A Return to Dungeon Crawling Days

It seems I forgot to mention an interesting chance meeting from last Thursday that occurred while I was hovering around the city on my bike, specifically in the Hayes neighborhood. I was there checking out the Timbuk2 messenger bag line--I honestly don't know why, my 3-year-old Chrome bag is damn near unparalleled--when I crept past a cafe to scope it out for a cuppa and saw my former coworker, Jason Thompson, emerge on the phone. We chatted and caught up while I handled some job hunt stuff on my laptop. Jason was always one of the folks at VIZ I could most identify with, mainly because he is an unabashed geek who lets it all show. Case in point: he wants to play D&D on the street and invite the public to come get their D20 on...and I'm going to give him a hand.

After a little brainstorm at the cafe a plan of action was unofficially drawn up. As it stands, on the 24th or 25th of October, he will get dressed in a balaclava, wizards hat and black cape, plop down a card table and DM shade at the chess playing cluster at the Market/Powell intersection and challenge passersby to slog through his dungeon. Since I don't play D&D (honestly, I jumped that stage and went straight into more hardcore tabletop games) I volunteered to film the mad event and make a trophy or some prize to lure the public in. I also came up with the idea to have plants in the crowd, accomplices that will walk around saying "Oh, this looks interesting," or who will loudly jump into the game and hopefully hook a few people who have nothing better to do on a weekend afternoon. I think the biggest challenge will be keeping the dignified old men of the chess cluster from caning Jason.

An interesting weekend it will be.

--Matt