WIL WHEATON: Did you know that classic fairy tales are

actually more gruesome and horrible than we

know them to be?

They were actually designed as morality tales to terrify

children into staying out of the woods, listening to their

parents, and never talking to wolves.

For example, in the original "Rapunzel" the handsome prince

climbs her hair only to find out that she is actually an

alien dragon controlled by a robot.

She eats him.

In the original unedited "Cinderella," the glass

slipper is actually her cousin's face.

It is too horrible for me to describe on a family program.

When these tales reached American shores, they were

sanitized for a more delicate audience, though they retained

their classic characters.

Today on "TableTop," Chris 'Doc' Wyatt, Amy Berg, Mike

Phirman, and I will find out what happens when a fairy tale

is created in these modern times.

Will it be sanitized and gentle?

Or will it hew more closely to its gruesome, robot-filled,

16th-centure roots.

We will begin, as we always do, once upon a time.

"Once Upon a Time" is a wonderful, cooperative,

improvised storytelling game with a fairy tale theme.

Players will work together building a story from a hand

of cards, each containing a fairy tale element, like a

crown, a kingdom, a dragon, a sword, or a witch.

I may have made a robot card and put it in this deck, but

you can't prove it.

The players will work together to tell a fairy tale by

playing cards out of their hand and incorporating the

elements on those cards into the story.

There are three ways you can become the narrator.

The active narrator can pass control of the story to you.

If the active narrator mentions an element you have

on a card in your hand, like a dragon, you can play that card

and now you are the narrator.

Finally, we have these cards called "interrupts," which we

will explain when they come up in play.

This is not really a competitive game.

This game is really about telling a story.

But we are all sort of working against each other in one

significant way.

Every one of us will have a secret ending that only we

know on a card just like these.

We will try to steer the story slowly toward

our preferred ending.

The first player to use all the cards in their hand and

bring the story to their desired

conclusion is the winner.

A lot of us playing this game are writers, and to paraphrase

one of my very favorite writers, the

story is the thing.

Let's find out what happens once upon a time.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: My name is Chris Wyatt, but everybody

calls me Doc.

I am an independent film producer.

I was one of the producers of the movie "Napoleon Dynamite"

and a few others.

I'm also a freelance animation writer.

MIKE PHIRMAN: My name is Mike Phirman, and I'm known for

music comedy.

And I'm known for being the "Phirm" half of "Hard 'n

Phirm," which is a music company duo.

AMY BERG: I am Amy Berg.

I write TV and movies and stuff.

WIL WHEATON: Rules for "Once Upon a Time" state that the

player who looks most like a storyteller goes first.

So, how many pilots have you sold this year?

MIKE PHIRMAN: That I can talk about?

None.

WIL WHEATON: How many pilots have you sold this year?

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: To friends, or to actual networks?

WIL WHEATON: Probably networks.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: No, none.

WIL WHEATON: OK, I have sold zero, although my show

TableTop was renewed.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: Congratulations.

I'm glad to hear about that.

WIL WHEATON: How many have you sold, Berg?

Sorry.

How many pilots have you sold, Berg?

Is it more than zero?

AMY BERG: It's more than zero and less than 10.

WIL WHEATON: Is it more than one?

AMY BERG: Yes.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: Inclusive?

WIL WHEATON: Is it more than two?

AMY BERG: Possibly.

WIL WHEATON: Is it three?

AMY BERG: It is three.

WIL WHEATON: I knew that.

MIKE PHIRMAN: Game over.

WIL WHEATON: Yay.

All right, you're going to go first then because you are the

most storytellery.

All right, so everyone has looked at their endings?

Yes, all right.

I'm not quite sure how this is going to land here.

My ending is a cautionary tale, as fairy

tales so often are.

You must learn the importance of choosing the proper

companions.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: I've got an ending that involves a tyrant.

It says the tyrant was destroyed and

everyone was happy.

Which means if I'm going to win this game, I've got to

introduce a tyrant at some point.

MIKE PHIRMAN: My ending card was a little disappointing

because it was evildoers are thrown down the well.

AMY BERG: So my ending is, two people who are very much in

love somehow get parted.

One of them perishes, and the other one is

injured in that process.

I totally got this.

All right.

So, gentleman, once upon a time there lived

a giant named Frank.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: I love giants.

WIL WHEATON: Frank the giant.

AMY BERG: Frank lived in a cave.

WIL WHEATON: I love him already.

AMY BERG: Yeah.

Frank lived in a cave.

WIL WHEATON: Frank the Giant lived in a cave.

OK.

AMY BERG: And he was very, very nervous about most

things, because he's a giant and he was

the only one around.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: There are no other giants?

WIL WHEATON: Is he the last of the giants?

AMY BERG: He's is last of the giants?

He's the last remaining giant.

WIL WHEATON: Frank, the last of the giants, wow.

AMY BERG: Which means, you know, no getting it on with

you a giant girl, because, like, there's none left.

It's just him.

So he's very nervous that people are going to discover,

possibly find where he lives.

Because he's an outcast.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: Because people want to kill him.

AMY BERG: I think people want him dead.

I think he's scary.

He's different from everyone.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: If people saw him, what would he do?

AMY BERG: I think I think they would challenge him

verbally to a duel.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: OK.

Verbal duel with a giant sounds--

they kill all the other giants verbally?

AMY BERG: No, they use this weaponry.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: They were fighting, I guess, the giants.

Weapons?

AMY BERG: Actually, it was bigger than that.

It was actually a global thermonuclear war.

WIL WHEATON: Whoa.

AMY BERG: And he's the last one--

MIKE PHIRMAN: Card number three is global therm--

WIL WHEATON: There was a global thermonuclear war.

MIKE PHIRMAN: How many of these would survive that?

AMY BERG: When you get a card that says "global

thermonuclear war," you think two things.

Oh crap.

And this could be really cool.

The people who started the war, they were just trying to

get rid of the giants.

And luckily, his--

MIKE PHIRMAN: Just trying to do a typical giantocide.

AMY BERG: His personal giant cave was protected with

whatever material protects people from

that kind of radiation.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: Plastic sheeting.

Plastic sheeting protects you from nuclear--

WIL WHEATON: There's no plastic

sheeting in a fairy tale.

AMY BERG: I think maybe aluminum foil or

something like that.

So he was protected, and so were the people

that caused the war.

Because they live in a bubble in the village

where they all live.

And the people are known as the Nordic

Tribe of um, um, um--

WIL WHEATON: I think three ums means you're rambling.

I think three ums is a ramble.

AMY BERG: Fine.

I took a card.

Go.

WIL WHEATON: Great.

So, Frank, the last of the giants, has a terrible secret.

In this cave, he has a fire pit.

And then that fire pit, of course, burns a fire.

AMY BERG: Really?

WIL WHEATON: However, it's not natural fire.

AMY BERG: What?

WIL WHEATON: It is a muse of fire.

MIKE PHIRMAN: Fire muse.

WIL WHEATON: It is a muse of fire.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: And this is the Secret?

WIL WHEATON: Yes.

The muse of the fire is named Steve.

Steve the fire muse and Frank the giant are in love.

And their love can never be--

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: Consummated.

WIL WHEATON: Consummated is a word I was trying really hard

not to say.

But it's one that's going to be there.

No, it's a word that [INAUDIBLE].

AMY BERG: It's on tape now, buddy.

If a fire muse and a giant want to get together, I say

that's a-OK.

WIL WHEATON: The question is not, would I date a giant

named Frank.

The question is, how did I ever get over it?

Frank and Steve now live alone in this cave.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: That's tragic.

MIKE PHIRMAN: So people, they don't know

where he is, though?

WIL WHEATON: No, because it's very far away from the bubble

village where the protective people live.

And every day, Frank the giant and Steve the fire muse do

this thing that Mike's going to tell us.

MIKE PHIRMAN: Oh yeah.

I've played "Once Upon a Time" every day

for the last 17 years.

So I should really win this game.

I've played it twice, maybe a handful of times.

So what they do is, they will go down to the

local swamp, right.

Every area has a swamp.

WIL WHEATON: Every cave has swamp attrition.

MIKE PHIRMAN: They're popping up everywhere.

WIL WHEATON: You pay extra for that.

MIKE PHIRMAN: That's true.

So they have a pretty decent swamp.

AMY BERG: Which is kind of messy, though, I would

imagine, because of the war.

MIKE PHIRMAN: Yeah, it's probably a lot more red than

it used to be.

And giants bleed a lot.

WIL WHEATON: Yeah, full of blood.

CHRIS 'DOC' WYATT: A fire muse isn't threatened by the water

in this swamp at all.

MIKE PHIRMAN: By the way, swamp.

WIL WHEATON: Glad you got that out there.

Good work.

MIKE PHIRMAN: Yes, the swamp was Arugapharrrrr.

WIL WHEATON: Arugapharrrr.

AMY BERG: Arugapharrrr.

MIKE PHIRMAN: Arugapharrrr.

AMY BERG: So, Phirman named the swamp rarrrrrr?

Or something.

I might have been missing a constant or a vowel.