(roughly) three days in (roughly) 500 words

Because I am too busy for a proper post, I offer a very brief trip report:

I went to Seattle at the end of last week, where I not only got to spend three days with my friends from Penny Arcade, I finally got to take a tour of the Wizards of the Coast offices after years of being invited to check them out.

While the offices weren't quite as Wonka-like as my inner 12 year-old (and outer 37 year-old) hoped they would be, it was still pretty awesome to see lots of dragons, several suits of armor, more dice than even I own (which is a lot of dice, guys), and three framed uncut sheets of original black bordered Magic cards.

I also got to visit and talk with the people who make D&D and Magic (they have all the same xkcd, PvP, and Penny Arcade comics hanging on their office walls that we all have, which was kind of neat), but I have an NDA with WotC so that's all I can say about that.

During my trip, I got to drop into my friend Mike's D&D game. His DM is this incredibly creative guy Rob, and Rob came up with a brilliant way to let me play a character who was more than just a hireling. He actually let me play a NPC who they'd interacted with the previous session, gave me a rich backstory, let me add some details of my own, and set up the evening's session so that it was mostly a massive (and incredibly fun) battle. He also let me make some choices and reveal some information that could have an impact on the rest of their campaign.

The session was incredibly fun, and I thought I'd refer to it in a column I'm working on about how you can keep the R in RPG, even when you're playing a session (or sessions) that are mostly combat, so I e-mailed Mike and asked him what Rob's last name was, so I could spell it correctly and everything.

"It's Rob Heinsoo," he wrote back.

Now, I'm guessing that a nonzero number of you are now picking yourselves up off the floor like I was when I got that e-mail this morning. For those of you who are wondering why the other kids in class are dazed for one round, allow me to explain why: Rob Heinsoo was the lead designer of D&D 4e, and wrote the Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

In other words, it was kind of like getting to play Dragon Age RPG with Chris Pramas, or Magic with Richard Garfield, only you have no idea who you're playing with. In hindsight, I understand how Rob was able to effortlessly weave me into and out of the campaign, and how he was able to come up with some truly awesome combat effects and deal with unexpected situations entirely on the fly. All those times while playing that I thought to myself, Man, this guy really knows how to use this system suddenly make sense.

Okay, real quick, before I sign off and get back to work: y=2m+x.

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59 thoughts on “(roughly) three days in (roughly) 500 words”

  1. Sounds like you had a pretty awesome time! How cool that must have been for you, I mean you are like the D&D king aren’t you??:) Glad you didn’t fall off the face of the earth. =]

  2. “In other words, it was kind of like getting to play Dragon Age RPG with Chris Pramas, or Magic with Richard Garfield, only you have no idea who you’re playing with.”
    References which the people who didn’t know who Rob Heinsoo was, probably won’t get either. Just saying – we geeks speak sort of a different language…

  4. Okay, I’m not a gamer geek, I’m more of a pro sports geek. But I’m getting the impression this is rather like playing ball hockey with Wayne Gretzky or driveway hoops with Michael Jordan, only you have no idea who they are or what they mean to their respective sports.
    Close?
    Or would playing ball hockey with Scotty Bowman be a better analogy?

  5. Wow, that’s awesome dude! What a neat way to play a game under someone who’s a true part of the game but not know it.
    And ah; now I see the equation you were making. A slope-intercept equation. Cute.

  6. At least you didn’t know in advance…you probably would’ve gushed like a little fanboi and ruined the game. 😉
    Sounds like you had a terrific time, and as always, a nice writeup.

  7. By the by, I enjoyed your post on Dragon Age immensely. On behalf on the company – thanks! We’re glad you’ve been enjoying it so much. If you ever make it up to Edmonton (and we know, few do!) feel free to come by the studio. We’re no Wizards of the Coast, but it’s an interesting place. Cheers.

  10. Not quite. More like playing those sports with the people who invented them. The difference is that most of the gaming pioneers are still alive so in our hobby, this is a easier to accomplish. 🙂

  11. As soon as I read the words ‘The Fey Team’ on your Twitter, I thought, ‘He played D&D with Rob Heinsoo? Awesome!’
    I am probably too invested in my hobby. 🙁

  13. I was in a demo round of Settlers of Catan run by Klaus Teuber at the Essen Game Fair (Spiel) in Germany the year before it was released. Obviously, he wasn’t that much of a celeb then but I was there and saw the game that would revolutionise the board game industry almost single-handedly. Our little group of friends who had travelled halfway across Germany voted it game of the fair and it would become Game of the Year the following year.
    We actually successfully predicted the following Game of the Year three times in succession.

  15. Are you going to be at PAX East? I only ask because I was in a used bookstore today and I happened across a hardbound first edition of Just A Geek and maybe it’s just the nerd in me talking, but I’m of the mind that it would be a crime to have such a thing and not have it signed, if it wouldn’t be an imposition of course.

  16. Heinsoo is an amazing DM, and you were an amazing guest star (GSPC?). It’s hard to bust in on a group that’s played together for oh-my-god nearly 11 years – ask Mike – but you brought game, sir. We all hope to see The New Librarian back some time.
    – Not that Rob, the other Rob

  17. Awesome! I can’t say I’m too jealous, because I was at DDXP hanging out with the WotC folks that you _didn’t_ get to meet. 🙂 Dark Sun is going to be great. Gamma World is going to be the most fun any RPGer has had since Paranoia. (It runs on the 4e engine, but is crazy goofy in tone.)
    Gamma World! I just have to say that again.
    The most fun someone can have in Indiana in January, for sure. 🙂

  19. I have already purchased the paperback months ago. I LOVE that book. Parts of it made me a little weepy, I’m almost man enough to admit.
    But a hardback? First printing? I could not pass it up. It sits wrapped in my coat, nestled in my passenger seat as we speak.
    It’s in decent shape too. I wanted it for myself, but something is nagging at me to get it autographed and donate it to Child’s Play. I wonder just how selfish I can be?

  20. Article on keeping the R in RPG? I love those articles… so much the better that a bona fide *actor* is writing it! Speaking of R and RPG… you really need to check out a new manga-style book: “King of RPGs”. Funny as hell, and very smart (but only hard-core gamers would get it).

  21. Just passing along a message from Denise Crosby & Claudia Mason – since you’re back, I highly recommend seeing “Orpheus Descending” at Theater/Theater on Pico. It’s running for 3 more weekends, so you have time. It was my incredible fortune to meet Gates McFadden who came last Saturday night to cheer Denise on. Anyway, you should go.
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/01/theater-review-orpheus-descending-at-theatretheater.html

  22. Sigh. Again with the hogging of the awesome, Wil? Again with that? The rest of us are stuck hoping for an Awesomeness Stimulus Package, and with the budget like it is–well, if NASA can’t build the next rocket series, then I don’t think we’ll be getting fresh moon-harvested awesome anytime soon.
    It’s often better not to know you’re in the company of genius until AFTER the event, I find, in order to prevent fanboi/fangirl drooling, stumbling and sliming all over the genius in public.

  23. I’m not sure I can agree with the MOST fun in January in Indiana, but maybe a close second.
    Didn’t get to do much but pop in for lunch with friends, but I heard much the same as you have reported in regards to all the new goodies.

  25. I gather this wasn’t a Tycho/Gabe/Kurtz/Wheaton session, since it’s a longstanding group and those guys never played together before the podcasts. I don’t think the “Mike” being discussed here is Krahulik; that Mike hasn’t played D&D for that long, and AFAIK the only regular game he’s in outside of the podcasts is one where he’s the DM.
    @wilw: might want to clarify that, if I’m right. Talking about going to hang with the PA gang and playing D&D with your friend Mike might confuse more folks..

  26. I knew the Mike he was talking about wasn’t Krahulik, but I saw Penny Arcade and DnD mentioned within extremely close proximity of each other. That causes all sorts of nerd radar to go crazy 🙂

  27. You are one lucky SOB Will Wheaton. Any chance we will see (hear) more PvP/Penny Arcade/Will Wheaton D&D podcasts? I know that poor Aeofel is gone but maybe they could have you back playing a new character how about a bard, no one ever plays a bard.

  28. Dang, and I thought I was cool because I got to have breakfast with Andy Collins and Gwendolyn Kestrel last year.
    🙁 Trumped again.

  29. The first two analogies aren’t bad, honestly: Gretzky and Jordan didn’t invent hockey and basketball, (like how Heinsoo and Garfield didn’t invent D&D or card games), but they certainly had a huge impact on the way it is played. A better example, however, I think, would be being invited to play flag football in a park, and finding out afterwards that your team’s quarterback, the guy who was calling all those cool, fun plays that you never would have thought of, was Peyton Manning.

  31. Well, as I said in this post, I have an NDA, but I think it's safe to confirm that we have discussed a fourth series of PvP/Penny Arcade/Me podcasts.

  32. Oh no, you're still cool.
    …because, uh, I'm the official scorekeeper on this sort of thing, apparently. 😉

  33. I’d be cooler if you came to our con. Andy was our second choice, because we couldn’t get you. 🙂
    We got Sean K. Reynolds (Paizo/ Pathfinder) this year for the same reason.

  34. Probably better you didn’t know who it was, and thereby were able to just enjoy yourself without being starstruck the whole time.
    On another side note, and you might have answered this already in another post, but are you playing the Star Trek Online game? Have heard rumors in game that you played, but didn’t know if they were just the Star Trek version of Chuck Norris comments.

  36. I’m pretty weak in the math department, and in fact I happen to be in the middle of a refresher course in basic algebra for the first time in two decades. I’m also compulsive about certain things, so I’m desperately wanting to put your equation into slope-intercept form, which is y=mx+b. To do this, I’d have to write your equation as y=x+2m. Assuming that what you describe as m is the same m that appears as the coefficient of x in slope-intercept form, and if the coefficient of x in your equation is 1, then m must = 1. In that case, your equation is really y=x+2.
    All this to say, I don’t know what that means, but I really wish I did.

  37. I think you’re reading way to far into this.
    From Wil’s Twitter feed on Feb 1st: [:pushes glasses up on nose in universal nerd gesture:] I just realized that this entire year can be written as an equation, thusly: 2M+X

  39. Glad I could help…I’m not much of a math whiz either, and I couldn’t bear to think that you were still sitting there fretting over a non-existent equation. 🙂

  42. We’re no Rob Heinsoo, but if you were to make it out to Pax East, both myself and Chatty DM will be there, ready, willing, and able to run some D&D…
    Just saying 🙂

  43. Wil,
    It is good to see that you are still having fun at this after so many years. I am kind of afraid to mention the rush writing because you may make your next entry 5000 words or more. You really have a writing gift, to me. After all of this time just keep having fun.
    FG

  44. Wil Wheaton can take out three Vor’cha with just a runabout.
    Wil Wheaton defended Starbase 24 by himself, with a phaser rifle.
    Wil Wheaton disables his personal shield because it’s too wussy.
    Wil Wheaton measures his day by how many Gorn he bench-pressed.
    An Orion fired a disruptor at Wil Wheaton and the PIRATE’S molecules flew apart.
    Wil Wheaton was bored on the plane ride to PAX, so he memorized Memory Alpha.
    Wil Wheaton doesn’t need bridge officers.

  45. Thank you! I am glad someone got that. That is a mighty impressive list you have there, I will have to put my thinking cap on for some more.

  46. I just started a thread on the STO forums, too. Hopefully we'll get a lot of creative responses and not just "throw Wesley out an airlock"

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