[music playing] wil wheaton: most of the time,we're playing games to escape the real world. but some games are so much fun,we play them even though the game world is so muchscarier than the one we are hoping to leave behind. a game where the players arethe only thing that stands between life and a horrible,shivering, puking, bleeding, and miserable death.
today on tabletop, my friends,robert gifford, ed brubaker, and morgan webb are here for agame that we don't so much play, as desperatelyhope to survive. wash your hands and put on aface mask because we are the world's last, best hopeto stop a pandemic. wil wheaton: pandemic is acooperative game where we all work together as members of adisease-fighting team that is headquartered in atlanta,georgia. and we're not the team you'rethinking of, unless you're
thinking of a team i just madeup that lives together in a van in a parking lot acrossthe street from the cdc. our goal is to travel around theworld, treating localized outbreaks and epidemics toprevent them from joining together into a globalpandemic. huh? see? it's not just a clever name. it actually describesthe game.
each turn, we will performfour actions. basic actions, like movingaround the board and treating disease. or special actions, likediscovering a cure, or using a player's special,unique ability. then we will draw cards fromthis deck that should help us, and find out where the diseaseis spreading next. now, there are many new ways tolose in pandemic, but only one way to win, and that is byeradicating all four diseases.
remember that deck i saidshould help us? that deck contains the mostdangerous, awful cards in the entire game-- epidemic cards. these tell us where epidemicshave happened, which can lead to outbreaks that will spreadaround the globe, leading to our inevitable defeat. pandemic is incrediblyintense. it's exciting.
it's unbelievably difficult. but i've had more fun losingthis game that i have had winning a lot of others. now we will find out if we wintogether, or if the entire world dies. because it is timeto play pandemic. morgan webb: my name is morganwebb, and i host a tv show on g4 tv, and it's called"x-play." robert gifford: my name isrobert gifford, and i own the
company, geek chic. and we make geek furniture andaccessories for geek living. ed brubaker: my name is edbrubaker, and i am a comic book writer and screenwriter. i write for marvel comics. i write "captain america" forthe last seven or eight years. and i wrote the famous death ofcaptain america story line a few years back. wil wheaton: in the officialrules of pandemic, the person
who goes first is the personwho was most recently sick, which for our purposes, i think,is a little pedestrian. sorry, matt. love you, but i havea better idea. who has had the most outrageous,crazy disease? like who's had like theworst sickness? i'm pretty sure i'mgoing to go first. so i'll just go ahead. i will tell you what mine is,and then we'll just sort of go
around the table. ok? in 2009, at pax prime inseattle, i got the swine flu. ed brubaker: oh, yeah. i was there. wil wheaton: i had theswine flu, and influenza b the same time. for two weeks, i hada temperature in excess of 100 degrees.
and i have something to sayto foreigner, by the way. you're [bleep] liars. when you have a fever of 103,the last thing you want to do is get on with somebody. what you want to do is die. foreigner is full of [bleep]. they are liars. robert gifford: ergo, proven.
wil wheaton: yes, proven. science. morgan webb: i was going to gowith the fact that i had a temperature so high that i hadto go to the hospital. and they kept me overnight. wil wheaton: oh, that'spretty good. what was your temperature? morgan webb: but itwas only one day. wil wheaton: well, whatwas the temperature?
morgan webb: it was like 103,but it kept going up. and then i had to get an iv. and then they're like, you'renot going anywhere. wil wheaton: and the lastthing you wanted to do-- morgan webb: becausei was a little-- wil wheaton: and the last thingyou wanted to do was do it in the hospital. right? morgan webb: no.
i wanted to lay there with theblanket over my head-- wil wheaton: right, and die. morgan webb: 17 blankets, andwarm blankets, because i thought i was going tofreeze to death. wil wheaton: yeah. morgan webb: which is sortof strange and ironic. wil wheaton: ok. fever in the hospital. that's pretty gnarly.
morgan webb: it was veryrecent, though. wil wheaton: sickfor a long time. morgan webb: that wastwo weeks ago. ed brubaker: oh, my god. wil wheaton: holy crap. ed brubaker: that was recent. did you ever find outwhose coke that was? robert gifford: don'tdrink that coke. morgan webb: yeah.
we were sitting around in myroom, drinking this soda happily, and then i realized idon't know whose soda that is. nothing will make you paranoidabout disease quite like playing pandemic. ok. robert? robert gifford: i actually alsoacquired the h1 nerd one virus from pax. morgan webb: actually,i got that as well.
and remember-- i don't know if you rememberon the pax website, they tracked the flight thatit came in on. and then they tracked all theflights that it came out on. and of course, i was on oneof those outgoing flights. wil wheaton: i was on one of theoutgoing flights, as well. so we all got the pax flu? really? robert gifford: absolutely.
wil wheaton: you were there,but you didn't get it. ed brubaker: i was at pax thatyear, and rich, my friend rich, who works at nintendosaid, a lot of people are getting sick. and so rich and i walkedaround with our hands in our pockets-- wil wheaton: witch! ed brubaker: --andlooked at things. yeah, witch.
so you also got h1n1. ed brubaker: but i-- robert gifford: that's right. ed brubaker: --in 1990, hadrepetitive strep throat for six months, where i would besick with strep throat, and i would go to the hospital, to theemergency room, and they would give me medication. and i would get better for liketwo weeks, and then i would be sick again.
morgan webb: you were breedinga super strain. ed brubaker: i was totallybreeding a super strain of strep throat. wil wheaton: oh, my god, youare a mad scientist. ed brubaker: it was whenjim henson like died at the same time. i remember reading his obitwhile i was in the emergency room waiting to be seen forlike, the ninth time. my friends, and my girlfriendat the time, like totally
didn't believe i was sickanymore, because i just kept being like, oh, i'm dragging. and so i woke up one day, andmy left ear drum had burst. i was like, bleeding allover the pillow. morgan webb: can that happen? ed brubaker: so i ran to theemergency room, and they were like, oh, we haven't beengiving you strong enough medication. and then they gave me likesuper strong medication.
morgan webb: yeah, they'relike, yeah, this is cool. don't worry about it. this is fine. ed brubaker: it went away. but for like four years afterthat, any time my throat felt sore, i'm like, oh, god. i'm getting it again. wil wheaton: i thinkyou go first. robert gifford: winner.
winner. i think ed goes first. morgan webb: didyour ear bleed? ed brubaker: it was. it bled, and i have problemswith hearing in that ear now. morgan webb: oh, i'm sorry. this is not as funny anymore. ed brubaker: that's ok. what was great, though, when iwoke up, i had my girlfriend,
who had been like,you're not sick. it was like, oh, my god! your ear is bleeding! so it was like, yes. wil wheaton: ok, you go first. ed brubaker: i win. morgan webb: all right. wil wheaton: you winat almost dying. ed brubaker: but i like that youguys-- but it also makes
sense, because you guysall got the exact same flu, and i didn't. that's another good reasonyou can go first. all right. so normally, when we playpandemic, at this point in the game, we would sort of drawsome cards, and figure out where the infectionis on the board. but you don't wantto watch that. so we did that beforewe all sat down.
so the initial big infectioncities, it looks like it's miami, london, st. petersburg. and then there's some otherlittle things sort of around the globe. we should talk about ourroles real quick. i'm the scientist. ed's the researcher. robert is the dispatcher,and morgan is the medic. morgan webb: i'm the healer.
wil wheaton: yep, that's nice. you're the cleric. morgan webb: i neverplay a healer. ed brubaker: so we should takethe green pawn away. oh, yeah. that's right. yeah. go away. you should not beon the board.
ed brubaker: i love thatthey're called pawns, by the way. morgan webb: oh, jeez. wil wheaton: pandemic wins! robert gifford: we all die. wil wheaton: all right. we'll put the greenguy back there. robert gifford: i'm so ocdi just had to fix it. wil wheaton: so we are allstarting out in atlanta.
ed, you're up. so you got four actions. how would you liketo spend them? ed brubaker: i will-- does it matter-- no, it doesn't matter if i havethe card if i go to the city, if i can walk to it. wil wheaton: right. ed brubaker: ok.
wil wheaton: so like youcan walk to miami. ed brubaker: i canwalk to miami. robert gifford: drive. take a bus. robert gifford: with alot of other guys. wil wheaton: you could ride ona donkey if you wanted to. ed brubaker: all right. i'm going to go here, and-- how many of thesecan i take away?
wil wheaton: you can take one. ed brubaker: one foreach action? morgan webb: yes. wil wheaton: two, three, four. you take away all three ofthem if you want to. ed brubaker: i can takeaway all three. morgan and i, i guess,had both not played the game before. will and robert both have playedthis game so many times
apparently. wil wheaton: the fact that thevery experienced players and the brand new players are allworking together so well illustrates why i lovecooperative games. ed brubaker: all right,i have cured miami. wil wheaton: congratulations. ed brubaker: well,not really cured. ed brubaker: but i kindof wiped out. morgan webb: you'rea hero among men.
wil wheaton: you just sort ofwent there and sprayed a bunch of disinfectant on things. ed brubaker: yeah. i'm like, no zombiescoming here. morgan webb: it's like puttingsigns up in the bathroom saying please wash your hands. ed brubaker: basically, i'm aresearcher, and i would like to tell you that you needto wash your hands. morgan webb: i'm goingto install
hand sanitizer stations. ed brubaker: yeah, everywhere. morgan webb: um-hmm. so let's look at cardsand see what you get. you've got-- morgan webb: ooh. wil wheaton: ohh. a good card. a special event.
wil wheaton: basically, you canplay it when you want to. ed brubaker: oh, ican save this. wil wheaton: and it lets youdo the same thing that the dispatcher does. so i will save this untilwe need it then, right? and then i get a second card. wil wheaton: and then yoursecond card is bogota. ed brubaker: ooh. and i get to--
wil wheaton: go aheadand take that. ed brubaker: and iget to keep that. wil wheaton: awesome. ed brubaker: and ican eventually trade these with you-- ed brubaker: --when i haveenough of the right color. we are theoretically halfwayto curing yellow. robert gifford: right. morgan webb: [inaudible]going to pop up again?
wil wheaton: and now let'sfind out where the infection spreads. morgan, you want to puta blue in new york? morgan webb: i don't really. i will put a black in-- ed brubaker: infection around. wil wheaton: --kolcata, whichi believe is here. this game really messes withmy knowledge of geography. it's only two.
robert gifford: yeah. that's it just two right now. ed brubaker: yeah, because thethings are not where the cities are. wil wheaton: every timewe play, i do that. ok, all right. so the first turn is over. robert. you're up.
robert gifford: ok. so i'm a dispatcher, so i canmove other people around, which seems like a good idea. wil wheaton: yep. robert gifford: so i think i'mgoing to just launch morgan out to london. i was going to say you shouldbe shipping morgan all over the world. robert gifford: my role, i'mjust kind of putting people
where they need to go. i'm the dispatcher, and ifly people to locations they need to be in. wil wheaton: we have a reallygood combination with the dispatcher and medic. robert is able to get morganwhere she needs to be, and we can get a lot of stuffdown pretty quickly. [interposing voices] ed brubaker: yeah, it's almostabout to outbreak.
wil wheaton: just stand on thedisease and make it feel bad. robert gifford: and then i guessi'll just start moving the other direction andsee if i can get to a useful place in asia. one, two. ed brubaker: oh, goingaround the horn. morgan webb: i like it. wil wheaton: you can eithergo to tokyo, or milan. robert gifford: yeah,to tokyo, let's say.
wil wheaton: ok, i'llput you in tokyo. ed brubaker: there you go. watch out. robert gifford: i thinkthat's my last action. robert gifford: yep. i think that's it. morgan webb: you're standingon the tiny disease pile. robert gifford: i'm done. ed brubaker: yeah, the[inaudible] disease pile.
so let's see whatcards you get. jakarta and algiers. morgan webb: with every cardturn, i'm incredibly nervous. wil wheaton: i know. and the thing is, thatinevitably an epidemic comes up, and then you just think,did we get that like improbable shuffle where thenext epidemic is immediately underneath it? oh, and for everyone watchingat home, if you have played
pandemic before, you can set thedifficulty of pandemic by how many epidemic cardsyou put into the deck. you could play like on sort ofan easy level, where there's two or three epidemics. you can play all the way up tothe legendary level, where there are six epidemic cardsin the "it's going to help you" deck. morgan webb: and that'swhat we're playing on. wil wheaton: legendary.
wil wheaton: yes, yeah. so if we lose-- morgan webb: this is a verybrave man, right here. wil wheaton: yeah, but if welose, ah well, we're playing on legendary. but if we win, we wereplaying on legendary. ed brubaker: will informedus we were playing on legendary status. so i guess that's really bad.
robert gifford: there'sgoing to be a riot. i'm going to flip a car. wil wheaton: well, you'rein los angeles. that's what we do when we win. robert gifford: that'smy understanding. ed brubaker: after we get pastthe 6th one, there's like a lord humongous card inthere somewhere. wil wheaton: yeah, he justcomes climbing out. ok, so we're spreadinginfection now, right?
robert gifford: we're doomed. so ed, why don't you puta red on seoul here. robert gifford: all right. ed brubaker: i like thatthey're above the city. it's like they're hoveringin the atmosphere. wil wheaton: robert,infect santiago. ed brubaker: looking for a goodrain to bring it down. wil wheaton: morgan,you're up. morgan webb: i'm so excited.
ok, so for my first action,we're going to clear london. wil wheaton: morgan's specialability as the medic is that she can clear all the cubes ofthe disease out of the city. morgan webb: i'mpretty awesome. wil wheaton: yeah,in one action. morgan webb: so mysecond action. wil wheaton: two, ok. morgan webb: my third action. and then my fourth action.
wow. wil wheaton: wow. that's great. we're totally going to win. wil wheaton: that's awesome. morgan webb: fortunately, i'mplaying as the medic. this is more of the healer,the support character. so they are able to moveme a lot of places. and then i just kindof pick up disease.
i feel like i'm helping. i feel like i'm being awesome. so morgan, you get manila. ed brubaker: oh, manila. morgan webb: very nice. wil wheaton: there you go. and you get epidemic! ed brubaker: oh, come on. morgan.
morgan webb: it wasnot my fault. morgan webb: the cardswere against me. robert gifford: you gavethem the coke. ed brubaker: you gave them thecoke-- the haunted coke. wil wheaton: the first thingyou do is you move the infection rate indicatorup by one thing. now, we infect. this is a great mechanic. this is one of the absolutelyamazing, wonderful things
about this game. morgan webb: and by great,you mean terrible? wil wheaton: no. i mean it's terrific. we go into the infection deck. robert gifford: greatto terrible. ed brubaker: only ifyou want to win. wil wheaton: every city in thegame is represented one time in this infection deck.
so we go to the infectiondeck. we take the bottom card offthe infection deck. and then we find out thatthis disease will now spread in beijing. so put three cubes-- ed brubaker: oh, that one. wil wheaton: --on beijing. sorry. that's right, my bad.
good catch. and let's find out wherethe second card goes. ed brubaker: this one. this one. wil wheaton: oh, right. it's the infectionrate is two. robert gifford: the infectionrate is two. wil wheaton: i really haveplayed this game a lot. every time.
now, what we do is a stepcalled intensify. this is where we takethe discard pile-- ed brubaker: intensify. wil wheaton: we shuffle thediscard pile around. morgan webb: fine, itis a good mechanic. whatever. wil wheaton: no, it's great. isn't this a supergreat mechanic? morgan webb: no,it is really--
a lot about this gameis really clever. ed brubaker: it's totallyfunny when it's not happening to you. morgan webb: right. wil wheaton: so let's-- morgan webb: exactly. if we were watching other peopleplay this game, i'd be like, ha, ha. ed brubaker: that is the bestmechanic i've ever seen for a
game i'm totally not playing. it's not tense at all. are we satisfied with myshuffling of these? that was-- wil wheaton: of these cards? robert gifford: only oncewe see the results. wil wheaton: there'snot a lot of cards. wil wheaton: thesego back here. ed brubaker: oh, no.
wil wheaton: and that is-- ed brubaker: oh, so places thathave already been sick, they get sick again. wil wheaton: but now-- morgan webb: there's only17 more of them there. wil wheaton: now we spreadthe infection. but look, you're close enoughto touch those cards. so why don't you go aheadand spread the infection, and it's on you.
so-- morgan webb: that'smy good luck. wil wheaton: mexico city. ed brubaker: mexico city. wil wheaton: so i'll put onecube on mexico city, which now has two. morgan webb: i don't know whyi'm looking for good luck. there are no good cards. wil wheaton: you're lookingfor not beijing.
there's no-- looking for not beijing. morgan webb: new york. ed brubaker: new york. that's all right. and that's the end of-- morgan webb: we don'tneed new york. they think they're so great,but they're not. wil wheaton: that's theend of the first turn.
now it is me. i am the scientist. the scientist's special abilityis that i only need four cards of the same color tocure disease instead of the usual five. morgan webb: you think you'repretty cool, don't you? wil wheaton: so-- i'm glad that i can be-- i'm just trying to help.
ed brubaker: so if you getfour like blues, then you remove all the bluesfrom the-- wil wheaton: if i get four bluesand go to a research station, then i turnthose in, and we've cured the blue disease. and then the blue diseasebehaves the same as-- then we can all treat the bluedisease the same way morgan can treat any disease. ed brubaker: oh.
oh, awesome. ed brubaker: so we stillhave to wipe it out after we have the cure. awesome. wil wheaton: we don'thave a super duper, duper hot zone yet. i mean that's kindof not awesome. ed brubaker: that'sgetting ugly. wil wheaton: so i'm thinkingthat i might
go one, two, three-- i can either move overhere, or i could move one space to ed. you could only give me cardson your turn, though. your turn is next. i can go to see you, and thenyou could give me bogota and los angeles. robert gifford: yes. wil wheaton: and then i'm likehalfway to a yellow cure.
what do we think about that? robert gifford: sure. ed brubaker: is ittoo soon to cure? or do we want to cure asquickly as possible? wil wheaton: oh, no. you always want tocure right away. but what i could do-- morgan webb: people aredying, man, come on. wil wheaton: --one,two, three, four.
morgan webb: peopleneed a cure. ed brubaker: that's true. wil wheaton: i could go one,two, treat is three, and then miami is four. that sounds-- wil wheaton: or i could go one--you can go back to the same city, right? absolutely. wil wheaton: so i could go one,two, three-- oh, it's the
same thing. so i'm going to go to chicago. i'm going to say hello to myfriends who live there. what's up, [inaudible]? morgan webb: hi guys. wil wheaton: good to see you. then we go to mexico city. robert gifford: are yougoing to say hello to your friends there?
wil wheaton: like seriouslyyou guys. wash your freaking hands. i'm going to go there. and then i'm goingto come to miami. morgan webb: we actually triedto make a strategy for this game when we first started. we thought that we were goingto cure the yellow disease. wil wheaton: and then youcan give me cards-- ed brubaker: oh, all right.
wil wheaton: --on your turn. unless something catastrophichappens now. ed brubaker: oh, yeah,which is-- so i'm going to drawa card here. shanghai. ed brubaker: shanghai. that's good. wil wheaton: come on. how about a yellow card?
cairo. ed brubaker: cairo. we're ok though. that is not a bad card. wil wheaton: so now we're goingto go ahead and spread the infection. kolkata. ed brubaker: is kolkatacalcutta? wil wheaton: it might be.
wil wheaton: i don't know. that's nobody's businessbut the turks. [laughter] robert gifford: that's good. wil wheaton: a littlethey might be giants on the broadcast. wil wheaton: miami. morgan webb: you're goingto have to pay for that song, you know that.
ed brubaker: i justfixed that place. wil wheaton: well, apparentlysomeone didn't use the hand sanitizer. ed brubaker: we alreadyfixed that place. ed brubaker: what the hell? wil wheaton: so that'sthe end of my turn. so ed, it's up to you. ed brubaker: one thing i reallylike about this game, it totally reminds me-- it'stotally different mechanic,
but it reminds me of that lordof the rings game where you play against the board. it's-- ed brubaker: i like games whereyou play instead of-- because i get fairly competitivein games. morgan webb: it is a nice changeof pace, because you know a lot of people are playingsettlers of catan these days, and people getincredibly competitive, and sometimes it becomes alittle bit less fun.
robert gifford: giveme your sheep. i'm serious. give you your sheep. i'm not kidding around, now. morgan webb: 17 sheepfor your wool. 18 sheep for your wool. i hate you, man. robert gifford: i hate you. morgan webb: i will neverhelp you again.
wil wheaton: i will stabyou in the face if you don't give me lumber. robert gifford: lumber! wil wheaton: i'm noteven joking. all right, all right. easy, easy. you're up, ed. ed brubaker: so iam going to-- does this count as an actionwhen i give you stuff, or is
it just part of my character? wil wheaton: i believethat is-- share knowledge is an action. wil wheaton: so that wouldbe two actions for you. ed brubaker: one action. robert gifford: two actions. ed brubaker: so i'm goingto share those-- wil wheaton: that'stwo actions. robert gifford: did you hearabout these places?
wil wheaton: two, three,four, five, six. i am one card away frommy hand limit. that's important. ed brubaker: fromyou hand limit. don't go over your hand limit. and then i'm goingto cure this-- wil wheaton: that's three. ed brubaker: --other outbreakand be like, dude. i just fixed you.
and then i will go-- wait. that was three? wil wheaton: yeah, becausethis is two actions. ed brubaker: oh, that'stwo actions? robert gifford: um-hmm. wil wheaton: and i know thedirector is going to tell you to sit down and asked robertto move you, because you're going to stand upout of the shot.
ed brubaker: yes. robert gifford: i'm happyto move you, sir. ed brubaker: --what i wouldlike is for my guy to move down to-- is that bogota? or where? let's go down there and beprepared to cure them. robert gifford: i'm movingthe wrong piece. ed brubaker: i am theresearcher, so i can go to
anywhere, anyone else's, andjust give them my cards. we thought, oh, yellowlooks like it's going to really take over. and we all were startingto move towards that. and so now, we're goingto go and do this. you got a lagos card. and then i got istanbul. wil wheaton: that's also-- ed brubaker: come on.
wil wheaton: [humming"istanbul (not constantinople)"] ed brubaker: i think someone'sgoing to have to do a theme song. wil wheaton: then let's spreadthe infection now. london. morgan, thank you for treatinglondon so we don't get an outbreak. tokyo.
ed brubaker: tokyo is gettingin some trouble. no, it's just two. morgan webb: i don't like it. i don't like what's goingon over there. ed brubaker: yeah,i don't like it. and everybody there is walkingaround with those masks on. morgan webb: i know they are. ed brubaker: like now. where there isn't evenan outbreak.
robert gifford: pre-outbreak. wil wheaton: clearly, itindicates that those masks don't work. morgan webb: you wear themwhen you're sick. morgan webb: you don'twear them to prevent disease for yourself. ed brubaker: oh, isthat what it is? morgan webb: because they'reso polite there. they don't want to getanyone else sick.
but i get it. like when i'm really sick, ifeel like i want to walk around with one of the things. because you just feellike you're dripping disease off you. ed brubaker: have you everput one on, though? ed brubaker: to likego outside ever? like during the wholeswine flu epidemic? morgan webb:i would in japan,but i would not do it here.
ed brubaker: yeah, in japan. morgan webb: i woulddo it in japan. ed brubaker: it's fashionablethere. morgan webb: becauseit's cool. i'd get one of the louisvuitton ones. wil wheaton: one time i put onone of those because i was painting my house, andi was like, i want to draw face on it. so i grab like a sharpie,and i drew like a big
marky face on it. wil wheaton: and then i put iton, and i was like painting. and i feel weird, you guys. because it was just so stupid. i was like basicallyhuffing sharpie. and i didn't know until it waslike, i'm going to go lie down for a while. no, i'll leave the mask on. can somebody put on "darkside of the moon"?
robert gifford: so i guess ineed to figure out what we're going to do here. there's kind of a good thingwhere i can bring you to the best, the most diseasedportion of the world. ed brubaker: so i'm kind ofthinking that's a good idea to keep doing that, to bring you tothe locations that we need. ed brubaker: and wil is reallyclose to me, so i can give him lagos. i could just walkyou on my turn.
robert gifford: well actually,i could do nothing. i could move my pawn to-- is it beijing? beijing is looking bad. robert gifford: so i moveone, two to beijing. robert gifford: so if someonecould move me to-- that's two actions, togo to beijing, right? one, two to beijing. robert gifford: and then iwill bring morgan to me--
robert gifford: --in beijing. that's action number three. morgan webb: i love movingwhen it's not my turn. that's fantastic. robert gifford: the fourthaction, i'm going actually just unify the two of youin a location, as well. so there's no wastedaction for walking. so i'll take white andmove it to brown. ed brubaker: oh, okay.
wil wheaton: oh, thatis super smart. morgan webb: thank god. robert gifford: that'swhat i'm-- i'm just like a glorifiedflight-- air traffic controller. listen. ed brubaker: you'repushing it. robert gifford: i'm goingto need you in algiers, all right?
that's all i'm doing. wil wheaton: it's like a packagedelivery service guy. pretty cool. wil wheaton: you're likethat fast talking guy from the '80s. i'm going to need youto go to beijing. now i need you to come overfrom st. petersberg to beijing, and we're going to godown to bogota, and then you're going to goto bogota, too.
and we're going tobe there soon. and everybody make sureto wash you hands. ed brubaker: you sound likejennifer jason leigh in "the hudsucker proxy." wil wheaton: on purpose. robert gifford: so-- wil wheaton: that's myinternal dialogue. robert gifford: i drawtheoretically good cards. you're going to draw somecards now, see?
you have paris. morgan webb: oh, wait. not me? wil wheaton: not yet. no, these are good cards. morgan webb: i know, i'ma little trigger happy on the diseases. wil wheaton: and youhave in miami. ed brubaker: oh, and nowwe have more yellows.
robert gifford: indeed,more yellows are here. wil wheaton: and now thisis going to happen. wil wheaton: chennai in india,which is down here, right? ed brubaker: oh, man. morgan webb: that's too bad. ed brubaker: that'slooking bad. wil wheaton: that's not happy. and beijing. morgan webb: oh, no.
wil wheaton: guesswhat, everybody. that's an outbreak. wil wheaton: so, putone in seoul. put one in shanghai. and then we should be reallygrateful that that's all that happened with that outbreak,because it could have been so much more. it only connectsto two places. wil wheaton: now movethe outbreak up one.
remember, i said, there are alot of ways to lose this game. one of the ways to lose thisgame is if the outbreak indicator gets all the way up tothat little skull and cross bones, which is the universalsymbol for you just lost the game. morgan webb: yes, for bad, badthings are going to happen. ed brubaker: oh, i thoughtthat meant that we start playing a pirates game. robert gifford: well, yes.
this game is over. pirates game next. ed brubaker: by the way, don'tgo on land anymore. wil wheaton: pandemic a veryunpredictable game. the only thing that you canpredict, and be absolutely certain, is that when you thinkyou've got things under control, the wheels are going tofall off your little wagon of curing disease. robert gifford: thatwould be--
i am done. wil wheaton: that's theend of your turn. morgan, you're up. morgan webb: i think that myfirst action is fairly clear. i'm going to take you offthe disease pile. that's one action. morgan webb: so theni can do two. oh, unless you thinki want to start moving my way down there.
robert gifford: you can'tget there, and so-- so i should just-- ed brubaker: right. so you should go here and-- morgan webb: just cleanup what i can. ed brubaker: justclean up seoul. robert gifford: unless you havea card that will allow you to build a researchstation up here. wil wheaton: oh.
ed's got the airlift-- ed brubaker: boo-yah! wil wheaton: --but i think it'sa little early in the game to use it. robert gifford: it seemsa little early, yeah. i think so. morgan webb: and i'mdoing stuff. ed brubaker: un-boo-yah. robert gifford: de-boo-yah.
ed brubaker: can you takeback a boo-yah? morgan webb: end in tokyo, fornext time, just in case. good call. you want to draw your cards? one. wil wheaton: osaka. morgan webb: i'm startingto get some-- two more of thoseand you can-- ed brubaker: i like the gas maskon the wall back there.
wil wheaton: thank you. oh! the good one. so why don't you readwhat it says. morgan webb: i get to examinethe top six cards of the infection draw pile, rearrangethem in the order of your choice, then place themback on the pile. ed brubaker: oh, thatis amazing. wil wheaton: that isso super useful.
robert gifford: excellent. morgan webb: this is sucha beautiful card. morgan webb: i never knew icould love a card so much. ed brubaker: you've gone froma medic to basically like a tea reader. robert gifford: everybody gothappy, but there's still the part where we have to flipthose cards over. there is. morgan webb: oh.
ed brubaker: oh, wait. she doesn't get to dothat right now? morgan webb: i get to doit whenever i want. so she can do it now. morgan webb: and i'm going tolook to the guidance of the professionals-- morgan webb: --to tell me whenthey think that i should play this special, one of a kind-- robert gifford: generally,after a very terrible
epidemic has come. robert gifford: whenyou're terrified. wil wheaton: what you do isyou want to take that, and then sort of like rearrangethem so like if there was going to be an outbreak-- ed brubaker: so theydon't go anyplace that has three already. wil wheaton: so now whydon't you go ahead and spread the infection?
ed brubaker: spreadthe infection. wil wheaton: seoul. will you put a red oneon seoul, please ed? ed brubaker: i will. if i can find it. oh, there he is. it's so rude. morgan webb: i know. wil wheaton: it's likedisease is a dick.
morgan webb: then wehave santiago. robert gifford: allthe way down here. wil wheaton: all the way down. ed brubaker: does everybodystart to feel a little bit sick after they playthis game? robert gifford: santiago. ed brubaker: does everybodylike start feeling their glands. wil wheaton: yeah, after aparticularly good game.
morgan webb: i'd worry aboutmy ear, if i were you. wil wheaton: after aparticularly good game of pandemic, you realize how oftenyou touch things that other people have touchedduring the day. wil wheaton: and then yourealize how often you touch your face after you'vetouched other things. and then, you're living inthe howard hughes suite. i mean it's really kleenex-- robert gifford: kleenexboxes on the feet.
wil wheaton: --everywhere. ed brubaker: you mustdo this, too. you go to conventions, andyou meet everybody. they stand in line. it's like, you're not going tonot shake people's hands. wil wheaton: look. i just had to-- morgan webb: i actually-- i actually installedthe don't [bleep]
touch me rule after igot the swine flu. morgan webb: people are happyto be respectful of that. wil wheaton: they're reallygood about it. ed brubaker: now. morgan webb: because the thingis like, does that person whose hand i'm shaking want tobasically be shaking hands with every other person thati've shaken hands with? robert gifford: in fact,that's how you should introduce yourself.
hi, i'm a disease vector. you don't want this. but, i am a disease vector. i really am. ed brubaker: exactly. whenever everybody switched tothe fist bump a few years ago at conventions, i'dsee my friend. and i'm like, these peoplewaited in line two hours to get like your signature.
like, shake. so i'd shake their hands. morgan webb: to baskin my presence. ed brubaker: butyou do after-- wil wheaton: but then you getthe swine flu, and you're like, [bleep] you. morgan webb: you get anautograph and the swine flu, so it's not necessarily--
ed brubaker: yeah,that's true. morgan webb: it's notreally a gift. ed brubaker: i just have neverhad thought about that until like a few years ago. like, we were at a wonderconin san francisco. matt fraction and i weredoing a signing. and we both looked at each otherone point, and we were like, don't touch your face. and we both realized like, howoften you rub your eye.
and anytime one of-- i was like, just stopme from doing it. if i'm about to touch myface, don't let me. it became a thing, where wewould constantly out of the corner, you're about to scratchyour nose, dude. don't do it. wil wheaton: when that happens,i imagine that like, the camera zooms in on like,the pores on my face. so it's like a macro.
like super, super, supermacro level. and then every one of mypores turns into a little troll face icon. and it just starts moving backand forth like this. like, you're going to getitchy in a minute. ed brubaker: it zoomsin, and there's like world of warcraft playing. well, that also happens. is that the end?
is that the end of your turn? morgan webb: that is the end. yes. wil wheaton: so it's my turn. robert gifford: santiago gotsome meaningless disease. santiago. it's all the way [inaudible]. wil wheaton: i think that ishould stay in bogota, treat two bogotas--
morgan webb: they wouldappreciate that. wil wheaton: --and wait-- ed brubaker: two bogotas. wil wheaton: --and wait fored to give me lagos. i'm going have to discard a cardon my next turn because that will take me-- well, no. i'll have two, four,i'll have seven. ed brubaker: that willbe your most. but then you won'tbe able to get--
wil wheaton: like you know whatwill be super awesome is if i drew a yellow card now,and i discard one of these things, and we woulddo a happy dance. that would be great. ed brubaker: or we, the threeof us, could all meet in miami, and then cure yellow. robert gifford: i dohave enough cards. ed brubaker: i can air lift youto miami, and then you can move wil and i both to miami.
and i can give youmiami in miami. you can take miami from me. ed brubaker: yeah, exactly. and i can give himlagos wherever. robert gifford: so if youmoved me to miami-- ed brubaker: yeah, i canmove you to miami now. robert gifford: you moved-- take a card as an actionfrom him, one. wil wheaton: but that'son his turn.
robert gifford: that'son his turn, though. you can't do that. ed brubaker: no, i canairlift at any time. robert gifford: so then theactions remain the same. ed brubaker: oh, ok. wil wheaton: they're stillthe same, yeah. and if we get lucky, that'sa yellow card. ed brubaker: no epidemic. robert gifford: oh.
certainly. ed brubaker: that wouldbe even better. ed brubaker: and then we don'tneed to move you at all. so two actions. i'm going to clean. ed brubaker: you can stayin disease-ridden tokyo. wil wheaton: i'm goingto clean that. morgan webb: it'sbeautiful here. ed brubaker: it'sbeautiful here.
wil wheaton: do i want to go tomiami for my third action, and wait there? you're closer to a researchstation at that point, so why not? ed brubaker: oh, yes. wil wheaton: and i'm justgoing to stay in miami. morgan webb: beautifulthere, too. wil wheaton: right? yep.
it is. robert gifford: really,where have you gone? you just like take atrip down south. come back up. like, listen. morgan webb: we've bothtraveled the world. robert gifford: the world. wil wheaton: you guys! you guys, it's winter!
i want to stay whereit's warm and nice. what's wrong with you? robert gifford: whatever. ed brubaker: he's indoors. he's playing skyrim. wil wheaton: traveling aroundwith my nintendo ds. ok, here we go. let's find out whatthis card is. be yellow!
no! what part of be yellow did younot understand, you dick! robert gifford: there's someyellow in there, i think. wil wheaton: ok, all right. robert gifford: yellow fever. wil wheaton: move the infectionrate up by one. morgan: we're still on two. that's cool. ed brubaker: we'reok, we're ok.
morgan webb: that's cool. wil wheaton: draw a card offthe bottom of the pile, and put three cubes in khartoum. three yellows in khartoum,please robert. ed brubaker: well, we're almost about to wipe out yellow. it's not biggie. wil wheaton: now it's evenbetter if we cure yellow. wil wheaton: ok?
they can get back to theirblood diamonds. morgan webb: sweet. robert gifford: the stakes inthis game just keep getting higher and higher. you start to name themafter a while. it's like, umm, that'sclearly ebola. morgan webb: one of themis the pax pox. robert gifford: that'sthe pax pox. so it's got to be blue.
blue is definitely swine flu. and red is the avianflu, clearly. ed brubaker: black is zombies. robert gifford: blackis zombies. because that's-- they cameout of the middle east. wil wheaton: this happens everytime we play pandemic. with experienced players,with new players. you name the diseases. for whatever reason, red itis always the bird flu.
and one of the diseases isalways the zombie outbreak. ed brubaker: i'm positiveof that. wil wheaton: you guys, look. madagascar has alreadyclosed its ports. robert gifford: exactly. done. ahh! robert gifford: stop spreadinginfection. wil wheaton: sorry.
what is that? kachoo, kachoo. so are we satisfiedthat the infection deck has been shuffled? robert gifford: we'll seewhen you pull the cards, pretty much. robert gifford: this is oneof those situations. you're just going to be blamed,no matter what. so that's that epidemic.
i get to draw one more card. yes! ed brubaker: oh, awesome. wil wheaton: that isgood news for us. robert gifford: fantastic. wil wheaton: that isgood, good news. morgan webb: it is good news forthe people of the world. wil wheaton: but now thisis less good news. wil wheaton: chennai isgoing to outbreak.
wil wheaton: so that's one inkolkata, one in delhi, one in mumbai, one in bangkok. robert gifford: everything. wil wheaton: that'sblack in bangkok. it's black in bangkok, andit's black in jakarta. so this right here, that's whatwe call super happy, not good, bad news. now kolkata. ok, so watch what happens now.
wil wheaton: ready? watch what happens. kolkata outbreaks to delhi. it outbreaks to bangkok. the disease spreadsto hong kong. it hits chennai, which meanschennai then hits to jakarta. ed brubaker: it goes toho chi minh, too. wil wheaton: chennaihits to mumbai. ed brubaker: you missedho chi minh.
wil wheaton: wait. chennai hits to delhi. chennai hits to bangkok. robert gifford: and that wouldbe two more outbreaks. ed brubaker: wait, but nothinggot to ho chi minh? wil wheaton: nothing gotto ho chi minh city. ed brubaker: ok, ok. robert gifford: isthat two more? is that two more outbreaks,or one more outbreak?
because the originaloutbreak was-- wil wheaton: that'sgoing to be two. robert gifford: that'sgoing to be two. because it was-- wil wheaton: we went fromkolkata, and we hit that again, so that's two. robert gifford: two. indeed. wil wheaton: --thisis super bad news.
ah! the worst thing ever was gettingthat black zombie plague, chain reaction,double outbreak. because we had one on ouroutbreak meter, and we went up to four in just one bouncingfeedback loop. you get up to eight outbreaks,and you lose. so we went from being90% away from defeat to halfway to losing. in one term.
we can only stand-- ed brubaker: does anyonehave any black cards? wil wheaton: --three moreoutbreaks before we lose. robert gifford: i have one. wil wheaton: i also have two-- ed brubaker: oh, wecan cure black. wil wheaton: --black cards. well, in theory. wil wheaton: because it'sspreading very quickly.
ed brubaker: it is. i would issue a traveladvisory not to go in that area. morgan webb: i thinkthat is advisable. ed brubaker: there's reallynothing-- come on. wil wheaton: but guesswhat, guys. guess what else we'regoing to do. spread one more, right? robert gifford: not yet.
not yet. don't hurt! ed brubaker: let's not alter therules to make it harder. robert gifford: punative. punative. i believe that's mercifullythe end of the turn. another way that you canlose the game is if you run out of cubes. ed brubaker: oh, areyou kidding me?
wil wheaton: because these cubesrepresent sick people. robert gifford: or zombies. wil wheaton: or zombies. ed brubaker: thoseare zombies. wil wheaton: so we are actuallynow-- it might not seem like it-- but we'reactually at risk for running out of blacks cubes. ed brubaker: so apparently, theboard can kick your ass really quick.
wil wheaton: that's superhappy fun times. wil wheaton: it's the hardestgame in the world. that's what happens. ed brubaker: it's the hardestgame in the world. robert gifford: congratulations. congratulations. ed brubaker: set on the highestdifficulty level. robert gifford: enjoy it. so i think that's it.
that's the end. that's the end of my turn. morgan webb: oh, god. wil wheaton: ed, you're up. robert gifford: why wouldyou have done that, wil? wil wheaton: can i makea suggestion? ed brubaker: can i airliftmorgan into the hot zone? robert gifford: yes, though shecan't do anything about it until it's her turn.
ed brubaker: oh, she can'tdo anything about it. but you can at least watchthe destruction. robert gifford: but youcould airlift yourself into the hot zone-- robert gifford: --andhelp out. ed brubaker: take out what? two cubes? robert gifford: onecube, two cubes. these are all that's necessaryto keep us from--
wil wheaton: this is all good. robert gifford: --outbreakof doom-- ed brubaker: oh, that's it? oh. robert gifford: --and thesekinds of things. ed brubaker: but there are somany places with threes, and it's just disgusting. wil wheaton: this is deadly. morgan webb: that outbreakbasically shut down all of our
proactive cure plans,and so we had to go straight defensive. and right now, we're basicallyjust trying to contain all of the outbreaks. and i have to admit to you,it's not looking good for us right now. ed brubaker: well, how do i-- robert gifford: thequestion now becomes, do we stick with--
if you go there, do we stickwith the original plan of curing yellow, or do we, atthis point, say no, no. we can't possibly cure yellow. we have to deal with this. ed brubaker: yellow doesn'teven look like a problem right now. ed brubaker: yeah, black. i didn't even notice zombies. ed brubaker: i was like,oh, zombies.
morgan webb: so you're afraidof being chomped on. ed brubaker: we have birdflu going on here. morgan webb: but how else wouldi be able to get over there, is the question. ed brubaker: i can save thisto use on your turn. oh, but i can't getthere, otherwise. robert gifford: but ifyou move there-- morgan webb: can't anyone builda research station? ed brubaker: well, hecan move you there.
robert gifford: i can, specifically, if you are there. i can get you therepretty quickly. because i can move twopawns together. so if you're down in that zone,she can come right to you on my turn. and i can come rightto you on my turn. so you being there for the nexttwo turns is good for us. wil wheaton: that's actuallya really good thing.
ed brubaker: so we shouldtry and save that area of the world. that's what we'regoing to go for. robert gifford: i guess so. we can't write that off. ed brubaker: we can'twrite that off. robert gifford: were like thegenerals in that terrible cabinet meeting. ed brubaker: yeah, i know.
robert gifford: listen to me. it's over. morgan webb: so we're justabandoning the yellow plan? robert gifford: santiagois done. ed brubaker: how much arewe going to build on? wil wheaton: i think we're backburnering the yellow one. morgan webb: ok. wil wheaton: i mean, theyellow plan was a good plan, you guys.
morgan webb: it wasa good plan. wil wheaton: i'm notgoing to lie. i am-- robert gifford: i liked it. wil wheaton: but clearly,the zombie problem-- robert gifford: thezombies are-- wil wheaton: is a significantlybigger problem. ed brubaker: well,how about if i-- wil moved.
so if i move to where wil was, icould give him istanbul, and then airlift myself overhere, and take off one. robert gifford: and if i haveextra actions on my turn, i could bring wil allthe way to us. ed brubaker: oh yeah,that's true. robert gifford: soagain, that's-- ed brubaker: but there's noresearch station near there. wil wheaton: and you couldgive me algiers. robert gifford:that's true.
that's true. ed brubaker: there'sno research station there, though. robert gifford: yes, but you canbuild a research station if you have the appropriatecard. wil wheaton: and i haveshanghai, which is pretty close to there. ed brubaker: i've got beijing. robert gifford: well, if youflew yourself, if you air
dropped yourself with yourcard, to istanbul-- istanbul. robert gifford: --and you usedyour istanbul card to set up a research station there-- well, it's still kindof far away. where is istanbul? robert gifford: so maybe not. ed brubaker: oh, istanbulis way over there. robert gifford: theymight be giants.
wil wheaton: i'm laughingin the face of death. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! ed brubaker: he's got likea hand crank turntable. wil wheaton: listen. i don't know whatyour problem is. things are awesome in miami. ed brubaker: they might begiants album on that. robert gifford: you'resending yourself. wil wheaton: that's great.
i'm having a good time. and i'm actually playingjust playing vice city. wil wheaton: i'm playingvice city in real life. in miami, it's great. i'm going to a they might begiants concert in miami. actually, you know, youmoved my guy to-- we switched guys. wil wheaton: oops. i'm the brown guy.
so what should i do? robert gifford: well, i wouldmove to one of the cities-- ed brubaker: kolkata or delhi? robert gifford: anyof the cities. any of the centralcities there. ed brubaker: so probablythis one. wil wheaton: yeah, yeah. i think bangkok. ed brubaker: then it cango to everybody.
i'll go to bangkok. robert gifford: yeah, butbangkok will not generate its own black cubes. ed brubaker: it won't? are you sure? robert gifford: it'sgotten all of those because of the outbreaks. but it will not generateits own black cubes. so kolkata.
robert gifford: sogetting rid of-- morgan webb: that's anexcellent point. so getting rid of the otherswould really take as a possibility for anoutbreak away. robert gifford: if we justmanage to get the two that are connected to it,then that would be all that is necessary. robert gifford: so bangkokcan remain a pestilent filth center.
ed brubaker: like usual. robert gifford: like usual. wil wheaton: trenchantpolitical commentary. morgan webb: i can't wait toread all the hate mail. ed brubaker: by people who'venever been to bangkok. robert gifford: justpost comments. it's all my fault. ed brubaker: i hearit's awesome. marjorie liu, pleasedon't kill me.
so you'd rather goto kolkata-- ed brubaker: or chennai. wil wheaton: chennai,or delhi? robert gifford: what'sin the northern-- wil wheaton: this is kolkata. that's delhi. robert gifford: kolkata. i would say kolkata, justbecause that's more central. i'll go to kolkata.
it just outbroke. wil wheaton: so go ahead andplay your airlift card. ed brubaker: oh, airlift. robert gifford: so thisis none of your actions at this point. wil wheaton: yeah, you stillhave four actions. so i still have four actions. and i can get rid ofall three of these? robert gifford: you could,though the one is more
valuable than three. so one. and then you couldactually moved to the southern location. you could go to bangkokor chennai. ed brubaker: is thistwo actions? robert gifford: no, no. ed brubaker: three? robert gifford: i wouldgo to the--
wil wheaton: yeah, becausethat's not going to spawn black cubes, because it'sin the red zone. robert gifford: and it'simportant to know that it-- ed brubaker: oh, perfect. i see. robert gifford: it has to bespawning black cubes to create an outbreak. you can just stack red cubesright next to it. ed brubaker: so that'smy second.
this is my third. that's three. and then you've gota fourth move. robert gifford: if you move upthere, then i can bring people to you, so i think that'sa good move. morgan webb: oh, yeah. wil wheaton: so go to delhi. ed brubaker: i'm goingto go to delhi. wil wheaton: yeah, i thinkthat's a great move.
ed brubaker: i'm goingto hang out here and watch zombies eat everybody. morgan webb: hang outin the disease. make sure your shotgunsare ready. wil wheaton: so draw. ed brubaker: aw, man. new york. new baby. new york is a good card.
ed brubaker: i like new york. we love new york. delhi. morgan webb: yay! ed brubaker: hey! i'm there. i'm actually there. morgan webb: you could builda research station. wil wheaton: you could builda research station.
ed brubaker: oh, but idon't have any moves. wil wheaton: but you'reout of actions. ed brubaker: and it'sinfection time. robert gifford: it isinfection time. wil wheaton: i'm not doing it. you do it. ed brubaker: let's get mikey. wil wheaton: he infectseverything. time for mikey.
ed brubaker: seoulgets a red one. that's no biggie. that's nothing at all. morgan webb: whatever. ed brubaker: whatever. they got it. we don't need kimchi. ed brubaker: it's been cured. nobody likes kimchi.
oh-- ed brubaker: --yellow. mexico city gets a yellow. robert, you're up. robert gifford: howhave we done this? ed brubaker: my turn is over. i survived my turn, and sodid most of the world. robert gifford: so now myturn, it's just about maneuvering people to bein the right areas
at the right time. wil wheaton: a really funelement of pandemic, everyone has a special ability. and part of the cooperativenature of this game is using that special ability tobenefit all of the players in the game. it is possible to just get hosedin the game because you don't have a really importantguy when you really need him. let's see what i've got here.
algiers is nowhereclose, of course. ed brubaker: i like thatyou used "hosed." wil wheaton: well, that'sthe technical term. ed brubaker: bringing it back. wil wheaton: hosed, boned. robert gifford: morgan wouldprobably be useful with her-- ed brubaker: hosed is unisex. robert gifford: --medicalability right in through here. ed brubaker: well, i guess'boned' is, too.
robert gifford: --let'sjust take you and move you next to brown. that one. two will be to bringwil over to this party in the same area. wil wheaton: yes. please move me. ed brubaker: that's awful. so that's--
ed brubaker:please move me. morgan webb: party. wil wheaton: that's three? or two? wil wheaton: that'stwo, right? morgan webb: that's two. three should be-- let's see. i feel like we need a researchstation close here.
i've got-- ed brubaker: i feel torn becausei so hate people that i feel we should let more die. ed brubaker: i haven't done muchresearch on this, that i know that if we let a certainamount of billions of people die, global warming,it's over. wil wheaton: let me appeal toyour sense of self-interest. if we let people die, we lose. ed brubaker: i don'twant to lose.
morgan webb: but look how cozyit is up here in iceland. ed brubaker: yeah,look at that. it's got research stations. wil wheaton: that place is lousywith research stations. ed brubaker: it's likeice station zebra. morgan webb: but it's so nice,we can all live up there. wil wheaton: yeah, we could. ed brubaker: and it won't evenbe ice for very long. robert gifford: i'm going tospend is this card to fly to
khartoum, and take a cubeoff of khartoum. i think that's the best play. that is. robert gifford: so i willfly to khartoum. so the yellow iskept in check. robert gifford: they'recurrently not in threat of any outbreaks. ed brubaker: any outbreaks. morgan webb: wonderful.
ed brubaker: except for theones we already have. wil wheaton: i'm going to goahead and do this for you. robert gifford: draw me sometheoretically good cards. wil wheaton: how aboutanother epidemic? robert gifford: well, thatwould not be good. wil wheaton: that'snot good at all. robert gifford: i threw upin my mouth a little. morgan webb: how many epidemiccards are there? ed brubaker: that'show it starts.
that's the first symptom. wil wheaton: oh, my god. the infection rate is nowthree, everybody. morgan webb: aww. wil wheaton: so that means we'redrawing three infection cards every turn. let's find out-- ed brubaker: starting withthe next one, right? wil wheaton: startingright now.
robert gifford: thisis no good. ed: thanks a lot, robert. wil wheaton: madrid. madrid. morgan webb: it'sthree, right? wil wheaton: and also,i just want-- hey, morgan. remember how you can lookat the cards and see where they are?
robert gifford: sweetmother of god. ed brubaker: sweetmother of god. it's funny how we allfind religion. robert gifford: right now. and yeah. now's the time. so i think now's thetime to do that. so where are we able to-- robert gifford: are theremore than six
cards in the deck currently? wil wheaton: one, two,three, four, five. robert gifford: so youjust get to order them at this point. so morgan, go ahead andstack these up in a way that i think-- ed brubaker: we don'twant kolkata. robert gifford: we just don'twant either of the black, the two black outbreaks.
those should go at the bottom. robert gifford: becausethose would bring-- ed brubaker: too much drama. morgan webb: i'll putthese at the bottom. robert gifford: actually, no. madrid would be-- wil wheaton: hey, guess what. madrid would be bad. robert gifford: madridwould still be bad.
robert gifford: so actually-- and both of those can takea cube, at this point. robert gifford: isthat correct? robert gifford: so at thispoint, actually, madrid is the worst possible-- ed brubaker: madrid isthe worst possible-- so that goes on the bottom. wil wheaton: so madrid'son the bottom. ed brubaker: butwe don't delhi.
wil wheaton: let's see. ed brubaker: is delhiin there? wil wheaton: chennai, kolkata. robert gifford: the restof it is actually ok. wil wheaton: whatdo you think? what do you prefer? like, do you want tomake chennai sick? or do you want to makekolkata sick? it's your call.
ed brubaker: kolkata canhandle one more. morgan webb: suckers. kolkata is getting it. no one do chennai. wil wheaton: so what'sgoing to happen is we're going to infect. seoul is going to get three. mexico city is goingto get three. and what's this one?
and then chennai is goingto get three. that's how this isgoing to go down. then on morgan's turn, we knowthat madrid is coming up. wil wheaton: and kolkatais coming up. so where i don't thinkthat it is possible-- well, i guess we got toget morgan to madrid. robert gifford: we could. ed brubaker: we justmoved her. wil wheaton: how canyou get to madrid?
morgan webb: but i can cleanthat up a little bit. wil wheaton: do you knowanybody in madrid? morgan webb: i don't knowanybody in madrid. ed brubaker: do you know a guy? [laughs] it's just one of thosesituations. ed brubaker: nobody knowsanybody in madrid anymore. robert gifford: madrid's lost. put out the cigar.
madrid is lost. we have to worry aboutthe zombies. robert gifford: the swineflu can wait. but it's spread frommadrid all the way to new york somehow. seriously. it probably went on a boat. oh, they don't dothat anymore. wil wheaton: on atramp steamer.
robert gifford: iris. i never thought i'dbe on a boat. morgan webb: i guess we'regoing to do seoul-- ed brubaker: it's princesscruises. morgan webb: -- and thenmexico on top. there aren't reallyany good answers. sure morgan webb: this one here? robert gifford: this isdiscarded, i would think.
ed brubaker: let's hopeyou stacked them in the correct order. wil wheaton: robert, youget one more good card. robert gifford: onemore good card. wil wheaton: let's find outwhat your good part is. johannesburg. robert gifford: johannesburg. wil wheaton: i guess that'sgood in the sense that it's not bad.
robert gifford: i suppose. wil wheaton: go ahead and infectmexico city, which is now at risk of outbreak. go ahead and infectseoul, which is go ahead and infect chennai,which is now-- is that chennai? no, it's mumbai. where is chennai? which is now at risk ofsuper duper outbreak.
so if chennai outbreaks,we lose the game. robert gifford: filthy,dirty outbreak. robert gifford: so you knowwhat your job is. you know your work. get out there. morgan webb: i gotta-- robert gifford: heal us! wil wheaton: allright, morgan. i believe in you.
wil wheaton: you can do it. ed brubaker: it seems likethe game is cheating. robert gifford: we'regoing to wipe. we're going to wipe if you don'tgive us some healing. morgan webb: so one. morgan webb: let's see. i'm going to go two. morgan webb: three. ed brubaker: you'relike a superhero.
morgan webb: four. i wish i could do more. wil wheaton: we all wishwe could do more. robert gifford: all of that. all that. and that's your whole turn, andnow we get to draw some theoretically good cards. and three more. we get to get an outbreakin madrid, i think.
morgan webb: this is going to bean amazing card, you guys. robert gifford: super,super amazing. morgan webb: it's not thathelpful, but not bad. wil wheaton: sao paulo. morgan webb: is therea song about that? wil wheaton: i justmade it up. and i got seoul. that's actually pretty good. robert gifford: that'sfour cards.
you need one more red cardto actually cure red. ed brubaker: oh, wow. morgan webb: i'm goingto do it like you. wil wheaton: i have shanghai. ed brubaker: that's likemonopoly style. wil wheaton: i have shanghai,and we're very close to each other. look at that. wil wheaton: i have shanghai,and we're close to shanghai.
robert gifford: wehave to draw some we just did that, though. you drew two. good. wil wheaton: why don't yougo ahead and do that? robert gifford: now we get todo the thing that we don't want to do. wil wheaton: ah. kolkata gets its--
i put these on backwards sorry,camera department. morgan webb: they're justkissing you off right now. turn the cards around, stupid. robert gifford: two more. wil wheaton: number two. morgan webb: oh, man. actually, i don'tknow why i was-- wil wheaton: it's goingto be madrid. morgan webb: i knew whatwas going to happen.
wil wheaton: so madridoutbreak. so put in a blue. morgan webb: so here and here. wil wheaton: you knowwhat to do. morgan webb: and thenlondon gets two. and then new yorkis now on three. robert gifford: the worstpossible, and this moves to five. wil wheaton: and then also,don't forget sao paulo.
ed brubaker: whoa. wil wheaton: sao paulo isconnected to madrid. morgan webb: no, it's not. wil wheaton: it super is. robert gifford: yes, it is. wil wheaton: i like theway you play, webb. you got moxie, kid. robert gifford: so now, theworst card we could draw at this point, that's sittingright there on top of the
deck, would be new york. new york would be the worstcard we could draw. seoul would alsobe pretty bad. you know what? why don't you draw a differentcard than those. beijing. wil wheaton: beijing. there's nothing in beijing. wil wheaton: goodwork, morgan.
morgan webb: you guysare welcome. robert gifford: thank you. morgan webb: it's skillthat has really brought me here today. it seems like it was just oneturn ago that things were going so well. i was going to stay here and getstuff from ed, but i think that it probably makes moresense for me to walk-- but we should walk to--
can you go somewhereand come back? wil wheaton: i think thati should walk to-- ed brubaker: can you get backby the end of your turn? wil wheaton: if i walkto kolkata, clean two, and come back. but what i'm thinking i shoulddo is kolkata, one, shanghai, one, and then move back. or one, two, three-- morgan webb: you could stay inshanghai, and then give me
shanghai when it's my turn. and then i can cure. ed brubaker: we've gotto get rid of-- robert gifford: that's true. ed brubaker: --thesezombies or-- wil wheaton: that'sa good point. ed brubaker: --theswine flu is not going to kill everybody. wil wheaton: i'm so worriedabout the zombies.
morgan webb: but doesn'tmy turn seem like a million years from now? robert gifford: aren't thezombie cards, by and large, in the pile that's now gone? morgan webb: thatis a good point. robert gifford: sowhat is likely to come up at this point? seoul just took one, right? wil wheaton: i say we'reworried about
new york and madrid. robert gifford: well, madrid,we just had it. morgan webb:that's right madridis on the bottom. robert gifford: madridis on the bottom. the only one that's out there,that's in that pile, that's waiting to-- ed brubaker: i have new york. wil wheaton: no, no. this is in the bad cards.
ed brubaker: i was doingthe newbie thing. wil wheaton: edward brubakeralso laughing in the face of death. ed brubaker: so i havenew york here. robert gifford: so i mean thething that will lose the game for us, it seems, is ifnew york comes off the top of that deck. robert gifford: everythingelse-- ed brubaker: oh, that's whatgoing to lose the game for us?
morgan webb: but thatmeans that you can travel to new york-- ed brubaker: or mexico city. robert gifford: or you couldtravel to chicago, and go cure new york. ed brubaker: you're not onlythe dispatcher, but you're also counting cards. wil wheaton: you'reabsolutely right. robert gifford: countingcards is ok.
it's allowed. counting cards is ok in this. so are we thinking thatat this point-- ed brubaker: so did wil makeall of you guys put down $1,000 that we'd win, too? wil wheaton: ix-nay on theousand dollars thing. so, ok. ed brubaker: i can't believepeople gamble on this game. it's so weird.
robert gifford: he said if welose, he gets to take the table home. ed brubaker: that'scool, right? wil wheaton: i guess, at thispoint, it's all hail mary passes for the rest of here. maybe i get lucky, and idraw one quiet night. ed brubaker: that's what i wassaying in the break thing. i was like, the only hope wehave right now is like, resilient populationor a quiet night.
but can i posit analternate theory? please do. robert gifford: yeah,please, please. instead of you going to chicagoand wasting all that time traveling, we could justhope it doesn't come up, and then he could-- no, no, but seriously. like out of that whole thing. if you fly straight to new york,cures one, and then he
can also cure oneoff of madrid. i have new york. i can fly there. but the other thing, too, isthat he could fly there and meet him there to transfercards, as well. i mean that's a usefulthing to do, as well. robert gifford: i mean,the key is that-- wil wheaton: we could also-- that kind of returns us to thecure yellow move, because he
could fly there, give me lagos,and then it's just a matter of me getting to atlantato cure yellow. and then he does that, andthen he does madrid. ed brubaker: i just felllike it is such a waste that we are standing-- we're practically holdinghands, and i have-- wil wheaton: it is nevera waste of time to hold hands with me. ed brubaker: --if i havethe cure for--
morgan webb: as long as youget sanitized first. wil wheaton: as long as you'rewearing tyvek suits. ed brubaker: i know. why do i not have my handsanitizer on the table? i have never felt more-- like i did the-- i brought my coffee. i'm like, is this my coffee? morgan webb: i alreadydrank of out it.
ed brubaker: hey. no problem. [coughs] morgan webb: it'sbeen seasoned. wil wheaton: it'sbeen seasoned. ed brubaker: but i feel likewe have the cure for the zombie plague between us, andyou're going to run away from. like, what is the deal? are you just a huge,walking bedpan?
wil wheaton: i'm afraid ofcommitment, and i think we spend a lot of time together. and it's making me nervous. robert gifford: but you can handhim that cure to there in new york, as well. that could be anywhere. that's your superpower. ed brubaker: oh, that's right. and then we're closer to--
robert gifford: to theresearch center. morgan webb: so i wantto get a red card. so everyone is goingto abandon me. robert gifford: no. no. ed brubaker: no oneis abandoning you. robert gifford: no oneis abandoning you. morgan webb: you guys areleaving me in zombie land. i just do not appreciate it.
robert gifford: i'll be there. i will still be-- i'm not even there. ed brubaker: he couldairlift you out. wil wheaton: yeah,that's true. ed brubaker: you're likeradar o'reilly. ed brubaker: i can'tget the chopper in. i'm sorry. morgan webb: i'll hold on tothe rungs of the chopper.
don't leave me herewith the zombies. wil wheaton: it's like thatscene in "apocalypse now." you're just holding on. ed brubaker: literally"apocalypse now." wil wheaton: i'm reallythinking. i'm thinking. ed brubaker: that'sthe next game. robert gifford: you've got todraw three infection cards. that's the biggestissue, i think.
i mean, if new york goes-- ed brubaker: this is actuallyharder than simcity. wil wheaton: if new yorkgoes, we lose. robert gifford: well, we'dbe to seven outbreaks. wil wheaton: yeah we lose. robert gifford: i think so. wil wheaton: not onthat turn, but-- ed brubaker: are you thinkingthe center for disease
control, they sit aroundand play this game on break and stuff? robert gifford: onewould hope. one would hope. that's out last, best hope. really. it's not like we sat aroundplaying star raiders when we were working on "star trek."i mean, i'm just saying. i'm just saying.
like, do you play videogames where you work? wil wheaton: i knew that. that's why i asked it. morgan webb: constantly. morgan webb: we haven't builtany research stations, either. ed brubaker: we haven'tbuilt any research. we do not care about research. we're just like-- morgan webb: we do not.
wil wheaton: i think ishould fly to chicago and walk to new york. ed brubaker: go for it. wil wheaton: fly to chicago,walk to new york, and clean new york. ed brubaker: let's just hope-- wil wheaton: fly to chicago. ed brubaker: let's just hope younever need that blue card. wil wheaton: [making sound ofairplane engine flying]
turbulence! ed brubaker: does anybodyelse have blue cards? wil wheaton: one. morgan webb: nope. wil wheaton: two. three. treat one. that's four. ed brubaker: so we are nowherenear ever being able to cure
blue if i use my new yorkcard [inaudible]. wil wheaton: i'm so noteven worried about new york right now. morgan webb: i don't thinkwe're going to do that. wil wheaton: i don't think we'regoing to be alive long enough to even worryabout that. robert gifford: let'sjust get some cures on the board, right? here we go.
ready? ed brubaker: is there a don'tturn over cards, like-- wil wheaton: there is. one quiet night. moscow. morgan webb: oh, nice. ed brubaker: wait. you can almost cureblack on you own. maybe you'll get anotherone right now.
unless you shuffledreally good. don't peek. wil wheaton: washington! wil wheaton: but i haveto discard a card now, because i have two. so i'm just going todiscard shanghai. kidding! morgan webb: you bitch! ed brubaker: but you can becauseshe has four reds.
you don't need-- robert gifford: sheneeds five. morgan webb: i need five. wil wheaton: yeah,she needs five. and then we have toactually be in-- ed brubaker: oh, redis a problem, too. oh, man. everything is a problem. wil wheaton: everythingis a problem.
welcome to playing pandemic. morgan webb: some guy thoughtthat we should have all six epidemic cards in the deck. i don't know if thatwas the best idea. wil wheaton: i hate that guy. morgan webb: ready. wil wheaton: london. morgan webb: um. we're in london.
wil wheaton: tokyo. ed brubaker: tokyo. ed brubaker: miami. ed brubaker: i've curedmiami so many times. wil wheaton: i thought that wasgoing to be a lot worse than it was. robert gifford: it's ok. we've got some more turns. ed brubaker: is thatthe way it works?
wil wheaton: that's theend of my turn. wil wheaton: so ed. ed brubaker: i am a researcher,but i have no idea what to do at this point,because my guy is like, catatonic in a corner,surrounded by zombies. wil wheaton: i think you'reflying to new york. ed brubaker: flying to new york,and i'm giving you-- wil wheaton: you are givingme one of those-- ed brubaker: oneof those cards.
wil wheaton: -- one of thosezombie playing cards. so that's two of my moves. wil wheaton: and then i'm goingto one of new york's many delightful watering holesto get drunk as drunk. ed brubaker: thathas happened. ed brubaker: oh, yah. wil wheaton: now, interestingthing, though. i have to discard a card now,which means that i'm discarding a yellow because--
ed brubaker: you're right. robert gifford: why notjust discard shanghai? ed brubaker: you don't have todiscard a card until the end of your turn. wil wheaton: because she's-- because morgan is-- robert gifford: i havea red card over here. morgan webb: he's gotone over there. wil wheaton: good point.
ed brubaker: hey,hey, hey, hey. you don't have to do thatuntil you've played. robert gifford: no,it's immediate. wil wheaton: it's an immediatething in your turn. i thought it was at theend of your turn. ed brubaker: being anal aboutthe rules has not helped me in this time. ed brubaker: how strange. robert gifford: you stillhave two moves.
wil wheaton: we need newrules, lawyer ed. robert gifford: so you couldmove across your pawn and get a cube off of-- wil wheaton: madrid or london. ed brubaker: madridhas already been-- wil wheaton: yeah, thishas also come up, too. ed brubaker: londonis our problem. oh, london has come up? robert gifford: oneor the other.
wil wheaton: they bothjust came up. it's sort of like,i think again-- ed brubaker: we haveto re-shuffle. wil wheaton: it's like take oneoff and just hope that if we have to re-shuffle. then-- ed brubaker: which onehas less connections? robert gifford: that'sa great question. morgan webb: well, ed, we knowthat madrid is going to come up if we hit another epidemic.
ed brubaker: madrid has-- morgan webb: because madrid ison the bottom of that pile right there. ed brubaker: oh,london is bad. wil wheaton: london isin that pile, too. ed brubaker: londonis bad, though. london connects to one,two, three, four. madrid connects to one, two,three, four, five. so madrid is worse.
robert gifford: madridis worse. wil wheaton: so go to madrid. ed brubaker: i always wantedto go to madrid. i should have hadsomeone do that. i'm wrecking your blocking. wil wheaton: no, don'tworry about it. i'll get over it. ed brubaker: i keep forgettingwe're actually making a show. wil wheaton: that's good!
that's good! morgan webb: we're tryingto save the world. wil wheaton: the game works! so now-- ed brubaker: so tell us about"star trek," wil. wil wheaton: so now-- turn's over. robert gifford: theoretically,your turn is over. wil wheaton: draw good cards.
draw good cards, ed. draw good cards. good cards. ed brubaker: santiago. wil wheaton: santiago. that's a good card. morgan webb: good. we like that. ed brubaker: san diego.
wil wheaton: good card. good card. ho chi minh city. ed brubaker: ho chi minh city. excellent. wil wheaton: see, i know thati'm playing pandemic because we've had two turns where nobad cards have come out. and instead of feeling good,i just feel worse. ed brubaker: because you'relike, oh there's still bad
cards in there. morgan webb: they're in there. wil wheaton: there'sbad cards in there. so let's-- ed brubaker: this time i haveto turn three of these? morgan webb: yep. ed brubaker: thatseems egregious. wil wheaton: it is. i don't like the look of that.
wil wheaton: santiagois now a threat. ed brubaker: well, itcan't come up again. wil wheaton: new york. boy, am i glad we cleanednew york. morgan webb: oh, boy. wil wheaton: and khartoum. ed brubaker: khartoum. where is khartoum? wil wheaton: that iswhere robert is.
wil wheaton: that's so rude. like, you're therein everything. and it's just like, i'm goingto bring them and make it more sick. robert gifford: he doesn'trespect me. wil wheaton: not at all. it's all imperialistamericans. we hate you guys. robert, it is your turn.
robert gifford: wait. ed brubaker: so when you guyswere on break in between shots on "the next generation," likewhat board games did you play? wil wheaton: i painted warhammer40,000 figures in my dressing room. morgan webb: god,you're a nerd. i painted them, too. i wasn't very goodat it, though. ed brubaker: did patrick stewardever come in and help
you paint them? ed brubaker: or did hedo voices when you're playing with them? but you know what we did doone time between scenes on "star trek?" i taught patrickstewart how to juggle. i was like, i can teachyou how to juggle. and he was like, no you can't. i'm a shakespearean bald man. i knew you could neverteach me--
wil wheaton: juggling is notfor the likes of me. and i was like, no, dude. watch. i can teach you. because at the time-- now reload your nerd line. ed brubaker: reload nerd. wil wheaton: at the time-- ed brubaker:[sound of a gun cocking]
she's got a full chamber. wil wheaton: i was a cardcarrying member of the international jugglers'association. morgan webb: oh, my god. you're such a nerd. ed brubaker: wow. wil wheaton: i carried withme a juggling prop bag. in that prop bag, i had multiplejuggling balls, rings for juggling, multiple hackysacks, in case i needed them.
i had bowling pinsfor juggling. ed brubaker: how old were you? wil wheaton: i was like, 16. and i had torches withfuel, in case i wanted to set them aflame. morgan webb: how many lightsdid you break? wil wheaton: all of them. all of them. morgan webb: you bring out thebowling pins and everyone
says, please stop doing that. wil wheaton: i wasjuggling once. set a shirt on fire. ed brubaker: was ita star trek shirt? it was the '80s, soit was probably a generra hypercolor shirt. and i set it on fire, and iwas like, wow, that looks really cool. i didn't know itcould do that.
and, oh, my god! it burns! it's not just how ugly it is. ahhh! ed brubaker: so you taughtpatrick stewart how to juggle? wil wheaton: i taughthim how to juggle. not very well, but i taught himhow to juggle in less than 10 minutes. ed brubaker: and thenhe leveled up
and became a knight. wil wheaton: he leveled up andbecame a level one juggler. and i believe that that was howhe impressed the queen. wil wheaton: the queen waslike, mr. stewart. we're looking for a fool. he was like, i got this. wheaton taught mehow to do it. morgan webb: so the next showis going to be juggling, and not board games?
wil wheaton: yeah,that's right. but it's going to be mejust sort of sadly being forever alone. robert gifford: so [inaudible] james will come on thatshow with you. robert gifford: have somecontact with you. wil wheaton: we have a mutualfriend who is a phenomenal juggler, with like the spinningplates, and the cigar boxes, and the whole--
morgan webb: and what doesthat get you out of life? robert gifford: he wouldsay, not very much. wil wheaton: i disagree. i know, having done it, thatthere's something really awesome about pulling out of abag some, like three things, and just being like, oh,watch what i can do. boop ba doop do. robert gifford: defyinggravity. wil wheaton: and then you do athing where you're like, you
put two in each hand, and youmove one up and down. you're like, look. it's like crazy magic. morgan webb: my brain hurtseven thinking about it. when i was a kid,i totally kept-- i was trying to teachmyself to juggle for at least 15 minutes. wil wheaton: i'll teach you howto juggle after the show. ed brubaker: i don'tbelieve it
wil wheaton: i'll teachyou how to do it. i will teach you how to juggle,and then you, too, can be a knight. morgan webb: i think onedirectly follows the other. indirect causation. ed brubaker: was this connectedto your ren faire days at all? wil wheaton: shut up, ed. robert gifford: so i'vegot this weird idea--
robert gifford: --that at thispoint, things are kind of odd. and i feel like i should beflying you actually to an entirely separate locationon the globe. i find that interesting. but go ahead. because i feel like i am theonly one containing the situation over here. i was going to say she is likethe florence nightingale of the zombie plague.
i guess that's true. i just feel-- morgan webb: i get calledthat a lot. ed brubaker: either that orthe typhoid mary of it. robert gifford: i'm not sure. morgan webb: i think i want the florence nightengale thing. wil wheaton: if we survivethis turn, though-- i think morgan is right.
if we survive this turn,she can wipe out bangkok and kolkata-- wil wheaton: --onher next turn. i mean, if you want to do that. because you're sort of like-- morgan webb: it's tempting,because i'm there, and i just want to remove those littlethings from the board. wil wheaton: they offend you. i can tell.
morgan webb: i reallydon't like that. you're role playing the partof a medic very well. morgan webb: i wantnot but to heal. morgan webb: but what i actuallywant to do is try to be a little more forwardthinking, and actually try to cure some diseases. wil wheaton: it's just woodencubes on a board, but you care about those littlewooden cubes. and it was bothering morgan.
she was vibrating with energythat she was unable to move one more city, and saveall those people. morgan webb: my first action-- robert gifford: that's one. morgan webb: that's one. i mean, that's obvious. the only unfortunate thing islike, i wouldn't be able to get back ho chi minhcity, if i do this. two.
and then-- wil wheaton: and then you canmove to hong kong, or-- you're getting closer. you're going to be one away fromwhere you want to be, no matter what. robert gifford: yeah, but i canmove you, actually, on my turn, as well. i don't have to just flypeople to places. i can move them once.
ed brubaker: we may notget to your turn. robert gifford: everthe optimist. ever the optimist. morgan webb: a minute ago, wewere going to win this thing. ed brubaker: we're looking ata serious problem here. as a researcher, i'm notsure we are going to make one more turn. morgan webb: every time weturned a card over, we were so afraid of getting thatepidemic card.
i mean, just that fearsticks in your brain as you turn it over. and you're just like, ok. whoo. ed brubaker: i mean,look at this. even lagos has three. morgan webb: i'm just going to--we might as well get me close, just in thecrazy chance that it's going to happen.
band-aid, band-aid, band-aid. just like a band-aid! you get to keep that. that's seven. robert gifford: you'llhave to discard one. wil wheaton: and bangkok. ed brubaker: bangkok. robert gifford: look at that. you have to discard one, butyou no longer need--
morgan webb: um, i'm going tokeep this one because i feel like we've got some shitgoing on over there. i mean, stuff. wil wheaton: no, thereis shit going on. there's a major amountof shit with this disease, i am certain. morgan webb: doessomebody have-- wil wheaton: the odds arereally against us. we're probably down by fourgoals with maybe 15 minutes in
the third period. and also, we're thelos angeles kings. it is my turn. i am going to go one,two, three. robert gifford: ahh. wil wheaton: the zombieplague has been cured. morgan webb: what? wil wheaton: so now, what thismeans is that anyone who goes to a place with a blackcube can treat it
the way morgan can. we can wipe it out. if we get all the black cubesoff the board, that diseases is then sunsetted-- morgan webb: it's goingto be amazing. wil wheaton: --which is great,because when those black cards come out, it means thatnothing happens. robert gifford: and there'sactually-- your ability now changes, because if everyoneelse was a
medic, that would be-- you know, it's like,well, then why am i so special anymore? actually, now your ability isthat any place that you walk through, you cure every cube. ed brubaker: it doesn't evencount as an action. robert gifford: noteven an action. morgan webb: but onlyfor black, right? robert gifford: justfor black.
ed brubaker: so you havebasically switched from florence nightingale to jesus. morgan webb: this isthe best game ever. wil wheaton: i have onethe action left. and i am open to a suggestionfrom the table about what i should do with it. ed brubaker: what cardsdo you have? robert gifford: he needsto get a yellow. wil wheaton: i needanother yellow.
ed brubaker: where am i? you don't have a blue card. you can't possibly get to me. wil wheaton: but robertcould fly you to me. robert gifford: yeah, in the-- ed brubaker: on yournext turn. so where could you get to? oh, ok. so you've alreadydone your thing.
robert gifford: what yellowcard did you have? ed brubaker: i have santiagoand lagos. nothing that's close to say,miami, or anything like that. ed brubaker: no. robert gifford: so that'snot as useful for that. ed brubaker: but if wil went tomiami, then you could fly me to miami. oh, but that's not going to-- i can get to miami in my turn.
you'll probably just walkover and give him-- i can just walk over. robert gifford: --ayellow card. ed brubaker: i'm jesus, too. morgan webb: was jesusever in miami? ed brubaker: this is a bad-- wil wheaton: actually-- ed brubaker: let's talkto the mormons. morgan webb: i guess it dependson who you ask.
there's a tony awardin that question. wil wheaton: there's a lotof jesuses in miami. so morgan webb: theirnames are jesus. wil wheaton: i'm sorry. my bad. so what do we think? should i go to miami, or shouldi just stay there. should i just stay in atlanta?
ed brubaker: oh, you shoulddefinitely not stay where you are, because-- oh, i canstill get to you. morgan webb: well, no. but if he stays there,right, then you can fly me over there. he's got a research station. that seems like a really goodstrategy, actually. great. ed brubaker: stay at theresearch station.
ed brubaker: and then weccan cure everything-- ed brubaker: --from there. wil wheaton: bam! st. petersburg. ed brubaker: no biggie. wil wheaton: and that. tokyo can take it. morgan webb: oh wait,did i just-- i put the wrong thing.
wil wheaton: no, no,no, no, no, no! these are just cards. these are with all my glassesand my shoes. ed brubaker: because we wereabout to have a ripple effect. sao paulo. ed brubaker: do you ever noticehow hbo is always playing "moscow onthe hudson?" actually, if that comes on, theni actually turn off the tv in protest.
even if i was on my way tosomething i wanted to watch. and algiers. so we've survived this turn. robert gifford: don't jinx us. don't jinx us. wil wheaton: stop saying that. morgan webb: it is a miracle. ed brubaker: why is thatblue and black? wil wheaton: because thatwas from the madrid.
wil wheaton: rememberthe madrid incident? it was all over cnn. morgan webb: we don't like totalk about that anymore. wil wheaton: the madrid incidentwas all over cnn, and then like a pretty coed waskidnapped somewhere. and then they went to wall towall coverage of that instead. morgan webb: it was thebest day of my life. it was great. and then there was thatshark attack.
and they were like,oh, my god. what story do we cover? split screen. shark attack. missing coed. so that's the end of my turn. ed. morgan webb: make us proud. ed brubaker: i amgoing to go to--
robert gifford: i'llmove your guy. wil wheaton: are you goingto clean on your way? ed brubaker: should iclean on the way? robert gifford: i don't thinkyou have enough actions. that's one, and thentwo, three. and then trade him a card. you're right. then let's just moveme to wil, and i will give you lagos.
wil wheaton: lagos. morgan webb: and since youare the scientist, you only need four. morgan webb: thatis fantastic. wil wheaton: so whenwe get to my turn-- robert gifford: wehave two cures coming down the pipeline. a cure here, and a cure there. morgan webb: it seemsso far away.
ed brubaker: it seems weird thatthe scientist wasn't just sitting at the researchstation all along. ed brubaker: it seemslike a good place to be if i'm a scientist. wil wheaton: there were sometropical places to go visit. the thing is, that in additionto being a scientist-- ed brubaker: if youdo some research. wil wheaton: --i'malso a drug mule. robert gifford: that's howhe knows a guy in bogota.
wil wheaton: what areyou talking about? i went to bogota. ed brubaker: are you sayinghe knows people. robert gifford: in bogota. morgan webb: it was justfor medical reasons. go ahead. robert gifford: drawtheoretically good cards. ed brubaker: kolkata. theoretically, andin reality--
morgan webb: i don't understandwhere all the rest of them are. robert gifford: we've beenon borrowed time. we've been on borrowed time. ed brubaker: we've had threeof those so now it's these. would you like todo the honor? this is making me think thatwe're going to back-to-back-- robert gifford: shush. as soon as you feel like that,that's when the game just
comes back and tellsyou about-- ed brubaker: mumbai. mumbai. ed brubaker:we've cured that. it doesn't even matter. and wil wheaton: well, no. it could still outbreak. ed brubaker: yeah,but whatever.
ed brubaker: jakarta. wil wheaton: jakarta. that's got two blackson it in indonesia. morgan webb: that is somecrap over that i don't like the look of. ed brubaker: oh, it hastwo blacks from the-- so what happens-- wil wheaton: that'snot an outbreak. good to know baghdad.
robert, go. robert gifford: we survived. ed brubaker: forone more turn. robert gifford: hooray. ed brubaker: i was skepticalwe would get to you. wil wheaton: remember when wetalked about how, like great the tension of this game is? my hands are sweating. ed brubaker: it's like an entireseason of "breaking
bad." robert gifford: need to flymorgan to the research station, for sure. morgan, would you like to goto the research station? morgan webb: i would love togo to the research station. look how cozy and wonderfulthat place looks. also, it's kind of aparty over there. wil wheaton: ba da da da. morgan webb: da da da.
ed brubaker: da da da. oh, wait a second. oh, because she cancure without wil. morgan webb: because i'm aboutto cure some disease. i had the red cure in my hand. people were going to nametheir children after me, because i had eradicated oneof earth's great scourges. ed brubaker: is it possible towin the game without adding any research stationsanywhere else?
robert gifford: we'reabout to find out. wil wheaton: there's anotherspecial card called the operations managers. is that what it is? and that guy can build researchstations anywhere. you just sort of drop themanywhere you want. robert gifford: i think that mynext best move would be to go in and kind of deal withsantiago a bit, i think. wil wheaton: agreed.
ed brubaker: i hear there'ssome drug muling going on. robert gifford: --one, two,three, and then i'll take a cube off of santiago. did you just use an extra movebecause you moved morgan? robert gifford: that was one-- wil wheaton: that wasa one, right? robert gifford: --and thentwo, and then three. robert gifford: thentake a cube off. ed brubaker: just lookthe other way, dude.
morgan webb: i don't-- it'sreally unfortunate that that just happened. wil wheaton: it'seven spinning. mocking us. wil wheaton: it's so-- why do you got to be likethat, epidemic card? robert gifford: fortunately,there's a lot to shuffle. ed brubaker: are theall the same? wil wheaton: we are increasingthe infection rate indicator.
we are drawing a card off thebottom of the deck, which is milan in italy. and now there's so many cards,i'm going to do this. morgan webb: three, right? morgan webb: i was afraid youwere going to say that. but that's cool, actually. robert gifford: it's not theworst thing in history. it could have been four. morgan webb: it could have beenreally, really terrible.
ed brubaker: yeah, it couldhave been major. robert gifford: really? ed brubaker: we'regoing to win. no biggie. morgan webb: yeah, totally. i agree. robert gifford: if we win,i'm flipping over a car. because it's happening. wil wheaton: if we win, we aregoing to go out into the
streets of los angeles,and set some [bleep] on fire. robert gifford: fire. fire. ed brubaker: are you likethat lady whose baby is stuck under the car? you're just going to flip it? wil wheaton: also, if we lose,we're going to go out into the streets of la andset some [bleep]
that is what we do. morgan webb: just not my car. wil wheaton: morgan, yourcar is on the list. morgan webb: his car. his car is cool. i mean whatever. robert gifford: it'snew, i understand. morgan webb: he's tryingto go green, anyway. there you go.
wil wheaton: few things arequite as green as setting a car on fire. that's science, kid. set a car on fire forplanet earth. ed brubaker: i always thoughtthat was weird when the earth first people would lightsuvs on fire. ed brubaker: because burningtruck tires and engines. wil wheaton: well, youknow it looks good. morgan webb: it is dramatic.
ed brubaker: it's a greatway to go to jail. so how are we going toget through this? robert gifford: we're justnot going to draw cards. we're going to stop right now,declare ourselves victorious, and walk away. ed brubaker: there's stillanother card, which is probably another epidemic,at this point. unless it's quiet night. quiet night is still in there.
wil wheaton: i could just keepon shuffling these cards. robert gifford: for ever. for ever. wil wheaton: for ever. so listen. before everybody yells at me-- wil wheaton: this is technicallyrobert's turn. wil wheaton: khartoum. ed brubaker: there's one.
ed brubaker: oh, god. robert gifford: oh,no, no, no! morgan webb: so now, madrid. ed brubaker: madridhits everywhere. morgan webb: it goes like this,and we're out of blues. wil wheaton: madrid hits here. ed brubaker: and welost the game. wil wheaton: madridhits london. robert gifford: i thinkthat we go to skull.
morgan webb: we'reout of blues. wil wheaton: we lose thegame, actually, in two different ways. wil wheaton: we lose the gameon outbreaks, and we lose the game on-- what did we decide that was? swine flu? morgan webb: the game wasactually going pretty well. we had a lot of really gooddraws there towards the end.
we had cures on the horizon. we're like, we're goingto win this thing. and then we totally failed. wil wheaton: i'm noteven afraid of the zombie outbreak anymore. even though it came up, and itthrew its worst at us, we kicked the zombie apocalypsein its undead nuts. it was h1 nerd onethat did us in. we were all in atlanta.
[side conversation] ed brubaker: that would havebeen resilient population. wil wheaton: yeah, wedie in the epidemic. there's no way of gettingout of it. ed brubaker: there'sno way out. so you guys-- ed brubaker:is thishow the stephen soderbergh movie ends, too? wil wheaton: no, the stevensoderbergh ends with me
walking out going,are you [bleep] serious? ed brubaker: really? robert gifford: for real? ed brubaker: what happened? wil wheaton: it's aterrible movie. everyone, we did the verybest that we could. we tried to save the worldfrom the puking [bleep] death flu.
morgan webb: sometimesthe world doesn't want to be saved. ed brubaker: we stoppedzombies. wil wheaton: sometimesthe world wil wheaton: we didstop zombies. robert gifford: but h1 nerdone cannot be stopped. ed brubaker: h1 nerd one. wil wheaton: we can take that. but, yeah, it turns outthat the pax flu.
morgan webb: um-hm wil wheaton: so whoever waspatient zero at pax in 2009, this loss is on you! let's go to the couchof defeat. pandemic box, you getto go downstairs to the victory wall. try not to gloat. wil wheaton: well,we did our best. morgan webb: tell that tothose people down there.
wil wheaton: the peoplethat robert killed? those people. robert gifford: hey! easy. i think we all killedthem together. all right? morgan webb: it was your turn. robert gifford: it wasa team effort. morgan webb: i say, for therecord, it was your turn.
wil wheaton: i just wantto point out-- ed brubaker: that people suck? and they deserve to die? i just want to point out thatwe really did have a lot of fun losing that game. morgan webb: that is true. wil wheaton: that was great. ed brubaker: how much fun didthe game have beating us? wil wheaton: i'll find out.
ed brubaker: we had more fun. wil wheaton: maybe. i'll ask the game when i godownstairs to talk to it at the wall of victory, rightbefore i punch it in the face. listen, you guys. we don't like anyone to go homeempty handed when you play on tabletop. so we have given youa parting gift. there was bubonic plaguein your water.
morgan webb: that is so sweet. morgan webb: you thinkof everything. wil wheaton: i do. robert gifford: isthat swollen? [punching sound]
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