As you’ll see if you watch the clip below, he goes on to talk about what the word Geek can mean to different people. It’s also fun to see the things he identifies with, being a huge Geek himself. Hell, when I grow up, I want to be paid to create amazing things with deep-rooted story telling!

It seemed like it would never arrive, but here I am gone to and back again from BlizzCon 2010, in Anaheim, CA. I can’t even really begin to talk about BlizzCon without first thanking some folks:

• Logtar and Bea for hooking me up with a ticket to BlizzCon.
• Guildie OhThree and his lovely wife for setting us all up with hotel rooms to crash in for the entire weekend.
• Dad and Mom (not my dad and mom, but that’s what we call them) for their patience with helping shuttle people to and from the airports, hotel, restaurants and convention center all weekend.

These people made what looked like it would be something I would miss out on again this year, into an unbelievably memorable experience! I can’t thank them enough for their endless generocity!

I flew down to Long Beach on Thursday afternoon and spent the better part of the next 2 and a half days with some people I’ve known and met before, but mostly with people I’ve only spoken to while playing World of Warcraft. I was able to meet several members of our guild and, as I mentioned in my earlier post, I was fortunate enough to meet the people behind the characters.

BlizzCon itself was just icing on the cake! I feel like there are enough recaps online of this year’s BlizzCon happenings, so I thought I’d give a few pointers I picked up for those considering attending next year’s event:

Be Prepared To Stand. A LOT.

Take some very comfortable walking/running shoes. You will be walking and standing a lot. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen lines as long as those I saw and stood in at BlizzCon. Lines for food. Lines for the booths. Lines for the games. Standing room at the panels and tournaments. Standing to get to demo new video games. I think the only place I didn’t have to wait in line for was the bathroom, but that was just because I jumped at the opportunity while a popular Q&A panel was going on.

Buy Logically

BlizzCon is about the video games but you have to think of it like a casino: They want you to get inside, stay inside and leave without your money. There were all sorts of things to spend your money on: mice, headsets, mousepads, keyboards, computer parts, card games, t-shirts, towels, posters, and so forth.

I get suckered into swag very easily and so I had it in my mind which types of items I really wanted to pick up while I was there. I braved the lines on day one and got them and I was proud of myself that I didn’t get sucked into buying something I wouldn’t actually use “just because I was there.” If you budget your spending money, you’ll have a much better time when you get home and look at what you bought and hopefully you won’t have any of the post-BlizzCon sticker shock.

Buy Early

Last year Blizzard sold 20,000 tickets to the convention and this year that number was increased to 30,000. There’s no reason to think that next year it won’t be 40,000. That being said, get in early on the first day, stand in the lines and buy the things you want to buy, because by late afternoon on the first day, the stores were selling out of stuff. Even though they restocked overnight for day two, the stores seemed to sell out of even more items quicker than the day before.

If there’s something you want and you can’t order it online before the event, tough it out. The game demos and booths will be there the rest of the weekend; that coveted plushie or poster may not.

Make Reservations

The best thing you can do is to decide with the group you’re with when you’ll want to leave to eat and make one quick phone call to set a reservation. Otherwise, you will almost literally die of starvation and rot while waiting for a table to open up.

Here’s a quick video I shot on my iPhone, just as we walked inside the convention center on day two.

You can check out some of the photos I took while I was there:

All in all, I can’t wait to go next year and geek out over video games and related swag, but also to hopefully take the family down there and spent an extra day or to at Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm.

P.S. – If I hear one more nerd herd shout “FOR THE HORDE!” I’m going to have to rage.

In less than two weeks I’ll be hopping on a plane and flying down to Anaheim, CA for BlizzCon 2010. Oh yeah, I’m a total gamer geek!

What’s even better than hanging out with like-minded gamer geeks in a two-day atmosphere that will assault my eyes and ears, is that I’ll get to hang out with the ever awesome Logtar and his lovely wife, Bea, along with a bunch of other folks in our World of Warcraft guild. (In before Burrowowl says “People still play World of Warcraft?”)

It sounds cliche, but even though we’re a guild in an online game, we’re all really good friends. We have fun raiding Horde cities, as we did last night, by holding down Orgrimmar for about 15-20 minutes while we killed Thrall and then went fishing in their pond. (That photo is from last month, but we fished in the same spot last night.)

We’ve also done things to reflect real-life events, such as changing our guild’s color from blue to pink, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Without realizing it initially, this simple act really meant a lot to those in our guild who have had a loved one battle with breast cancer. It’s easy to forget that in an online game, there is still a very real and very human aspect there. The folks you’re gaming with are real people with real life joys and struggles.

I’m excited for BlizzCon, not just because of the video game aspect, but because of the human aspect of visiting with friends from all over the country for two days.

One of the most anticipated roleplaying games to come out recently was the Dresden Files RPG. The RPG is based off of the novels written by Jim Butcher. After watching me keep an eye on prices for months, my wife bought me the two books – “Your Story” & “Our World” – for an anniversary gift.

Most game groups will have one person – the Game Master (GM) or Dungeon Master (DM) – run the players though a story they’ve created, using Player Characters (PCs) created by the players themselves. Each group determines which setting they will use either as a group or from the GM coming to the group, saying, “I really like the XYZ setting, what do you think about me running a game with it?”

Typically, a GM will run the players through his or her game until they get tired of running the show or until they reach the end of their story line.

In the game group I’m currently in, the four of us had all been eyeing this game system and setting. When we started talking, we all had an interest in playing and running our own games, based in the Dresdenverse and we came up with a plan for our weekly game nights:

• Rotating GMs - In order to let all four of us take turns running our own devious plots and get some good playing time in, we decided that we would take turns running a game session once per month. Player 1 is the GM for week one. Player 2 is the GM the following week, and so forth.
• Same city - One of the brilliant aspects of the Dresden Files RPG is that, as a game group, you create the city in which the game will be run in. This helps everyone feel more connected to the imaginary setting. In our case, with the rotating GM schedule, all four stories are still based in the same group-created city. This means we get to piggy-back off of each other’s ideas. For example: A main character or PC in GM 1′s game might make a guest appearance in GM 3′s story line.

The Good

The entire gang involved in the Dresden Files RPG did an amazing job bringing the feeling, tone and concepts of the stories written by Jim Butcher to at-whim life as an RPG.

Artwork
The artwork in both books are stunning. There isn’t a whole lot else to say, other than, like a little kid, I really like the pictures.

Character Creation
The way characters are created is much different than other systems I’m used to. With all other games I’ve played, the players create their characters on their own and the GM is responsible for making them all come together in some semi-reasonable way to band together. With the Dresden Files RPG, characters are created collaboratively, with each player getting a chance to write his-or-herself into the other characters’ stories. If done right, before the first die is even rolled, you’re excited about what will happen to the characters you’ve all created.

The RPG Books Are Fun
These are the first RPG books I’ve read where I actually had fun reading them. In the margins of the books are “handwritten” notes from three people – Harry Dresden, Bob the Skull and Billy. The RPG books are written “by” Billy and the notes are made on the assumption that Bob and Harry are editing Billy’s ideas and work. Jokes are cracked and words here and there are scribbled out. All of this make the book fun to read and also carries through to players and GMs the basic idea that these games are supposed to be fun.

It’s Flexible
The novels (and therefore the RPG) have a lot of supernatural and magical components, such as wizards, schools of magic, vampires, werewolves, faeries and faerie courts, demons and the like. If, like our group, you have no interest in playing games with vampires or faeries, you can omit them. Our group decided on some house rules that no player characters would be vampires, faeries, or the like but they could be non-player characters (NPCs) “if really needed.”

Not all groups will shy away from some aspects of the Dresdenverse, but if, like ours, you opt to skip some aspects of the setting entirely, it won’t hamstring game play or your fun.

The Bad

There are only a couple of things I didn’t particularly like about these books:

Spoilers Abound!
If, like myself, you read the RPG books before you finish reading all of the Dresden Files novels, tread carefully!

The RPG books, especially “Our World,” is chock full of spoilers. Most systems, such as Serenity and Pathfinder, have iconic character examples that serve only as that: examples. In the Dresden Files RPG books, however, there are a ton of spoilers without warning. You can still enjoy the books after inadvertantly reading some details you’d rather not find out about just yet, but it is what still keeps me from looking through “Our World” with both eyes wide open.

No Dice
Good luck finding a set of Fudge/Fate dice. The Fate system uses 6-sided dice (d6′s) with a plus sign (+) equalling +1, a minus sign (-) equalling -1 and a blank side equalling zero, instead of traditional numbers or dots. When I was looking to buy this RPG, I found a severe shortage of Fudge dice anywhere I looked. Months later, the Fudge dice supply has not improved very much. Online stores were sold out. Local gaming stores were also sold out. This doesn’t have to kill your gaming opportunities, though, because you can use regular 6-sided dice in the following way:

1s & 2s = -
3s & 4s = Blank
5s & 6s = +

The Bottom Line

Go buy it. Whether you’re a fan of the Dresden Files novels or RPGs with a modern setting, you’ll enjoy the flexibility and depth of the Dresdenverse. Right now, IndiePressRevolution.com has Print+PDF bundles of each of the books – “Your Story” & “Our World” – for very good prices. You’ll not only get to download the PDF copies of both books right away, but soon afterward you’ll receive your physical book versions, too.

Books

A friend of ours got me hooked on the Dresden Files books written by Jim Butcher. They’re about Harry Dresden, a wizard, who lives in Chicago and chronicles his encounters of supernatural beings. I’m only on book three, “Grave Peril,” but they’re fun, well written books packed full of humor, geekiness, and some mystery.

Even my wife has started reading them and seems to enjoy them. Proof that you don’t have to be a total geek to enjoy these books!

Games

Lately, we’ve been having a group of friends over, usually on Saturday evenings, for a game night. Sometimes we play the Battlestar Galactica board game (sometimes with the Pegasus Expansion). Other times we play shorter games like Lunch Money, Ninja Burger, Munchkin Cthulhu or anything else along those lines.

I also head over to these same friends’ home once a week for some extra nerdy fun with RPGs. For the past couple of months I’ve been running a Trail of Cthulhu (Pelgrane Press) game. I intend to write a review of the Trail of Cthulhu setting, run on the GUMSHOE system, in the near future. For now, let’s just say that Trail of Cthulhu make investigation-heavy Cthulhu games more fun by streamlining the game mechanics. Less botched die rolls to find clues the players have to find to progress = more fun for everyone.

I purchased my copy of Trail of Cthulhu from IndiePressRevolution.com because for the cost of the physical book I was able to purchase a book + PDF bundle. Shipping was very prompt and as soon as the order was placed I was able to download the PDF copy of the core book.

Chances are, when I can justify the cost of the new Dresden Files roleplaying game books (“Book One: Your Story” and “Book Two: Our World“), I’ll purchase them through IndiePressRevolution.com as well.

For the past 9 years, I’ve had a dirty little secret, which only a fair few have known about. Brace yourselves… I’m a big ‘ol role playing game nerd. Yes, that even means – GASP! – Dungeons & Dragons.

Let me make something perfectly clear, though: I’m not that D&D nerd you knew back in high school. You know the one(s) I’m talking about. The dudes who showed up at school wearing trench coats in the summertime, before the whole “goth” thing took hold, and spent their lunch hour pretending to be their D&D characters.

That’s not the kind of gamer I am.

It all started when I got a job working at Sonic.net, back in 2000. My desk was smack in front of two of my then supervisors (BurrowOwl being one of them). They invited me to their weekly game night and in all honestly, I’m pretty sure my knee-jerk reaction was, “You guys aren’t the kind of D&D players who dress up like they’re really in the game, are you?” They both responded with “Oh, f–k no!”

While I was still in denial with myself that I was going to partake in Dungeons & Dragons, I went that week. And it was a ton of fun. Those guys – and one gal at the time – helped me learn the rules, how to create a character, taught me the gameplay and so forth. Back then it was version D&D 3.0.

Since then, our game group has changed venues and participants many times. Game night, or as my wife lovingly refers to it, “Dan’s Geek Fest,” became something I looked forward to because it was a guaranteed night out for me where I didn’t have to be a dad or a husband. I could just be Dan. And since most of my friends from high school went down paths I couldn’t, I was able to get to know new friends and hang out with them every week.

Why haven’t I said anything about this secretive little hobby before? As my buddy, Matthew, over at Trollwind.com wrote,

“A strange thing I’ve noticed is that people over the age of 21-25 are generally reluctant to admit that they have (or currently) play role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. It’s as if it is a guilty secret that is just as shameful as shoplifting or beating your dog. It’s just not something you talk about.”

Some real lifers I know who may read this post will probably be a bit shocked that I’m “one of those guys” since I’m not a mouth breather, I don’t live in my mother’s basement and I don’t have a Princess Leia poster in my house.

So, why am I just now coming out of the gaming closet? Because I’m kind of tired of “keeping it” from you. As you’ll find out, as I continue to write posts about gaming, these games are a ton of fun.

It feels good to be out of that closet… it was getting far too crowded with all those games in there.

Ever since first playing the Battlestar Galactica board game last year at Logtar’s place, I’ve been kicking around the idea of plunking down the cash to get a copy of our own. About a month ago, I talked myself into it (Yay, tax return!). I could have easily saved $10-$15 by ordering online, but I opted to go to my local nerd store (read: comic book and gaming store), Outer Planes Comics and Games (@outerplanes) and support the local economy. I also wanted to do my part to make sure there’s a nerd store in my town for my semi-frequent indulgences.

The best way to explain the Battlestar Galactica (BSG) game is to picture a humans versus robots-themed mashup of Risk and Clue.

The BSG game is made by Fantasy Flight Games and if you’re unfamiliar with their games, there are a lot of pieces, setup can take 15-30 minutes and they are very detailed. All of which, I think, make for a great time gaming.

For the first couple of times you play this game, I suggest planning to make an afternoon/evening of it with some patient friends. Let them know it’s a complex (but incredibly fun!) game and make sure they’ll be cool with you all learning as you go. There is usually an expectation that the person supplying the game is an expert in its game play.

The BSG game is fun to play even if you’re not usually a Sci-Fi fan (such as my wife who really likes this game) or if you haven’t yet watched the HBO TV series of it (as I hadn’t when I first played the game). Pretty much as long as the people playing like playing lengthy games and have an attention span, everyone at the table should have a great time.

If you don’t have a comics/game store in your area, I’ve found that Amazon typically has the best prices for the Battlestar Galactica core gameand the Pegasus Expansion.

One thing Fantasy Flight Games is known for, for better or for worse, is their sloppy editorial department. Most of the games I’ve seen from them come with typos and inconsistencies with the game mechanics. Here are some additional links you’ll want to bookmark to preempt the inevitable “This doesn’t make sense!” moments:

• Official game FAQ/Errata (Core game & Pegasus expansion)
• Game variants, including wacky 1 & 2-person games
• There is a very active community of fellow BSG gamers

This has been going on for about 6-ish years now (that I’ve been part of the group) and up until two weeks ago I’ve been one of the players in each game. Last night, however, was my second attempt at being a GM. I stumped upon the Serenity RPG back in about January of this year. After reading snippets of it I thought this would be the perfect game to run as my first attempt. Luckily everyone on our game group likes the Firefly series and the follow-up movie Serenity. While some of the game mechanics are a bit funky, there are aspects of it I really liked.

It’s a big change going from Player to GM because you really do take for granted all the prep work involved in preparing a game night. All the characters to have on hand, all of the details that you don’t necessarily remember yourself, as a player, wanting to know. Things like “What’s his name?” “Who does he work for?” and so forth that, as a GM you know may not matter a whole lot. As a player, you also don’t really appreciate the mixture of annoyance and fun of a group of PCs not exploring all leads or taking the bait that you, as a GM, feel you had cleverly laid out.

At the end of last night’s game, the crew of the Valkyrie (dubbed “The V” by the crew); which includes Captain Felix Xolar, First Mate Nate Merriweather, Boson and the ship medic & cook Cheun (Whom Nate refers to as “Lao Deow Ya” which effectively means “so old as to lose all teeth”), the ship engineer/mechanic “Neb” (real name Nebakanezer), and the current pilot who goes by the name “POW”; all had just made a rather large sum of money offloading 300 Mechanics Tool Kits they were invited to help sell, that accidentally fell out of the back of a parked, unattended delivery truck four months back. They sold the 300 kits to the WaterCo Industries establishment in the town of Westport, on the Border planet Newhall. WaterCo Industries operates a majority of the Water Production Plants on Newhall.

Previous to the selling the Mechanics Tool Kits, they performed a brief salvage operation aboard the seemingly abandoned cruise liner, the “Aces & Eights”, to recover a footlocker with personal affects, which were to be delivered to the closest next of kin of “Maxx” Williams – the missing captain of the ship. While they opted not to explore more of the ship than they had to, they “acquired” some new items to make their own less-than-pretty FireFly class ship more appealing and hospitable.

Oh, they also signed on a deckhand to keep the ship tidy; a 20-year-old Korean kid named Chen Wu. The V currently has one paying passenger on board – a Fruity Oaty Bar saleswoman who happens to be a licensed nudist.