Tom Vasel
About Me
Hi, my name is Tom Vasel, host of The Dice Tower. I've played board games most of my life, having learned classics such as Uno!, Monopoly, Sorry!, and Careers as a child. I quickly started looking through thrift stores to find more and more games, and was captivated by games that had variety and strategy, such as Cosmic Encounter and Scotland Yard.
In college, I played quite a few collectible card games, and dabbled with wargames and miniatures. Over the past five years, however, I've become aware of a great amount of other board games. Many of these games are known as "Eurogames", due to the prolific nature of the German and French game designers. I've found them to be exciting and interesting, and a far cry from the "roll-and-move" games of my youth. Of course, American games, such as those from Eagle Games and Fantasy Flight, also fascinate me.
Several years ago, I began to write reviews of board games, so that others could find out about these wonderful games. I've also authored an "Interviews by an Optimist" series, a series of interviews with notables in the gaming world, and started a series of deeper board game discussions - Musings On...,which is now gone - but you never know if we might start it up again!
In May 2005, I started the podcast The Dice Tower with Joe Steadman - a podcast all about board games, and one that has gradually changed over its many episodes. Joe has since left the show, but with a host of other contributors, the Dice Tower is still being produced biweekly, and is one of my favorite things to do. In 2008, I started a video podcast with my daughters, which is amazingly fun!
Most importantly, I am married to the lovely Laura Vasel, and together we have six beautiful girls - Melody, Amy, Holly, Clara, Violet, and Ruby, and a son, Jimmy. We also have a son, Jack, who was called to Heaven in early 2011. Together we served as missionaries in South Korea, where I pastored Uijongbu Baptist Church. I'm now in Homestead, Florida, where I run the Dice Tower full time, as well as serve at the First Baptist Church of Cutler Ridge.
You can find more about me at my personal webpage, www.tomvasel.com.
In this episode, Sam continues his two-player marathon with Tony & Tino, whil
In this episode, we take a bit of a break for the holidays, so our regular schedu
In this episode, we announce the winners to our greatest board game contest ever!
In this episode, we warn listeners that only 1 week remains in the huge Christmas
In this episode, Mary Prasad joins us to give us the news, and Moritz gives us th
In this episode, Tom talks with Richard Borg, designer of Liar's Dice, Memoir '44
In this episode, we continue our gigantic Christmas giveaway contest, and talk ab
In this Episode, Rick Thornquist says goodbye, and leaves us with his top ten gam
In this episode, Rick talks about his experiences at BGG.con, and Moritz hails us
With reports from Rick, Moritz, and Jason, there is a lot of information in this
Moritz comes back in this show with some game reviews, and Tom also gives a revie
Not so much regular news this week, but we continue our contest for Quest for the
Sam comes back, and we talk about some of our recently played games.
The show has a slight change in format, and Sam once again can't make it to recor
Because of the Korean holiday, we weren't able to get our normal show recorded.
In this episode, we continue our contest for Gifttrap and Twilight Imperium 3, an
This is a special episode of the Dice Tower in which I interview Scott Alden, fou
In this episode, we finish up our contest for Ninja Galaxy and www.meeplepeople.c
This is a special episode of the Dice Tower in which I interview Martin Wallace,
In this episode, we continue our contest for Ninja Galaxy and www.meeplepeople.co