PAX: The Dungeons & Dragons Party Bus!

It’s day two of the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) up here in Seattle. PAX was started in 2004 by the guys behind Penny Arcade, a webcomic about gaming. Last year, PAX attracted over 60,000 people. On to the coverage!

This morning we took a trip to the Dungeons & Dragons party bus (PARTY BUS!!!) to hear about the latest and greatest in nerddom from the heroes of the sport: D&D designers/authors Bill Slavisek and Rich Baker. D&D is releasing a new “essentials” pack that will allow even the sanest of folk to fall into the depths of the dungeons with little effort.

• PARTY BUS!!!

“The days of being willing or able to read through dozens of books in order to play a game are disappearing,” said Slavisek.

The “essentials” line uses set of simplified rules and a limited world to attract the gamer of today’s short attention span. The headliner of the line is the “Red Box”: a boxed set of “intro” books (flimsy stapled-together things), dice, maps, cards, and counters for simple gaming. Buy one product, and you’re ready to play (dice included!).

Wizards has also embraced the internet community by creating a new campaign that will be played simultaneously in game stores around the country/the world. It’s all an attempt by one of the the lowest-tech popular game companies to survive in the age of the internet: how will it work?

• D&D designers/authors Bill Slavisek and Rich Baker inside the PARTY BUS!

We sat down for a Red Box game led by Mike Mearls, the group manager for D&D RPGs. Myself and my simplified D&D stereotype party members made our way through a dungeon and eventually defeated a necromancer and his gross “boulder of flesh” made of reanimated limbs. It was simple—very simple. But there was still enough choices and flavor to make the game interesting, and enough dice-rolling to make it a real D&D game.

The only thing lost for me was the advantage gained by nerds who read every book created in the D&D canon—the advantage of finding the best races, spells, and items in the world. It’s a good way to play D&D without being really “into it”: time will tell if there is an audience for that.

• Angela Webber
• My character: a male elf wizard.

Pictures from the PAX floor after the jump!

• This Venture Brothers clan is from Portland!

• Angela Webber
• Rawr.

• Angela Webber
• People playing Kinect (XBox’s new controller-free gaming system) look silly, just like people playing Wii games look silly (see below).

• Angela Webber

• Angela Webber

• Angela Webber
• An epic Mickey Mouse game is on the way: Disney artists were doing the art thing on the expo floor.

• Angela Webber