Thunderfoot
Hero
I got a kick out of this one way back and I still giggle incessantly every time I read it.
Vraille Darkfang said:Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
By Vraille Darkfang (with deepest apologies to Arlo Guthrie & Alice's Restaurant)
This song is called Thalmin’s Gaming Shop, and it's about Thalmin, and the Gaming Shop, but Thalmin’s Gaming Shop is not the name of the Gaming Shop, that's just the name of the song, and that's why I called the song Thalmin’s Gaming Shop.
You can play anything you want at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
You can play anything you want at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
Walk right in it's around the back
Just one block from the railroad track
You can play anything you want at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
Now it all started two Gencons ago, was on - two years ago on Thursday, when Diaglo and I went up to visit Thalmin at the Gaming Shop, but Thalmin doesn't live in the Gaming Shop, he lives in Owen Park nearby the Gaming Shop, in the dug-out, with his wife Mialee and Bilbo the dog. And livin' in the dug-out like that, they got a lot of room outside where the infield used to be. Havin' all that room, seein' as how they took out all the bases, they decided that they didn't have to take out old gaming garbage for a long time.
We got up there, we found all the gaming garbage in there, and we decided it'd be a friendly gesture for us to take the gaming garbage down to the county dump. So we took the half a ton of gaming garbage, put it in the back of a red GM truck, took those CCG’s and Dragon Dice and supplements of financial destruction and headed on toward the county dump.
Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across the dump saying, "Closed for Gencon." And we had never heard of a dump closed for Gencon before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the gaming garbage.
We didn't find one. Until we came to a side road and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen-foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff there was another pile of gaming garbage. And we decided that one big pile is better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw our's down.
That's what we did, and drove back to the dug-out, had a Gencon dinner of overpriced unknown meat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obi. He said, "Geek, we found your name on a Spellfire Booster at the bottom of a half a ton of Dragon Dice, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it." And I said, "Yes, sir, Officer Obi, I cannot tell a lie, I put that Spellfire Booster under that gaming garbage."
After speaking to Obi for about forty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and he said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officers' station. So we got in the red GM truck to retake the CCG’s and Dragon Dice and supplements of financial destruction and headed on toward the police officers' station.
Now posters, there was only one or two things that Obi could'a done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us an XP bonus for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect it, and the other thing was he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving gaming garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the police officers' station there was a third possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested. Handcuffed. And I said "Obi, I don't think I can pick up gaming garbage with these handcuffs on." He said, "Shut up, Geek. Get in the back of the patrol car."
And that's what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene of the Crime unquote. I want to tell you about the town of Mt Prospect, Illinois, where this happened here, they got thirty-three stop signs, twenty-two police officers, and ten police cars, but when we got to the Scene of the Crime there was seventy-five police officers and thirty-three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty seconds, and everybody wanted to get in and online blog about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officers' station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot tracks, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy digital photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner and that's not to mention the satellite imagery.
After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obi said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, "Geek, I'm going to put you in the cell, I want your pencils and your dice." And I said, "Obi, I can understand you wanting my pencils so I don't have anyway to stab in the cell, but what do you want my dice for?" And he said, "Geek, we don't want any gaming." I said, "Obi, did you think I was going to game by myself lacking any rules?" Obi said he was making sure, and friends Obi was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn't have a little table to sit and make stats, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn't pluck out a nose hair, roll out the toilet paper roll along the floor, slice open a vein and write out the DMG, PHB, MM, and a module or two. Obi was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Thalmin (remember Thalmin? It's a song about Thalmin), Thalmin came by and with a few nasty words to Obi on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the dug-out, had a another Gencon dinner of overpriced unknown meat, and didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.
We walked in, sat down, Obi came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy digital photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up, and Obi stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy digital photos, and the judge walked in, sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obi looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy digital photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy digital photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obi came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy digital photos with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $150 and had to pick up the gaming garbage in the heat, but that’s not what I came to tell you about.
Came to talk about a new edition.
They got a building down on Lake Geneva, up along Sheridan Springs Road, where you opt-in, you get inspected, interrogated, dejected, infuriated, neglected and selected. I went down to get my playtester certification one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and Dew’d up the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to look like the all-gamer geek from Lake Geneva, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all Gamer Geek from Lake Genva, and I walked in, sat down, I was talked down, brung down, ripped up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, "Geek, see Mr. Williams, room 304."
And I went up there, I said, "Skipper, I want to play. I mean, I wanna, I wanna play. Play. I wanna, I wanna roll, I wanna see dice and paper and pens and minis in my sleep. Eat dead PC Sheets. I mean play, Play, PLAY, PLAY." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "PLAY, PLAY," and he started jumpin' up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "PLAY, PLAY." And then Monte came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our geek."
Felt pretty good about it.
Proceeded on down the hall gettin more implications, interrogations, dejections, negotiations and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly NDA's and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, inflecting every single part of my resume, and they was leaving no reference uncalled. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the head man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, "What do you want?" He said, "Geek, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Thalmin’s Gaming Shop Restriction, with full cos-play and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Geek, did you ever go to court?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy digital photos with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Geek, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group WW .... NOW geek!!"
And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group WW where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join TSR after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking players on the bench there. Power Gamers. Rules Lawyers. Power Lawyers! Power Lawyers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was fat and smelly and ugly and horrible larp-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the fattest, smelliest, ugliest one, the meanest Power Lawyer of them all, was coming over to me and he was fat 'n' smelly 'n' ugly 'n' larpy and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Geek, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $150 and pick up the gaming garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, geek?" And I said, "Dragon Dice Collectin'" And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the evil eyeball and all kinds of mean gamer things, till I said, "And destroy'n Spellfire packs." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about larpin', power gaming, rules lawyering, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was chugging Mountain Dew and all kinds of sweets, until Monte came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.
"Geeks, this - piece - of - paper's - got - 47 - words - 37 - sentences - 58 - words - we- wanna - know - details - of - the - crime - time - of - the - crime - and - any - other - kind - of - thing - you - gotta - say - pertaining - to - and - about - the - crime - I - want - to - know - arresting - officer's - name - and - any - other - kind - of - thing - you - gotta - say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the dice on the bench there, and I filled out the mission with the four dee-sixes, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:
("GEEK, HAVE YOU ROLEPLAYED YOURSELF?")
I went over to Monte, said, "Cookie, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've roleplayed myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group WW bench 'cause you want to know if I'm gamer enough to join the company, burn goblins, orcs, taverns and villages after tossin' ole'Torg RPG's." He looked at me and said, "Geek, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you credentials off to Washington."
And posters, somewhere in Renton enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my gamer credentials. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar simulation, or you may be in a similar simulation, and if your in a simulation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the skipper wherever you are ,just walk in say "Skipper, You can play anything you want, at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop.". And walk out. You know, if one gamer, just one gamer does it they may think he's really sick and they won't game with him. And if two gamers, two gamers do it, in harmony, they may think they're both wargamers and they won't take either of them. And three gamers do it, three, can you imagine, three gamers walking in singin' a bar of Thalmin’s Gaming Shop and walking out. They may think it's marketable. And can you, can you imagine fifty gamers a day, I said fifty gamers a day walkin' in singin' a bar of Thalmin’s Gaming Shop and walking out. And posters they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Thalmin’s Gaming Shop Anti-Restriction Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the lute.
With feeling. So we'll hold actions for the top of the round and the lute here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.
You can play anything you want, at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
You can play anything you want, at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
Walk right in it's around the back
Just one block from the railroad track
You can play anything you want, at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
That was horrible. If you want to end level limits and stuff you got to sing loud. I've been singing this song now for twenty five 2nd ed rounds. I could sing it for another twenty five 3rd ed rounds. I'm not proud... or tired.
So we'll wait till the round begins again, and this time with four dee-sixers and +2 morale bonus.
We're just holdin' for it to come around is what we're doing.
All right now.
You can play anything you want, at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
Excepting Kender
You can play anything you want, at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
Walk right in it's around the back
Just one block from the railroad track
You can play anything you want, at Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
Dee dee dee dee dee dump
At Thalmin’s Gaming Shop
