In this episode of Geekery and Wine: A Wolf Among Us, Monte Antico Toscana, and Sly Flourish’s The Lazy Dungeon Master.
So beware the Big Bad Wolf and figure out your marching
order, as we delve into another episode of Geekery and Wine!
The Geek Side—A
Wolf Among Us
Our geek artifact for this episode is a bit of a twofer.
The Tell Tale studios’ 2013 release A Wolf
Among Us is a computer game that is set in the world of a comic book
series.
That series is Bill Willingham’s Fables universe which ran from 2002 to 2015. The premise of the comic is that fairy tale
and folklore heroes, villains, and beasts of our imaginations actually live in
our world in either a small neighborhood in New York City, called Fabletown (if
they can pass for human) or in a rural area upstate known as The Farm, if they
can’t. Some of the main characters are Snow White, The Big Bad Wolf (aka Bigby),
Beauty and The Beast, and the ever-present Jack.
Now, those unfamiliar with the comic–book medium might be
saying, “Heeeeeey, wasn’t there a TV series like this?” Yes. Yes, there was.
Willingham’s Fables,
though was an edgier, artier, and more-fully realized predecessor to the
television show Once Upon a Time which
aired on ABC from 2011-2018.
Because Fables was
published under DC Comics’ Vertigo
imprint it was able to be a little more adult than a prime-time TV show on a Disney-owned
network. These decidedly adult moments and
story-turns help to explain why certain characters have the peccadilloes they
do--bits of quirkiness we simply took for granted because “they were fairy
tale creatures.” Prince Charming is
quite charming…buuut he is also a randy womanizer who causes all sorts of
conflicts due to his less-than monogamous nature.
These adult moments can, at times, bend the story away from the
fantasy genre and more toward gritty noir. And here is where A Wolf Among Us comes in. In this game
you play Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of Fabletown, just trying to keep the peace
and ensure that the existence of Fables is kept a secret to the mundane world
or “Mundies.” There is a murder. And you,
as Bigby, are tasked with solving it and bringing the murderer to justice.
It’s a noir detective story. With delicious layers. Not only
are all of the elements of a good P.I. yarn there but, as Bigby, you go out
into Fabletown and discover characters that, because they are based on common
western fairy tales, you know quite a bit of their backstory. You know that
Beauty and The Beast are married but that he has a bit of a temper and their
relationship dynamic is…not great. You confront someone in a bar named Grendel
and know that even though he seems an ordinary ruffian, inside him lurks a
monster.
There is a monster that lives in you, too. Bigby is The Big
Bad Wolf. Terrorizing the 3 Little Pigs…that happened back in the land of
Fables. Red Riding Hood…also not a fan. But Bigby is trying to atone for his
past and not give in to his wolf nature which is typically brought on by anger.
Think of an Incredible Hulk/Wolf Man hybrid. His everyday appearance looks a bit like Logan from the X-men mixing a pileous form with a beetle-browed
countenance.
As Bigby goes about his detective work, having all of this Fairy
Tale information preloaded into your brain is wondrous because it saves time
on exposition, there is less need for giant info-dumps. And in the situations
where information runs counter to the fairy tale…well, you know, legends are
always being misunderstood or morphed over time so of course your information
is just a little off!
There are also different branching paths that play out
depending on how brutal one is as Bigby Wolf. But I must stress….there is no
winning. If one tries to take the path of the kinder, gentler, Big Bad Wolf one
is rewarded with being taken advantage of or being told one is weak. But if one
is too brutal then the response is something akin to “I always knew you were a
monster.” It generates conflict in our protagonist but is a bit abrasive on
the soul after a while.
The game is broken out into chapters, which include a
“previously, on A Wolf Among Us…” and
breaks things down nicely. The exploration points of the adventure are
punctuated by scenes of intense action. After investigating part of a crime
scene there is combat with a potential perp or group trying to cover up the
crime. I found the voice casting to be really great, so I did a little research
and found that many in the cast are playing characters in a ton of other Tell
Tale games. With some of the universes including The Walking Dead, Batman
and even Guardians of the Galaxy and Minecraft.
Grab Fables in
trade paperback at your local comics store. Don’t know where your local comic
shop is? Try using the Comic Shop Locator at https://www.comicshoplocator.com/
or if you are a digital comics kinda person, you can use either the Comixology
or the DC Comics apps.
I got A Wolf Among Us
on Steam for $14.99. In the most literal and figurative of terms, it is
fantastic.
The Wine Side
– Monte Antico Toscana 2014
For me, Italian wines weren’t really a thing. Sure I drank Italian wines at Italian restaurants (with my
Nebraska upbringing sometimes referred to as EYE-tal-ian) but it was usually in
the summertime and we’d crack open the bottle on the table that had the wicker
basket on the bottom and it was generally…serviceable? Probably would have been
better if the wine hadn’t been quite so warm for quite so long, but most meals
at Italian restaurants in Nebraska for me were more about the company and the
food than the vino.
Later I would come to learn that that particular wine was Chianti.
And for me, since it was my ONLY experience with Italian wine, I thought THAT’S
what Italian wine WAS and I didn’t really care for it.
I was young and stupid. Please be kind. I now know that Italy
has over 750 different varietals of grape. It would be akin to saying French
wine is only Burgundy or the only California wine is Cabernet Sauvignon.
But that was my (very naïve) starting point.
In a very real way, drinking Monte Antico was for this
episode was like going back in time. In one of the very earliest podcasts, I
mentioned “George’s Rule” that stated, “you should be able to find a very good
everyday wine for less than $10 a bottle.” Monte Antico was the first purchase
in observance of that rule!
Now going back to something I had put away as an artifact of
a previous version of myself has had decidedly mixed results. Many times I am
horrified.
Case in point, I used to LOVE the 1980 spoof of Sherlock
Holmes, The Private Eyes with Don
Knotts and Tim Conway. It was my absolute FAVORITE FILM. There were even
moments of comedy that I shared with my Dad, we had catchphrases and quotes
and everything! It transcended generations!
And then I thought, I should share this with my daughters!
It will be amazing!” My wife, very wisely says, “Maybe don’t buy it just yet.
Rent it and see if it still holds up.”
“Of course it will hold up!” I said. “It was brilliant. A
comedy for the ages!”
(SFX-- Film projector whirring up) “Oh No” (SFX--Film
projector flip-flapping)
…reporting back, dear listener…I know I’ve said this a lot
on the show, but I’m really glad I listened to my wife.
It wasn’t everything that I’d remember it to be. Was I more
jaded? Was my sense of humor more sophisticated?
Well, “Yes”…and decidedly “maybe”…
From a very basic level, I know. People actively grow. But
the static piece of celluloid is locked in place forever.
Would this bottle of Monte Antico be The Private Eye of wine buys? (SFX-Audience cheers) Nailed the
dismount! (SFX Audience GASP)—4.5 from the East German judges! (How are there
still East German judges? That seems anachronistic yet strangely apropos of the current conversation!)
Anyway…
The wine itself consists, in some cases, of either 75%
Sangiovese or 85% Sangiovese with the 10% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Merlot at
least in the latter example, depending on the year. And how does that blend
taste?
There are elements of tart cherries that may even tail off
towards the sour. After I tilted my head forward I noticed that my mount began
to water like crazy. The alcohol content can be anywhere from 12.5 to 13%
depending on year and the alcohol will typically dry the mouth. So the
mouthwatering-ness I’m going to take as high acidity. The scents are pretty
wonderful, too. There is a tobacco quality that puts me mentally right in the
middle of a library with overstuffed leather chairs.
I try to think of the blend as being a bit like this. We all
have those acquaintances that we don’t dislike exactly, but they are suffice it
to say NOT our favorite people. But then when you add in one friend, that other
friend, that “X-factor” all of a sudden the combination isn’t so bad. You begin
to see that the “meh” friend has nice qualities that, when not experienced in
isolation, are actually kind of nice. This is my experience with Monte Antico.
First sips told me that there was something bold in there
but it was subdued in its expression. There is the essence of the Cabernet
Sauvignon and the hint of the Merlot but most of this was being moderated by
something else. And their name is Sangiovese! Such a pleasure! You really help
to balance out those friends Merlot and Cab Sav who are…a lot to be honest. And yes I call him Cab Sav, because we go all the
way back to the beginning together. There was a time in my 20’s when I thought
that if one was drinking wine it had to be a SINGLE varietal or ya know it
wasn’t REAL. Blends were just some vintner’s slush buckets bottled for the
knuckle-dragging troglodytes…
OH, MY GOD! HOW WAS I EVER LIKE THIS?!
A quick note to anyone who ever called me “friend” in my
youth: Thank you for your patience. And thank you for not giving me head trauma
for all the slaps up-side the head I desperately NEEDED but was not given.
I’m better now…I think. And wait, if Cabernet Sauvignon is
Cab Sav shouldn’t Merlot be “Merle” and Sangiovese be “Joe?”
Shakes head Etch-a-sketch
style to clear the metaphor.
Ah, also this is a screw-top wine. So no chance of getting a
corked bottle. But also not a real opportunity to age the wine either. It is
soooo nice to simply screw the cap back on at the end of the evening instead of
fiddling with the cork or trying to find the pump thingee to get all the air
out of previously opened bottles.
I also think I need to share how I experienced this wine. I
think many people think that when you drink wine: you pour, you sniff, you sip
then you make your recommendation on a 100-point scale. But for me it just ain’t
so. I can never seem to retain the finer points of a wine, so I buy multiple
bottles. I started with four bottles of the Monte Antico. And after thinking
and writing about this wine I thought I had this section done. But no. Ideas
kept coming to me. So I had to go back and drink the wine again. I have now
been living with this wine for about a month-and-a-half. I know I write slowly.
But I wanted to get this just right. The idea that I had this wine that I had so much history with seemed
unconscionable to me!
Final note of interest! The basket at the bottom of a Chianti
is called a fiasco. I know! How cool. If I ever review Bully Pulpit’s zero-prep
role-playing game Fiasco it’s gotta
be with a bomb-diggity Chianti!
I found Monte Antico Toscana for $9.33 at Wine Library (winelibrary.com)
but I bought mine at Littleton’s One-Stop Liquors for $9.99 because I evidently
don’t know how money works.
But also “The George Rule” was followed. Achievement
Unlocked! (SFX--Sparkly sound)
Audio goodness
– Sly
Flourish’s The Lazy Dungeon Master
This title was a bit of a comeback for me. I had been out of
the audiobook biz for a year with no releases in 2015. My wife had decided to
change companies and that meant that we needed to switch places for a bit as
far as who was at home and who was out-and-about. I needed to go back to the
classroom to teach theatre and she would be at home holding down the fort and
job searching, giving her the time she needed. And spoilers ahead…yes, this was
when we moved to Massachusetts.
When I first read Sly
Flourish’s The Lazy Dungeon Master is was out of need. I had done a few
games over at my house in Colorado and I think I had even been game master of
one of them--Feng Shui a Hong Kong
action game by master game designer Robin D. Laws. The rules system for this
game was very loose and I was always the kind of game master that had no
problem leaning heavily on another player at the table to tell me if I had
arbitrated a rule correctly or if I needed to be more by the book. I knew I
would be coming up in the rotation as Dungeon Master or more generically Game
Master and figured I should read something that could make my life easier and Sly Flourish’s The Lazy Dungeon Master
seemed to be the ticket. Also even though I was teaching full time and running
theatrical productions, I still yearned to get in my recording space and make
audiobooks.
The Lazy DM was a slim
volume and seemed possible. I also think that because I was currently in
“teacher mode” the idea of narrating a book that was teaching Dungeon Masters
to be better was right in my wheelhouse.
But there was just no way to do it while teaching,
directing, tech directing and managing the theatre space.
The big move happened and that meant finding a new recording
space. While looking for houses in central Massachusetts I felt like a weirdo
of a house shopper. I’d walk through and listen for traffic, how loud the air
conditioner was, whether there was a basement (earth is a great sound
absorber!)
Ultimately, we found a nice place that had the perfect
little room in the basement. My wife even had a plan as to how to make it even
quieter.
Fast forward a few months (because moving your household
2,000 miles away and getting back into it after a year is hard) and I was ready
to go. In October I sent Mike, the author, a sample and by the end of the month, we were off to the races.
The downside though was that my usual collaborator Sue,
wasn’t available to help me with editing or QA, (quality assurance)--basically
making sure that the words that were on the page were the same ones coming out
of my mouth. It’s not something you can take for granted either. If you’ve ever
been reading before going to bed at night and suddenly realized that you’d read
4 pages and had no idea what was going on, you begin to see the problem. Only,
in this case, your inattention is going to potentially be heard by the world.
Typical problems are stumbles on unintentional tongue twisters, accidentally
making things plural or singular when it should have been the other, skipping
lines of text, because the eye just traveled over them without reading them and
generally mispronouncing words. Really, that last bit is of special
significance because in games with a fantasy setting there may be words that
you have only ever read but never heard aloud. One such example is the name of
the dark elves in Dungeons & Dragons’
Forgotten Realms. D-R-O-W pronounced Drow (like cow) instead of Drow (like
row). There is some debate on this but luckily hardcore fans are terribly easy
going when it comes to details….guffaw Bwah haha. So, yeah you MUST get it
right.
I did have one small misgiving about The Lazy DM from a geek standpoint. This book was leaning toward
Dungeons & Dragons version 3.5, and for me, it was the version with which I
was least familiar. So while the elements of the book that had to do with game
mastering in general were very familiar to me, 3.5 wasn’t my jam. I would still
play it, mind you, if it came up at a table I was at, but I had to lean heavily on people who knew the rules,
tables and modifiers better than I did and just concentrate on my character
role-playing.
It just so happened that as I was working on this audiobook
I was also looking for a role-playing group. I mentioned in a previous episode
that I didn’t think I’d be able to call a place “home” without one. After
looking for a few months and posting on a few online forums I found a group
that was about a 40- minute drive from my house. They played from 7:30 to 10:30
on Thursdays and would I like to join?
I did the math (adding machine SFX) 40 minutes there, 40
minutes back put that number in red. 180 minutes put that in black. 100 minutes
to the positive. Good to go!
We started playing Trail
of Cthulhu, an updated, streamlined version of RPG classic Call of Cthulhu and it was really fun.
We played in an extra room of an office building that one of our players rented
space in.
Starting off, this looked to be a single GM, game. I’ve
played in single GM campaigns before and while I love them for the joy and ease
they bring to my life (it literally is just show up and play), I know that for
the Game Master it is a LOT of work! So, a couple of months in, I offered to
game master Feng Shui. I wanted my new friend Andy to have that chance to play and
enjoy the game too. Side note Robin Laws not only wrote Feng Shui, he also
helped design Trail of Chtulhu.
It had been a while though and I felt insecure. So I
listened to the book I had just recorded and used it to train myself to be a
better GM. It was really cool.
Not a big thing…just, ya know, full disclosure.
All told Mike and I had a great experience putting together Sly Flourish’s The Lazy Dungeon Master.
After the audiobook was released Mike was a wonderful promoter even landing us
a spot on The Tome Show podcast as
guests to talk about it. I’ll leave an address in the written blog over at
Geekery and Wine dot blogspot dot com.
It is ever so slightly hilarious too. I am on this show
talking about game mastering with two people who write for games
professionally. They will calmly be talking about the finer points of game
construction and I enthusiastically jump in from time to time and give the
noob’s opinion. But when we talk about audiobooks…then I seem like I know what
I’m talking about.
Ya know, I think all of the joy that went into making is
audiobook why it is still one of my best-selling titles.
Find Sly Flourish’s
The Lazy Dungeon Master at Audible.com, iTunes and Amazon.
One last bit of news: the sequel, Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master was recently named
a finalist for the 2019 ENnie awards in the category of Best Electronic Book.
So, fingers crossed for good things to happen in Indianapolis this August!
Well, friends that is the 12th edition of our case. And I
have to say I’ve really loved chatting with you about elements and artifacts of
geek culture, wine and the creation of audiobooks.
The next step for this collection of podcasts will be to
take wing as an audiobook. Over the next couple of months I will combine all of
the podcasts and add “palate cleansers,” short essays and fiction in between that
should make for a really fun listen. A great way to support this podcast is
snag Geekery and Wine: The First Case when it comes out on Audible and iTunes,
so stay tuned!
Special thanks to Steven Jay Cohen who, after I had told
him, “Ya know, if I wrote a podcast…” kindly replied. “I’d like to hear that.”
So until next time…
My Geeks
My Nerds
My dear, dear friends
Adieu
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