Expedition to the NIGHT OF ADVENTURE!

Hold on to your 12-sided dice, loyal readers, this week's entries are going to get SUPER nerdy.

First up, it's a recap of our semi-regular D&D game here in Hollywood.

Later this week I'll be blogging from Indianapolis, Indiana - the home of Gen Con, the annual gaming convention where 40,000 nerds freak out 60,000 Colts fans.

But let's begin with... a NIGHT of ADVENTURE!

• Tonight's pre-game D&D debate: Will Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds be any good?
• Bottom line: Tarantino is brilliant, but the trailer is not inspiring confidence.
• Also, the movie would be vastly improved if Tarantino had cast Bill Murray instead of Brad Pitt.
• No matter what, it's going to be better than any movie in the Hostel series.
• The Definitive List of Legitimate Hollywood Tough Guys:
  1. Jason Statham
  2. Steven Seagal
  3. Gore Verbinski
  4. Jackie Chan
  5. Bill Murray
• Everyone else is just a poser. YEAH, YOU HEARD ME DANIEL CRAIG!
• Actually, Daniel Craig is pretty badass, but you can only have some many Brits on the list.
• Sorry, dude. Gore Verbinski took your spot!
• (He's British, right? I dunno, I had to IMDb him too.)
• Tonight the DMs have a BIG combat planned, so we start extra early.
• Unfortunately, that big combat turns out to be an epic battle of D&D Insider vs. Windows Vista.
• This is sort of like Aliens vs. Predator: No matter who wins, you lose.
• After months of nerd guilt, I finally broke down and painted the lead miniature for my character. NERD CRED ON THE UPSWING!
• Just when you're all smug about your fancy paint job and the fact that you don't have to take crap from your geek buddies for bringing naked lead to the table, you'll realize: you left it at home.
• Nine seconds of amnesia will thwart three hours of meticulous effort.
• Lesson: Don't count your Nerd Cred before it's hatched.
• Also - Windows Vista blows.
• One six-inch Subway sandwich, three reboots of the laptop and a concise, comprehensive discussion of healthcare reform later, we're ready to play.
• This evening's tasks:
  1. Take over the pirate ship where we've stowed away.
  2. Take over the pirate ship escorting our ship.
  3. Sail both ships into the secret pirate base.
  4. Burn the entire operation to the ground.
• Seems do-able, assuming we have the right drivers installed.
• Taking over the first pirate ship is simplified by the fact that it seems to be manned entirely by anemic 3rd grade girls just PRETENDING to be pirates.
• The downside to this is that once they surrender, you have to feed them all school lunch.
• I'll tell you something: There's nothing uglier than a bunch of anemic third grade girls who all need a shave and don't like canned peaches.
• Alerted by all the whining about the meal choices, the other pirate ship slows down to investigate.
• We tell them they can eat canned peaches or THEY CAN SUCK IT!
• That's probably not something you want to yell at a group of anemic 3rd grade girls, but fortunately it turns out they actually are pirates.
• That was just a metaphor.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Educational.
• As it turns out, you don't want to tell a dozen pirates they can suck it, either. They'll take you up on that.
• Pirates: Not picky.
• If that was true, they wouldn't bitch about eating canned peaches.
• You know what they DO end up eating? A FACEFUL OF ARROWS! YES! NATURAL 20!!
• One hour and fifteen minutes into the game and we are now in possession of two pirate ships and three very weak, cowardly pirates.
• Those pirates will eat peaches and THEY WILL LIKE IT. We might have peaches all week!
• The Discovery Channel has Shark Week, we have Canned Peach Week.
• And that's what makes Dungeons & Dragons so awesome.
• Awesome, and nutritious.
• Just don't expect a giant can of peaches to suddenly jump thirty straight feet up out of the ocean and attack a guy on an oil rig.
• Our prisoners properly subdued, we set sail for the secret pirate base. Should be a cakewalk.
• When the two DMs take a 40 minute break to set up all the miniatures and buildings for the secret pirate island, you begin to wonder what kind of cake this is going to be.
• Once the DMs unveil their sprawling layout, it's pretty clear this cake is made of saving throws, hit points, and a generous sprinkling of ogres.
• The Dilemma of the Cakewalk: Do you walk on the cake, or does the cake walk on YOU?
• Not when it's ogre cake, you don't. Fortunately, we have a plan.
• Our cunning plan involves pulling the ship up to the end of the dock and using it as a natural choke point as the pirates funnel down the beach.
• We arm the cannons, nock a few arrows, and draw a bead on the huge field of forces arrayed before us.
• The opening salvo takes out a ballista, the captain of the watch, and two third graders with eye patches and fake beards.
• Unfortunately, we are still facing five ogres, two more elite pirate commanders, and thirty peach eaters.
• Ten more opening salvos and we'll have this battle licked!
• The beefy warden character in the party turns into a giant ram-man and shouts his battlecry, which goes as follows: "NOW I AM A GIANT RAM-MAN!"
• This does not seem to faze anyone.
• It does, however draw nine pirates and two ogres down onto the dock.
• Yes! Our cunning plan to create a natural choke point is working perfectly!
• Unfortunately, the ogres seem to think that a natural choke point is used to shove a halberd down your opponent's throat.
• We knock one of the pirates off the dock. Suddenly a huge fin breaks the surface of the water and a GIANT SHARK springs up into the air and SNAPS THE PIRATE IN HALF!
• It's Canned Peach Week and Shark Week here at the NIGHT OF ADVENTURE!
• Apparently we're trying to set our fall advertising rates.
• Five rounds into the combat, things are looking good for the party: We've killed one ogre, blasted a bunch of the pirates, and one character used his wave-strider boots to sicc the giant shark on a guy.
• About this time, the Wizard-Lord of the Pirates shows up and drops a fireball on the party.
• I don't know if you know this, but there's no natural choke point for a fireball. Those things just kill everything everywhere. It's the sorcerous version of Shark Week, only they can do it every day.
• Speaking of Shark Week, we just fed ANOTHER ogre to the Great White lurking in the bay!
• We may just win this battle as long as Roy Scheider doesn't show up with a scuba tank and a can of peaches.
• And the wizard doesn't burn us all to a crisp.
• Personally, if we're going to lose, I vote for the Roy Scheider option.
• I'm pretty sure there was a late 80's speedmetal/punk band called The Roy Scheider Option. Their first album was titled "A Bigger Boat." Little known fact!
• We whittle away at the minions by shooting them in the face with a cannon. YES! IN THE FACE!
• In D&D, no one just gets grazed in the arm, or winged in the hip. Please. Not with a cannon. Cannons aim for one spot: YOUR FACE.
• The ogres prove more resistant to cannon fire (they don't pay attention to their looks as much, so shooting them in the face has no discernible effect) so we try to even the odds by batting as many as we can into the shark-infested waters.
• It turns out that sharks, unlike pirates, aren't fussy about what they eat.
• The next three hours are sort of a blur, mostly because I'm not fussy about what I eat, either.
• 32 ounces of Sprite and 80 Sweet Tarts may sound like a delicious topper to that classy Subway sandwich, but it's also a great formula for a self-imposed sugar coma.
• Should have stuck with the canned peaches.
• I am semi-conscious long enough to overhear the warden's attempts at role-playing. Things like:
  • "THORN-STRIKE!"
  • "BY THE WHIRLING MISTS OF JESUS, I MARK YOU!"
  • "STAND DOWN, FOUL BEAST, ELSE I SECOND LEVEL ENCOUNTER POWER YOU!"
• Never encourage a stand-up comic to role-play.
• Actually, you could probably just shorten that to "Never encourage a stand-up comic."
• Somewhere around 1:30am, the barbarian corners the Wizard-Lord of the Pirates on one boat, while I stare down the wrong end of a Dread Pirate's longbow on another.
• "Spare my life, or I shall slay your unconscious friend!" he hisses.
• It's not much of a threat, I've watched this guy miss shot after shot for the past two hours.
• On the other hand, he did just drop the elf, and he's standing RIGHT THERE...
• Screw that! I'm not going to let some anemic 3rd-grader in a plaid skirt bully me around! I charge the Dread Pirate, activate an encounter power, and toss him over the side of the ship! Giant razor-sharp teeth rend the guy in half before he even hits the water!
• Just for good measure, I throw in a can of peaches.

-Tom, canned ham.