Category Archives: cool things

Bad Analogies, Kielbasa, and all-star D&D returns…

Hey there everybody,

It feels like it’s been a hundred years since the fundraiser, and it also feels just like yesterday. I don’t know if 2020 has permanently damaged my ability to perceive time in an accurate way, or if this is just my regular post-December recovery and fugue state.

Things are going good around here. Though as I type that, I pause and think, “Hold on, that can’t be right. Everything’s awful forever now. Right? Hold on. Let me check my notes….”

Then I riffle through some papers in my head and think, Yeah, it’s still pandemic o’clock. Politics… still there. Isolation and quarantine, check. What’s wrong with me that I feel like I can say things are good?

But… that’s not *all* that’s going on, right? Vaccines are happening, too. That’s nice. We haven’t had a natural disaster in maybe three months or so? I found a new Korean restaurant in town with really nice dumplings….

Oh. Also we have a new president now, which is pretty fucking great. And democracy is still… kinda here? Mostly? Like a car we weren’t sure was going to get us all the way home through the Furiosa-style dystopian wasteland, but it did. Sure we were driving the last bit on the rims, and the windshield is gone, and it’s chugging and smoking and it looks like we tried to have a poorly-negotiated threeway with an anklyosaur and Zuul. But it got us all the way into the garage, and now we can take a deep, shaky breath and spend a *lot* of time repairing it.

Okay. Maybe that’s not my best analogy ever. Let me try again.

You know the incessant low, thrumming dread you feel when you’re really nauseous for a long time, followed by the sour, hunched misery of puking your guts out? It’s a pretty universal human experience, and we can all agree for the most part that it sucks.

But do you also remember how *good* you feel when you *stop* throwing up?

I think that’s what I’m feeling right now. Like all of 2020 was me just puking and puking forever. And now that I’m not anymore, it’s just nice.

I mean, is this the world I’d wish for if I had a pet Genie? No. You can tell because Firefly is still canceled and pizza has calories.

But you know what? There are still good things in the world. Plus my books are here. Right now, I’m pretty happy with half a loaf.

*      *      *

So far, this year has been fairly low-key over here at Rothco. I’ve been catching up on my sleep and getting my house in order. (Both literally and figuratively. My underwear drawer is *orderly* folks.) I’ve been livestreaming over on twitch fairly regularly. I’m mostly continuing my second play-through of Numenera, but I also dipped in to do some Among Us with Felicia and her crew last week. A game where I was categorically bad at everything and was forced to resort to use my Bene Gesserit powers.

Here’s a moment from that stream that I’m particularly proud/ashamed of.

It’s the first highlight I’ve ever made of a stream, but I’m not smart enough to embed it here, apparently.

On the home front, I’ve mostly been focusing on spending time with the boys. We’re currently reading The Princess Bride (which starts really slow, but picks up nicely after the introduction.) I help the boys stay on top of their at-home school stuff and deal with not being able to see their friends in person.

(Yeah. I’m 100% that dad.)

We’ve also been wrapping up the Fundraiser. While most of the flashiness of that happens in December, there’s a lot of organizing that happens beforehand, and a lot of tying up of loose ends afterwards. But despite the mad state of the world, I think we’re more on top of those things than we’ve been in years. It’s a good feeling.

Those of you who were tuned in for the fundraiser this year probably caught some of the games we played online to help spread the word about our shindig. I *hope* most of you caught at least a few of them, because this year’s games turned out amazingly.

Especially this one:

Let me tell you, folks. I’ve played some D&D in my day. I hang with some cool cats. I even occasionally pull up on with the new whip,  though I’ll admit that’s exceedingly rare.

What I’m trying to say is that I’ve had the luxury of playing with a lot of really amazing folks over the years. So hear me when I say that this game was as much fun as I’ve had in YEARS. My first time *ever* playing a bard.

That would be impressive enough, but what makes it truly crazy is that this if the first time I’ve ever played with half of the other folks at the table. Brennan, Saige, and Aabria were complete strangers at the start of the video. And I didn’t even know B Dave four months ago…

Despite that, it was so much fun that at the end of it, everyone said they really wanted to come together and play again…. if we hit a follow-up charity stretch goal. It was terribly sweet, as they’re all busy people.

But we hit that goal. And now we’re getting the band back together. This weekend.

That’s right. We’ll be getting together to continue this adventure on Saturday, January 30th, from 2-5 pm, CST.

After we played the first time, I said I’d post up a blog with everyone’s info, so you could find them all on in their various fastnesses and demesnes out there on the webs.  I view this as a service to the community, as they deserve more attention than they get, and your dreary, turgid quarantine-laden existences will be vastly improved by getting more of them directly into your eye-holes.

(For those of you who have been waiting for this, sorry it’s taken so long.)

Our cool cast (and where to find them!):

B. Dave Walters is a Storyteller & proud Scoundrel American. He is best known as the writer and co-creator of Electropunk, Dungeons & Dragons: A Darkened Wish for IDW comics, and creator and DM of the Darkened Wish streaming show for Wizards of the Coast. He plays Baron Victor Temple on Vampire the Masquerade: LA by Night on World of Darkness Twitch and Freely on Silver & Steel on D&D Beyond on Twitch.

Taliesin Jaffe is an American actor, voice actor, ADR director and screenwriter. He is a regular cast member of the Dungeons & Dragons actual play series Critical Role, playing Percival de Rolo (“Percy”), Mollymauk Tealeaf (“Molly”), and Caduceus Clay.

Aabria is an American GM and RPG player that has contributed to a multitude of projects, including Failed Save on PixelCircus, Creature Collectors on Critical Bard, and hosting the Storybenders Podcast.

Performing Artist, Communication Specialist, Consultant, E-Sports Professional, Miss Oregon USA 2011, and overall Entertainer, Anna Prosser wears many hats, but for one purpose – to make a positive impact on the world around her! Anna can currently be seen on Echoes Of Eternity each Monday at 6pm PT and Extra Brains each Friday at 1pm PT on her Twitch channel. She can also be seen playing on Nights Of Eveningstar on the official D&D Twitch channel each Tuesday at 4pm PT.

Saige Ryan is an Actress, Host, Singer, and Dancer born and raised in California. She began dancing at the age of 3 and began her acting career at just 7 years old. You may recognize her from films such as I Heart Huckabees, Believers, Forget Me Not, and Maybe Someday, or her 40+ national commercials. The film Maybe Someday in which Saige plays the lead role of Abigail Donnelly was nominated for Best Picture at the 2016 Carmel film festival, and recently released on digital platforms. Saige can currently be seen contributing to the PixelCircus Twitch channel and streaming on her channel at Twitch.tv/NotSaige.

Brennan Lee Mulligan is an award-winning actor, writer, creator and producer. As a cast member of CollegeHumor, he wrote and starred in the sketch Tide CEO, which won a 2019 Webby Award and received over seven million views. He is executive producer, writer and Game Master of Dimension 20, a series produced for the CH streaming service Dropout, and also hosts Dropout’s fantasy gaming vodcast, The Adventuring Academy. Brennan is author and co-creator of the popular webcomic and graphic novel series, Strong Female Protagonist, which was selected as an Autostraddle Favorite, and was on io9’s list of Best New and Short Webcomics.

Little is known of this rare salt-type murder-hobo. This elusive narrativore does not take well to captivity, and while rarely seen in the wild, he occasionally strays near urban areas, where his barbaric yawps can be heard for a distance of up to two miles at night. Sleep cycle: Crepuscular. Mode of locomotion: sessile. Verbosity: Gregarious with occasional yeeting.

God it’s late. I don’t know what I’m even saying anymore. Bed for me.

Hope y’all are well. Hope to see some of you this Saturday for the game….

pat

Also posted in a billion links, a few words you're probably going to have to look up, Beautiful Games, gaming, geeking out, videos, Worldbuilders 2020 | By Pat67 Responses

Ain’t no Party like a Worldbuilders Party ’cause a Worldbuilders Party don’t….

Hey there everybody!

Yesterday, on the final day of the Worldbuilders Fundraiser, we crossed the line into a million dollars. For real.

Despite the trash fire of 2020, this year’s fundraiser has been our most successful in years. (It’s even possible it’s our most successful *ever* but I won’t know that until I’ve gone back and looked carefully at all the numbers.) And, of course, the day isn’t over yet, there’s still time to jump in….

All this success is because you folks, of course. Y’all have stormed in, donated, boosted our signals, and told your friends.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Last year we did an experiment that went quite well. So this year, we’re turning it into a tradition.

You ready?

(Bam!)

Or, for those of you who prefer more info in your info-graphic:

Simply said, today (December 16th) we’re going to celebrate this year’s amazing success by doing a bunch of livestreaming. We’ll have guests stopping for discussions, I’m going to play Minecraft with the boys, we’re going to show off videos for the stretch goals we’ve achieved, and tell some old, beloved stories…

…and talk about the amazing things Heifer does, like turn poop into fuel.

And we’ll show off some of the amazing donation incentives that are available in this year’s prize draw, like the Wyrmwood tables…

Wyrmwood Asset

And our unlocked stretch goals/prizes.

After Party Unlocked Stretch Goals

And our other more different extra double prizes…

After Party Splash Image 2020

(Did I mention there’s a lot of prizes?)

There’s even more prizes over on the page, and as the donations keep coming in, I keep pulling more stuff out of the vault and offering it up.

There’s already a favor ring in the mix, by the way…

If you just want to jump on over and see what we’re doing, here’s our rough schedule:

Pat's 2020 EOY Fundraiser After Party Schedule

If you just want to head over to the stream, here’s the link…

The reasons we’re doing the Afterparty are manifold, but here are the main two:

1. Tradition.

Those of you who have been following Worldbuilders for a while know that our end-of-year fundraiser used to look a lot different than it does now. For one thing, it used to be exclusively run off of my blog, and it used to run for an entire month.

Except it didn’t. For years and years, we ended up extending the fundraiser out past our initial ending date. Sometimes it was because we had a last minute sponsor we wanted to showcase. Sometimes it was because some chaos or catastrophe threw us off schedule. Once it was because we got offered some matching money and we couldn’t bring ourselves to say no to that. Once things got so out of hand we extended *past* Christmas and the whole fundraiser spanned over seven weeks…

And some times we did it just for fun, or because we’d gotten into the habit.

This year, we’re deciding to continue the tradition in a different way. We’re taking one final day just to appreciate how lovely this community is. To put a bow on it. To show off some of the lovely things people have done. To relax and have fun and enjoy our success.

And, of course…

2. To give the latecomers one last chance.

What usually happens the day after the fundraiser is that I go into a deep, healing Odinsleep. When I emerge, I peek on social media and I invariably see dozens of people saying, “Oh no! Worldbuilders is over?!? Did I miss it? Can I still donate?”

And I get that. This is a busy time of year. Finals. Holiday planning. Family travel. Or maybe you’re just like me and tend to put things off to the last minute and then kinda forget about them.

But still, it breaks my heart to see those messages.

So. One extra day. If you were meaning to donate. Now’s your chance. If you were going to tell your friend about us, you’ve got a few more hours. If you were going to spread the word on social media, now you can use this amazing gif to do just that.

(Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz Ooontz.)

* * *

So yeah. C’mon over and take one last chance to win fabulous prizes while making the world a better place…

Remember, every $10 you donate still gets you a chance to win all manner of coolness. And if you donate on my team page, you’ll be eligible to win even more.

Hope to see a lot of you over on my livestream tonight.

pat

 

Also posted in Interviews, Oot, Uncategorized, Worldbuilders 2020 | By Pat9 Responses

Final day of the Fundraiser! Come see the celebratory Stretch goal videos!

Heya everyone!

It’s the final day of our big Worldbuilders Fundraiser, we’re at $900,000 already, with almost twelve hours to go, and I thought I’d share a bunch of the cool stretch goals that have been unlocked where cool people have been helping us spread the world about what we’re doing.

Check them out. Feel the joy, and please share them around on your social media. Today’s our last chance to get the word out….

(Here’s a link to my Team page, if you’re interested.)

Unlocked Worldbuilders Stretch Goal Videos:

 

If any of these brought you joy, and you’d like to help us make the world a better place while winning cool prizes, you can donate over here:

Also posted in videos, Worldbuilders | By Pat1 Response

We all need Something To Look Forward To…

Hey there!

You’ve known it was coming, and now it’s here.

A heaping helping of Worldbuilders EOY goodness.

That’s right. It’s time for the Worldbuilders Fundraiser.

The Fundraiser is running from Dec 1st to Dec 15th, and it’ll be an all-out sprint complete with death-defying obstacle courses, feats of strength, and livestream festivities, and fabulous prizes.

I’m kicking things off with 14 hours of straight livestreaming on my twitch channel.

Kickoff Livestream Schedule that shows what Pat will be doing on 12/1

Also? Special guests!!!

You read that right: I’ll be streaming for 14-straight hours. Swing by and hang out with me and some friends, or head straight over to the fundraiser and help us make the world a better place.

Did I mention we have matching money? We do, so if you head over now, your donation is going to get doubled.

See y’all soon….

pat

Also posted in Acts of Whimsy, being awesome, Geeks Doing Good, Heifer International, Interviews, Me Interviewing Other Folks, Uncategorized, Worldbuilders 2020 | By Pat8 Responses

Oh couch of my heart…

So recently, I went furniture shopping. I needed a couch. The problem was, I hated all the couches.

But then I found this couch and I loved it.

This is my soul-couch. It is the couch of my heart. It’s like the great bed of Ware, but a couch. It’s like I had a dream, and in that dream I said, “I want a couch that looks like a pirate would fuck on it” and then I woke up and the dream was made manifest upon the world.

And it was on CLEARANCE? This is emblematic of everything that’s wrong in the world: That this couch would exist and yet not have a home where it was loved and cherished. I mean, there are so many bullshit couches out there. Hollow, horrible corporate things. Ugly. Uncomfortable. Couches with no heart. Couches with no panache.

And then there is this vasty beautiful beast. I mean, just looking at this couch I gave it a fucking backstory. Figuratively AND literally. It belonged to a pirate captain who looted it from the wealthy merchant vessel he raided. That’s why it’s scratched up in places. It was marred in the heat of battle, and rough sorts that they are, the pirate crew wasn’t gentle bringing it onboard.

Luckily, it’s a sturdy piece of furniture. And it was put to hard use over the years by Captain Fuckbeard. Lo, there was much carousing conducted in its vicinity. And yay, many a buxom lass and laddie was swivved thereon after giving enthusiastic verbal consent. And yes, much aftercare was also conducted upon thereto.

So I bought this couch.

And they brought it to my house.

And… I don’t know how to say this. It wouldn’t fit through the front door. We tried every way.

We took it around and it wouldn’t go through the back door, either. It just. Wouldn’t. Go.

And now I’m going to be sad and angry forever.

Goodbye beautiful pirate fuck-couch. I’ll never forget you.

pat

Also posted in day in the life, I am completely fucking serious, love, My checkered past, My High Horse, my rockstar life, my terrible wrath, Rage, The Art of Letting Go, Things I Like | By Pat100 Responses

A Deeply Mediocre Blog with Truly Excellent Art

Heya Everybody,

As I write this on Saturday night, our Geeks Doing Good sale has just crested up over $95,000.

I feel pretty good about that. This is a hard time to do fundraising, and it’s a hard time to do things that are lighthearted and fun. I’ve done a bunch of streams with cool folks to help bump things around….

 

…by most metrics we’re killing it.

But at the same time, deep down, I know I haven’t done a very good job about spreading the word to y’all. Back in the day, I would have managed to post up a blog that talked in depth about all the awesome we have for sale up in there on the very first day of the fundraiser. Lots of details and effusive praise and good pictures that *really* show things off to good effect.

I haven’t managed that this year. And it’s so galling to me because I know a lot of you would be really interested in this stuff if only I was better at bringing it to your attention.

For example, Marc Simonetti is letting us use the art from some of the French editions of the books to make some nice high-quality art prints.

Prints like this:

And this:

And this…

They’re a super cheap introductory price over in the Indigogo, and on top of that, you can get all of them in a 3-pack for even less…

We’ve got First Edition Hardcover copies of Jim Butcher’s Peace Talks for sale there, with special bookplates designed by Nate Taylor:

AND Satine Phoenix:

(You get to pick which one you want.)

Also four new t-shirts, including one like this:

 

If you’re feeling crafty, we have this:

 

I could go on and on… We’ve got arted-in copies of Slow Regard, limited-edition board games, book upon books, fancy Tak sets…

There’s just a for-real lot of stuff over there.

Sorry I’m not getting this blog up sooner. And sorry that it’s not prettier, or more complete. Or funnier. But it’s already almost 1 am, and I haven’t had any dinner yet tonight, and I’m worried if I don’t post this now, it will end up getting added to the 200+ half-finished blogs I know I’ll never finish.

That’s all I’ve got except to remind y’all that there’s only two days left to grab some cool geeky swag and make the world a better place at the same time.

If you haven’t gone over to look yet, please check it out. Especially the Brand-New game bundle that’s our new featured item. We only posted that up on Friday.

And now, bed for me…

pat

Also posted in a ganglion of irreconcilable antagonisms | By Pat112 Responses

When the Hearthfire turns to blue….

Hey there everybody,

We made a video to help promote one of the new products we’re featuring in our Geeks Doing Good fundraiser and it turned out way better than I’d dared to hope, so I thought I’d share it here:

(Though whoever chose that paricular thumbnail should be fired.)

If you’re interested in checking out some of the cool things we’re selling for charity, you should head over to check out the indigogo sooner rather than later. Not only are there only 4 days left, but a lot of the items are limited quantity, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.

And if you *have* already checked it out… maybe go have another look? We’re adding new items every day to replace the ones that sell out. (The Jamdrian, for example, just went live yesterday.) We’ve also had a few unexpected donations come through in the last few days. And I’ve been digging through my personal trove of hoarded treasures to find stuff we can add to the mix…

I’m also streaming every day starting at 12:00 Central standard time, and so far it’s been… weird. Fun but weird. If you’re looking for some chill surrealism to help the quarantine pass more quickly, feel free to wander on over and join us in the chat.

Later Space Cowboys,

pat

Also posted in Acts of Whimsy, dicking around | By Pat16 Responses
  • RSS info

  • Visit Worldbuilders!

  • Our Store

  • Previous Posts

  • Archives



  • Bookmark this Blog!

    (IE and Firefox users only - Safari users, click Command-D)