Party Time. Roll For Initiative!

My stepson turned eight last week, and it’s all happening too fast. He was two when I met him, which was like, five minutes ago. But it is what it is, I guess. The fire of time consumes all things. Bleak. Depression. Blah.

BUT, he had a FANTASTIC party. Wrote a blog post about it. Wanna read it? Here it go!

Earlier this year, I happened to be cruising around the Internet (because surfing it is so ’90s) and stopped on Geek and Sundry’s TableTop channel. For those of you heathens out there who don’t know, TableTop is a fantastic web series where the always groovy Wil Wheaton hosts a few folks for a rousing game of Super Awesome Board/Dice/Whatever games. It’s a fun show. You should watch it. But not right now. Finish reading this first, because it’s pretty cool. I promise.

Now, on that fateful day, Wil was playing Munchkin with Felicia Day, Sandeep Parikh and Steve Jackson (who also designed the game, along with approximately ALL THE GAMES EVER MADE. Roughly.). I was enjoying the episode when Trey walked in and asked me what I was doing. So I showed him. And it was love at first click.

We watched Wil and Friends play Munchkin. Then we watched him play Gloom and Once Upon a Time, and Zombie Dice and Tsuro and and and…well, you get the idea. Trey became obsessed with tabletop games after that. We went to our local comics and games shop the next day and bought Munchkin. We came home, I dug out some of my old miniatures I used to paint when I was a kid, and we used them as our game pieces, learned the rules, and had a fantastic time as a family. Once he got the hang of it, he was helping his Mama fight her monsters and backstabbing his poor Papa whenever he got the chance. And, more times than not, he won. Yes, I get beaten by a seven (now eight) year old. Consistently. Shut up.

Later, we picked up Zombie Dice and he loved it. Then, we ordered Dino Dice for one of his friend’s birthday presents. (Which she loved, naturally.) Later, we drove two hours away to the nearest comics and games shop that had Once Upon A Time and Gloom in stock. And we played those. We played everything. Which was super awesome for me, as a geek dad. He’s already expressed an interest in playing a proper Role Playing Game soon, which we’ll probably do as soon as he gets back from his dad’s summer visitation. And it will be EPIC.

But on to the party…

He decided early on that he wanted a TableTop-themed birthday party this year, and he wanted to pretend to, “Be Wil for a day.” So my wife and I set into action and found an excellent venue we could rent out (extremely affordably, I might add), and secured it months ahead of time. Then, since he has a summer birthday, Trey started working on invitation ideas with me before school let out so we could distribute them before everyone dispersed for the summer. He eventually settled on me (poorly) Photoshopping his head onto Wil’s body and making, “the perfect TableTop invitation.” After that, it was just slowly coming up with ideas and putting them into action, as time passed.

Trey wanted everyone to play tabletop games, so that was the easy part. We came up with a list of games (see below), and that was that. We had to have red tablecloths though, because that would, “make the tables like Wil’s.” Details. Very important. (But, of course, we didn’t buy enough, and ended up using blue for a couple of tables. I’m not perfect. Sue me.)

I thought it would be fun for the party favors to be dice bags, and Trey wanted to give everyone a trophy at the end of the party, “just like Wil does at the end of an episode.” So we went to the craft store, bought some inexpensive jewelry bags, then stuffed them with bulk polyhedral dice, along with a tiny pencil and notepad (for scorekeeping, obviously), some glass bead hit counters, a game token and a metal miniature. (All elements of the TableTop logo. Because, again, details. Trey is a stickler for details.)

We picked the trophies up at Party City, and it was off to the races. But then I started getting more ideas, because I’m not entirely stable when it comes to Trey. (I tend to go overboard. But this is party time, not confession time. So stop judging me.) Anyway, I thought it would be fun to create characters for all the kids to choose from, just like they were playing a real RPG. Of course, the stats and everything would be meaningless, but kids love to have goals, so I stuck a “Quest Log” on the bottom of each character sheet and came up with the idea to give them a stamp whenever they played a game. Get stamped ten times, complete their Quest Logs, and they’d get a big, red EPIC stamp across the bottom, and could claim their trophy and dice bag. (And, because I get obsessive and keep escalating everything, a d20 sugar cookie.)

Sidenote: Trey’s party was going to have a lot of little girls in attendance, and I never realized just how many positive, fictional role models for girls that there aren’t until I started trying to find some. I conceded to one princess for my five-year-old niece, but I made her “Princess” Kaylee from Firefly, so she wasn’t a pretty polly princess dialtone. More or less. (I did that with most of the characters: took someone cool from a story or video game or tv show, modified them, and stuck them on a sheet.) The most powerful character in the game (if the stats actually mattered), was female and could go toe-to-toe with the most powerful male character, if she had to. I thought that was important. Anyway, moving on…

My wife had to argue with the Great American Cookie Company (because Trey wanted a cookie this year, rather than a cake), trying to get them to recreate the TableTop logo, but they were having none of it. “It’s too complicated,” they said. Then, they offered to draw some playing cards on it with icing. She eventually beat them into submission with her word daggers until they reached a decent compromise. Dice, a notepad, and the word TableTop kinda/sorta written as a table, with the slogan, “Play more games!” at the bottom. It worked out well.

And that was the party. The End.

Hold on! I forgot about one thing. The night before the party, I had the bright idea to make a d20 piñata, because I couldn’t find one anywhere, either in stores or online. Unfortunately, my first effort proved somewhat ineffective:

My second attempt went a little bit better. I cut up an old Everquest 2 promotional display that I had lying around in my office for some reason, and turned it into something resembling a d20 shape. I then filled it with candy and duct-taped the hell out of it. Seriously, I went crazy on it. However, since I didn’t have a big enough piece of cardboard to make it large enough for a traditional piñata, I decided it would be a non-traditional piñata. And, because it was a d20 die, the kids would bust it open non-traditionally, too: by rolling it. Which they did. Mostly. Also, kicking, stomping, smacking, throwing, etc… The damn thing was a fighter. They eventually managed to bust one seam loose, and Trey shook the candy out that way. The die itself survived. Because duct tape is made out of adamantium.

It turned out to be one of the highlights of the party, which is always the way. That last-minute, throwaway idea becomes something memorable. Crazy how things work out.

And that was the party. The End, for real this time.

Oh wait, except for one more, even more important part. Remember when I said Wil Wheaton was a groovy dude? Well, that’s because he is. But he’s even groovier than you might expect, which he proved to me when he helped make Trey’s birthday EXTRA memorable. I won’t call him out by saying exactly what he did, because I’m sure he’d rather keep it private. But I will say that it was amazing and wonderful and Trey will never, ever forget it. (Thanks, Wil!)

And THAT was the party. Seriously, I promise. That’s the true end. Here, I’ll prove it. Check out 68 seconds of its Awesome Party Epic-ness:

And if you’re really interested, check out my Obsessively Huge Gallery Of ALL THE PICTURES. Because I’m THAT dad.

Want some books? 'Course ya do!

NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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