When I tell people that Rhonda and I go to an annual gaming convention, they usually figure it's casino-based, like we're going to play poker or something. I guess that's what leaps into their minds when they try to combine "grown adults" and "gaming convention" into a reasonable assumption. Well, Origins is one of several big conventions in the US for games... card games, board games, miniature games, role-playing games. So, yeah, you could play poker, I suppose. There is a huge vendor hall, several ballroom-size areas for 24-hour play and official tournaments, lots of semi-private areas for role-playing and such, and tons and tons of gamers looking for fun. Here's a very small photo album in case you still can't fathom it.
Here's Rhonda and me posing with Andrew Looney of Looney Labs. Looney Labs makes some of our favorite card games, including Chrononauts and Aquarius. This year, they were giving out three convention-exclusive Fluxx promo cards. Rhonda, Scott, Noelle and I played in a Chrononauts tournament preliminary round. Rhonda and Scott both won one game, but you had to win more than that to advance to the next round. Our main goal for the Looney Labs booth this year was to buy a whole passel of games for our relations in upstate New York, the Huth family. Which we did, and Mr. Looney's wallet grew three sizes that day.
This was the second year in a row that Mike (far left), Scott (far right), and I (not pictured) demoed Great Rail Wars, the Deadlands miniatures game from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. When you have under 2 hours to demo a game, you often don't actually get to a real winner being determined, so it's all in the crazy live-for-the-moment fun. Like Mike's USA Sharpshooters taking out just about all my Devil Bats, the Wasatch Automatons on my rear killing my Werewolf, or Scott's cannon decimating two entire posses of my Wolves. Thanks, guys.
Here, Rhonda is getting an exclusive card created for my dad. The gentleman on the right is Reiner Knizia, creator of the fantastic The Lord of the Rings board game. Not only is this game beautiful and Tolkien-based... but it's designed for cooperative play. You and your friends must work together to dunk The One Ring into Mount Doom or else everybody loses. It's very cool and very difficult. Mr. Knizia was on hand to give out exclusive cards for the game... you would pick out an existing LOTR card, say, "Farmer Maggot." Then he would write on the card "Joe may use this card as a double-star" or something, thus enhancing the effect of the card for Joe only. Then you run back home, shuffle the card in, and hope it gets to Joe.
The Doomtown World Championships. Rhonda, Scott, Mike and I all played, using Blackjacks, Agency: Union Blue, Texas Rangers: Dixie Rails, and Whateleys: Extended Family decks respectively. The tournament runs 5 rounds of swiss duels, and then the top 8 players advance to the quarterfinals. Our records were 1-4, 1-4, 3-2, and 3-2. I was the only one to make it to the quarterfinals (where I was quickly gunned down), based on my opponents' ranking.
Some other thoughts from Origins 2002...
I visited the Upper Deck booth looking to buy a Gregory Horror Show starter set, but was told they weren't selling them. Why would you demo a game at a major con - a game that's already out in stores - and then not sell it? When I checked in again on the last day of the show, they were.
The guys at ACME Games were selling random re-packs of Doomtown cards for 50 cents a pack. Mike and I probably took home 75% of them.
The only real incident of the whole show was with the game rental people. In the tabletop games hall, there's usually this rental place that lets you borrow games to play. We all love this idea, as we get to check out new and rare stuff for free every year. One late night, Scott rents a game, hands over his driver's license as insurance, and we play. But by the time he goes to return it, the booth has closed and the operator is gone. So Scott has to bother about a hundred different people before they find someone who has the key to the key to the key where his license has been locked. Meanwhile, the rest of went up to our hotel room to play Super Smash Bros. Melee.
A minor problem was with Game Base 7. These guys run tournaments in an unofficial status for lots of traditional games, like Scrabble and Hearts. They also seem to never really know what's going on when you ask them questions like "Where do we go for your Scrabble tournament?", "Is anyone else showing up for the Scrabble tournament?", "What time is the final round for the Scrabble tournament?", and "Will I be the only person in the Scrabble Tournament final at 8:00am Sunday morning, the time for which you appeared to just make up on the spot?" They always have a bank of crappy PCs to compute points and data management, but I suspect they're all playing EverQuest.
I demoed HeroClix on a really nice hand-built construction site table. I was the only person who had never played before (so why did these guys sign up for the demo?), and it wasn't as informative for a newbie as it should have been. Still, I'm looking forward to the DC Comics version.
Best New Game of the Show That I Bought Award: Battle of the Bands from Third World Games. I demoed this one at the very end of the show; it's about forming your own band and winning by playing lots of good gigs and getting hit singles. The demo went something like this:
Me: I love the artwork. Show me how to play.
Demo Guy: Okay, it's about forming your own band and winning by playing lots of good gigs and getting hit singles. [shows me all the different card types]
Me: Cool. How much is it?
Demo Guy: $15, convention special.
Me: Great. I'll take it.
Demo Guy: Don't you want to play a few hands?
Me: Nope. I got it. Set me up with one.
Demo Guy: Want to see our other game?
Me: No.
