the games reviewed. In all cases, this information will be clearly disclosed in the post in question. I want to be perfectly transparent, I’m not trying to hide anything. Some of my content will be paid for and I will let you know every time. If you want to check out my full disclosure and privacy policy you can find it here.

Lastly: I’m hoping to learn something too. I’ve been gaming for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I know everything. Heck, I’ll never know everything.

My qualifications?

So what’s on my gaming CV?

I’ve been involved in gaming as long as I can remember. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on my dad’s lap while he painted miniatures for Dungeons & Dragons. Every new year was rung in playing Coup D’etat and Mah Jong with friends of the family. My dad found a set of magnetic playing cards that we would bring to the beach and the glove box of our car always had two to three travel games. Gaming was part of everyday life in the Tousignant household.

Growing up I spent pretty much all of my allowance at the local hobby shop. I remember discovering Games Workshop and their amazing bookshelf games: DungeonQuest, Fury of Dracula and, of course, Talisman. Randy, “The Dragon Lady,” who owned a tiny shop called the Dragons Den, introduced me to roleplaying and led me to The Windsor Gaming Society a gaming club at the local university. I spent every Saturday there, for 12 hours, gaming. Those were the days of Warhammer, Cyberpunk, Acquire, Adeptus Titanicus, Space Hulk, Car Wars and Blood Bowl. There weren’t many RPGs of the 80s and 90s that didn’t at least get tried, and many board games hit those UofW tables. I eventually became the president of the Windsor Gaming Society and through it continued to introduce more people into gaming. We hosted the first Magic The Gathering Tournament in Southwest Ontario, we had mini-cons and continued to game every Saturday, noon until midnight.

Then everyone started growing up. People graduated, got jobs, moved away, got married. Real life started to take over. Through these “Dark Times” I still kept my ties to gaming.  Mostly through magazines. Dragon and Knights of the Dinner Table were my favorites. Then the internet happened. I created a web portal (remember those?) called The Windsor Gaming Resource, or WGR. Part of the WGR was a message board and through that, I started organizing local events. Around the same time, we also discovered modern hobby board games. Catan, Carcassonne, Power Grid, El Grande. Though the WGR I was able to bring back a bit of the Windsor Gaming Society days. At one point I was hosting WGR events every weekend and sometimes multiple times a week.

Today, the Windsor Gaming Resource is still around. Our facebook group has over 500 members. Under that name, I’ve run a huge variety of tabletop gaming events. From weekend game nights at the FLGS to themed nights at a local pub. From The Great Canadian Board Game Blitz to multi-venue Extra Life Charity Events that run for an entire weekend. I’ve hosted board and RPG exchanges, mini-cons and holiday gaming parties.

Over these years I’ve accumulated a huge number of games and game plays. According to Boardgamegeek.com I currently own over 1200 RPG items and over 1000 Board games. That’s not counting items I’ve traded away or sold over the years. I’ve played thousands of games of all types and genres. Through the Windsor Gaming Resource, I’ve also had the opportunity to review, playtest, edit and help design games. I can honestly say that I’m an award-winning published RPG designer. I am also an accredited RPG playtester. As for board game design, I’m not sure if my name is printed anywhere but I have had my hand in that pot as well.

Gaming and promoting the hobby is what I do. It’s part of who I am. It’s always been a part of me and that’s something that will never change. I am a gamer. I am a game ambassador. I am your Tabletop Bellhop. Now, how can I help improve your game night?