2010 Trip: Origins

23rd-27th June 2010

Origins is the second largest convention (after Gencon) in the US dedicated to role playing and table-top gaming. Every year for the last thirty-five, up to fifteen thousand individuals (geeks and other insundry), have gathered for five days of fun filled gaming related events. This convention is set in Columbus, Ohio, the largest city in the state with about a million inhabitants.

This year, I had the pleasure of attending the convention for all five days. It was the first convention I have ever been to and I had a lot of fun. Good friends of mine, Jan & Rose, had gone last year and had a great time, so I was encouraged enough to go. By the time I got round to booking (three months out), the only accommodation I could get was expensive, though I managed to get a room just across the road.

We don’t really have convention centres like this in New Zealand, well certainly not in Christchurch. For those who know the convention centre next to the town hall, that entire venue could fit into one of the four main halls in the complex. In addition there are a variety of 20 - 30 smaller rooms within the complex. Pretty much all of these were in use during Origins.

One of the main halls for an exhibitor’s hall which held a wide variety of stalls selling everything from new and used board games from large and indie game designers, dice manufactures, various role playing game sellers, people selling miniatures and terrain, steam punk gear, gaming accessories like gaming mats and assorted odd and ends. Many of the larger board game companies also used the room as a demo venue for their games.

The next two rooms were for collectable card games and miniatures respectively. I barely went into these rooms except for a quick look around. The final room was the board gaming room. Row upon row of tables fitting probably a couple of thousand people at any one time graced the area. By the weekend, towards the end of the convention, the room was actually getting pretty full!

There are a few other areas I will cover later, but I think I should take the time to mention registration and ribbons. One registers and pays the entrance fee to the convention and then to participate in games one either has to have generic tokens that allow you to enter any game or a ribbon giving you free entrance to a particular area. These are usually a good deal if you intend on spending any decent amount of time in an area. So for instance, half of the board gaming room was set aside for those with Board Room ribbons. The local board gaming group, CABS, brought in huge lockers of games which could be borrowed and played whenever you liked and there were always people looking to play. In addition, Rio Grande Games provided all of those with the ribbon with free games, plus free lunch and dinner (all week!) at the cafeteria in the room. Free food is always an attraction and this room became very popular very fast! The food wasn’t the most exciting thing, but burgers, hot dogs, fries, and even the occasional salad could be had.

I had a few other Ribbons, one was the Mayfair Room, which, set aside from the main board room, provided access to play game produced by Mayfair Games. They also had a ribbon quest where one could collect Catan-named resources (Ore, Wood, Sheep, Grain, Brick, Cloth, Paper, Coin) by playing games to gain discounts and freebies from the Mayfair store. A little childish, but a rather fun and addictive way of attracting players to Mayfair games. I probably spent most of my time playing Looney Lab games at the Big Experiment, having procured one of the same named ribbons. Looney Labs is probably most well know for the Icehouse games system in which different sizes/colours of pyramids are used to play a whole range of interesting games. Their other products are various types of card games based on Fluxx and Chrononauts. If you don’t know them, look them up, they are pretty awesome.

In addition to free plays, both of these two rooms had giant versions of their games - Mayfair had Domaine, Settlers and Pompeii. Looney Labs had giant pyramids for various Icehouse games and some of them were cute and fluffy. There is one other thing worth mentioning about Looney Labs, the guy who created the games, Andy Looney, is around and everyday he participates in a long standing event - Andy vs. Everybody. He plays against ten or more people at once in a selection of the games I mentioned above. It’s lots of fun and has a great atmosphere.

I still haven’t mentioned the art show (amazing fantasy artworks, many created during the show), the vast catalogue of LARPs and RPGs that one can sign up for, war-gaming, train games, battle pods for playing battle mechs… The list goes on.

I spent my evenings playing Werewolf, also organised by Looney Labs. These sessions would run from 10pm until some ungodly hour of the morning. I usually stayed until about 2 or 3am. After about midnight, the kids were dismissed and the games got more intense, dodgy, and more serious until people started falling asleep.

For those who play Werewolf, we played a very regimented standard draw, with 15 players, from which there are two werewolves and one seer. Voting was regimented, people vote for one person at a time, one hand up and one pointing. This mix looks like it tends to favour the villagers more than the werewolves, but it is much closer than you might think. I had a couple of fantastic games where it came right down to the wire, from both sides. I seemed to win rather too frequently, I think my strange accent hid my usual tells. In my favourite game, I got the seer card and managed to communicate who the werewolves were to a safe villager on the other side of the circle. It was most excellent.

So yeah, I spent most of my time playing board games (Pompeii, Tikal, Small World, Fresco, Zombie Fluxx, Uber Chrononauts, Back to the Future Chrononauts, Treehouse, Illegitimate, Domaine, Volcano, That’s My Fish and various others) and werewolf.

The city of Columbus itself is not amazingly enthralling, though only a block from the convention centre is the North Market, which has rather decent gourmet food, including some of the best ice cream I have ever eaten in my life with flavours like goat’s cheese and cherry, and wild berries and lavender.

There is also an annual music festival just down the road that is held over the same time that Origins is, a fun way to spend an evening :) So all in all, I had a great time at Origins and maybe I will get to come back another year!