My 2010 PAX Prime Schedule

When I was at GenCon last month, I signed autographs and stuff for close to six hours a day. I got to meet a lot of people (and took home about ten pounds of dice!) but I hardly got to see any of the con, and I got to play a grand total of three games while I was there. I’ve been working my ass off for three weeks, and the idea of doing the same thing at PAX this year makes me so sad, I want to curl up in a little ball on the floor and cry.

So this year, I have decided that, instead of spending most of the show signing in Bandland and taking three days to recover when I get home, I’m going to finally attend PAX, enjoy the company of my tribe, and play a ton of games. This means that I have severely curtailed my signing schedule, and it means there is no way I’m going to be able to sign things for everyone who wants things signed. (I’m not saying that in some kind of  “Hey, everyone come and see how good I look!” sort of way, I just know that at every PAX I’ve been to – this is my fifth – people tell me they typically wait 90 minutes or more, and we always turn people away because I run out of time.)

My PAX schedule this year is fundamentally different from every other PAX I’ve attended. I’m afraid that this is going to make a non-zero number of people unhappy with me, but here we go:

Friday:

10am 1pm: Signing in Bandland for about an hour. No lineups before 9:45. 12:45.

Saturday:

10am: Signing in Bandland for about an hour. No lineups before 9:45.

2:30pm-4:30pm – Acquisitions, Incorporated: D&D Live!

Gabe, Tycho, and Scott Kurtz begin an adventure with one goal, find a way to bring back Wil Wheaton’s deceased character, Aeofel. This is unscripted Dungeons & Dragons before a live studio audience… and through the magic of TECHNOLOGY, the audience influences the game! Bring your cell phone and guide Jim Darkmagic, Binwin Bronzebottom, and Omin Dran to riches or ruin.

6:30pm: Hi, I’m Wil Wheaton. AMA (Title shamelessly stolen from Reddit)

I’ve been working so much on secret projects and Eureka, I haven’t had time to write anything new for PAX, and rather than tell the same stories everyone’s heard already, I thought it would be fun to spend an hour together answering questions and talking about things that are interesting to you.

Sunday:

10am 1pm: Signing in Bandland for about an hour. No lineups before 9:45. 12:45.

Like I said, I know this is going to make some people unhappy, and if you’re one of those people, I hope I can appeal to your fundamental humanity for a moment, and ask for some understanding: I’ve been working my ass off for three weeks on a job that’s amazingly wonderful and fun, but is also emotionally exhausting (all creative work is emotional, I’ve realized, which is a subject that deserves its own post when I’m not as exhausted as I am now) and I’m just plain out of HP and Mana. I have a choice: I can skip PAX entirely, or I can attend PAX in a way that will still be fun for me. I chose the latter, because I think I’ve earned it, and as I said in my PAX East keynote:

We are all here today because we love playing games. Some of the happiest days of our lives would not exist without games and gaming. Games are important. Games matter. PAX is where we come together to celebrate that.

I can’t think of a better place to refill my HP and Mana than PAX, and I'm incredibly excited to finally attend this con that I've come to love so much. See you in about 56 hours!

59 thoughts on “My 2010 PAX Prime Schedule”

  3. Seriously, PAX is meant to be enjoyed by all nerds; my friends and I played Dominion with Mike (Krahulik) last year, and I was extremely happy to help him have some time to not be “on”, and just enjoy a game or two like everyone else in the convention center.
    I hope your schedule helps to facilitate that so you can enjoy the glory of PAX like the rest of your tribe!

  4. I hope you enjoy your time at PAX the way the rest of us get to experience it. Everyone deserves their time to veg! It will also be infinitely more awesome if I happen to end up next to you in a demo line or something!

  6. Enjoy the con, man! You’ve certainly deserved it. I was hoping to get to exchange shiny gold rocks for dead tree writing, but I’m certainly not going to throw an Entitltrum over you actually, you know, having fun. Because I try not to be a dick.

  7. Sounds fair and reasonable Wil. Hope I get a chance to say “hi” while I’m there.
    GeekDad panel at 11:00 on Saturday, Wolfman Theater! W00t!
    ~Ken (who is getting a bit nervous about hosting a panel at his first PAX)

  9. You deserve a con where you’re a Geek and not a Celebrity Geek. Anyone who doesn’t get that is in clear violation of Wheaton’s Law. Enjoy PAX!

  10. Oh, Wil, for the sake of those of us not going to PAX, please, please, PLEASE tell us that the AqInc session will be available to listen to online at some point.
    Edit: And as for people getting all tied up in knots over you having time to chill and have fun? I doubt there will be too many. You deserve a break, after all!

  13. Enjoy your PAX vacation! You are so involved with your fans and the community I can’t imagine that anyone would give you grief for actually enjoying the con. Honestly I think that “non-zero number” maybe a lot closer to zero than you imagine! Roll some dice for me, and may Aeofel return from the dead! (Btw are you DM’ing that game? And is it going to be available in podcast format for us PAX deprived?)

  14. I think it’s awesome that you finally get to enjoy the con. I’m also glad you got to check out a bit of Vancouver. No hard feelings at all.

  16. I was at GenCon this year and saw the monstrous line waiting to see you and decided that I would not take up a spot that someone who has not had the pleasure to speak with you could use. I did see you wandering the con and took a moment to give you an Iron Guard, a set of dice and a wish to enjoy the con. I will do the same at PAX as these cons are some of the happiest days in my year and I always feel bad that the guests of honor who want to be enjoying the con are stuck at a table all day. Anyone who has a problem letting you enjoy your con should be invited to stand at your table and play Wil for the day.

  17. You should be able to enjoy PAX like the rest of us!
    As @NicoleWakelin suggests, Wheaton’s Law applies here. Don’t be a dick to yourself and have a good time!
    I’ll see you there!

  18. Please, please, please make sure the adventures of AqInc. get podcasted/summarized/something! Your participation in Round 2 and mentioning of Round 1 of those podcasts is why I got back into DnD- went to a con and I’m now playing in a weekly game.
    I would love to know what happens to the guys.
    Thanks for whatever you can influence.

  19. What TSC and mln84 said – I was kinda disappointed that you weren’t in the last series with Kris Straub and Dark Sun. Aoefel must come back – revenant, anyone? Maybe make it part of a RFB episode?

  20. Good for you! You need to set limits. I think this is a great way to do what you need to do to make other people happy and still enjoy yourself and have some fun at the same time.

  21. I can’t speak for anyone else (they’re perfectly capable of speaking for themselves) but I can tell you that when I asked about your schedule it wasn’t intended to put any pressure on you 🙂 It was because I’m very leery of interrupting any time that hasn’t been scheduled specifically for meet and greet time. 🙂
    As I discovered at W00tstock, half the fun of waiting in one of those lines is talking to the other people in line and making friends. I figure that even if I don’t make it to the front of the line before your scheduled time is up, I’ll still meet neat people so it’s a win-win 🙂

  22. Sounds good to me! I’ve seen you every time we’ve been to PAX and once at ECCC, so if I don’t manage to make it thru your line again, I can still die happy. 🙂 HOPEFULLY I can make it to your panel. That’d be nice, because I haven’t seen you perform in two years! Enjoy yourself this year, and we’ll see you on the show floor!

  23. Well, if I can’t go to you, maybe you can come to us!
    Other than the tabletop stuff, I hope you can find time to swing by the Ubisoft booth! I’ll be working there with the Frag Dolls and rest of the Frag Doll Cadettes, and it would pretty much make my life to get a picture with you or something signed at my very first PAX.
    Enjoy your PAX as an attendee! Hope to see you on the floor!

  24. Enjoy yourself and game like mad. I know my three sons would agree that gaming is happiness. The “man cave” in my basement is often filled with a large crowd of their friends who walk through my door carrying extra TV’s, gaming systems, controllers and assorted junk food. If you have half as much fun as they do then your fun battery will be fully charged. Play on!

  26. You should totally get to enjoy PAX, plus, maybe I can spend the time I would have spent in your line doing something else fun, right! Although, I probably won’t go to your Q&A because I have this goal to be in the front row for Front/P&S/JoCo, so I will be hanging around the Benaroya with dinner. You should drop twitter updates on what cool stuff you are doing though, so we can join you and continue to be in the presence of Wil, while Wil is doing cool stuff!
    Rosalind
    Girls Are Geeks

  27. Like most everyone else here has said, just go and enjoy it. Not every con has to be work just because you’re a celebrity. I look forward to the Acquisitions Incorporated session, I desperately hope I’ll be able to get a seat.
    Listening to all of you is what got me back into D&D after 20 years. 10 months ago I had no clue about 4E, and now I’m DM’ing this season’s Dark Sun weekly Encounter at my friendly local gaming shop.
    I hope to see you around the tabletop sessions and perchance get an opportunity to game with you.
    …fellow 38 y/o geek.

  28. I’m not attending PAX Prime. Last year was my first time and I was SO overwhelmed I nearly freaked out and stole the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bus. Almost. But this does bring up a question: if I were to pass you wandering the exhibit floor, would you mind if I approached you? Mostly to tell you thanks for finally being on Eureka, and twice no less! :o)

  29. pffffft, more than reasonable. I’ve seen you put in crazyridiculous hours at PAX for years – it’s about time you got a proper enjoyable experience! One question – between recent Eureka and less signing time, have you eliminated the usual PAX chapbook?

  34. 1st PAX myself – still trying to figure out a cloning technique so I can attend everything!! Have a blast geeking out with the rest of us!!!11one

  36. That sort of schedule is WAY better than not going, and then years later lying about your reason why to a fan, over a nice quiet game of cards.
    That… that is just… evil.
    Just sayin’.

  37. It sounds like I probably wont be able to ask you this on Sunday so here goes.
    I love geek culture. All geek culture. Honestly, I do. A while back I decided to try as many geek interests as possible. I got one friend to teach me Magic, another to teach me D&D. I watched the original Star Wars trilogy, and skimmed through the crappy prequels(I was already a bit of a Trekkie). I even went to ECCC and saw you play Rock Band (personally, I didn’t mind not playing, just watching was fun).
    A few months ago I named my new little fetish “The Geek Bucket List”.
    Now to the point, I was wondering if you could add at least one can’t-be-missed experience to the list. Before you say it, I covered Rocky Horror three years ago and have been a Wheadonite since Buffy killed Angel.
    Thanks.

  39. “The Geek Bucket List” – interesting idea, indeed.
    After reading this I wondered if anyone had actually put one together, and I found a small one here: http://forums.fanime.com/index.php?topic=14747.0
    It’d be interesting to see more lists to get an idea of a) what people think are important aspects of geek culture, and b) how many of these things they would hope to accomplish in their lifetime.

  41. Dude, you spend so much time being a non-dick that you have endured some ‘me-time’. Have fun and know that we all appreciate everything you do to nurture the geek community. Anyone who has a problem with it is being a dick, which we all know is anti-Wheatonian. So there you have it.

  42. Please say the Acquisitions Incorporated live session will be online, and hopefully in a format befitting its awesomeness (ie better than one shaky handheld camera from the audience).
    Listening to those DnD podcasts, and reading your posts about roleplaying games, got me into a weekly game for the first time ever (aged 28). I’d missed out on it as a child, even though I tick many other geek boxes.
    Oh, and does anyone know of any cons in the UK that are worth attending?

  43. Yes! Enjoy the show, please, for the love of all that is holy!
    I’m hoping to heck I might be able to catch you on Saturday morning and fork over the die I have been carting around with me in my necklace for years now, but I’m gimpy so we’ll see how that goes! It’s good to know, though, and I super appreciate you putting it out there – I can now try to plan a little better.
    Since I’m disabled, I kind of have to choose, go in the morning and try for an autograph and not go to the concert in the evening, or skip morning stuff and go to the concert. This is, of course, not /your/ problem, but mine! I guess I am trying to explain why I so very much appreciate having more information: It helps me make more informed decisions and hopefully allows me to not waste any “spoons” (energy). So thank you! I’m psyched to see your panel on saturday!

  44. I am really thrilled to hear it, and gave three cheers at my desk this morning (in Exile is my guilty pleasure when I get in, before I do my actual work). I hope that some time you can come and enjoy GenCon as well, and I appreciate on behalf of all your fans and followers that you make the time to sign things for us and give us salutes! I hope you have a marvellous time!
    (I always feel like an ass signing in with Facebook, but it’s what I got.)

  45. Two requests! Please, please, please say the D&D live will be podcasted! And I really want to see a picture of all of that dice sometime. I hope that’s in the plan.

  46. Can’t say I blame you! Then please, please return to GenCon and take more time to play! I will bring my Button Men and Zombie Dice,grab some carpet or empty chairs some where in the convention center and let the dice roll!

  47. I can’t believe that people would actually get mad at you for wanting to enjoy PAX instead of sitting at a table all day every day. But then, I guess sometimes folks get a teensy bit wrapped up in their fandom. Personally, if I was attending PAX and you weren’t going to do ANY signing, I would still be thrilled that you were doing panels (and even more thrilled if I ran into you in a gaming context).

  48. This is why I’m only able to meet one out of twenty celebrities I want to at conventions like this. But I understand. What I try to keep in mind is that there are dozens of other people who don’t have anyone at their tables, and they can be fun to meet as well. (Case in point, self published authors: http://jwbraun.com/blog/?p=760) Enjoy PAX!

  49. ADD me to the growing list of folks who hope to access some recorded format of the Live D&D.
    The blogs, RFB podcasts, ETC got me off my duff ‘forced’ me to buy a set of dice and a 4th Edition players gide to replace the 2nd edition sets that were lost years ago to a basement flood at my parent’s house.

  50. Wil-
    Have a great time and THIS time ‘ware the acid traps (TRAPS, not trips 😉
    See you in a couple weeks at w00Tstock in SF (or as we say, The City (and yes, it’s capitalized… because that’s how we are)).
    Clay-

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