Gamer Fantastic

by Greenberg, Martin H.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  ESCAPISM

  GAMING CIRCLE

  RESCUING THE ELF PRINCESS AGAIN

  ROLES WE PLAY

  MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

  GRIEFER MADNESS

  MISSION FROM HEL

  THE GODS OF EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  “YOU FORGOT WHOSE REALM THIS REALLY IS!”

  THE WAR ON TWO FRONTS

  AGGRO RADIUS

  BEING PLAYED

  GAME TESTING

  ERNEST GARY GYGAX (1938-2008)

  Also In Memoriam

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE EDITORS

  “Wait! I need a partner.”

  “You said it yourself. You serve the light and I’m a daughter of the dark.”

  “Okay, but I’ve never been here before. I’ve never done any LARPing before. And there are some experienced players ganging up on me to keep me from accomplishing anything.”

  “Griefers?”

  “If that’s what you call it.”

  “I hate griefers.

  I told her the whole story and ended with, “It’s crazy. I’ve had people try to stop me from doing my job with the threat of real violence, and I handled that. But this make-believe stuff could delay me long enough for Wallace Baxter to die.”

  “And then this Jason guy loses his inheritance?”

  “Most of it, and his relatives lose theirs, too.”

  She pulled off my goggles. “And this is really real? Not just a scenario?”

  I waved a hand to indicate my bare middle-aged face and the rest of my unmasked self. “It’s not Storm King talking to you now. It’s a real person. Who will pay you real money if you help me get to Jason Baxter in time.”

  She stood up straight, sneered, and said, “Then Duchess Eclipsia will aid you, Champion. It will amuse me, and with my reward I will raise a host to storm the Sapphire City.”

  —from “Griefer Madness” by Richard Lee Byers

  Also Available from DAW Books:

  Fellowship Fantastic, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes

  The true strength of a story lies in its characters and in both the ties that bind them together and the events that drive them apart. Perhaps the most famous example of this in fantasy is The Fellowship of The Ring. But such fellowships are key to many fantasy and science fiction stories. Now thirteen top tale-spinners—Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Alan Dean Foster, Russell Davis, and Alexander Potter, among others—offer their own unique looks at fellowships from: a girl who finds her best friend through a portal to another world . . . to four special families linked by blood and magical talent . . . to two youths ripped away from all they know and faced with a terrifying fate that they can only survive together . . . to a man who must pay the price for leaving his childhood comrade to face death alone. . . .

  Terribly Twisted Tales, edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg

  Fairy tales are among the earliest fantasies we are exposed to when we are young and impressionable children. What more fun could a fantasy writer have than to take up the challenge of drawing upon this rich material and transforming it into something new. These eighteen stories by Dennis McKiernan, Mickey Zucker Reichert, Michael Stackpole, Jim Hines, and others do just that. From the adventure of the witch in the gingerbread house and her close encounter with the oven . . . to Golda Lockes who has a very special arrangement with those well-known bears . . . to a murderous attack with a glass slipper . . . to a wolf detective who sets out to solve “Grandma’s” murder, here are highly inventive stories that will give you an entirely new perspective on those classic tales.

  Ages of Wonder, edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Rob St. Martin Fantasy—the very word conjures infinite possibilities. And yet far too often, writers limit themselves to a few well-mined areas of the vast fantasy realms. But the history of our world offers many cultures and areas rich in lore and legend that have barely been explored. The nineteen tales included here take us from the Age of Antiquity to the Age of Sails, the Colonial Age, the Age of Pioneers, the Pre-Modern Age, and the Age Ahead. Join these adventures as they explore all that fantasy has to offer in stories ranging from a Roman slave forced to seek a witch’s curse to aid his master . . . to an elemental trapped in a mortal’s body unable to reach for the power of the wind . . . to a family of tree-people hoping to find a new life in America . . . to a Native American tribe’s search for a new hunting ground and the one girl whose power could prove the difference between life and death . . . to the impact of technology on those who live by magic . . . and the Age that may await when science and magic combine into something new.

  Copyright © 2009 by Tekno Books and Kerrie Hughes

  eISBN : 978-1-101-08006-1

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1481.

  DAW Books is distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is

  coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Printing, July 2009

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  S.A.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ROLL ON! copyright © 2009 by Margaret Weis

  Introduction copyright © 2009 by Kerrie Hughes

  “Escapism,” copyright © 2009 by Chris Pierson

  “Gaming Circle,” copyright © 2009 by Donald J. Bingle

  “Rescuing the Elf Princess Again,” copyright © 2009 by Ed Greenwood

  “Roles We Play,” copyright © 2009 by Jody Lynn Nye

  “Mightier Than the Sword,” copyright © 2009 by Jim C. Hines

  “Griefer Madness,” copyright © 2009 by Richard Lee Byers

  “Mission from Hel,” copyright © 2009 by Bill Fawcett and Associates, Inc.

  “The Gods of Every Other Wednesday Night,” copyright © 2009 by S.L. Farrell

  “You Forgot Whose Realm This Really Is!” copyright © 2009 by Brian M. Thomsen

  “The War on Two Fronts,” copyright © 2009 by Jean Rabe

  “Aggro Radius,” copyright © 2009 by David D. Levine

  “Being Played,” copyright © 2009 by Steven E. Schend

  “Game Testing,” copyright © 2009 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  “Ernest Gary Gygax,” copyright © 2009 by Ed Greenwood

  ROLL ON!

  Margaret Weis

  I’ve been a gamer all my life. One of my earliest childhood memories is playing Sorry with parents. My little sister and I played Monopoly as we were growing up, though I had to be careful to let her win, since she always got mad and threw the pieces at me if she lost. My friends and I played bridge in the Student Commons for hours every day in college—undoubtedly the reason I twice flunked algebra.

  I came to RPGs later in life. My first introduction to D&D was—oddly enough—an article in Publishers Weekly. The article was describing the phenomenal success of an exciting new company called TSR, Inc., with a game called Dungeons & Dragons. The article told how, through this game, people came together to use their imaginations to create a “living” story.

  I was so impresse
d with this remarkable concept that I wanted to work for this company. I applied for a job as a game editor. The head of the game division at TSR, Inc. sent me a “test” to see how I did at game editing. Although I was a book editor at the time, I knew nothing about the game (I still don’t. Someone always has to tell me what dice to roll!) I learned later that I flunked the test spectacularly.

  However, the head of the book division at TSR, Inc., Jean Blashfield Black, was in the market for a book editor. She asked me to come in for an interview and hired me the same day. One of my projects was to develop novels for a new RPG line called Dragonlance designed by Tracy Hickman. I met Tracy, the DL team, a wizard named Raistlin and a kender named Tasslehoff, who stole (make that “borrowed”) my heart.

  Tracy and I were never intended to write the Dragonlance novels. TSR, Inc. wanted to hire a “big name” fantasy author. As we went forward with the novels, I became more and more fascinated by these characters, especially the dark and tragically complex wizard Raistlin. Tracy and I talked about the story endlessly and it soon became clear to us that we were the ones to write this story.

  We submitted the prologue and the first five chapters. Our editor was impressed and we received the contract to write Dragons of Autumn Twilight. This was the first time anyone had ever written a tie-in to a game and, oddly, one of our first priorities was to take the game out of the novel! As Tracy said, we didn’t want the reader to hear the dice rolling.

  The first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, was a huge success. No one was more astonished than Tracy and me when it hit the New York Times Bestseller list. This despite the fact that it had almost no advertising and no one ever reviewed it. The Dungeons and Dragons fans found this book first. They read it and told their friends about it and word spread from there to people who didn’t play the game but enjoyed fantasy.

  We wrote three books for Dragonlance Chronicles and three books for Dragonlance Legends for TSR, Inc. and we were able to leave TSR, Inc. to create our own worlds. We realized that tying books in to role-playing games was a natural fit. Developing a game world in detail provides rich background for novels, and when we wrote the Darksword novels we developed our own RPG to go with it. And we’re developing a game for my company, Margaret Weis Productions, Ltd., to go with our new series for Tor, Dragonships.

  My children and I enjoyed playing RPGs. Roger Moore, former editor of Dragon, was one of our favorite DMs. We did not play D&D (having worked with it all week, we needed a break on the weekends!) Our favorite RPG was Toon from Steve Jackson Games. The ending to one of our Toon games was so amazing that Roger wrote it up and sent it to Steve Jackson, who included it in his magazine.

  A psychotic duck in a pillbox hat named Quackque line Onassis got into a gun battle with Dr. Who. The crazed duck shot the space/time continuum, destroying all life as we know it. We all “fell down” (you never die in a Toon game!) except for my son, the Road Runner, who claimed he could outrun the end of time. The DM made a roll and agreed that the Road Runner did, in fact, outrun the end of time and declared my son the sole survivor.

  I’m still involved in the game industry. I own my own game company. We publish role-playing games for licensed products such as Serenity, the amazing movie and continuation of the Firefly TV series by Josh Whedon; Battlestar Galactica; and Supernatural, among others. I’m still writing and still playing. I’m not much for “problem solving,” high-minded RPGs. Like the psychotic duck, I like to “shoot stuff.” (I play a great Jayne in the Serenity RPG.)

  I’ve been in the industry since 1983 and I’ve seen many changes. Probably the main one is that more women are learning to enjoy role-playing. I remember when I went to my first GenCon, held in Parkside College. There were about five thousand attendees and of those, I would guess that maybe one hundred were female! I still recall seeing a lovely young woman walking through the halls with a Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook in her hands and about twenty adoring males tagging along behind her. Now, when I go to GenCon, I see women who are owners of game companies, women who are authors of games and of novel tie-ins, women who are introducing their children to the game.

  As for the future, I believe there will always be a place for people who love to play RPGs. It’s a lot more fun playing a game around the table with friends than sitting alone in a room typing on a computer.

  And so I raise my Big Gulp, my bag of Doritos, and my giant box of many-colored, funny-shaped dice to all the gamers in the world.

  Long may we roll!

  INTRODUCTION

  I love geeks. That’s right, I said it. I love geeks . . . and gamers and nerds . . . and writers of course.

  If I had not been living in the Bible Belt when D&D was first created I would have been playing in someone’s basement instead of drinking beer in a cornfield with my friends around a bonfire. What can I say? It was Kansas and there was nothing else to do. Nowadays Wichita is the main hub for drug smuggling in the Midwest. See what becomes of good clean living and thinking that slaying dragons and rescuing princesses is Satanic?

  It would be years later, and I would be in my thirties before I played my first roleplaying game. It was Vampire: The Requiem, and that’s where I met my third and final, I hope, husband John Helfers. What a geek! He was honest and kind and a diabolical game master who lived vicariously via the games. I became a geek and never looked back. Now for my fellow feminists, I did not become a geek because of a guy. I became one because it freed me to be anyone I wanted to be and to wield a sword or magic missile with careless abandon or as a team. It empowered my imagination like nothing had before. I could play a villain or a saint or possibly even a monster with fangs and claws. Yum!

  I know every geek in this book and I admire them all. It’s a great community with ups and downs, subtleties and intrigue. The behind-the-scenes stories are just as good as the public ones and I delight in hearing everything they have to say. Well, almost everything. I must admit that when people quote rule books like they know them by heart I have to take a mental snooze. Probably because I just can’t keep up with the details.

  My one regret was that I did not meet Gary Gygax. I had a chance at the 2007 GenCon but I was too chicken. I walked past a jolly fellow in a loud shirt and made note of the name on his badge, he smiled and nodded as did I but it took a full ten seconds for the name to register. I turned back to introduce myself but he was talking to some fans in really cool costumes and I figured I would just move along. After all, I’m just one of a million other geeks and not a sorceress in flowing purple robes with loads of arcane spells and cleavage. I should have just walked up and introduced myself anyway, I met James Doohan many years back at a Star Trek convention and he blessed me with compliments and kissed my hand! I’m sure Gary would have been just as gracious. At least that’s the way it goes in my geek fantasies.

  But I digress . . .

  What I really want to say is I’ve done a few of these anthologies now, and I have to conclude that this one has been my favorite. Special thanks go to Chris Pierson, who wrote the story “Escapism.” His stories always seem to be filled with death and destruction; he gave me nightmares about the future of the world. On a completely unrelated note he has recently become a father for the first time and will be raising the next generation of geeks and releasing them unto the world.

  I also just love Don Bingle and his story “Gaming Circle.” He always gives me a great story and if you ever get a chance to hear him read his work, give yourself a treat and go—he has an incredible speaking voice. Also check out his Web site www.karmassist.com for more of his work, some of which appears in my other anthologies.

  Thanks also go to Jody Lynn Nye, who just happens to strongly resemble an elf (coincidence—I think not), for her story that combines the origins of psychology with that of gaming. I have been called the “Queen of the Geeks” by many of my friends but I assure you she is the one who deserves the royal title.

  Speaking of origins and fantasy royalty, Kristin
e Kathryn Rusch, who is an authority on fairies, takes us to Lake Geneva with “Game Testing.” It might make you want to take a trip to lower Wisconsin someday, as she assures me that much of the story is true. I’m definitely going to look more closely at the houses the next time I get down there.

  I also want to give special thanks to Ed Greenwood. Not just for his deviously delicious story “Rescuing the Elf Princess Again” but also for writing the very heartfelt eulogy for E. Gary Gygax, the cocreator of Dungeons & Dragons, who passed away last year, that appears at the end of this anthology.

  And finally, before you enjoy these wonderful tales, remember this . . .

  The geeks shall inherit the earth, and if not then they will at least survive in the dark with a game grid, some die, a gallon of caffeinated beverage, and some very unhealthy crunchy cheesy things. (Hail Wisconsin!)

  Kerrie (Keridwyn) Hughes

  ESCAPISM

  Chris Pierson

  Stephen saw them coming through the scope of his rifle, which dipped and rose with each breath he drew. Everything else seemed to fall away while he watched: the not-too-distant rattle of gunfire, the stink of smoke and chemicals, the ache in his side where his body armor had kept a round from piercing his lung but not from bruising his ribs. It was like the world constricted down to a tiny circle of things that were still far away.

  It was a respite of a sort. Sanctuary, but not for long. It never was.

  There were eight of them out there, at least that he could count. There might be more with cloaking gear, invisible to his eyes. The ones he could see were encased in black head to toe—did they have toes? He didn’t know. They had armor made of hard plastic, or ceramic, or maybe the stuff bugs were made of. Chitin. Under that, rubber or leather or something he didn’t have a name for. They wore masks, with black-glass goggles spaced too far apart for humans and nothing at all to indicate where they breathed. All but one carried compact, black rapid-fire guns; the last had a shoulder-mounted contraption that he knew, from bitter experience, shot an energy beam that could burn a man in half. He saw grenades on their belts—a mix of flash-bang, fragmentation, and gas—and microthin razor-knives on their hips. And though there was nothing but the burned-out hulk of a car to gauge scale by, he knew they were big. Not one was shorter than eight feet tall.