Lizardmen live in the marshes

“This is a game that is fun. It helps you imagine.”

-Preface to the D&D Basic Rules Set, 1983

I’m following the “blog less while you’re writing stories” rule, so I can stay on target and get this novella finished before Duke Nukem Forever ships.

So, very briefly:

Playing a tiny bit of D&D 4e at PAX made me massively nostalgic for tabletop RPGs, and I’ve spent more time than I probably should since I got home reading through my library of sourcebooks and handbooks. Thanks to Twitter, I found out that you can buy ancient D&D modules as PDFs for next to nothing from Paizo, so I picked up the D&D Basic Rules Set and module B2, The Keep on the Borderlands, and returned to the place my geek journey truly began. It made me so happy to see the Lizardmen again, I tried to convince Nolan that he should get a couple of friends together and let me run B2 for them using the original rules. Sadly, I rolled a one every time.

Reading those original rules reminded me how much simpler RPGs used to be, and I got it in my head that I wanted to find and play something that didn’t require minis for combat, that would put the focus on role playing, puzzle solving, character development, and other non-dungeon crawly stuff. I didn’t recall ever using minis during our GURPS campaigns back in the 80s, so I grabbed my GURPS 4th Edition manuals and went straight to the Combat Lite chapter, where I found exactly what I was looking for. (Tangent: my friend and editor Andrew is the same Andrew who edited GURPS. Goddamn do I love GURPS.)

Without realizing it, I spent several hours reading the rules and thumbing through my various sourcebooks. On the surface, I was just refamiliarizing myself with the system, but it was actually more about a nostalgic trip back to 9th grade, with a side trip to 2038 when I found a stack of AADA Road Atlases and Uncle Albert’s catalogs.

After GURPS, I dug into Mutants & Masterminds, which has the greatest damage system ever, and that’s where I currently sit. Once I’m done with it, I’m going to go through True20, including some quality time in Freeport and Damnation Decade, and when that’s all over, I’ll finally have a chance – one year after I bought it – to wander through Monte Cook’s World of Darkness.

I’m not sure what if anything I’ll end up playing. My free time is very limited, and it’s a DC 25 – at least – to get my friends together for anything. But there’s a great essay at ComicMix called Why Game? that explains why it’s worth trying:

Why do we game? It’s a fair question, actually, and especially now with our preponderance of entertainment options. Why game when I could read a book, watch a movie, play a computer game or video game, surf the Web, play cards, play a board game, etc.? What’s so cool about gaming?

There’s the escapism aspect, of course. Had a rotten day at work? Slaughter some orcs or raid an alien enclave. Feel like you’re not getting enough respect in your life? Play the conquering general or the rescuing hero. But most of our other entertainment provides that as well, at least vicariously—you can sit back and imagine you’re John McLane or King Leonidas or Bruce Wayne, or lose yourself in the adventures of Harry Potter or Sebastian or countless others. And many of those other forms provide more immediate escapism, with far less effort. So there must be something more, something else a roleplaying game offers.

The answer, for me, lies in the definition above. Collaborative interactive storytelling.

I could have written it myself.

Clarifying afterthoughts: I’m not knocking D&D 4e or its combat system. If you like to use minis for gaming, it’s really awesome and very easy to use. In fact, their D&D Minis game is a lot of fun for what it is, and you get the added bonus of learning 4e’s combat system while you play. I’m just saying that, after years of playing mini-o-centric combat in RPGs, I’d forgotten how much I liked to roll it old school, where we’d just sit in a bunch of chairs or on couches and work together to tell a story.

I didn’t realize how much Keep on the Shadowfell is like Keep on the Borderlands until I re-read Keep on the Borderlands this weekend. It’s not even that subtle, but it’s incredibly awesome and makes me like Shadowfell even more than I already did.

it’s the only way to be sure

So it turns out that I do, in fact, have a sinus infection. Because it’s the first one post-sinus surgery, my doctor decided that the best course of action would be to blast off and nuke the site from orbit.

I asked him if maybe we could do something a little less extreme, but he assured me that it was the only way to be sure. Since my sneezes weren’t going “achoo!” like they’re supposed to, but going “Ftagn!” instead, I’ve decided to follow his advice, and I’m on Prednisone + Zithromax for the next five days.

I’m already feeling better, if not entirely back to normal, but I’m looking forward to getting my command and control systems back online within the next 24 hours. I have this overwhelming urge to blast my quads and rip out my delts, but I understand that will go away IN JUST A FUCKING MINUTE GODDAMMIT WHAT?!

Oh. Um. Sorry. Meds talking and whatnot.

In place of an actual blog entry, here are a few things that have been on my mind:

I was going to write this myself, but Charlie Stross explains why I won’t be using Google Chrome better than I can. He even manages to avoid the phrase EPIC FAIL which I wouldn’t have been able to do. Competing with IE = good. Competing with Firefox = profoundly stupid. Having the most abusive EULA I’ve seen in years? That’s just fucking priceles, Google. Nice work on that one. I’d like to amend this paragraph, after hours of consideration and lengthy discussion with other people. Apparently, Google claims the EULA was “boilerplate” and they’re going to update it. If they update it, great. But does anyone really believe that a company like Google puts out a new browser, one that is as highly-anticipated as Chrome, and doesn’t fully vet the EULA? What did they do, borrow lawyers from John McCain? If Google is going to change their EULA to something less evil, that’s fantastic, but I don’t believe for a moment that this was a mistake. Google isn’t that incompetent. As for my statement: “Competing with IE = good. Competing with Firefox = profoundly stupid.” Yeah. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. I’d like to blame the sinus meds, but that’s a pretty 80s excuse, isn’t it? I haven’t felt well for several days, and I typed without really thinking things through. Competition, as a commenter said, is very good, even (and maybe especially) for Open Source products. I hope I’ve earned the right over the years to ask for a little slack. If I haven’t, I’d like to point out that this mountain is covered with wolves, and the bar is right over there. Thanks.

Cory Doctorow has a really good idea for publishers.

Today is one of those days where it’s 97 outside, 81 inside, and only Miles Davis can keep the inside of my house cool.

Coilhouse has a fascinating article about a Modern Pirate Utopia in Hong Kong that has to be read to be believed. Coilhouse kind of rules. I highly recommend their magazine.

Doctor Horrible @ checked me on Twitter. I don’t think this should make me as excited as it does, but OMGOMGOMG! The Doctor Horrible soundtrack is #2 on iTunes US, #1 in the UK and Australia. The number one album in the US is some rap thing that makes me stabby just to look at. Come on, American geeks, let’s show the rest of the world what we’re made of! (Also, the soundtrack is really awesome and fun to listen to.)

Moe’s just isn’t the same since he got rid of the dank. Come on, Moe! The dank!

I played a little bit of D&D 4e with Jerry, Mike, The Other Mike, and Scott Kurtz when I was at PAX. I got to play a Tiefling Rogue who was trying out to be the new intern at Acquisitions, Incorporated. It was massively fun, and it made me want to play D&D about as badly as I’ve ever wanted. I’m taking advantage of my . . . current condition . . . to read all of Keep on the Shadowfell in the hopes that I’ll be able to convince Nolan and some of his friends to let me run it for them.

I got an insanely cool D&D thing via John Kovalic, but I’m forbidden to reveal it until he does.

I was mentioned rather favorably, in some very nice company, by one of the executive producers on Criminal Minds! “…we have scary locations and amazing guest stars like Jason Alexander, Luke Perry and Wil Wheaton.” OMGOMGOMGOMG.

We’re late to the party on this, but Anne and I have been watching Weeds on Netflix via our Roku box. We’re into the 3rd season (which we had to get on DVD) and I’m not as crazy about it as I was the first two. The acting and writing is wonderful, but the storylines that dominate the 3rd season are leaving me a little cold. I don’t believe a single Nancy does in this season, even though Mary-louise Parker is a phenomenal actor.

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere is online for free from his publisher. This is one of my favorites, and I heartily recommend it, even though I’m pretty sure most of you reading this have already read it. However, Neil says, “For those people who grumbled about reading American Gods online, here’s Neverwhere. You can read it online, and it’s also downloadable. That’s the good news. The bad news is you don’t get to keep it forever. It’s yours for thirty days from download, and then the pdf file returns to its electrons. But if you’ve ever wondered about Neverwhere or wanted to read it for free, now is your chance. And free is free…”

“America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.” A-fucking-MEN.

During my panel at PAX, I was asked a great question that I couldn’t answer to my satisfaction: What episode of Next Generation best defines the series? The answer depends heavily on how you’d define the series as a whole, and the best I could come up with is “Star Trek is all about possibilities. It’s about hope, so when you look around our totally fucked up world, you see that there is a better future for us.” Which TNG episode best exemplifies that? Is that even what Star Trek is about? My answer sucked so hard, I can’t even remember what I said. I blame the ConSARS.

A bit of blasphemy: I finally saw Dark Knight, and I was not blown away. Heath Ledger was spectacular, but I felt like the movie climaxed in the first 10 minutes, and was 2 reels too long. Maybe I’ll refine my feelings on subsequent viewings, but it didn’t send me into a Batgasm like Batman Begins did. However, it’s the second act of the trilogy, and if it’s anything like all the other trilogies I’ve seen, it’ll end up being my favorite when the dust settles.

I first became aware of the Xbox 360 game Braid when Buckman mentioned on his blog that the developer licensed a bunch of Magnatune music (which I’ve listened to and love) for the game. Monday night, I couldn’t sleep, so I downloaded the trial. 30 minutes later, I bought the full game, which is similar to Portal in a lot of ways. It’s one of the most visually beautiful games I’ve ever played. Check it out if you’ve got XBLA.

You can listen to one of the artists, Jami Sieber, with this nifty little gizmo:

Hidden Sky by Jami Sieber

John Scalzi’s Denise Jones, Super Booker, at Subterranean Online, dovetails brilliantly with Soon I Will Be Invincible, which I am still reading and still loving. And every single time I see, think about, or say the title, my brain fires up a chorus from Pat Benatar’s timeless classic song, “Invincible,” from the, uh, equally-classic film The Legend of Billie Jean .

And now that I’ve put it in your brain also, I’ll sign off for today.

“This just keeps getting better!”

“If the Penny Arcade Expo has a star, it’s not Gabe or Tycho. It’s not special guests like MC Frontalot or Wil Wheaton. It’s not even veritable champions of nerdery like PAX ’08 Omegathon winner Joey Gecko. No, it’s geeky culture itself. And when we gather to celebrate our own, wackiness invariably ensues.”

– GeekDad Z, Wired’s GeekDad blog.

“Best Thing About PAX: Ownership. PAX is everyone’s so everyone tends to add their bit, creating something new or innovating. It’s just part of the makeup of this demographic that things don’t get left alone. I think that’s what I like best of all, is how most of the con goers think of it as their convention, not just one they attend.”

–Fellow PAX owner Steph.

The night before I left for PAX, I hardly got any sleep at all (thank you, ribacge, for picking Thursday night to hurt like a bitch) so by the time I got there on Friday afternoon, I was already down to single-digit hit points, and taking a -5 on all my rolls.

But an unexpected thing happened as soon as I set foot in the convention center. As explained by the quotes above, this weekend is our time. It’s Goonie time, and the moment I walked in, I got +10 to all my stats and was restored to maximum HP.

Sometime on Friday night, though, I failed a critical save vs. ConSARS, and by the middle of the day on Saturday, I was feeling pretty terrible. I think I played though it pretty well, but I missed the concerts on Saturday night, and felt a little “off” for the first 15 minutes of my panel on Sunday, until I picked up another +10 from the ohmygodstandingroomonly crowd. By the time I got on the plane to come home yesterday, though, I was hovering around 2 HP, and I’d picked up a familiar I’ll just call Wil’s Sinusital Ooze (Level 4 Disgusting Annoyance. Gives owner -8 to all abilities, -15 CHA, and -6 to all reaction rolls. 5 successive Fortitude saves ends.)

I’ll have to give a full report when Wil’s Sinusital Ooze isn’t launching Slimers out of my head every five minutes, but I think I can sum it up in five words I repeated dozens of times during the weekend: “This just keeps getting better!”

Wil Wheaton’s 2008 PAX Schedule

Please excuse the indexing-friendly title. I hate it as much as you do, but I know there are literally fives of people on the Internets who may want to know this vital information for the coming weekend.

I’ll be at Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle this weekend. I’m not keynoting, but I am on a couple of panels, and I will have a booth, stocked with all of my books, plus my glasses and my shoes, so I have them. I don’t have a ton of stuff, though, so you should probably drop everything you’re doing and go get in line right now.

My schedule looks shockingly similar to this:

Friday

3-4PM: Signing in my booth

7-8PM: Signing in my booth

Saturday

3-4PM : Signing in my booth

6-7PM: Panel – “Is Casual Killing Core Games?” in the Raven Theater. This should be an interesting conversation. I don’t think casual is killing core gaming at all, but I’m interested to hear from people who think it is, and tell them why they’re so very very wrong.

7-8PM: Signing in my booth

Sunday

11:30-12:30: “The Wil Wheaton Panel!” in the Serpent Theater. I’m going to be honest: I don’t think a lot of people are going to come to this. There are two absolutely awesome panels at the same time, including Family Feud with Gabe and Tycho, and if the panel didn’t have my name in it, I would skip it, too. However, for those of you who will be in attendance, due to your sacred vow to never watch Family Feud, I’ll be reading from Happiest Days and Sunken Treasure, wand I’ll do a Q&A if there’s enough interest. We’ll have fun (oh yes, we’ll have fun. We always have fun, and we float, Georgie! We all FLOAT DOWN HERE!) and it will be awesome.

12:15-2PM: Signing in my booth

I reserve the right to bail on signings early if nobody’s there, and stay a little longer if that’s necessary.

Please, please, please come introduce yourself if you read my blog, especially if you’re a regular commenter. It’s pretty awesome to have faces to go with the names.

green grass and high tides forever (and ever and ever and ever and

Ryan goes back to school in just under 2 weeks, and I’ve been bugging him to play the Endless Setlist with me on Rock Band before he leaves.

If you’re unfamiliar with Rock Band’s multiplayer thing, the Endless Setlist is the last thing you unlock in the game when you’re playing as a band. It is exactly what it sounds like: a concert featuring all 58 songs that come with the game. It takes about six hours to play if you don’t take any extended breaks.

Today, Ryan and I tackled it on expert. He played guitar, and I played bass. It was awesome. We got five stars on pretty much everything for the first 20 or so songs, including three gold stars. I got the authentic strummer thing and 99% on about half of them.

We were seriously having a good time, striking the rock pose, putting our backs together while we jammed through epic songs, bonding through the power of rock.

Then, with five songs left to go, we got to Green Grass and High Tides.

For those of you unfamiliar with Rock Band, this is a fantastic southern rock song by the Outlaws. It’s also one of the hardest in the game, and the longest, weighing in at around 10 minutes. It’s a song that you don’t play as much as survive, and it does its best to really beat you down. If a song could kick you in the junk, this would be it. If this song were a poker game, it would be Razz.

So, after already playing for 5 hours, (and not exactly conserving our energy) we started to play this rock epic, knowing it would be the greatest challenge we’d faced yet.

Our first time through, we failed at 84%. It was entirely my fault for holding my guitar too high and deploying our emergency overdrive when we didn’t need it.

“Sorry about that,” I said as we lost 360,000 fans. “I blame my guitar.”

Ryan looked at me.

“Okay, I blame myself.”

Ryan laughed and said it was no big deal. He was confident we’d get it on the next try, and when we started the song, I could see why. He was in the zone, nailing 97% of the first solo. I wanted to holler about how awesome he was, but I felt like it would have been the same as talking to my pitcher in the middle of a no-hitter, so I stayed quiet and did my best not to screw things up.

I screwed things up, and we failed the song at 96%. We lost another 360,000 fans, almost wiping out the million we’d picked up when we did the Southern Rock Marathon last week. Compared to the nearly 5 and a half hours we’d spent playing, that 18 minutes wasn’t that long, but it sure felt demoralizing, especially because it was, again, entirely my fault we’d failed. See, there’s this bass phrase that’s repeated over and over and over, and if you’re just a tiny bit off (like I was) you’re screwed, and . . . well, you get the point.

I dropped my hands to my side and let the guitar hand around my neck. My arms were tired, my legs hurt, and my vision was getting blurry.

“I think I’ve identified the weak link in our band, and it’s me,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ryan said, “but I think I want to take a break.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Let’s pause this, go out for something to eat, and come back later.”

Ryan walked into his room and turned on his shower. I unplugged my guitar so we didn’t have to worry about our dogs knocking it down and starting the game again while we were gone.

In my memory, the next few moments happen in slow motion:

I pick up Ryan’s guitar, the wireless PS2 guitar from GHIII.
I hold down the button to get the control screen.
The dashboard comes up, and it gives me the option to cancel, turn off the controller, or turn off the system.
I click the strum bar to select “turn off the controller.”
I set the guitar on the ground — carefully — and reach up to click the green fret button.
I hear the Xbox beep.
I push the button.
I realize that the beep was the strum bar clicking one more time when I set the guitar down, selecting “Shutdown the System.”
The system shuts down, taking all of our progress with it.
Time resumes to normal. For the next 120 seconds, I use every curse word I know, until my throat is raw. It takes everything I have not to grab the guitar and get all Pete Townshend on it.

Ryan came out of his room.

“What happened?” He said.

I told him.

What happened next was astonishing to me: Ryan didn’t freak out. He didn’t get upset. Instead, he told me, “Calm down, Wil. It’s just a game. We can do it again.”

I was still really upset. It was an accident, yes, but it was my fault. In my head, I kept replaying all the different ways I could have powered down his guitar that were more careful. I really felt like an asshole, because I screwed up twice and caused us to fail both times. I felt like an asshole, because I screwed up and lost all the progress we’d made. Mostly, though, I felt like an asshole because I really wanted to accomplish this feat with my son. I really wanted to have that memory.

What I got, though, was better than what I’d hoped for. I got to see Ryan exhibit one of the key values I’d raised him with: he kept everything in perspective, and found all the good things in the experience, like the gold stars we scored, the fun we had playing all the other songs, and the time we spent together. He reminded me that it’s not about winning, it’s about playing the game.

If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, I’m sure you can appreciate how great it felt to hear my words and my values come out of my son’s mouth.

I don’t write about my boys very often these days. Their friends read my blog, and they sometimes read my blog. They’re not little kids any more and I feel like it’s not cool to talk about everything we do together with the Internet . . .

. . . but in this case, I’m making an exception.