Origins Report, Part I

This is part 1 of a 2 part report on our trip to Origins last week. Part 1 will deal with the overall experience and an overview of the trip. Part 2 will go into more detail on the sights, the games, and other cool stuff.

I've been putting off writing this because there's just so much to say. (Well, that and the fact that nobody's reading this. :) The bottom line is this: our trip to Origins was justa bout the most fun I've had in a very, very long time.

The Trip

We decided rather late to attend the con at all. In fact, up until about a week ahead of time it was looking like we wouldn't be able to go due to cash flow issues. Driving instead of flying was an easy choice. And a fine one, as it turns out. We frequently make the 4-5 hour trip to southwestern PA to visit family, and adding a few hours onto that (it's about 7 hours to Columbus) was barely noticed. I mean, you get on I-70, point the car west, and cruise. We had lots of tunes and barely noticed that we drove over 400 miles. We got into Columbus right around 9pm -- which gave us just enough time to check into the hotel and get to the convetion center to see the registration and badge pickup lines closing. We did run into Todd and Michelle on the way there, so all was not lost -- we ended up picking up drinks instead of badges.

The trip home was somewhat less idyllic, as we ran into some nasty traffic on I-70 in Pennsylvania. There was an accident right at the entrance to the PA Turnpike that cost us about an hour or so. Still, the trip wasn't particularly painiful.

The experience of driving was so good, in fact, that we're going to drive to Gencon. Indy is only about 3 more hours (making it 10 instead of 7) and it's all on I-70, so... We'll see how it works out.

Convention Center

I'd been to a number of game conventions in the past, including the past 5 years of Gencon. I'd also been to a number of smaller cons, from several hundred down to several dozen attendees. Apart from Gencon, these were all held in hotels. Or, in the case of a really Smelly Con in 1999, a college campus. Oh, and one was held in a Grange hall, I think, or something like it. (That was a little on the surreal side. But I digress.) Anyway, the point is this: apart from Gencon, I'd never been to a gaming con held in an actual convention center. And all 5 Gencons I've been to were in Milwaukee, at the Midwest Express Center. So I didn't know what to expect from Origins, and the convention center in Columbus.

I mean, I really didn't know what to expect.

I was totally blown away by how well the convention center was organized, how well the convetion itself was run, and -- most of all -- how accomodating everyone and every thing was. If you've never been to Gencon in Milwaukee this probably bears some explanation.

One of the major differences between us and our proto-human ancestors from thousands -- or tens of thousands -- of years ago is how much less time we spend in the process of gathering and obtaining food. Unless, that is, you happen to be attending Gencon in Milwaukee. Understand that this convention is attended by 25,000 people. Then try to figure out why there are a total of, say, 5-6 places in the convention center where you can get anything to eat or drink. (Some of these are in the exhibit hall and so are only open during the hours when the hall is open -- nowhere near the whole gaming day.) The others close by 9pm. Games run until 1AM.

It gets better. There's no way I'd every expect the con center to be able to feed that many people at lunch time. But get this: apart from "sit-down" restaurants at the nearby hotels (and Major Goolsby's right across the street) the closest place to grab anything to eat in a manner even approaching quick is about 4 blocks away at the Grand Avenue mall's food court. Imagine, if you will, thousands of sweaty, smelly, hungry gamers descending on the food court like locusts on fresh foliage.

And it doesn't stop there. The mall closes at (this is from memory, so excuse me if I'm off by a bit) by 6pm. Leaving you with nothing but hotel restaurants anywhere closer than about 5-6 blocks. Sweet, eh?

The main game slots at Gencon are 8AM-Noon, Noon-4PM, 5PM-9PM and 9PM-1AM. You can see how that, combined with Milwaukee's rolling up the streets at 6PM, might make it difficult to find food. The first couple years we took turns going to Au Bon Pain at the mall to buy sandwiches -- which we then kept on the hotel room air conditioner in hopes that they wouldn't spoil by the end of the day. Seriously.

Imagine our shock, then, to discover that the Hyatt Regency in Columbus -- directly attached to the convention center -- contains a food court with at least 7 or 8 restaurants. And that every single one of them stayed open late during the convention. At least one actually stayed open 24 hours a day. It's a good feeling to know that you can actually get something to eat after that 9PM-1AM game slot if you need to. There were also places in the convention center proper that stayed open. At least 1 coffee shop stayed open for 70 straight hours to better serve us. They even went so far as to make special arrangements to bring in sandwiches and other foods so that we didn't have to walk our lazy butts to the food court.

After nothing but Gencon in Milwaukee to compare it to it was nearly religious. Anyone from Milwaukee wondering why Gencon has pulled up stakes and moved to Indianapolis need only attend Origins to see why. Did I mention that the convention center had soda machines where you could get 20 oz. of cold caffeinated beverage for $1.50 pretty much any time? And that they were kept pretty well stocked?

GAMA vs. WotC -- Steel Cage Death Match

Every Gencon I've attended has been run either by WotC, Andon Unlimited (a wholly-owned and now defunct subsidiary of Wizards), or Gencon LLC which is steered by former WotC head Peter Adkinson. To say that I had problems doesn't begin to describe it. Of the 5 years I attended they got my schedule right exactly 0 times. Every year I'd be signed up for games I never asked for and -- far worse -- not for games that I had. They had plenty of other problems as well, usually with their computer systems. They also had some really ridiculous and pointless policies -- such as not letting people sign up (on site) for events more than 24 hours ahead of time. (In 1999 I stood in line for 2 hours very early in the morning to get into an event later that day only to have their computer system break. Thanks to a cool GM, I managed to get into the game anyway, even though they later sold the final spot in it to someone who *didn't* stand in line all morning for it.)

Occasionally, a GM doesn't show or there aren't enough players and an event gets cancelled. It's unfortunate, but a fact of gaming life. The WotC guys would occasionally make a half-assed attempt at getting you into another game. Mostly this just consisted of walking around the room looking for a game with an opening. Nevermind that you were supposed to be playing Star Wars and they just tossed you in to a D&D game that's gonna make you want to chew off your own foot. This was about as good as it got from these guys.

They also did a pretty regular job of messing up the LARPs that we helped run. Every year they'd "forget" to put it in the pre-reg book, or change the room at the last minute, or give us a room that could hold 15 when the LARP was slotted for 30. (Out of the past 4 years this happened 3 times.)

This is the second year that GAMA has run Origins. Again, comparing it to the WotC Gencons was like night and day. Everyone was helpful. If you stood around for more than 30 seconds looking lost somebody in a blue vest would come up and ask to help you. They went around to every game at or near the beginning of the time slot to make sure that players had GM's and GM's had players. And if you didn't they did their best to get you into another game. And not just any game -- another similar game. Unlike WotC (who can't see beyond their own A Duh & Duh game) GAMA realizes that people who play one RPG don't necessarily play another.

I had a game cancelled at Origins this year. The GM (and the company sponsoring him) just didn't show up. I kinda forgive them -- they're quite small, under-funded, and from far away. The volunteers from RPG HQ came and found a group of players sans GM and took swift and decisive action. They took us to RPG HQ, refunded our tickets ON THE SPOT (at Gencon I would have had to stand in a very long line and would probably have just skipped it) AND got most of us into another game that was to our liking. As if that wasn't enough, they also tracked down the reason that the game had been cancelled. Now that's customer service. Did I mention that these guys were voluteers?

Exhibit Hall

The exhibit hall (or "Dealer's Area") was a nice surprise also. Way less crowded than Gencon. Probably fewer exhibitors, too, though the only one I missed was Pagan Publishing. Didn't buy a whole bunch of new product but that's more because of cash flow than because of lack of product. I expect there will be more new stuff at Gencon and we'll hopefully have a little more cash by then. There were some extremely cool things at the Crystal Caste booth. I'll write about that tomorrow.

Hotel

Well, it couldn't all be perfect could it? The hotel was definitely the most suboptimal part of the trip -- the only suboptimal part in fact. It advertises itself as "2 blocks" from the convention center. I'll tell you, those were 2 of the biggest damned blocks I've ever seen in my life. Luckily, taxis were plentiful -- even at 3 AM -- so that's always an option if you're too tired, late, or drunk to walk. (I was all 3 at various times.)

The hotel room itself was okay, but nothing compared to the suite we've gotten the past 3 years at the Howard Johnson's in Milwaukee. The air conditioning was almost non-functional so it's good that the weather was mild. And the "Free High-Speed Internet" just plain didn't work. I spent 1/2 an hour on the phone with a tech -- who was suprisingly knowledgeable -- before we finally just gave it up. There were probably unprotected WiFi networks in the area but I just didn't feel like messing with it. So I went without email for 4 days and the world didn't end. Who knew?

Games

And finally, the games. Unsurprisingly, I played a whole bunch of Call of Cthulhu. I mean, why else would I drive 400 miles? I played in 5 slots (22 hours total) that were run by a group called Rogue Cthulhu. Their history -- especially their feud with WotC and the RPGA -- is, well, interesting to say the least. Don't let that put you off -- these guys have got some serious game. More on that tomorrow.

I also played in a Savage Worlds demo, "Weird Wars: The 'Nam." I'd been dying to play Savage Worlds for quite some time -- I followed the development of the game over the past year or so. I enjoyed it rather a lot, actually, despite the fact that our GM didn't seem to know the rules that well. I don't think anybody noticed or cared.

Overall

Like I said before, it's just about the most fun I've had in a long time. Lots of good games, friends, drinking until 2 or 3 in the morning, and, well, going insane. What more could you ask for?