A board game is a game that involves counters or pieces moved or placed on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games can be based on pure strategy, chance (e.g. rolling dice) or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve. Early board games represented a battle between two armies, and most current board games are still based on defeating opposing players in terms of counters, winning position or accrual of points (often expressed as in-game currency).

There are many different types and styles of board games. Their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, as with checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, as with Cluedo. Rules can range from the very simple, as in tic-tac-toe, to those describing a game universe in great detail, as in Dungeons & Dragons (although most of the latter are role-playing games where the board is secondary to the game, helping to visualize the game scenario).

Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers. As a writer, he is best known for his blogs Wil Wheaton Dot Net and WWdN: In Exile.

Wheaton was born in Burbank, California, to Debbie (née O’Connor), an actress, and Richard William Wheaton, Jr., a medical specialist. He has a brother, Jeremy, and a sister, Amy. Both appeared uncredited in the episode "When the Bough Breaks" of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Wheaton made his acting debut in the 1981 TV film A Long Way Home, and his first cinema role was as Martin Brisby in the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH, the movie adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. He had a minor role in the 1984 movie The Last Starfighter. He first gained widespread attention in 1986 as Gordie Lachance in Stand by Me, the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Body. In 1991, he played Joey Trotta in the film Toy Soldiers.

Grant Masaru Imahara (born October 23, 1970) is a Japanese-American electronics and radio control expert, best known for his work on the American television show MythBusters.

Imahara is a graduate of the University of Southern California, with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering. For a time, he seriously considered switching majors, with the intention of becoming a screenwriter; he decided to stay on the engineering track after assisting Tomlinson Holman, a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and creator of the Lucasfilm THX sound system.

After graduation, Imahara was hired as an engineer for Lucasfilm's Home THX division; he then moved to the visual effects company Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), where he worked for nine years. While at ILM, he was involved in films such as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Galaxy Quest, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, Van Helsing, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

Sean Plott (born June 27, 1986), more commonly known by his online alias Day[9], is an e-sports commentator for StarCraft II and a former professional StarCraft: Brood War player, known for his daily netcasts. Plott qualified for the World Cyber Games in 2004, 2005 and 2006 and won the 2007 Pan-American tournament. He qualified for the American finals an additional three times and was recognized as the PC Gamer gamer of the year in 2010. He regularly appears as a commentator at StarCraft tournaments worldwide, including Blizzcon in 2010 and 2011, the Major League Gaming professional circuit, Dreamhack and the Team Liquid Star League. In 2011, Plott was recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 in Entertainment.

Plott grew up in Leawood, Kansas, where he attended Rockhurst High School. During this time, he and his brother Nicholas "Tasteless" Plott, now a professional commentator with GOM.TV in Korea, began playing Starcraft: Brood War. After graduating high school, he attended Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California, where he would graduate with an undergraduate degree in mathematics. After college, Sean would attend the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and in May 2011, earn a masters degree in interactive media. On the Day[9] Daily on May 11, 2011, he announced that he would be pursuing Starcraft II full time, however whether he meant commentating full time, or playing competitively was not clear. On May 31, 2011, during an appearance on the web show State of the Game, Plott announced that he intends to eventually stream himself laddering in StarCraft II, as soon as he is not "embarrassingly terrible".

Milton Bradley (November 8, 1836 – May 30, 1911), an American game pioneer, was credited by many with launching the board game industry in North America with Milton Bradley Company.

A native of Vienna, Maine, Bradley grew up in a working-class household in Lowell, Massachusetts. After completing high school he found work as a draftsman before enrolling at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1856, he secured employment at the Watson Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. After the company was shuttered during the recession of 1858, he entered business for himself as a mechanical draftsman and patent agent. Later, Bradley pursued lithography and in 1860, he set up the first color lithography shop in Springfield, Massachusetts. Eventually, Bradley moved forward with an idea he had for a board game which he called The Checkered Game of Life, an early version of what later became The Game of Life.

In 2004, he was posthumously inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame along with George Ditomassi of Milton Bradley Company. Through the 20th century the company he founded in 1860, Milton Bradley Company dominated the production of American games, with titles like Candyland, Operation, and Battleship. The company is now a subsidiary of Pawtucket, Rhode Island-based Hasbro.