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 much scarier than the one we are

hoping to leave behind.

A game where the players are the 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 a game that we don't so much

play, as desperately hope to survive.

Wash your hands and put on a face mask because we are the

world's last, best hope to stop a pandemic.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

WIL WHEATON: Pandemic is a cooperative game where we all

work together as members of a disease-fighting team that is

headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

And we're not the team you're thinking of, unless you're

thinking of a team I just made up that lives together in a

van in a parking lot across the street from the CDC.

Our goal is to travel around the world, treating localized

outbreaks and epidemics to prevent them from joining

together into a global pandemic.

Huh?

See?

It's not just a clever name.

It actually describes the game.

Each turn, we will perform four actions.

Basic actions, like moving around the board

and treating disease.

Or special actions, like discovering a cure, or using a

player's special, unique ability.

Then we will draw cards from this deck that should help us,

and find out where the disease is spreading next.

Now, there are many new ways to lose in Pandemic, but only

one way to win, and that is by eradicating all four diseases.

Remember that deck I said should help us?

That deck contains the most dangerous, awful cards in the

entire game--

epidemic cards.

These tell us where epidemics have happened, which can lead

to outbreaks that will spread around the globe, leading to

our inevitable defeat.

Pandemic is incredibly intense.

It's exciting.

It's unbelievably difficult.

But I've had more fun losing this game that I have had

winning a lot of others.

Now we will find out if we win together, or if the entire

world dies.

Because it is time to play Pandemic.

MORGAN WEBB: My name is Morgan Webb, and I host a TV show on

G4 TV, and it's called "X-Play."

ROBERT GIFFORD: My name is Robert Gifford, and I own the

company, Geek Chic.

And we make geek furniture and accessories for geek living.

ED BRUBAKER: My name is Ed Brubaker, and I am a comic

book writer and screenwriter.

I write for Marvel Comics.

I write "Captain America" for the last seven or eight years.

And I wrote the famous death of Captain America story line

a few years back.

WIL WHEATON: In the official rules of Pandemic, the person

who goes first is the person who was most recently sick,

which for our purposes, I think, is a little pedestrian.

Sorry, Matt.

Love you, but I have a better idea.

Who has had the most outrageous, crazy disease?

Like who's had like the worst sickness?

I'm pretty sure I'm going 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 in Seattle, I got the swine flu.

ED BRUBAKER: Oh, yeah.

I was there.

WIL WHEATON: I had the swine flu, and

influenza B the same time.

For two weeks, I had a temperature in

excess of 100 degrees.

And I have something to say to 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 go with the fact that I had a

temperature so high that I had to go to the hospital.

And they kept me overnight.

WIL WHEATON: Oh, that's pretty good.

What was your temperature?

MORGAN WEBB: But it was only one day.

WIL WHEATON: Well, what was 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're not going anywhere.

WIL WHEATON: And the last thing you wanted to do--

MORGAN WEBB: Because I was a little--

WIL WHEATON: And the last thing you wanted to do was do

it in the hospital.

Right?

MORGAN WEBB: No.

I wanted to lay there with the blanket over my head--

WIL WHEATON: Right, and die.

MORGAN WEBB: 17 blankets, and warm blankets, because I

thought I was going to freeze to death.

WIL WHEATON: Yeah.

MORGAN WEBB: Which is sort of strange and ironic.

WIL WHEATON: OK.

Fever in the hospital.

That's pretty gnarly.

MORGAN WEBB: It was very recent, though.

WIL WHEATON: Sick for a long time.

MORGAN WEBB: That was two weeks ago.

ED BRUBAKER: Oh, my God.

WIL WHEATON: Holy crap.

ED BRUBAKER: That was recent.

Did you ever find out whose Coke that was?

ROBERT GIFFORD: Don't drink that Coke.

MORGAN WEBB: Yeah.

We were sitting around in my room, drinking this soda

happily, and then I realized I don't know whose soda that is.

WIL WHEATON: Yeah.

Nothing will make you paranoid about disease quite like

playing Pandemic.

OK.

Robert?

ROBERT GIFFORD: I actually also acquired the H1 nerd one

virus from PAX.

MORGAN WEBB: Actually, I got that as well.

And remember--

I don't know if you remember on the PAX website, they

tracked the flight that it came in on.

And then they tracked all the flights that it came out on.

And of course, I was on one of those outgoing flights.

WIL WHEATON: I was on one of the outgoing 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 that year, and Rich, my friend

Rich, who works at Nintendo said, a lot of people are

getting sick.

And so Rich and I walked around with our

hands in our pockets--

WIL WHEATON: Witch!

ED BRUBAKER: --and looked at things.

Yeah, witch.

WIL WHEATON: OK.

So you also got H1N1.

ED BRUBAKER: But I--

ROBERT GIFFORD: That's right.

ED BRUBAKER: --in 1990, had repetitive strep throat for

six months, where I would be sick with strep throat, and I

would go to the hospital, to the emergency room, and they

would give me medication.

And I would get better for like two weeks, and then I

would be sick again.

MORGAN WEBB: You were breeding a super strain.

ED BRUBAKER: I was totally breeding a super strain of

strep throat.

WIL WHEATON: Oh, my God, you are a mad scientist.

ED BRUBAKER: It was when Jim Henson like

died at the same time.

I remember reading his obit while I was in the emergency

room waiting to be seen for like, the ninth time.

My friends, and my girlfriend at the time, like totally

didn't believe I was sick anymore, because I just kept

being like, oh, I'm dragging.

And so I woke up one day, and my left ear drum had burst.

I was like, bleeding all over the pillow.

MORGAN WEBB: Can that happen?

ED BRUBAKER: So I ran to the emergency room, and they were

like, oh, we haven't been giving you strong enough

medication.

And then they gave me like super strong medication.

MORGAN WEBB: Yeah, they're like, yeah, this is cool.

Don't worry about it.

This is fine.

ED BRUBAKER: It went away.

But for like four years after that, any time my throat felt

sore, I'm like, oh, God.

I'm getting it again.

WIL WHEATON: I think you go first.

ROBERT GIFFORD: Winner.

WIL WHEATON: Yeah.

Winner.

I think Ed goes first.

MORGAN WEBB: Did your ear bleed?

ED BRUBAKER: It was.

It bled, and I have problems with 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 I woke 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 win at almost dying.

ED BRUBAKER: But I like that you guys-- but it also makes

sense, because you guys all got the exact

same flu, and I didn't.

WIL WHEATON: Yeah.

That's another good reason you can go first.

All right.

So normally, when we play Pandemic, at this point in the

game, we would sort of draw some cards, and figure out

where the infection is on the board.

But you don't want to watch that.

So we did that before we all sat down.

So the initial big infection cities, it looks like it's

Miami, London, St. Petersburg.

And then there's some other little things sort

of around the globe.

We should talk about our roles 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 never play a healer.

ED BRUBAKER: So we should take the green pawn away.

WIL WHEATON: Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

Go away.

You should not be on the board.

ED BRUBAKER: I love that they'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 green guy back there.

ROBERT GIFFORD: I'm so OCD I just had to fix it.

WIL WHEATON: So we are all starting out in Atlanta.

Ed, you're up.

So you got four actions.

How would you like to spend them?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ED BRUBAKER: I will--

Does it matter--

No, it doesn't matter if I have the card if I go to the

city, if I can walk to it.

Right?

WIL WHEATON: Right.

ED BRUBAKER: OK.

WIL WHEATON: So like you can walk to Miami.