Who’s excited about the 4th edition of D&D? It’s hitting shelves in 8 days. Guess what? I got to play it early. No kidding.

A couple months ago, Wizards of the Coast approached Penny-Arcade looking to do some marketing for 4th edition. But they didn’t want to just bore it up with those normal banner ads, they wanted to do something special. So the guys at PA came up with the idea of flying me out to Seattle to play 4th edition with Mike and Jerry in front of some microphones to record the whole session as a series of podcasts.

I was instantly both elated and terrified at the prospect. It’s been years….YEARS since I touched table-top D&D. And to be perfectly honest, when I did sit down with my friend to play, my attention never lasted very long on the game. Inevitably, I would start drawing my character, or the characters of my friends in various scenes and comics. I pissed off a lot of frustrated Dungeon Masters by paying more attention to my drawings then their campaign. Wizards, however, was excited to hear of my predilection. In fact, they openly encouraged it.

We spent an entire Wednesday playing 4th edition. Chris Perkins and Andy Collins came down from Wizards to be our official DMs and run us through “Keep on the Shadowfell.” The whole time, four microphones were recording our every word, die roll, hit and misses (there were a lot of misses). Mike and I sketched as we played and didn’t get one stern look from behind the game screen for it. This experience was a double honor for me, because it was Mike’s first time playing Dungeons and Dragons EVER. I was there for his very first roll of the D20. It was a very proud moment and it’s all captured on Mp3. If you’ve never played D&D before, these podcasts can give you a good idea of how quickly and easily you can get into the fun. If you’re a veteran to the game, like Jerry, the podcasts will give you your first sneak peek into the new game mechanics.

Wizards will be releasing a new chunk of our 8 hour session every week, and each podcast will be accompanied with a couple panels of a comic book that Gabe and I are creating based on our sketches. Mike and I have never officially collaborated on a project before and it’s been a grueling but rewarding experience. That bastard can draw and color like a Dire Owlbear (see what I did there). Keeping up with that son of a bitch is killing me. We keep sending each other art and cursing at each other. I hope this leads to more future collaborations because it’s pushing both of us to improve our work. I can’t believe I’m making official D&D art alongside Gabe from Penny-Arcade.

If you hit the WOTC site here you can grab the first show and see the first two panels of the comic. If you don’t have one already, you will need to sign up for an account. It’s free and easy to register.

This was an afternoon I’ll never forget. If you went back in time and told 16 year old Scott that one day Wizards of the Coast would ask him to play D&D and draw comic book art about the adventure, he would say “What’s Wizards of the Coast? TSR makes D&D”. So 16 year old Scott would be pretty confused. And then one day, when he reached the age of 37 and realized what happened to him in the past, the thought of space and time bending just to inform him of an upcoming gaming session would haunt him until he died.

So thank God time travel doesn’t exist.

Check out the podcasts.