The Warlock's Origins 2014 Recap!

Sweet zombie Gandhi, readers; it's been a while!  Real life has, as you might imagine, prevented me from keeping up with my weekly blogging.  However, having just made it back from this year's Origins Game Fair, it's high time to toss another entry into the pot!  So, without further a-do, here's a look back at this year's show!

Firstly, HUGE news!  After some delay, Cold Steel Wardens: Roleplaying in the Iron Age is finally on sale!  The PDF went live on the Chronicle City web-store the Tuesday before Origins, just in time for all those lovely gamers to get their hands on a copy of my first game.  Let me tell you, this has been a long time coming, and I'm still somewhat in shock that I'm a "real" published game designer.

The con itself was an absolute whirlwind for me this year.  Between the PlatinumChick and myself, we ran 52 hours of CSW.  For me, it was literally a full-time job for the week:  8 hours of games a day!  On the plus side, these games were a great mix of previous CSW players, some long-distance friends, and new players to the system.  Nearly every one of the WittGuild's games went off, with Friday and Saturday filling up the Union room we were in!

That said, I did manage to sneak away in the mornings for a while to get in some non-CSW gaming.  I threw down some ICONS on Thursday morning, a Venture Brothers-themed Paranoia game on Friday, a Cartoon Action Hour version of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe on Saturday, and a Justice League themed game using Mutants and Masterminds on Sunday before shipping out.  Also, I was sure to keep my evenings free to indulge in some of the great food found in Columbus' Short North neighborhood.

The ICONS game was an utter blast.  The first in a three part JSA storyline, the game ran quick around the table, even with 8 players sporting characters.  The GM was clearly enthusiastic about both the system and the source material, pulling out some fantastic villains to counter our Golden Age heroes.  On an awesome note, ICONS author Steve Kenson had offered the GM some prize support; a really stand-up gesture on his part!

Unfortunately, I can't really say the same about the M&M game.  The scenario felt poorly written, with little investigation or even interaction with NPCs.  We simply drifted from fight scene to fight scene with some nonsensical narration in between.  In one instance, we ended a fight scene by watching a huge portal open, only to return to play having been captured aboard a Thanagarian starship.  Worse, the GM insisted on splitting the table into separate groups for three of those four scenes, running one side's combat, completing that combat, then starting the other.  I literally spent over an hour and twenty minutes at the table before even finding out where my character (Green Lantern John Stewart) was!  While the table banter was great between the players, the scenario itself was dismal and the game definitely suffered from the typical problems with M&M:  overly complex characters with inflated (and incorrect!) numbers that don't really represent the idiom well.

However, the He-Man game more than made up for that disappointment.  Full of absolute fans of the iconic 1983 series, the game began with the classic theme song and didn't let off the gas for a moment.  While the scenario was simple, it perfectly fit in with the plotlines of the old show, while showing off the new rules for CAH splendidly.  Our game came complete with commercial breaks, breakfast cereal (it was Saturday morning after all!), and even a post-show moral delivered by yours truly!

Y'know, after coming to Origins for 7 consecutive years, you'd figure that I'd be an old hat at this thing, but really?  I find myself learning new things all the time...

• The Happy Greek in the Short North?  Absolutely fantastic.  Even better?  It was utterly deserted on a Thursday night and our table of 8 was seated immediately.  Can't beat it with a gyro stick!
• Speaking of food, I'm giving up on Flavors of India at North Market.  The last two times I've been there, the curry's been watery and lacking flavor.  So many better options are right there!
• Wow, am I ever glad that we arrive on Tuesday evening.  Being able to pick up our badges the evening before the show starts really frees you up!  Those lines are hateful!
• Best way to start the convention?  A free breakfast and a morning soak in the Drury hot tub. 
• I think I'm done with Paranoia.  While I always have a good time playing it--and did this time, too!  Our GM was fantastic and the sheer idea of combining The Venture Brothers with Paranoia is mind-blowingly hilarious--Paranoia tends to play very 'samey' to me:  get mission, begin wacky hijinks, get terminated over and over.  It's just a touch repetitive for my taste.  Maybe I'll come back to it after a while.
• Same thing with Mutants and Masterminds.  I'm not sure why it gets the acclaim it does, outside of being a huge part of the d20 boom.  While I love Steve Kenson as a designer, ICONS is such a superior game to M&M:  it's easier to GM, play, and generate characters in.  There are just other, better systems I'd rather play than Mutants and Masterminds.
• Next year?  No occult themes in the CSW games.  Not that they're bad, really--CSW does low-level occult mystery games beautifully--but I want to be able to show off a new kind of scenario.  The gangs and crime families are so integral to New Corinth, it's high time I show them the spotlight.
• Also?  No more 2 hour demos.  They don't fill out enough to justify running them.  The four hour games fill better.
• For that matter, the Chew games didn't fill.  Very sad, considering how awesome the comic is!
• I have no idea how I managed to stay awake during this year's Origins.  Literally every day from Wednesday on, I was awake at 7am or earlier, running game from 1pm till 11pm, then hitting the bar until at least 2am.  In the words of Lieutenant Murtaugh...
• A tablet makes running game *so* much easier.  Great investment on my part.
• Forgetting your camera sucks.  Obviously, no pics this year!
• Always check a used game before buying it!  I picked up a copy of Ghost Stories on the cheap, having been told by the booth staff that he had "just checked it" an hour or two prior for another customer.  However, upon opening the game at home and popping out the tokens, I found that I was missing three vital pieces!  Hopefully my email to the creators will remedy the situation.

All in all?  I love Origins...can't wait till next year!

In Which The Warlock Contemplates a Class Change...

One of the neatest things about my real-life day-job is the amount of carryover between being a good GM and being a good teacher.  Believe it or not, the best practices that one carries behind the GM screen often are the same best practices advocated within a classroom setting.  Engagement, active description, differentiation, and varied methodology are all buzzwords that frequently flit about the classroom, but they similarly have a great degree of importance at the game table as well.

As such, game design and game management theory have become a fairly regular part of my curriculum, in terms of addressing macro-educational concepts.

Case in point:  my early days of teaching, at a local charter school.  Paired with an experienced social studies teacher, we often crossed over Risk and Monopoly games to demonstrate the relationship between economics and military strategy.  Students arrange into teams, which must co-ordinate their efforts between both boards, in the hopes to take over a certain set of territories.

You want a GMing challenge?
Try running this for a classroom of ADHD students!

It's at that same school that I experienced the ultimate challenging in GameMastery.  You see, that charter school focused specifically in educating students with ADHD and Asperger's Syndrome, with the majority of the population having multiple diagnoses.  However, as an experiential introduction to a science-fiction unit, I decided to run a simplified session of Paranoia for those students.  And, let me tell you:  there is NO greater challenge in GMing than running game for 16 ADHD teenagers.

However, the challenge of keeping all 16 students engaged and interested, coupled with the greater conceptual goal of addressing paranoia and fear of the "other" as a literary concept, made for a great lesson plan, which students were able to expand upon through essays and a larger assessment project.  I did something similar with a homemade game I called "Grail Quest"--no relation to the actual game-book series--in which students emulated roving bands of knights hoping to find various Arthurian relics, including the eponymous Holy Grail.

An ancient gameboard...
...but one perfect for The Crusades!

This all lead to today, wherein I got to use a game that I've been aching to pull out in a classroom setting:  Risk: Godstorm.  Using the board from Godstorm, groups of my seniors attempted to retake the Holy Land, following the Crusader rhetoric of Pope Urban II.  The activity ran fast and furious, with alliances taking shape over both ideological and political lines--precisely what I was hoping for!  The game ran smoothly, even though time limited us to a 30 minute rushed version of the rules.

As I've been working on expanding The Pendulum Method--y'know, when I'm not teaching, gaming, writing on Cold Steel Wardens, or doing any number of other multitasking--I've been looking seriously at including an essay on this very topic:  the use of educational theory in gamemastery.  Should be fun, children! I'm hoping for it to be out this year or next!

Oh, and this weekend?  We wrap up "The Flood"!  Water's gonna rise, children!

The Warlock's Origins 2007 Report--The Events!

Well, now that I've recovered a bit after the Origins Experience, I can give you the run-down on what all happened in the Springfield Mafia's Origins Tour.

Wednesday--7/4/07

Our happy quartet (Lionel, Ebbs, Jules and myself) finally arrived at the Hyatt around 3pm on Wednesday. We only had slight difficulties in finding the hotel, so I can't complain about that too much. Only thing that might have helped more is....well, road signs that lined up with our Mapquest directions. That's life, though. After a quick and efficient sign-in, we unpacked our room and got some grub...just in time for:

Stargate--By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Put bluntly, this was not the way I wanted to start off my Origins experience. I love Stargate (the show and the rpg), so I had high hopes. Ebbs joined me for this one, chipping his way in on generics. The only problem with this was the fact that he wasn't the only one. The game was completely overbooked, with no less than three characters being played by 2 people. I was lucky enough to play a fairly interesting character...who just happened to be an NID operative.

The game started off somewhat unimpressively, with the GM amused with his ability to run 7 adventures concurrently in the same SG complex...at the same game-time period. Shrugging it off, we continued on with a scenario in which we may-or-may-not be clones. In order to find out, we sought out some Goa'uld mind-scan devices.

This is where the metagaming stepped in. When the mind-scan device was used on me, the Tok'ra PC who used it critically fumbled. I was shown to be completely clean, unique, and with no signs of mind-alteration. When 2 others went under, though, they used someone with a higher Intimidate score...and were shown to be altered. Suffice to say, arguments ensued, and my character (refusing to take orders from a commanding officer whose mind was shown to be altered), ended up K-Oed, and then executed by the Tok'ra.

End Opinion? A solid D. The DM was too wrapped up in his self-wanking fandom to deal with the elements in-game that were going on. I had negative fun, if that's possible.

Thursday--7/5/07

With the PlatinumChick already at work, I woke up early for a delve into...

Undermountain Adventures: The Crypt of Yeldoon

I love D&D. Not like this, though. When we joined, there were no pre-gens ready, despite the fact that this was an RPGA-sanctioned event. When I suggested my pre-gen, I was shot down. Instead, myself and several others decided to pick up characters from the D&D Dungeon Delve and take them down a level.

The DM who ran for us looked openly exhausted, and had run the adventure twice during the previous night....and was set to run it 7 more times throughout the con. It showed. Very little description, and very little interest in what was going on. This was made even more frustrating by Mr. Hyperactive. Mr. Hyperactive was a "supreme power-gamer", bringing to the table a Mountain Orc Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue with a 22 Strength. Mind you, we were running on 28 point buy. He and one of his fans ran roughshod over the entirety of the adventure, while I and three others sat back wondering if we could get our credits back.

End Opinion? C-. It wasn't the DM's fault that the RPGA can't give their DMs a variety. If it weren't for Mr. Hyperactive, I might have actually had fun with this...mainly because I would have been useful in any sense of the word.

After Undermountain, I scoped out the dealer room, with my eyes going just about buggy. More on that in the "Swag" chapter. But, after a nap with Jules, we reassembled the Mafia and headed off for...

WEGS--Pigskab's Skewl 4 Wizzards

By this point, I was getting just a touch frustrated with the selections I'd made. If it's one thing that I could depend on, though, it's a great game from the WEGSHogz. El Willy and his crew sure know how to throw down.

Basic premise? As students at Pigskab's, we came up on clean-up duty for the marsh. Survive for one night in the marsh and clean out some of the pests, and the free tutition continues. I ran a Humz Trickster, who was surprisingly good at his Ruggedness tests, despite having only a 22% in it.

With our whole WEGS lovin' crew in the mix, the game was a ton of fun. Unfortuneatly, the PlatinumChick's perennial dice-pox affected her again, and we all got a chuckle at her lack of successes. In the end, the group defeated ToeGash, the chef, and made it back to the Skewl.

End opinion? A. I love playing with El Willy and his crew, and this was exactly what I needed after two really disappointing games earlier in the con. The only reason that this wasn't an A+ was the fact that the WEGS 101 book got delayed for release. If this book had been for sale there, I would have bought one on the spot.

Later, that night, though...we had enough time to catch a movie:

The Call of Cthulhu--Silent Film Screening

I hadn't prepared myself for a real silent film in this. It was a unique (and pretty accurate) way for Lovecraft's story to be presented. The film was of particular quality, and set the mood very well. It was a worthwhile trip, though the midnight showing (while atmospheric!) left me incredibly tired.

End opinion? B+. Great film. See it, if you can!

Friday--7/6/07

Again, waking up early, I headed down to the Rogue Cthulhu room for a healthy dose of...

Call of Cthulhu--No Blood for Oil

I was somewhat disappointed on Thursday because I had actually tried to get in on an earlier CoC game run by the Rogue Cthulhu dudes, called Ex Silentio. Lionel and Ebbs had gotten in on it earlier, but I was shunted out as the last person with a ticket arrived just as the Keeper was handing out characters.

This game made up for it. As an Army Rangers Echo group in 2003 Iraq, we were set to take out an Iraqi oil rig that had supposedly been harboring WMDs. We ventured through an oil-creature infested rig, only to find our Alpha group had already been compromised. Though suffering several casualties, my comm officer managed to use a radio transmission to keep the oil-creatures at bay long enough for us to call in the napalm. Tons of fun, no questions about it.

End Opinion? A-. Some of the guys were a little hesitant, but the group worked really fantastically. Unfortunately, the tactical maps got lost, but we didn't need them too much. Th game was evocative and a lot of fun to play in, especially with the Cthulhu room's decorations. Apparently, the guys liked the way I played, because I picked up some Rogue Cthulhu chips, garnering some free swag from them later in the con--a set of dice, and a set of glass counters.

Strangely enough, the group that I was in had two other Daytonians--one over from Wright State, the other from Wright-Patterson. As we left, we exchanged some info and set off for...

The Paizo Dungeon Delve--Crown of the Kobold King

A fun little game of killing kobolds and saving children, we picked up an unlikely 4th to join us--Adam, back from Cincy! I hadn't expected Adam to join the Springfield Mafia's expedition to Origins, but here he was...ready for Friday and Saturday gaming. I helped him get registered quickly, just in time for us to kill some kobolds.

Since the episode was only 15 minutes long, I'll keep this short.

End opinion? B. The adventure looks good, and is somewhat lethal, apparently. The DM added a lot of description, which left our time being somewhat eaten, but we each got a key to the Paizo chest for playing. In fact, the Wright-State dude ended up opening the chest, winning a free copy of Stonehenge, a new board-game anthology.

Because of Adam's arrival, he still needed to be added to some events and gotten to the room. As such, I ended up missing The Novelists' Workout--Basic Plotting. Eh. I wasn't too concerned. It was free, and I had gaming to take care of!

After a great dinner at a nearby Japanese steakhouse, we arrived just in time to catch our showing of:

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising

The Dead Gentlemens' sequel to their prior indie-hit, this movie was ball-bustingly funny. Apparently, we were only the second audience to see a screening of the finished film, which made us fairly privledged.

As great as the first one was, this movie shows the development of DG's producers, writers, and direction. It feels like an actual "film", yet keeps all of the in-jokes and funny situations that bring us gamers back. Their enhanced budget, as well, shows, as the special effects here are better than anything you'd see on Sci-Fi Channel. I'll save the plot for you to see for yourself, but suffice to say that it involves an ancient artifact, god-killing power, and....cross-dressing characters.

I can't wait for this to hit DVD, to be perfectly honest. With luck, the Dead Gentlemen will have their distributor by the time they hit Gen Con, and it'll be out just in time for Christmas.

End Opinion? A+ Fantastic film. The house was packed, and it was totally worth it. See it, if at all possible.

At this point, we decided to relax and play some Runebound back in the room, just so we could rest up for our last two days...and the most hectic to come!

Saturday--7/7/07

Arising early for the third day in a row, Adam, Ebbs, and myself headed down to the board-games HQ for a demo of:

Dragon War

As one of only 4 people at this game, the game itself moved rather quickly. Choosing a character, we started out on a board of 40 cards, each with 3 spaces. The concept is simple--it's a race game. Beat your fellow characters to the end of the board, and roll a 13 on 3d6 to win the game. The game itself can run with a fair amount of cut-throat behavior, as the game encourages beating the Life out of your compatriots using Fate cards to drive them onto negative spaces.

While the game itself cost only $20 (which led me to consider buying it), each expansion cost another $5, and usually only included optional board cards or a single new character. Kind of a rip-off, to say the least.

What's worse, though...the rules seemed somewhat incomplete. When an event occured in-game that led to a slight dispute, the fellow running the demo had no idea what to even suggest. The small rules packet (a two page leaflet) added nothing, and we had to work by general consensus. Disappointing to say the least. The art, as well, was unimpressive, despite being drawn by a "professional graphic artist".

End opinion? C. Not a bad little game, but the expansion price is entirely too high, the rules need to be refined, and the art....not something I want to look at. I'll stick with Munchkin, thank you!

After lunch, Adam, Jules and I set out to join:

D&D--The Blackmoor Wives' Club

A fun little scenario designed as an intro, we all played at 1st level, taking care of the household chores of some famous adventurers. The game itself was a lot of fun, with a laid-back, enjoyable DM and a good, well-balanced party.

That is, except for That Kid. Oi. A 14 year old, That Kid must have been an ADHD/Aspy, as he ran over everyone at the table, the DM included, frustrating us to no end. He was seated next to a young girl who had barely played before, and had never made her own character. He talked incessantly, even to the point where the DM was becoming openly frustrated.

Very rarely do I raise my voice. With him, I had to restrain from yelling at him several times.
Luckily, Adam's half-orc monk knocked him out...accidentally. ;)

End opinion? B+ Aside from That Kid, the game was a lot of fun, and the scenario was really funny. Well worth the time.

From there, we rejoined Lionel and Ebbs, then attempted to hit up BD's Mongolian BBQ. However, it was packed, and we settled for the food court before hitting up:

Paranoia--Lightning Rod

Lionel had played with the GM we had this with earlier in the week and, when he described the GM's orange asylum jumpsuit, I knew we were into a great game. With all 5 of us involved, as well as a couple from Dublin, we had a blast.

Here, I played the Communications officer, Chuck-R-FAR, as well as his talking hand-puppet Socko. Our job? Deliver devices to a security tower on the outskirts of Alpha Complex. After being sucked into a Vulture Squadron Flyer engine, I knew we were in for some fun. While the game ran down somewhat at the end, it was still an absolute blast. I could have wished for some more inter-party fighting and a little less conspiracy, but that's hardly a problem.

End opinion? B [You are not cleared for this information, citizen!]

We retired back to the room and wished Adam goodbye, then winded down by playing one of Lionel's new games--Unspeakable Words, which I'll describe in the Swag entry--and got ready for our last day's event.

Sunday--7/8/07

We ended our Origins experience with a familiar classic for our group, but with a new twist:

Arkham Horror--The King in Yellow

We play Arkham Horror quite a bit out here, but with the new KiY expansion, we were all excited. We arrived just on time after checking out and dropping our things at the car. This was much to the chagrin of several players who were trying to get in on generic tokens. Having 4 of us plop down at the table didn't make them too happy....

This game, though? Wow. I've never seen an Arkham Horror game run so positively. Normally Arkham Horror fits its name, as you lose Sanity and Stamina hand over fist, picking up Insanities and Injuries like drinking wine. This time, no. Not so much. Instead, it was more along the lines of "Oh, here...have 15 unique items each. How about some skills? Mythos phase--what's mythos phase?"

Seriously. When the cooridinator told us where the first gate would open and I (playing the scientist) told him that "No, that won't be opening there," the look on his face said it all. I had never been in a game where we were actively waiting for Nyaralothotep to appear, just so we could beat the ever-loving-crap out of him. Very cathartic, but even more unusual.

End opinion? B-. It was fun to beat the crap of the game in the way we did, but I wish it would have been slightly more challenging! The game felt like a walk in the park, compared to what we've played in the past!

This is only 1 portion of our Origins experience. Be prepared for at least two more entries--The Warlock's Swag, and The Con Itself.