Bush praises Wizards of the Coast's "Bold support of abstinence only initiatives."

Without it there would be no World of Warcraft. Without it Jack Chick would just be a fundamentalist freak, rather than a fundamentalist freak with a cult fandom, and Tom Hanks wouldn't cry in the dark whenever anyone mentions the words mazes and/or monsters. Without it Rivers Cuomo's fan base would have a collective 50% less body fat. Most importantly, without it I would have had a real job between the years 2000 and 2005, when I fed my family (barely) writing books about buried treasures, hideous monsters, and elven maids with improbably large breasts.

Yes, today it was leaked that Wizards of the Coast will be releasing a 4th edition of the venerable Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, which for 30 odd years has lurked in the dankest corners of the pop culture basement, inspiring freaks and geeks to acts of d4 heroism, to songs about of all sorts to swing singlehanded fuel the explosive growth of the Slim Jim, Cheeto, and Mountain Dew brands. Well, they didn't really so much announce 4th ed. as announce they were announcing something, and then forget to hide the new forum they'd cleverly disguised under the name "D&D 4th Edition Forum"

For those of you curious (and bereft of hope) enough to care, here's a screenshot of the now removed forum.

The official announcement is scheduled for tomorrow, at
GenCon Indy 2007, a 4 day celebration of all those things I find far cooler than any 34 year old man ever should.

So if you, like me, felt a strange disturbance in the force today, a tingle in your spider-pants, and a desperate need to hole up in the library with pencil, ruler, crinkled graph paper, and an annotated edition of The Bloody Crown of Conan... now you know why.


Patrick Y invented italics, actually, back in the summer of '02, but traded away the patent for a pack of Wheat Thins, and a favor to be named later.