From Wednesday June 12th to Sunday June 16th, Origins Game Fair descended on Columbus, Ohio. With an attendance of over 20,000 gamers and 250 vendors, this was the 4th largest exclusively tabletop gaming convention in the English-centric world and Germany (Internationale Spieltage SPIEL/Essen Game Fair) and second largest in North America. As my second year attending, it was an opportunity to game, meet creators, and conduct interviews.
This convention runs Wednesday to Sunday for games, Thursday to Sunday for the dealer’s hall in a fair-sized convention center with an attached food court and Hyatt. If you’re staying at the Hyatt or Drury Inn (also linked to the convention center) getting to and from the games is a dream.
My plan for cons is always the same, I seek out some games, I both seek and get sought out for interviews/reviews (my review of The North Sea Epilogues RPG is a direct result of attending Origins), and build from there. That plan has yet to fail on delivering a fun convention.
A caveat. I’ve read multiple opinions that Origins, UK EXPO, and Gen Con are too big/crowded for comfort. For my money, I come from comic conventions that have six figures worth of attendees, so I find Gen Con well-managed and Origins like my high school gaming sessions it’s so intimidate. So, if reading about 20,000 people at a convention center for five days sounds overwhelming to you, I appreciate that there is a concern that makes that uncomfortable for you and I respect that. That said, I am interested in learning what size convention (headcount) feels right for you. I’d love for you to comment below as I’m genuinely interested in what others feel is a fun size?
Wednesday June 12th led with getting my badge and event tickets then off to the first game: Fiasco: To Err is Transhuman with its co-author, Cameron Parkinson. If you’ve never played Fiasco, it’s gaming by way of committee. That sounds bad, but committees aren’t an innately negative concept, they’re an option to express all of our thoughts and allow participation at a level each member is comfortable with. Fiasco is that concept governed by 2d6s. How the system works is, more or less, you create everything on the fly. It’s intended to play out a Cohen Brother’s movie that will be as comedic as your table. Generated through random tables that ask each player to pick a character direction/motivation as a foundation. While dice light, the game is deep on roleplaying as we journeyed through 25 PC-generated scenes in under four hours (including rules explanation and character generation). Where this system shone was player management. Eight players and a GM (the scenario’s writer) can be too much for many games leaving players with so much time between “on-camera” moments that they lose interest. Instead, this RPG keeps the camera moving and allows players to burst into (or be pulled into) scenes so they were better engaged. It felt like a party RPG, which few games do. Highly recommended for players looking for an easy, funny interaction.
Up next was Onyx Path Publishing’s version of Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Requiem. What separates the two versions of this game? Modestly varied meta-tales and using the World of Darkness system versus the Chronicle of Darkness/New World of Darkness system that better integrates all of the [MONSTER]: The [NOUN] RPGs. CoD uses d10 dice pools where 8s, 9s, and 10s are successes and 10s explode. We were in the Dark Ages campaign (1300s Madrid). Since it was a con game, the party diabolized two vampires – when one vampire eats another, which is a crime among vampires… but there’s no punishment for doing it in a one-shot. How do you know you’re playing a con game of Vampire? Someone eats a vampire. <Rimshot… Crickets>
Another caveat, at this session, I reconnected with the GM and players from our VtR session at Origins 2018. While not planned, it was a nice bit of gamer continuity.
The next morning, I played Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG (PbtA) run through Games On-Demand, a group that offers a great selection of independent RPGs. If you don’t know the Powered by the Apocalypse system, here’s the short version: for every action you roll 2d6 plus a stat and on a 10+, you succeed, on a 7 to 9, you succeed with a complication, and less than 7 gives the GM a move. This variation of the PbtA system switches between modes as you play your POV PC then zoom out to your extended family. Our single session covered decades of our post post-apocalypse world. This is a narrative RPG, so the players do as much world building as the GM. You build your character, family, moves, world map/setting, and the story before you start playing. There’s a lot of development to start but when the game begins, you know the setup. The roleplaying digs into select moments across the decades. It’s an interesting idea that gives you a variety of options.
That afternoon I played my second tabletop RPG of Fallout ever. The first time I played (at Origins 2018) was a hack using the Cortex system. For this one, it was another system hack, in this case, the World of Darkness. Neither were the official version from Modiphius Entertainment that I’ll be reviewing for my RPG ADAPTATIONS column here on d20 Radio. (Modiphius’ version came out after the con.) For Fallout: WoD, I really wanted to attend because one of the players from the Fallout: Cortex session I played last year wrote and ran this one. Considering how much I loved Fallout: Cortex, this was a must-do. The world was fully Fallout, while the system had the strengths and weaknesses of WoD being used for a military RPG, so not perfect but familiar and easy to get into. One of the highlights of the game was the GM was cosplaying as a soldier from the world, so it set the mood.
For Friday, I wanted to volunteer and give something back to gaming and, as luck would have it, ENnie Award-winning blogger/creator, Wen Reischl, put out an open call to volunteer with Tabletop Gaymers. Tabletop Gaymers is a “nonprofit organization whose mission is to address homophobia in the tabletop gaming community by providing educational, social, and networking opportunities for LGBTQ+ (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer/Questioning) “gaymers” and allies.” I spent an hour at their table passing out ribbons, spreading an inclusive message, and having fun.
After that, it was back to gaming, this time playing Edge of the Frontier, a Wild West setup that uses the Genesys engine which is the core of the current Star Wars RPG (expertly covered by the Order 66 podcast). I’ll forgo explaining the engine since Order 66 does a superb job of covering it, instead let me share this, the GM weaved an interesting tale that made the most of the game’s options. [***SPOILERS***] We were in the Wild West with idiosyncratic NPCs as we investigated a murder. This led to some personal discoveries as we realized we were robots, and this was a version of West World. This session managed an intricate story and a solid demonstration of the Genesys system.
After that I interviewed Daniel Fox, Executive Creative Director at Andrews McMeel Universal (AMU) and creator of the ZWEIHÄNDER RPG. We talked about the full range of ZWEIHÄNDER and what AMU is looking for in games as it expands its library. Following that, I interviewed Malcolm Sheppard, developer-at-large at Green Ronin Publishing, and Will Sobel, sales bard at Green Ronin Publishing, about everything Modern AGE: Threefold, their newest setting, and ORK! 2nd Edition.
Saturday started with a miniatures monster hunt game using a variant of D&D 3.5e rules (It was fun even if I was eliminated early). Then an interview with Steve Jackson Games’ CEO, Phil Reed, about everything they’re manufacturing as well as all things The Fantasy Trip. I wrapped up my interviews by talking with T.S. Luikart, Cubicle 7 designer and the Fourth Marshall of the Riddermark. Lots about their Warhammer games and The One Ring 2e.
Demon: The Descent, a Chronicles of Darkness RPG published by Onyx Path Publishing. A little history, I grew up in the town next to Stone Mountain, Georgia, the location of White Wolf during their heyday. As such, White Wolf games played an outsized part during my RPG youth (one of my buddies interned with WW so he had a lot of their products). Being level, despite my love of White Wolf, I had low expectations for any game named Demon, whether “The Fallen” for WoD or “The Decent” for CoD. I read DtF back in the day and its use of Judeo-Christian beliefs always felt edgy for the sake of edginess to me. Because of that, I thought I’d find DtD over-the-top and something I’d only do the once. I could not have been more wrong. In DtD you play something akin to spies fighting against the God-Machine in a world of its making. For the adventure, we were in 1961 West Berlin as the USA and USSR brace for nuclear war, an event that may have been the God-Machine’s attempt at ending existence. It was an excellent session and system that really shined, and we played it well past our cutoff at 11 (running to midnight or thereabouts), it was that engaging. Without a doubt, the best game of the con and that’s saying a lot.
NOTE: DtD was co-developed and partially written by Matthew McFarland. While he worked on a number of Onyx Path Publishing projects, he was more heavily involved in this one than others. OPP no longer works with Matthew McFarland as shared here.
Sunday was a short day as I had to get home and it was just a quick demo of Shadowrun 6e. A single combat that used pools of d6s (though fewer than my prior experiences with Shadowrun). A solid demo that utilized character sheets and cards in the gameplay. The game looked like a step up from Shadowrun 5e and I’m eager to see the full rollout.
My second Origins Game Fair was a success with more fun at the gaming tables and more opportunity to meet the creators. I had a chance to volunteer, pick up some fantastic games, play a few I really wanted to, and talk with some of the people that make these games happen. It was a lovely experience and I’m looking forward to returning in 2020.
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