147 thoughts on “i have the heart of a dragon (no, really, i do)”

  1. Glad you got to go to this one and that it sounds like you’re coming back again. This was the first convention I’d ever been to and I only went at the last minute on Sunday – wish I’d just gone all weekend and I don’t even have a gaming group.
    I was a little disappointed I missed the book signing, so that run-in around the war games was an awesome shock. I knew I should have picked up some spare dice anyway! Thanks for the photo and the elbow bump.
    So how’s the Doctor Who soap? The vendor saw my Dalek shirt and was all, “OMG I had the perfect thing for you but Wil Wheaton just got the very last one.” Eeeeevil.

  3. The highlight of the con for me was when you blessed my dice bag. I just have to know, do you have a speech planned for blessings, or did you make it up on the spot?
    My favorite line was something along the lines “I call upon the power from Mount Gygax”.

  5. It was a pleasure meeting you and going to your panel. I also went to the double feature ST II and III, bought a new game, some books and got to meet the creature of Looney Labs games. I don’t think I could possibly have had a better weekend, minus of course getting up enough money for the charity. Please enjoy the dice, I gave the back of 3 with the cards in it.

  6. Hi Wil, I was so excited to get an autograph picture! I have located the Stand By Me DVD and was wondering if i could mail it to you for an autograph…though i do not see an address anywhere…please help.
    -Trisha K.
    p.s. i was the one wearing the blue shirt with your face on it that said “isn’t he dreamy”

  7. It was hilarious! I watched the guy stare down Felicia Day (who lost) and then watched – with great joy – as Wil’s iron resolve overcame the challenge. Great stuff, great memories! 🙂

  9. Your talk helped make my first GenCon even more awesome than I had hoped, and bumping into you in the dealer hall was great. You see, my friends have seen you and brought back autographs and such for me but I’ve never had the chance. I had games during your autograph times (and although it was a difficult choice, games won out).
    I hope my red d6 helps break the curses of some of the other dice. It’s not only a great die of fireball (even when my ferret familiar was casting), it’s chock full of great memories with friends and my now husband.

  10. It was such a pleasure to see you and the Guild out and about enjoying the Con. Past years, the media guests have been cordial to the con-goers but I’ve never seen them out running through TD or browsing the dealer’s floor. It actually really increased my own appreciation of the Con, knowing that you were also able to enjoy the events and Con-experience with all the rest of us nerds. 🙂 I was lucky enough to run into you I think just before your True Dungeon run and hand off a die for your experiment, and even though you were busy and I made you pause you were eminently gracious. So glad to hear the TD mod was so successful, and that the con impressed you enough that you plan to make a return visit. I hope successive years are even better for you.

  12. I think the comments on this blog are some of the most amazing, funny and nice comments I have read anywhere on the net in years.
    I really enjoyed reading every one of them and had some good goofy smiles going on.
    Thank you everyone.

  13. You can see the details about Wil’s legendary roll here: http://trudgerstreatises.blogspot.com/2010/08/gencon-2010-tale-of-wil-wheaton-dragon.html
    One of the greatest things about playing RPG’s is when, in the middle of some critical battle, a player makes some creative, innovative, or desperate move and rolls a perfect result. Usually it only becomes legendary among your game group, but when you do it at Gencon then we all get to share the magic. 🙂

  14. Will, great to see that you had a great time at Gen Con! I would have loved to listen to your panel, but I was jammed all day in the dealers room. I was very happy to bump into you so I could share some Cookie Fu with you. Hopefully you enjoyed the fortune cookies and the Cookie Fu dice game? Sorry about the shirt, I just guessed at your size. PM me and I’ll swap it out for you if you’d like.
    Thanks,
    Brian
    http://www.cookiefu.com

  16. I saw your Keynote (I guess) address at the con – stood in line for an autograph and the chapbook and gave you a die. You were funny at the address, very gracious, and the lack of a handshake is AOK in my book (especially since I’d just come off a month as a Director for a summer program for gifted kids where I got sick twice). It was good to get a chance to say a few words to you and the Guild cast. I wanted to ask you to trade your “True Dungeon Survivor” button for my much more rare “True Dungeon Victim” button but you looked like you were a little worn down by the time I got to the front of the line and I didn’t want to keep you there any longer than you had to be.
    I’ve told some of my “normal” friends that I saw Wesley Crusher talk about how D&D changed his life and they said it was the nerdiest thing they ever heard! I’m going to let them read your book and see if they can keep from getting all choked up then.

  17. Best part of the Con for me was seeing your excitement over being the first to portray Blue Beetle in official visual media. Now I get people asking “Why the hell did you have him sign a BB pic?” Great stuff indeed, and definitely grab JL Generation Lost.. Good stuff like the old days…
    Thanks again!

  18. Wil, it was great to speak with you for a moment in the Indianpolis airport. I loved hearing first-hand the tale of your dragon slaying. Hope you are recovering from that sinus infection quickly!
    What was the name of that survival-horror-in-space roleplaying game you found? Also, the resource gathering/pathfinding game with camel meeples I was trying to explain is called Samarkand: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/66214/samarkand-routes-to-riches. I know you have a mountain of games to play, but if you are ever in the market for a balanced and fun, light game, I’d highly recommend it.

  19. I was worried that you wouldn’t have enough time for gaming – I suggest next year, sneaking in with a mask, so you don’t get mobbed by all of us raving fangeeks, so that you get a real chance to experience GenCon as a gamer! I know that for me, I never get to pack in everything I wanted to in those four days, and you deserve at least the full four!

  20. I have always wanted to be a foley artist
    I hereby respectfully request the sound of ten pounds of dice being spilled on the next RFB (should there be one)!

  21. On behalf of Evil Fleet Productions, I just wanted to thank you for making a great convention even better. Three of our members got to speak with you and get some autographs.
    And thanks for taking a picture with the Wesley Crusher: Diary of a Wimpy Ensign character sheet from our Can of Whupass event. When we put that pictue on our Facebook page, Bill Cavalier (the Gen Con artist we hire to do all our Whupass drawings) posted “Wil Wheaton touched my cartoon! Wil Wheaton touched my cartoon!”
    So in addition to your many other accomplishments at the con – dragon slaying, dice hoarding, etc. – you made our gaming group very happy. Glad to hear you’ll be back again, and hope you get a chance to play Paranoia Trek or Can of Whupass with us someday.

  22. The game I mentioned is Maschine Zeit. OMG it's great.
    I can't believe I didn't recognize Samarkand when you described it. I'm going to blame exhaustion.

  24. We were very happy to have you there Wil… Glad you are planning on coming back too! I promise to keep Liz out of your hair when you are shopping for kilts…

  25. It was great to see you Friday Morning. I own a game store and I already used 2 of your comments while discussing items with customers (About Munchkin with a Holy Grail chaser and why people use D100s). Plus someone handed off one of my business cards to you, which is in the form of a D6… Thanks again, it was well worth it!

  26. You might want to consider more time than that, even. Some of the “unofficial” events begin in the days before the con. I saw ‘The Wrath of Khan’ and ‘The Search for Spock’ Wednesday night, and gamers were already playing in hotels and restaurants.
    Thanks for attending GenCon, Wil. Your event was definitely the highlight for me. And I think we’ve recruited a new follower of your blog because of it. 🙂

  27. Hey Wil,
    It sounds like you had a great time at your first Gen Con, glad you will be coming back in the future. My wife and I struggle with whether we should go to Gen Con each year due to the cost. Yet we come back every year, eight years now, ever since we were married, and every year we have a great time and can’t wait for that week in Geektown to arrive again.
    We really enjoyed your talk, it was moving and humorous, and you truly are a geek. Thanks for being our voice and making Gen Con just that much better this year.
    Sorry, I didn’t have any dice to give you or anything for you to sign. My dice, my books (including Just a Geek), and RPG manuals (including the awesome FATE system Dresden Files RPG) are all electronic entities on my iPad. It is great to carry everything in such a compact fashion, but it would have been problematic to ask you to sign the screen… 🙂
    On Saturday evening, just outside the Red Dragon Inn, I managed to stammer something to you about how awesome your talk was as we were both leaving. My friends and I had sat near you and the (other) terrific Guild cast members during dinner just before this (Hey, we were there first!), but we didn’t want to bother you during your meal.
    Oh, and in case you hadn’t heard about it, WizKids is doing a cooperative Star Trek boardgame by one of the leading euro boardgame designers Dr. Reiner Knizia: http://www.livingdice.com/4901/gen-con-2010-trade-day-report/
    On the way home, I read Just a Geek from beginning to en… well almost to the end, I ran out of power before I could finish. So, it seems electronic books do have at least one downside. 🙂
    K

  28. Wil,
    I had two particularly profound moments at this year’s Gen Con: One revolves around you, the other revolves around all of us. 🙂
    Moment #1:
    I met you on Saturday not long before you left for the day — I ended up getting book #151 from you. (Yay!) I gave you a shirt whose concept was dreamed up by my fiancee (the “Coexist” shirt, using geek icons instead of religious ones), and your reaction (“NICE! That is INSPIRED!”) was immediately conveyed to her via text message — it TOTALLY made her day. I was bouncing off the walls with a mixture of joy and pride, and I knew it would help soothe her disappointment at not being able to make it to this year’s Gen Con.
    The next day, my business partner (dressed as Data) gave you the shirt I had designed (“Redshirts Local #1701”), and they reported your reaction was just as enthusiastic (“AWESOME!”) — they even got a nice pic of you holding the shirt up for the camera. I was really happy to hear that you liked it, but no where near as excited as I was for your reaction to my fiancee’s Coexist shirt.
    And that’s when it hit me: I was more excited about her shirt because of how much I love her. After being together for 11 years, I thought I knew our relationship backward and forward, that nothing could really surprise me anymore. I was completely caught off guard to find this absolutely new dimension of love — “nerdgasm by proxy” — and it just warmed me up inside and made me want to get back home to hold her right away.
    So, for indirectly bringing me to an understanding of even that tiny new sliver of what love is … thank you. 🙂
    Moment #2:
    I was manning my GMSarli Games booth on the first day of the convention, and a fan came up and wanted me to autograph his copy of the Star Wars RPG Saga Edition rulebook. As I did so, he thanked me profusely for helping to make the game and for writing the “Jedi Counseling” column for all those years, and he said that he and his unit absolutely loved the game and they played it as often as they could in their off-duty hours.
    His unit. As in, overseas. As in, that’s what these guys did back at the base, when they weren’t being shot at.
    As if to illustrate the point, this fan also played in my “Evolved Delve” game for the e20 System I’m working on currently. The premise of the delve was that the PCs were members of a commando unit that was conducting a lightning raid to rescue a captive during a prisoner transfer. Players called dibs on four characters (sniper, heavy weapons specialist, combat engineer, and platoon sergeant) pretty quickly, and he looked at the last two, a combat medic and the platoon’s lieutenant.
    “Well, I get to play a combat medic in real life, so I’ll try the lieutenant.”
    Yeah. Let that sink in.
    Here I am writing games about heroes … and this guy actually is one. He wanted MY autograph, he wanted to thank ME for the work I do, and I realized that I should be asking the same of him.
    Nothing, ever, has made me feel simultaneously so important and yet so humbled.
    I’m sure that a lot of other writers and game designers have had a similar experience, and I hope we never forget how lucky we are to be able to be a part of the lives of heroes … no matter how small that part might be.
    Gary M. Sarli
    http://gmsarligames.com

  29. Wil,
    It was seriously great to see you at Gen Con, and I hope you enjoy the Vampire Lincoln shirt. We totally forgot to tell you – the design glows in the dark! Hopefully that’s enough to put you over the edge in the wacky T-shirt competition.
    Hope to see you at next year’s Gen Con!
    Anne Lukeman
    http://www.killvampirelincoln.com

  30. I and my fiance have dice to send you, and a story to go along with mine as to why I selected it. I didn’t get a chance to give it to you at Gen Con but loved your presentation. Is there an address we could send them to. Thanks LJ

  31. Wil, this being your first GenCon I hope you come again. Your panel was incredibly moving, and I hope if I am a gamer mom someday, I will be as cool as you.
    I read that people were hassling you about the no touchy the Wil rule, which my frazzled brain forgot about upon finally meeting you, but, this gamer at least understands. It was my first time meeting you, and I was literally shaking trying to yank my wallet out of my bag as I bought your pictures. I have been a fan for an incredibly long time (ever since you flew the Enterprise that first time) to be absolutely honest. You were my first preteen crush, a follower of your blog, a watcher of you on TV (don’t worry I watch and read other things too I’m not a psycho), a reader of your books blah blah blah,,,, But I still understand why you couldn’t shake my hand. Because see, you might remember me. Gen-con staff graciously let me up the ramp backwards because my power scooter wouldn’t make the turn at the top of the ramp where the line was. In my excitement, I nearly took out your signing table, but you remained gracious (I got number 12 of your book woo!) Even with all that I understood, why pray tell? The whole power chair thing, the large puffy scars on my arms the fact that part of my face has scars like a badger took it’s time with it was all from one solitary stinking infection more than two years ago. An infection that lasted about a year with IV antibiotics, surgeries, you name it I had it, and I got it from a tiny scrape, and contact with someone who was in the hospital or worked there. You thought swine flu was bad! Also I had a healthy immune system before all that. (don’t worry, the infection has been slayed by the mighty Vancomycin long ago you weren’t in danger). One of your fans, a rabid, first time meeting, teenage crush havin fan, understands.
    Maybe next time I won’t be too flustered to ask if you would come round to my power scooter for a picture with you. I hope you enjoyed your scoop of dice though it probably made sure that you had to ship it home, and I hope your sons still game and enjoy some of Chess-ex’s finest.
    Till hopefully your next Gen-Con- Melissa

  32. Gents, thankyou so much for mentioning TerrorWerks! No idea such a game existed. We get to skirmish in an ex-nuclear bunker tunnel system over here so I think this would be spot on to try out. One of the girls even has a pulse rifle with working ammo counter so, not surprisingly, she is a tad eager to try this out 🙂
    If you are interested in pics of where we airsoft when we’re not fighting with dice then go to http://www.digitalmindseye.co.uk/airsoft/index.html and click on Drakelow Tunnels.
    Cheers chaps *salutes*

  33. Hey man, thanks for looking at my art and asking for the sexy Harley Quinn piece I did. If you want to see more: mosingo.com

  34. Congratulations, Wil. Only a handful of groups killed the dragon, and you are the only one who hit a natural 20 with the dragonspear (another group got taped in). You really made Jeff’s day with that. The DMs tell me that y’all were a great group, full of energy, and that you, Felicia, and especially Sandeep showed your gamer chops. I hope that red, twenty sided heart of a dragon finds a place of honour in your life.

  37. I got a lot of d12s from people who said some variation of "I never got to use this." Then we'd say, usually in unison, "because I never used a longsword."

  39. Yours too? Neat! This was the first year GenCon actually fell on my birthday. Next year, it’ll happen again.
    Oh, and where in Canada? You might be able to drive it. Toronto would only require about 11 hours. (It’s 5 hours from T to me, and 5 hours from me to Indy.)

  41. I really enjoyed your talk at Gen Con. I hate to admit, I was actually one of those people who you refused to touch and who felt a little snubbed… Ok, that sentence sounds more perverted than intended. Anyway, I hadn’t read your blog in advance but now that I have I totally understand. I have gotten very sick at Gen Cons of the past, and my boyfriend came down with something at this most recent event. All is forgiven. Continue being awesome 🙂

  42. I’m glad you enjoyed your first Gen Con, Wil. I thought I might see you at our booth (Pinnacle Entertainment…home of Savage Worlds), but, alas, no.
    I do hope you managed to get in the Savage Worlds you were hoping for. Admittedly, I might have a bias…

  43. Hey Wil, I’m glad you enjoyed GenCon here in Indy. Evidently I was standing right next to you at the Dr Who Booth on Sunday with my two little red-heads looking at the Dr. Who Villain toys and my husband kept tryiing to get my attention and I was ignoring him (how wifely of me:) ) He gave you a neon green dice bag and has since made fun of me for not seeing you. I hope to see you back soon!
    PS…You should get one of those GeekChic gaming tables, put plexiglass around the bottom and see how long it takes you to fill it up with dice.
    PPS Can’t wait to see pics of your dice loot! My little ones (10, 9, and 7) have been playing DnD for two years and want to see how many people gave dice to “Sheldon’s Enemy”…ah the new generation of Wheaton lovers;)

  46. Gen Con sounds like it was fantastic this year. Would love to hear more about your Fiasco game. Please record it next time!!

  47. I totally loved getting to chat with you for the quick moment that I did! I look forward to seeing your dice pics as well and hope you return to future years of Gen Con just to game…maybe I will be lucky enough to sit at a table with you!
    I bought a copy of Munchkin because of your speech! You made the game sound so much fun that I HAD to have a copy. I taught it to my non-gamer in-laws the other night!

Comments are closed.

Related Posts

Recent Posts