Planning for Geek Paradise: PAX Prime 2013

Next week will see geek joy rain down on the streets of Seattle in the form of PAX Prime 2013. For the first time since its inception in 2004, PAX is extending to a full four days: Friday, August 30th through Monday, September 2nd. A Bit of Geek will be there (some of us the whole time, others only Saturday and Sunday) and we are incredibly excited! It will be Rachel and Zach's first attendance, too. We plan on making the most of our time between the expo hall and all of the awesome panels, but we'll also be participating in buttoneering! Be sure to hit that link for all of the information, but the rundown is this: PAX attendees create buttons based on their Penny Arcade forum avatars, and then exchange buttons with other users! I did it for the first time last year and it was a great little game. Although, in a sea of ~70,000+ people it can be difficult to find other buttoneers. Fortunately, there are meetups through the weekend to help participants complete their collections!

A little preview of the button station!

I have written about PAX each year since I started A Bit of Geek, and every year I struggle with what to say. The convention is so huge, and so difficult to pin down succinctly. Every year offers something new and exciting, and it is legitimately one of my most favorite things. Whenever PAX is completed I immediately start thinking about how much I can't wait for next year, and whenever passes go on sale I now nearly have a heart attack since they sell out so quickly. I am so fortunate to not have to purchase a plane ticket in order to attend, so if I ever miss out on passes I will become inconsolably distraught.

This year I spent a considerable length of time observing the schedule, and there are two to three panels each day that I am really looking forward to:

Saturday includes!

Penny Arcade Make A Strip
Turning Geek Passion into Profit
Community Management
Chainsawsuit with Friends
Retrogame Roadshow: The Game Show!

Sunday includes!

Penny Arcade Q&A
The Huge Evolution of Games Blogging
Web Video for Gamers
Nintendo Panel
Cards Against Humanity

It really hurts me that I won't be in attendance all four days. It simply wasn't in the cards this year though. Although, the PAX gods are with me because all of the panels that I really want to see are on the two days that I'll be present! Wahoo!

PAX badge day is one of the best days of the year!

Oh, last year I wrote a series of articles based around getting the most of your PAX experience; you should give them a read! I have one on scheduling your days, how to be social, and keeping energized! Maybe you're a seasoned attendee, or maybe you're a newcomer! Either way I believe there's good information in there. Maybe pass it along to any first timers in your life. I love at least trying to be helpful!

So please tell me, dear readers, are you going to be at PAX? Will you be participating in the buttonneers? Which panels are you most looking forward to? What are your tips for having a great PAX experience? I really and truly want to know the answers to these questions! Few things get me as pumped as the Penny Arcade Expo, so please talk to me about how excited you are!

-MJ

*Header image is a screenshot from the PAX official website.

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Holiday Gift Giving Suggestions For Geeks

As the gift giving season is now officially upon us, it's time to put some serious consideration into what we will give to our special geek loved ones. It can be a daunting task considering the wide variety of options (and equal variety of geek hobbies), but fear not! I have gathered a few things together to help get you started.

First let us take a look at the most useful websites for your purchasing needs:

1. Much Needed Merch

2. Geek Alerts

3. FanGamer

4. (last but not least) Think Geek

I've been a frequenter of Think Geek for years, but the other three are new to me. Each website contains an abundance of things that I wish I owned! Geek Alerts is a collection website, so to purchase a featured item you must follow a link. Much Needed Merch and FanGamer sell their own products.

I highly recommend trawling through each website. I can almost guarantee you'll find something for your hobby crazed friend, and I bet you'll see something you like, too. And don't worry, because each of those links contains far more than amazing t-shirts. It's high time the geek of your life expanded into relevant kitchen gear and clever license plate holders.

Here are some products (found on the aforementioned websites) that I find to be particularly awesome:

1. The Hobbit moleskine notebooks.

2. Doctor Who pocket watch.

3. "Studies in Evolution" poster set.

4. Professional nerd polo shirts.

5. NES cartridge notepads.

6. Wind Waker spoils bag.

7. Ocarina of Time note ornaments.

8. Link's pajama shirt.

9. Eleventh Doctor electronic toothbrush.

10. Doctor Who visual dictionary.

11. Harry Potter film experience book set.

This list could have been pages longer, but I try to keep things short and tidy around here. I would love to own every single item listed, so I guess in a way it's a very wishful wish list! 

What's on your list this year? Is there a special geek in your life who you'll be shopping for?

-MJ

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Simply for my own reference.

Although anyone else is free to take advantage of it as well.

Dungeons and Dragons has really been on my mind a lot lately. There are times of the day when I'm foaming at the mouth thinking about being a part of a regular campaign. I've reached January of 2009 in the Penny Arcade archives, and at this point Gabe (or Mike, as it were) is starting up his own campaign for the very first time. I'm itchy thinking about it.

I came across this post of his and it contains such good information that I wanted to keep it nearby just in case. I thought about doing a screenshot, or perhaps copying the words into a text document and keeping it on my hard drive. But then, I thought to myself, why not put it on my blog and label it for easy reference? That way it's stored on the great and vast internet for me and so many others to enjoy.

Without further ado, I give you Gabe's advice on starting a DnD campaign.

-MJ

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mailbag

Wednesday, January 7 2009 - 10:34 AM
by: Gabe

I'm just going to go ahead and answer a couple questions that are coming up a lot in my email.   

Q: What are the needed tools to manning your own D&D campaign?

A: At the most basic level I think all you really need is a set of the books - The Dungeon Master's Guide, The Player's Handbook, and the Monster Manual. These can be purchased as a set at most book stores. You'll also need some dice and a group of friends willing to give it a try. A DM screen is also nice. Before I played the game I just assumed the screen was there to hide the DM's actions from the players. This is true but it's also a giant cheat sheet. On the DM's side it's packed full of stuff like status effects, definitions of various rules and terms, common actions the party might take and guides for how to respond. I gotta say as a first time DM this screen was a huge help

In addition to the books I also picked up this starter kit and found it very helpful. It has some Dungeon Tiles for building your map, dice, hero and monster tokens, as well as a simplified version of the DMG(Dungeon Master's Guide). The nice thing about this set is that it includes a level 1 adventure all pretty much done for you. In fact I fully intended to just run it as is for my first game but once I started getting into the setting and learning about the world I couldn't help but add in my own story ideas. 

If everyone is new to the game I recommend having each of your players pick up their own copy of the Player's Handbook. They can use it to choose a character race and class as well as familiarize themselves with the rules of the game. A lot of it won't make much sense until you're all actually at the table rolling dice but it helps to at least have an idea of what to expect. 

I think that's a good place to start. I can tell you some other stuff I picked up that isn't really necessary but I think helped a lot. 

-Pencils and paper for everyone. It sounds silly but you do a lot of writing on your character sheet and they will probably also want to take some notes about the adventure. Having pencils and paper on hand is a good idea. 

-3x5 cards. This is a trick I picked up after watching Chris Perkins DM our games for WOTC. You write the name of each of your players on a 3x5 card. You do the same for your monsters and then when everyone rolls for initiative you write those numbers on their respective cards. Then it's just a matter of putting the cards in the right order and you have an easy way of keeping track of whose turn it is. The cards are also a great place to track your monster's HP and any marks or status effects. 

-Extra dice. You roll a lot of dice in this game and having a little bowl of extras for people who forgot theirs or don't have any is convenient. 

Something I decided to do on my own was have the party choose a MVPC (most valuable player character) at the end of the session. I think giving out some fancy dice is a cool treat and they're pretty inexpensive. Obviously this isn't necessary but I thought it was fun and It was a good opportunity for them to sort of recap the adventure and talk about all the cool stuff everyone did. 

The Dungeon Master Guide is really a great resource. It will give you all kinds of ideas about what you might want to pick up for your game. It even goes into detail about the environment you play in and gives great tips on getting your friends into the spirit. Where the Player's Handbook is really about rules, the DMG is more about the philosophy of be a Dungeon Master and the mechanics of creating a world for your friends to play in. I was really impressed with it. 

Q:Is there any chance you could record your adventures as DM?

A: I'm flattered that you guys would like to listen in on these, but this game I'm running is just me and a group of my friends. The podcasts we do for WOTC are separate and you'll be getting more of those soon. Recording these would ad a level of stress to the game for my friends and that's not something I want to do. I'm happy to keep you guys posted here on the site, and I'll be sure and relate anything I think was especially cool. 

-Gabe out

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