50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
Every day, I get emails, messages on Twitter, and Ravens from people who have played a game because we played it on Tabletop. The stories and pictures are super awesome, and I want to share them with the world.
So I set up a Tumblr called As Seen On Tabletop for viewers to share your stories and pictures from your game nights, game days, and game shops.
You can either use the SUBMIT function there, or you can send email to tabletop (at symbol) wil wheaton (dot goes here) net.
The newest episode of Tabletop is Fiasco, my absolute favorite storytelling RPG of all time.
Fiasco is "a game about ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. There will be big dreams and flawed execution. It won’t go well for them, to put it mildly, and in the end it will probably all go south in a glorious heap of jealousy, murder, and recrimination. It’s designed to be played in a single session, usually around two and a half hours, with no prep."
When you have a Fiasco, you use a playset to establish the things the players are going to ruin their lives trying to get, who they are to each other, and where everything is going to get all fucked up. Some of my favourite playsets are Los Angeles 1936, Dallas 1963, and Flyover.
The playset we used for Tabletop was written by me and Will Hindmarch, and Fiasco's creator Jason Morningstar. It's called Saturday Night 78. It is described thusly:
New York City, 1978. Last year, the city endured the chaos of the blackout of ‘77 and the terror of the Son of Sam killings. This year, Studio 54 makes millions by giving beautiful plebs and dazzling celebrities a place to party at $20 a head. Condensed sweat rains from Studio 54’s mirrored-laminate ceiling—sweat evaporated from the brows of celebrities, maybe—and falls back on the dancers below.
This is a time of rock and disco, of reckless hedonism and casual sex, a time before consequences. Debauchees high on blow, poppers, or Quaaludes dance and laugh and lust and cry in swank clubs and dirty dives all over the city. Whoever your characters are in the daylight, come dark they transform into sordid stars or disco royalty, beautiful disasters or pitiable victors, ricocheting off each other into the glittering wreckage of imploded parties. Every Saturday night the city’s alight with spectacular fiascos.
What's that you say? It sounds like an awesome setting that you'd like to use yourself? We've got you covered! You can download Saturday Night 78 for free right here, and use it in your very own Fiasco. And if you do, you know that I want to hear all about it in the comments.
In february, I wrote about the time that Anne and I discussed Highlights for Children at great length:
"You know what I always hated about Highlights?" Anne said, "some idiot kid had always circled the hidden pictures."
"Seriously!" I said, "fuck that kid, man. That kid's a dick."
"And what kind of parent gives their kid a pen to draw all over a magazine that's obviously intended for more than one kid to read?"
"Asshole parents," I said, "it's called Highlights for Children, you jerk, not Highlights for your Children. Highlights should have done a Goofus and Gallant about that, man."
Well, look what arrived from the fine people at Highlights for Children a couple of weeks ago:
DUDE! That is totally me sitting next to Goofus, expressing my non-profane displeasure! DUDE! DUUUUDE!
… I know, right?!
After all these years, I am an indirect contributor to Highlights for Children.
My life is weird.
One of the most frequently asked questions about Tabletop is: "How do I get those awesome brains you used as counters in Zombie Dice?"
They were made by our AMAZING art director and prop master, Nick, (who made the show look incredible, and still came in under his budget) out of some kind of foam that apparently kills you if you eat it, so I can't exactly tell people to go and do the same thing we did.
…but look at what Mel From Hell showed me on Twitter just now!
This was made with Sculpey, and is awesome. So now you know how to make your own cool Zombie Dice brain counters.
Get Excited and Make Something!
I've spent most of today working on my setlist for w00tstock on Thursday, and reviewing all of my notes from Falling Skies, so I am prepared to moderate that panel on Friday.
Normally, I take extended breaks on a workday and go for a walk in my neighborhood, sit with an iced tea on the patio and read a book, and do other things that I wouldn't be able to do if I didn't work on my own schedule in my own house*. Today, however, it is 96 degrees in the shade.** In the sun, it's literally 681 degrees.***
So I've gotten much more work done in much less time than usual (there's a lesson here, if I'm willing to pay attention t– hey! Fallout New Vegas is almost done installing on Steam!) because it's just too goddamn hot to do anything that takes me out into the Sun****.
My dogs, who usually accompany me on my walks and sojourns onto the back patio, have been handling the ungodly heat the way all good dogs do: sleeping on the couch.
These couches are in our front room, and we don't really use them that often, because our TV is in the other room*****. Still, when we have people over for fancy grown-up things like playing games and drinking homebrew, we want them to be nice and free of dog fur, so we put those sheets on them. As you can see, the dogs have done a spectacular job of rendering them useless.******
Some of you who are particularly observant may notice that the colour scheme and interior decoration is very similar to Evil Wil Wheaton's house on the Big Bang Theory. This is not by accident; I've had friends from Big Bang over for dinners and things, so when they wrote Evil Wil Wheaton's house into the script, Bill Prady and Steve Molaro described the colours and interior decorating to the art department. It's pretty amazing how close they got it, without ever seeing it for themselves.
* Gotta take advantage of all the perks while I can, you know.
** Too hot, too hot, in the shaa-hay-ayayayay-ade.
*** Literally.
**** The Sun is the Nerd's natural enemy and greatest predator.
***** Where our beds and TV… is.
****** There are a lot of footnotes in this post.
This isn't a footnote, really, but I couldn't call this post Hotter Than July and not link to this, right?
