Four Score and a Gen Con Ago

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

This is a true story.*

We Paizonians have a tradition: every year at Gen Con we invent something. One year we invented Titanic Games. Another year we invented Pathfinder. Yet another year we invented trans-hyperdimensional quasiphasic proton pillows (patent pending). Last year, quite by accident, we invented Yetisburg.

The gathered Paizo editorial staff (Erik Mona, James Jacobs, Jason Bulmahn, F. Wesley Schneider, Jeremy Walker) and myself were playing rugby in the lobby of the incredibly expensive Burg de Yeti hotel in downtown Indianapolis. It was just after the second scrum when Jason threw his head back and howled, charging the ball carrier (Wes) with a vicious fervor that only a man as imposing as Jason can muster. One might say that, with his towering height and rampaging facial hair, he looked rather... yeti-like.

Wes, not wanting to be run over, retreated back behind his line and started rallying his team, pushing them toward the beastly Jason Bulmahn while shouting, "Don't be afraid of him! He's only seven feet tall!" Wes's teammates, Jeremy and James, took to Wes's orders like crows to a battlefield and started flinging all manner of object at Jason: silverware, bowling pins, a circa 1863 cannon ball, and one very angry muskrat. These distractions caused the hulking Bulmahn to pause just long enough for an errant Russian teapot to clonk him upside the head. He went down like a telephone pole, crashing terribly to earth and taking myself and the rest of our team with him.

As I struggled to extract myself from the pile of collapsed bodies, it hit me: this could be a game! It could be about our famous rugby match in the Burg de Yeti! And Jason would be represented as a yeti, with Wes as a famous rugby general and the rest of the guys as teams of brothers fighting against each other. Most importantly, I would need someone at least half as crazy as me to help me design it—Mike Selinker!

Yet another Gen Con. Yet another invention.

That's exactly how it happened. If anyone says that, as the Paizonians gathered for dinner one night, a very tired James Jacobs incorrectly heard an equally tired Erik Mona and then blurted out an incredulous "Yetisburg!?" in response, thus causing an idea I couldn't get out of my head, prompting me to tell Mike Selinker, and the two of us deciding we had to make this game—well, they're probably lying.

And that's the truth.

*Not a guarantee

Joshua J. Frost
Yetisburg Co-Designer
Director of Sales & Marketing

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Tags: Conventions Gen Con Titanic Games Yetisburg
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