How Welcome to Chinatown and Counterspell Games Roll for Success

By Marnie Williams Noble, Founder, Counterspell Games

In October 2025, my husband Nick and I showed up to a beautiful community space in Manhattan's Chinatown with dice, character sheets, and a big dream. We were about to run our very first public tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) event. We had no track record, no past customers, and a concept that was genuinely hard to explain in one sentence.

What happened next set us on a path to making our dreams become reality. And in the process, helped us connect with other founders who are realizing their big dreams, too.

A Weird and Wonderful Idea

Counterspell Games is a pop-up game company built for the TTRPG-curious. We run beginner-friendly, in-person tabletop roleplaying sessions in New York City. If you've heard of Dungeons and Dragons, for example, you’re getting warmer! If you haven't, here's the short version: a small group of people sit around a table, an expert Game Master (GM) guides them through a story. With the roll of a dice for the element of chance, everyone makes choices together that shapes how the story unfolds.

In today’s technology-obsessed world, we want Counterspell to be a uniquely analog, immersive, and human-made experience. That’s why we encourage players to put away phones during the game, using a pencil and paper and their imagination. For those who haven’t played before, a TTRPG game typically relies on a setting and a system in combination. While there are many to choose from, our favorite system, Daggerheart (created by Darrington Press, by the makers of Critical Role), provides the game rules around our own original setting of Riftsong: a cosmic Sci-Fan universe of riftweavers, an ancient planetary throne, sound resonance as magic, and flying sheep that drift away if not properly anchored. 

We started Counterspell because we genuinely love what TTRPGs represent: from making new friends, to group problem solving, to acting in-character (and improvising!), to the thrill of rolling the dice and taking big risks. We wholeheartedly believe everyone should have the chance to experience this!

But time and again, when we mentioned the joy of these games to folks we’d meet, we found that most people would love to play, but felt they had never had the right opportunity to jump in. From their busy work schedules preventing them from joining a long-running campaign, to the intimidating feeling of joining a drop-in night alone, it just never seemed to line up for them. So, we set out to create more opportunities for play, one pop-up at a time.

The challenge? Even after two years of developing our original setting, and an additional year of playtesting with our trusted friends, experienced game masters (GMs) Christopher Diercksen, Percy Hornak, and Ben Mountain (who generously committed countless hours of ideation, creativity and camaraderie), we were still brand new to the scene. 

And as a pop-up, to host a game, we needed a venue.

The Welcome to Chinatown and Counterspell Games collaboration

When we heard about Welcome to Chinatown for the first time, we were blown away by their community-first, in-person experiences at their Small Business Innovation Hub, which opened in 2024. A first-in-kind gathering space for the community to empower small businesses, build bridges, and champion sustainable growth, the Welcome to Chinatown team’s goals for the Hub include opportunities for entrepreneurs to test new ideas in a collaborative space, and engage more deeply with Chinatown’s culture and economy. As a small business testing a new idea, this felt like the perfect fit for Counterspell – and we soon realized that we could also provide value in return. If we could help drive business and awareness toward the Chinatown neighborhood for new players, increased awareness and recognition of this thriving community space would follow.

On October 19, 2025, we ran our first ever Counterspell event at the Welcome to Chinatown Hub. And it worked! Players laughed, made new friends, and built a story together with our GMs, who guided them through every pitfall, thrilling encounter, and tender moment. Someone told us it was the best thing they'd done in months. Players asked for restaurant recommendations in the neighborhood to celebrate with a post-game dinner. Nick and I took the train home that night pinching ourselves that Counterspell was finally becoming real.

Leveling Up Our Community Connection 

Once we found our footing, we wanted to find ways to give back to the Chinatown community that had been so generous to us. Tabletop games alone are incredibly fun, but are also the perfect platform to combine with other offerings. And gamers, like myself and Nick, love a good drink and snack. That's how our Featured Makers program at the Hub began, with help and inspiration from a fellow founder.

“As a community builder in residence incubating Alcove at Welcome to Chinatown, I have had the privilege of collaborating with a bunch of emerging food and beverage creators who all happen to intersect at the Hub,” said Josiah Forgath, Founder at Alcove, a curated, community-first company that Counterspell sees a great kinship with.

“Connecting the dots between the playful, social community Counterspell is fostering and our network of makers felt like the perfect opportunity to spotlight amazing people who are passionate about their craft,” said Josiah.

With Alcove’s help, we began to invite AAPI small business owners to be part of our game event experiences. Starting in January, we set up space for these Featured Makers during guest arrival, inviting them to share their products with players in a cozy, small group setting. Alongside them, we offer our own “Merch & Dice” table, where we sell small collectables, dice accessories, and dice sets. This welcoming experience is meant to feel like walking into a fantasy tavern, where players can browse wares and try delicious food and drink before heading into their game room.

“A lot of people have budding dreams and ideas, and sometimes these can't be hurried and need time to take shape and set in,” said Iris Yu (@asianbabygrandma), a founder who is working on her own food brand, and a Featured Maker at our January Counterspell event. “Welcome to Chinatown’s Hub provides opportunities for people to gather to work together, exchange ideas, and share the journeys that they're on.” 

For Counterspell players, Iris served delicious soups such as chicken bone broth with Chinese herbs, and red date ginger with snow fungus, while Karen Liu of @grandteaimports served a beautiful tangerine pu-erh, fermented tea from Xinhui 新會. The two Featured Makers built out a cozy cold-weather themed offering that fit our winter dungeon diver theme perfectly. 

“Counterspell is in the business of unlocking the magic in every person by encouraging us to be as authentic as we feel comfortable being, and they just happen to do that through activities centered around games and creative roleplay,” said Iris. “Counterspell is more than willing to work with you to see your dream come true because they get genuinely excited when you get excited.”

Guests loved it. The makers got real face time with a curious, engaged audience. It felt like exactly the kind of thing we wanted to keep doing. We were now able to help other small business owners with big dreams to access a room full of people who are already in the mindset of trying something new.

What We're Building

Counterspell Games is still a very small (but mighty) operation. We rely on our trusted GMs who are the best of the best at what they do. Every event is a “one-shot,” meaning players get a complete story arc in a single sitting. But that also requires a brand new original story every month, which our GMs carefully write, and playtest, before hitting primetime. 

Being a pop-up has allowed Counterspell to grow into additional spaces, such as the locally owned Love & Legends Books in Brooklyn, which offers fantasy books and TTRPGs. Across all of our drop-in game night events, we 3D print and hand-paint minis, and hot glue miniature sets together. We assign a lovingly pre-made character to each guest, with hand-drawn character art they can take home after the game is done. And we also provide other types of events such as mini painting, where guests paint miniature figurines that are often used in TTRPG style games. 

We're not trying to be the biggest game event company in New York, or host the most games. We're trying to be the most warm, and the most welcoming for players of all levels. An experience where someone who has always been TTRPG-curious finally gets to play, and walks away wanting to do it again. And for those who have played for years, this is an opportunity to try something new, perhaps even bringing along friends, partners, or coworkers to experience a TTRPG for the very first time. 

Welcome to Chinatown helped us start that story. Now we're trying to help others start theirs.

We'll see you in the Rift!

Are you TTRPG-curious? Learn more and reserve your seat at luma.com/counterspell! Ask us about our private events, for anything from team-building to celebrating life’s milestones! If you're a local AAPI maker interested in being a Featured Maker at an upcoming Counterspell event, reach out to marnie@counterspell.games or our Instagram, @Counterspell.games.