Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

International TableTop Day is April 5

The event is inspired by Wil Wheaton%27s YouTube gaming show

More than 3%2C100 meet-ups were organized last year

Video-game fan Felicia Day put aside the joystick and picked up the dice as a recent convert to board games.

Quite a few in her legion of fans also might be feeling the need to dust off and bust out the cards, boards and miniature figures for the 2014 International TableTop Day. The second annual event, to be held April 5 at local meet-ups around the world, is inspired by the YouTube gaming show TableTop hosted by Wil Wheaton on the Geek & Sundry entertainment network, co-founded by Day.

The inaugural TableTop Day last March featured more than 3,100 organized events in 64 countries, and Day was "bowled over" by the response to the event, says the actress and Internet personality. "And we hope to at least double that this year."

The Geek & Sundry folks estimate 6,000 local meet-ups and 11 million participants for this year's event — gamers can find places to play at TableTopDay.com.

"I think it's amazing that the Internet can facilitate people to come together in person and celebrate something they love," says Day, who will be hosting a TableTop Day tentpole event in Los Angeles with Wheaton. "It's almost the natural evolution of social media: taking connections you make online, offline.

"Board games are a perfect vehicle for strangers to meet over, or friends to rekindle relationships, and that's why I think they're experiencing a surge in popularity now. We're so happy to help encourage that phenomenon."

Every Thursday on Geek & Sundry's YouTube channel, Wheaton gets fellow notable geeks together to compete in their favorite board games such as Qwirkle, Tsuro of the Seas and Lords of the Waterdeep. For the author and former Star Trek: The Next Generation star, playing games around a table with family friends has always been a great bonding experience.

"Whether it's an RPG, a deep strategy game, or a quick, casual game, we get to leave the boring real world behind for a little bit, and become adventurers, zombie hunters, city builders, kaiju monsters, wizards, robots or even spell-casting mice," Wheaton says. "And that's just a handful of the options that exist on my bookcase right now.

"Sports fans have championship games to get together and watch, where they celebrate the thing that they love. For board-game geeks, we have TableTop Day."