Origins 2012

One post ought to do it this year - due to a desire to leave myself some shopping time, and the fact that a double-dose of the Smithee Awards left me with less gaming time than usual, I attended fewer events than most any year previous.

Day One (Wednesday) : Warhammer 40K Introductory Session. There was also a mash-up game of My Little Pony and the Warhammer 'Death Watch' RPG that I wanted to get in, but it sold out less than eight minutes into registration.

Day Two (Thursday) : Two sessions of the DC Adventures game, both starring actual DC characters. Also, a playtest session of D&D Next. I had fun playing Martian Manhunter, and then Booster Gold, in the DC games. D&D Next was interesting, but the slot was overbooked and the poor, drafted extra GM running the overflow table had not had a chance to read the latest revisions thoroughly, and was short on sleep - he'd occasionally nod off while we were running combats.

Day Three (Friday) : Tried the Alien Frontiers boardgame, which was cool, and attended the MetaMegaSmithee awards. Also had another Warhammer session - a few squads of Imperial Guard trying to survive long enough to evacuate, against a Tyranid swarm.

Day Four (Saturday) : Blew off my morning event, shopped around, attended the regular-sized Smithee Awards.

Highlights :

• Martian Manhunter, disguised as Superman, tricking Metallo into opening up his chest, exposing his Kryptonite heart - and then plucking it free with a stretchy Martian arm. Bonus : Using a hero point to go intangible as Zoom tried to recover the Kryptonite.
• Booster Gold asking Captain Marvel if the Wisdom of Solomon allowed him to count cards (as we descended into Las Vegas).
• The Smithees, as always.

New Comics Day and CharCon

Just got back from attending a little local gaming convention - had a good time, despite a pretty mediocre hotel. I got to do a Pathfinder game, a Savage Worlds "Bureau 13" game, a FUDGE Supers game, played Dark Heresy for the first time, and finished up with a Deadlands game. All good sessions, though not one of them was actually a full table - mostly, people seemed to be doing other games than the ones I picked. C'est la vie.

Jolly Blackburn (of Knights of the Dinner Table) was a special guest, not too shabby for a con of this size. I wish I'd scheduled a little more loosely - it turns out that Saturday night, they were doing CharCon After Dark, including a session with the relatively new local Dr. Sketchy's crew, which I would have loved to have gone to.

The Bureau 13 game stands out - we ended up battling a Louisiana vampire who'd created crawling hands and summoned a hellhound - thereby demonstrating decent magical talent - who was using them to guard and operate his still. A somewhat modest goal for someone with that kind of spell mojo. I dubbed him the "Redneck-romancer."

Also! Got comics this week :

• War Goddess #2
• Warlord of Mars #11
• Darkwing Duck #17
• Fables #110
• Herc #9
• Star Trek / Legion of Super-Heroes #1
• Dungeons and Dragons #12
• Atomic Robo : Ghost of Station X #2
• Green Lantern Corps #2
• Blue Beetle #2
• Nightwing #2
• Wonder Woman #2
• Batman #2
• Legion of Super-Heroes #2
• Justice League #2

That's it!

Origins 2011, Day Four (and Five)

The final chapter! Till next year, anyway.

Schedule for Saturday, June 25th was :

11AM - 1PM : Advanced Tips and Tricks for Miniatures
2PM - 4PM : Building Terrain : Abyssal Gate
7PM - 11PM : Twilight of the Gods (Mutants and Masterminds)

I'd very nearly decided to make it a full day of miniatures events, but at the last moment, I decided I needed one more RPG event as a capper. I left myself plenty of time in the morning so I could sleep in after having done the Smithees the night before.

The Tips and Tricks class was excellent, and after the convention, it's inspired more purchases of craft materials for me than anything else in recent memory. The tips about miniature 'basing' were particularly cool and helpful. I haven't started using most of the things I learned, but I'm preparing to do so.

The Terrain class was also cool, but sparsely attended. We had three, out of a potential class size of eight - but this meant he gave us each an extra 'kit' to take home and work with later. The kit includes some pre-cut foam in the rough shapes needed, to speed the class along. I was pretty pleased with my Abyssal Gate when the class was done - less pleased when a careless bellhop ignored my instructions about the bag it was in and crushed it, though. I should be able to fix it, but sheesh - when I tell you the bag has something fragile in it, don't toss it on the cart on its side. Dumbass.

Twilight of the Gods was a fun adventure of the 'The world is lost - can the heroes beat the villain and allow reality to snap back to its normal shape?' variety. (Though it wasn't immediately clear that things could go back to the way they were.) It was set in the default universe of Mutants and Masterminds, and the players each took on the role of one of the Freedom League. I had some issues with the portrayals of some of the other players, because they seemed to be trying their damnedest to fail the scenario, but I had fun playing the role of the Freedom League's resident city elemental, Dr. Metropolis.

Now, I have no idea what his personality is supposed to be like, but I was playing him as a Spectre type - aloof, mysterious, that kind of thing. This led to some hilarity.

(The FL's female Batman type - Raven - has shown up to rescue us all from the forced labor camps we were held in. She begins working on Lady Liberty's power nullifier collar.)
Me (to GM) : "Hey, I have Disable Device. Can I do my own?"
GM : "Sure, roll it."
Me (to GM) : "28."
GM (amused) : "Dr. Metropolis removes his own power inhibitor..."
Captain Thunder : "Why didn't you do that before??"
Me (as Dr. M) : "It wasn't time, yet."

Once free, Captain Thunder runs off on his own to start an intimidation campaign against the interdimensional conqueror who kicked our asses in the backstory, and Lady Liberty goes to mess with his troops at his stronghold, leading to her ass getting kicked again, and a haphazard regroup is staged, leaving Raven VERY annoyed with the level of unit cohesion. Her player starts ranting at me, about Captain Thunder running off on his own.

Me (as Dr. M) : "There's no need to take that tone with me. I am here, where I am required. I understand you are very upset. There, There." (delivered with a near-monotone, and a patting hand gesture at the end)

Got a hero point for that, and a belly-laugh from Raven's player.

All in all, I had great fun in that session. Especially once Captain Thunder got his act together.

Sunday morning, I went back to the exhibit hall once more to look for some particular miniatures, and had no luck - finally packing it in and checking out of the hotel to start my drive home.

Origins 2011, Day Three

I'm a bad, bad blogger. It's been almost a month since my last installment of this summary.

For the third day of the convention - Friday - I'd only scheduled three events. In part, this was to leave me some time for the exhibit hall. But also, they were large events. They were :

9AM-1PM : Clash of Heroes - DC (Mutants and Masterminds)
1PM-5PM : Space 1935 : Zeppelins Over Jupiter (Champions)
7PM-Midnight : The 20th Annual Smithee Awards

Clash of Heroes wasn't bad, but it was kind of predictable. See, I'd noticed there was a Clash of Heroes - Marvel on the schedule at the exact same time, and since my brain is capable of adding two and two, I realized there was only one way this could possibly go down. The two sessions would end up fighting one another in the end.

I got to play Batman, which was awesome, and the guy playing Plastic Man was hysterical. Plus, the players of Green Arrow and Black Canary were bickering in-character about Ollie's philandering. The whole thing turned out to be a joint interdimensional plot by Darkseid and Dr. Doom. Both groups of heroes arrived at the same time to confront the bad guys - the OBVIOUS bad guys - one of whom each team would RECOGNIZE as bad guys - and still the tween playing Spider-Man decided to take a potshot at me because "we don't know they're not villains". Well, you see me attacking Dr. Doom, genius. What do you think is happening? But then Ollie hit on Ms. Marvel and Tony Stark tried to pick up on Black Canary, so it was funny again.

Space 1935 was fantastic pulp sci-fi, and not just because I got to pick the character whose sheet had him represented by Mike Nelson of MST3K. No, our ship had an AI, Huckleberry, who had somewhat specific interpretations of the laws of robotics that allowed him to pre-emptively murder some beastmen that MIGHT EVENTUALLY attack humans. And the player gave him a sort of effeminate, Southern accent - like a slightly higher pitched, soft-spoken Huckleberry Hound, in fact. I couldn't help but laugh.

And then, of course, the Smithees - my favorite part of the con, every year. Unfortunately, this year, Man-Mountain McGurk decided to sit in front of me, so it was sometimes a challenge to see the screen around his 7 foot frame and double-wide head. Sigh. But I managed to see most of it.

Origins 2011, Day Two

Day two - wisely, I had scheduled nothing earlier than 9AM, to avoid pesky early morning hassles. My schedule was thus :

9AM - 1PM : Global Defense League : Dimensional Distress (Mutants and Masterminds)
2PM - 4PM : Shadows Over Camelot (Board Game)
7PM - 11PM : Invasion High School (Big Eyes Small Mouth 2nd Ed.)

Between the second and third event, I even had time to do an initial sweep of the dealer hall, setting my sights on a few things I would later purchase.

The first session was a rock-solid superhero game - fairly straightforward, but no less fun for it. I played a Green Lantern type, so I got to do some creative blasting and bashing. Shadows Over Camelot is a pretty neat little board game of the 'One of you is a traitor' variety. Not something I plan to buy, but something I'd probably play at any invitation.

The third session was the winner of the day, though. A typical Japanese High School is attacked by aliens, who use combat robots to subjugate the populace. This proves to be a golden opportunity for the members of the Alien Defense Club and the Robot Defense Club to finally prove which group is superior! It was fairly pun-laden, almost to the point of distraction, but the hilarious characters to choose from really made my night. They included parodies of Squall (FF8), Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Ash (Pokemon), All-Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku-Nuku (Eponymous), a Magical Girl, and a Gun Bunny. If the latter two were specific parodies, I missed'em, but the game was a riot.

I mean, the Ash expy had Pokemon that included Fistbump (a surly drunken one) and Ivyskank (a Dryad with plant and seduction powers). 'Nuker Nuker' was a squirrel in a female android body. The Squall/Cloud parody was 'Barometric Pressure', and wielded a Sword-With-a-Gun - two weapons affixed to one another via duct tape. That's who I picked. He had a power - Sacrificial Girlfriend - that he could invoke to have his girlfriend, 'Aerihed', show up in a scene and take a damaging hit meant for him.

We had to fight our way past the Hall Monitor Nazi Club, and mind-controlled members of the Assault Rifle and Chainsaw clubs. It was fantastic.

Still, not quite as fun as Lawfully Blonde.

Origins 2011, Day One

I'll be skipping over the minutiae of the trip, the hotel, etc. Most of that was uneventful, except that the Hyatt had a Monopoly board set up, and allowed people to roll the dice - if you got a 10, you got your parking comped by the hotel. I managed to luck out on that - and then my friend Andrew, who had flown up, and was staying in the same room. took a roll on my behalf and won it a second time.

My schedule for the first day was :

3PM - 5PM : Painting Miniatures : Tools and Supplies
7PM - 11PM : Lawfully Blonde (4th Edition D&D)

The painting class was extremely helpful - explaining the virtues of miniature paint vs. craft paint, why you don't want to skimp on brushes, and the like. It is directly responsible for my spending nearly $200 on paint and probably $100 on supplies and tools to up my game in painting minis.

Lawfully Blonde was one of the most hysterical RPG experiences I've ever had. Six low-level adventuring sorority girls. Investigating goblin saboteurs interfering with their favorite salon. The catty remarks were flying, and the three guys playing got into it as much as the three girls. During a skill challenge to catch a fleeing goblin, the bible-thumping Paladin (of Pelor, sun-god) girl tried to flash some cleavage, arguing for a Diplomacy check. One of the other players inquired "You use Diplomacy for that?" and was answered "Well, there's no skill for Whore." The Paladin became the butt of most of the jokes after that, as the Bible-thumper AND the Tramp.

My character had a special rivalry with her, too, giving me ample opportunities for undercutting remarks - the most blistering of which I will recount to give you an idea of the atmosphere of the session :

Tiffany! (the Paladin, played by the girl next to me) : "Well, I took a class on Forensics, once.."
Brianna! (the Psion, played by me) : "Waking up covered in evidence does not constitute a class in Forensics, Tiffany."
Tiffany! "... Pelor loves you, even if you will end up in Hell, bitch."

I seriously haven't laughed that hard in a while.

Another one - after much amusement was had about the Paladin mentioned she had 'contacts' in the Thieves Guild (via her Streetwise skill) causing us to wonder how many of them she'd had contact with..

Tiffany! : "Pelor believes in free love."
Brianna! : (to the others) "Oh, so that's why she doesn't charge."

Since my character was the bookish one, and had glasses, I decided she was the hipster chick of the bunch, and used History during the skill challenge to recall a little-used shortcut.

Brianna! : "There's this little alleyway back here, you've probably never heard of it.."

So that was a great start to the Con, for me. I was apparently in the same hotel as the girl who played the Paladin, so we walked past each other at the elevators several times over the next few days - I couldn't tell if she recognized me or not, but I resisted the urge to say "Bitch!" just in case she didn't.

Week in Geek

I ended up being a bit busy yesterday, so I didn't get to this post in a timely fashion. My biggest geek thing from last week would be the Weird Al concert. It was an excellent show - the second time I've seen Al live - and I even got some pictures. I'll have to crop and size them, then maybe I can link them here. He had a new polka medley for the show, and a snippet of at least one new parody that could end up on his next album.

My new MasterMaze pieces arrived, as well, and I got them opened and inspected yesterday - very nice. They're 3-D dungeon terrain, made of painted resin, from a company called Dwarven Forge. Very cool looking, but expensive. I ordered them while at Origins.

I'm still troubleshooting my computer, and I have the problem narrowed down to either the motherboard or the power supply, and I'm strongly leaning towards the latter. I have a borrowed power supply that I can try to use to confirm my hypothesis.

Origins 2010, Day 4 and 5

The final full day of the convention for me was Saturday. My 9AM event was 'The Clue of Cthulhu' - a riff on the premise of the Clue boardgame, set in the 1920's Lovecraft Mythos. I opted to skip it for a couple of reasons.

I really don't like skipping events, because it wastes money, and could potentially put other folks out - like if the game was cancelled for insufficient players. However, I was exhausted and really wanted the sleep, and I don't care for the Call of Cthulhu system at all. the only thing that had attracted me to the event in the first place was the novel premise. And after Mystery Express, I'd kind of had my itch to sleuth scratched.

So, I slept in, had lunch, went back by the exhibit hall for more spending. I met up with my cousin Anthony and we walked around, looking at stuff and chatting.

My next scheduled event was at 3PM - 5PM - a miniatures painting class focusing on different mediums. Thanks to Origins scheduling snafus, they didn't think they had anyone signed up for it, but were prepared to run it anyway - except I was the only one who showed, and they needed at least three for a break-even. I hung out with the mini-painting folks for fifteen minutes while waiting for other people to show, but ultimately, no dice. They signed off on my event ticket as cancelled.

Now, normally, Origins does refunds in generic tokens of equivalent value that you can use to get in other events. Because this cancellation was late in the schedule and it was an expensive event ($18), there was no way I was going to be able to use that many generic tokens. I asked for, and was given, a cash refund, which was nice. I then moseyed over to the Auction Hall to check on the Black Lotus.

The Origins auction was poorly attended this year, and there were lots of old games going by with no bids or a single bid. Some old Star Trek board games, even, which I thought would be surefire sellers. So I was already a little concerned. A quick check confirmed my fears - the Collectible Card Game section of the auction had come and gone, and my card had gone for the minimum, drawing only one bid from the Troll and Toad buyer. After paying the auction guys their cut, I got $510 for it, which isn't bad, but I could have sold it direct to T&T for $800.

So, note to self : never participate in the Origins auction again, ever.

That kind of bummed me out, but I picked up the cash - at that point, I was walking around with over $1600 in my wallet, which was bulging amusingly. That cheered me up a little. I did one more round in the exhibit hall, and grabbed dinner in time to make it to my final event of the convention 'Learn to Play D&D', an introductory session for 4th Edition D&D. I own the books, but hadn't yet played the game.

There were two other players - one guy with zero roleplaying experience (who took to the whole thing like a duck to water), another guy with a little, and me. The scenario was a simple one, retrieving some stolen goods from a goblin cave, but it served to demonstrate the changed game fairly well. I can't say my opinion of 4E has changed, though. I don't mind changing the rhythm of the game to focus on the encounters, but it still has an artificial feel to the whole exercise that detracts from the immersion. It's a fine medieval fantasy combat simulator. I was gratified that moderate-experience guy asked me some questions about Pathfinder after the session - that encourages me.

After that, it was back to the room for rest and relaxation. The only thing left was Sunday - checking out and heading home. Now, on rare occasions, I'll spot something earlier in the convention that I refrain from buying, but it grows in my mind like a cancer until on Sunday, I must have it. So I'll make a last minute trip to the exhibit hall to pick things up - and sometimes people run extra good bargains then, to avoid having to ship things home.

I skipped out on all that this year, in favor of sleep. They also run events on Sunday, but with checkout time being noon, it's a little tricky for me to play an event on that last day. I was ready to be home, so I just got things squared away and headed off - to indulge in the final Origins tradition, Massey's Pizza. I also stop on the way out of town, see. And in addition to lunch, I buy a few of their 'partial bake' pizzas - and put them in a cooler, and bring them home to my freezer, to enjoy.

So that's my trip in a nutshell. It was good this year, despite some minor disorganization on the part of the organizers. The increased prize emphasis was nice, it adds some value. It seemed like there was a good crowd at the con, and the exhibit hall was fairly well packed. I ended up buying some things I didn't need, thanks to all that money burning a hole in my pocket, but that's life.

Origins 2010, Day 3

Friday was designed so that I'd have a good spate of free time in the middle of the day to shop, and to sell the remaining Magic cards. I only scheduled two events, in fact.

From 9AM to 1PM, I attended 'Learn to Hack', an introductory session for the latest edition of the Hackmaster game. This is an RPG I own, but have never played. The previous edition of Hackmaster was a parody of the original editions of Dungeons and Dragons - and it was nigh-unplayable with hilarious complexity. Kenzer Co. lost the license to do the parody game, and had to come up with a new product that wasn't dependent on the old D&D rules, and thus, Hackmaster Basic was born.

It's an improvement in terms of playability. And it actually manages to keep the feel of the old-style Dungeons and Dragons games, despite the change in system. They've gone for a less zany feel, though, so a lot of the fun in reading the books that came from the humor is gone. I could actually see myself running this, though, which is a good sign.

From 1PM to 7PM, I prowled the exhibit hall, selling and buying. Also, I managed to fit two meals in there, somehow.

Then at 7PM, it was time for one of my other Origins traditions - the Smithee Awards. It's sort of like an Oscar ceremony, but for bad movies. Hilariously awful clips and a crowd ready to laugh at them. I try to make it to the Smithees every year - it'd been something I'd long wanted to attend at Origins, but it was only five or six years ago that I actually finally made the time to do so - and I have not regretted that.

The Smithees ran till just past Midnight, and then I headed back to the hotel room to peruse some purchases and catch up on things. And as I pondered, I looked at my schedule for the next morning, and decided to skip my 9AM event so I could sleep in.

Origins 2010, Day 2

Thursday is often my big day at Origins, because there's consistently a Thursday morning event that I want to do. See, a while back, I stumbled upon a game using the Hero System entitled 'The JSA vs. Hitler's Bunker'. I actually went up to the convention on Wednesday that year so I could make it to that 8AM Thursday event, and I have not regretted doing the same every year since.

See, this one GameMaster runs a JSA event at every Origins, and it's always at 8AM Thursday. I think 2004 was my first one, and I haven't missed one since. He uses these unique JSA miniatures composed of colored twist-ties - they're amazing.

This year's JSA event was JSA vs. Predator, and I got to play Wildcat. We had fun hunting the hunters, and Wildcat was appropriately durable. Hit with a missile at point-blank range, Wildcat was damaged, but he wasn't stunned, and retaliated with a sock to the jaw. The players voted for me to get the prize for that event as well, largely thanks to how I decided who to help in the final fight. Air Wave and Green Lantern were taking on one predator, and Wonder Woman had just been severely hurt by another. I thought a second, and decided.

"I'll go help Wonder Woman since I debuted in her comic."

They admired my decision methodology.

That was scheduled to run till 2PM, but we actually wrapped up a little early - I had time to run and get lunch, and take the first huge suitcase of Magic cards down to the exhibit hall to sell. Troll and Toad stuck right with their buy list prices, and trusted my counts (I'd made copious notes) so that was finished pretty quickly.

My next event was a demo of the Dragon Storm RPG, from 2PM to 4PM. Dragon Storm is a little different from most RPGs - it doesn't really rely on books. The characters are all based on cards. And the characters are all shapeshifters. So to make a character, you'd select a base character card - a 'Human Werewolf' is one - and that would tell you your base stats, and how many other points worth of cards you can select. The additional cards would include a 'class', an alternate form, and a variety of techniques or skills to fill out the basic character.

The Gamemaster uses cards, too - he has a deck for places, scenes, NPCs, and the like. It's a novel approach, even if I find the setting a little limited. This was my first time trying it, and the demo was well-attended - I think we had 7 or 8 people, and they weren't expecting more than 5. No prize was awarded at that event, but we did all get coupons, and we got to keep our demo character cards.

From 4PM to 6PM, I had a break, so I met up with my cousin Ryan, and we drove out to Tommy's Pizza, another local chain I'd been cajoled to try. The pizza was excellent - not as good as Massey's, of course, but very nice. Getting back into town was kind of a pain, as traffic was backed up, but Ryan got me within a short walk of the convention center in time for my next event.

From 6PM-8PM, I had Mystery Express, a Clue-like board game set on the Orient Express. The game has a kind of fixed forward timeline as the train moves towards Istanbul, and you have to solve the murder's particulars using a number of card-swapping techniques and fine memory to come out on top. I was able to correctly identify all five elements of the crime at the end, and won the prize there, as well!

Three events with prizes so far, and I'd taken them all - and promptly gotten small bags of dice for each of them.

My final event for the evening was scheduled from 8PM to Midnight - Illuminati, the Card Game. I actually own a copy of the game, but had not previously played it. Each player takes on the role of a different secret society, trying to build up a power structure of organizations to take over the world. It's kinda wacky and fun, but also incredibly cutthroat. I got pretty discouraged halfway through, as nobody was letting me get much of anything - you can interfere with one another's battles - but after several cycles, they started having to turn on one another to keep specific players from winning - and then I had the move that'd put me over the top, and the cards to pull it off.

I managed to wrap up the game with a win around 11PM, and though it was supposed to be prize-supported, the GM couldn't find his prize slips - so he got me a substitute. I'd mentioned to him I had the game and the first expansion at home, and he had been talking about the second expansion - so for my prize, he handed me a copy of the second expansion! Perfect.

It had been a long day at that point, so i headed back tot he hotel room to catch up with Andrew and get some rest. Fortunately, my Friday events didn't start until 9AM.

Origins 2010, Day 1

The drive to Columbus takes me about three and a half hours, so I like to bring along some CDs. This year, I also had a good bit more to haul with me, thanks to the pending sale of my Magic cards, so I actually had tied a couple of things up in the bed of my truck. Lifting 22,000 trading cards isn't easy, but I finally managed to get it up there.

I actually made the trip nonstop this year, and got into Gahanna (a suburb of Columbus) right at lunchtime, to indulge int he first of my Origins rituals - Massey's Pizza. See, it's a local Columbus-area pizza chain that I consider to be the best pizza on Earth. so I always grab lunch there on the way in.

From there it was on to the hotel - the Hyatt Regency, which actually adjoins the convention center. I got checked in, had my stuff taken up to the room, and went down to the registration area for the con.

Now, Origins was a little off its game this year, in terms of organization. They just implemented a new registration system, and some of the shakedown chaos of that spilled over into the lines, which were long. (and somewhat understaffed.) Still, I got my badge and tickets and freebies bag, and headed towards my first event - Quackery, the Game of Medieval Medicine, running from 2PM-4PM. Another player and I waited at the Board Games HQ for the Gamemaster to show, but I suspect he or she was running late - the event ultimately had to be cancelled.

That didn't bother me too much - I usually end up with at least one cancelled event at any given Origins, and the free time would allow me to meet up with friend Andrew, arriving from the airport, so as to let him into our room and get him his key. We caught up a bit, then grabbed some food - lamenting the fact that the exhibit hall doesn't open until Thursday - and then headed down to pick up his registration material and to see if I could drop off my Black Lotus at the Auction area.

He got through the pre-registration line a little quicker than I had, thanks to some additional people staffing the booth, and we checked in at the auction ballroom - they were now accepting items for intake, but there was a line. My next event was at 6, and Andrew's was at 7 - so when the time starting getting close, he offered to wait in line for me to drop off the card and I headed to my 6PM-7PM event, Flat Acting. That, too, was cancelled - insufficient players. I got my event ticket signed so I could exchange it and I headed back to the auction room and took my place in line.

I finally got the card registered right at 7PM, which left me zero minutes to dash across the length of the convention center to my 7PM-9PM event, Betrayal at House on the Hill. Now, this is a board game that I have played before and I just love it, so I'd taken opportunity to play it again at the convention. The Gamemaster running it was actually the same woman who'd run it last year, when I'd first played it. I did get there before things got started, fortunately.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a board game where a group is exploring a haunted house - as they explore more of the house, 'Omens' are revealed. With each Omen revealed, the player makes a Haunt roll - and if the Haunt roll is less than or equal to the number of Omens revealed thus far, the Haunt begins. The Haunt can be one of more than fifty different scenarios depending on which Omen and which Room trigger the Haunt. Typically, it also involves one of the players becoming the 'Traitor' and beginning to work against the others.

I love, love, love this game. It's got a lot of the appeal of Arkham Horror, but it's not quite as harsh or as micromanagement oriented.

We narrowly defeated the Traitor, thanks to my timely application of the last can of paint to defile the unholy basement pentagram. Since I'd won the day, the other players voted I should have the event prize.

That's something that was a bit different this year - Origins was pushing for almost every event to have prize support. If you 'won' an event (or were voted the winner, in case of cooperative games) you'd get a slip to take to one of the HQs - there, you'd roll a die and on a 15 or greater, get your pick of a stack of games. Roll under a 15, and you'd get a freebie pack of dice as a consolation prize. For Betrayal, I got the pack of dice.

After that, it was back to the room to rest up - my Thursday schedule would run from 8AM to Midnight, nonstop.

Combo Post!

Back from the Con! Origins was basically my super Week of Geek for the year. Lots of games and more games. I will write up some con reports later in the week. The Magic cards are sold, and I spent too much money on new stuff.

I also picked up my comics on the way back into town, and haven't had time to read'em yet, but here's the list :

• Angel #34
• The Incredibles #10
• Incorruptible #7
• Fantastic Four #580
• Superman/Batman #73
• Power Girl #13
• Batman : Streets of Gotham #13
• Detective Comics #866
• Zatanna #2
• Supergirl #53
• Green Lantern Corps #49
• Superman #700
• Legion of Super-Heroes #2
• Justice League : Generation Lost #4
• Batman : The Return of Bruce Wayne #3

Whee!

Week in Geek

I had a mercifully restful weekend where I didn't have to do anything in particular, so I spent countless hours playing Marvel : Ultimate Alliance 2, trying to earn the 'Powers of Two' achievement. I really want to finish that game before I delve into any of the other ever-accumulating XBox games I've got piling up, and I managed to move a big step closer this weekend. I also need to get back to Lunar : Silver Star Story and Final Fantasy IV : The After Years.

My tiny robots from Japan arrived - handy for miniatures in my mecha game. I can debut them the next time we play, but I suspect more work is going to go into the Golden Age first. I am having a blast coming up with retro characters for it. I still need to recruit two more people, though.

I picked up a new digital camera this week, replacing the previous one that might as well have had a tiny pterodactyl carving the images into miniature stone tablets. ('It's a living!') My old digital camera was a boxy HP, with 3 Megapixels, which could not recognize memory cards above 1GB in size. It also ate batteries like Skittles. The new one's a basic Canon Powershot and I love it already. This year's trip to Origins is going to be well-documented.