Author D&D at Last!
Hey Gamers. Sorry for taking so long with this, but I think you’ll agree it was worth the wait.
Last January, the ConFusion science fiction and fantasy convention in Detroit, MI, in conjunction with Subterranean Press, hosted EPIC CONFUSION, bringing together some of the hottest names in fantasy, including Pat Rothfuss, Brent Weeks, Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie, Elizabeth Bear, and Jim Hines. It was an epic gathering the likes of which I have never seen.
After I cracked a joke on twitter that we should all play D&D while there, there was a massive rush of enthusiasm. I talked the idea over with my buddy Myke Cole. Not only was Myke a member of my college D&D group and a beta reader of all my books, he had his first novel, Control Point, coming out that month, and was attending the con with me. We went through our old D&D stuff, picked a module (Keep on the Borderlands), and started inviting people.
Our friend author Saladin Ahmed also had his first novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon about to launch, so we hatched a plan: Let the n00bs DM a table packed with some of the biggest egos in fantasy. We arranged to borrow an old video camera, and had Justin Landon of the great SF review blog Staffer’s Book Review do the filming.
The results were amazing. Scott and EBear were a little late, but author Jay Lake and Yanni Kuznia of Subterranean Press were happy to sit in and cover their characters for the first half of the game. There’s a reason why Myke is a Lieutenant in the Coast Guard. He ran a tight ship, taking no shit and making snap calls on complex game mechanics while Saladin played all the NPC’s with incredible dramatic flair. You can read write-ups of the event by Brent, Joe, and Myke. My own take on things (via Meg), including a bunch of pictures can be found here.
After some dithering, I got the recording to Meg, who did an amazing job spearheading the project from there. She had the tapes digitized and hired editor Erin McConnell to turn three hours of low quality tripod cam video and sound into something unique and awesome.
Special thanks to Pete Mitchell,who lent us his kickass song “Critical Hit” by from his band No More Kings (which I really hope is a Schoolhouse Rock reference) for the rockin’ closing credits.
