I had a great time. I had pretty much avoided D&D games at past Cons, as they tend to be RPGA-heavy, and played instead M&M, GURPS and a half-dozen other systems. This time I bit the bullet and signed up for four RPGA games (Xendrik Expeditions), as well as four or five other random games, and had a *far* better time than I expected, since I've heard all sorts of horror stories about the RPGA, which didn't seem to apply this time, at least.
I was in the same adventure that got mentioned above, and my roommate got into a second group running the same mission (as our characters ended up duplicating other characters in the respective groups, so we split up). He, an inveterate RPGA-hater from the old, old days, had a great time and enjoyed regaling me with tales of how his group dealt with the adventure. Our group did pretty well, and had some cool players, except for one single player who insisted on messing up every encounter, and got us TPK'd in the end. Listening to my roommate talk about how his group breezed through it and had a great time roleplaying their utter lack of morals, I realized that the adventure itself wasn't a problem, just the single PC that had spent every encounter trying to get us killed, and finally succeeded.
The other three XE games I played all moved along well, and I had fun in all of them. Heirodule, a few posts up, was in one of the games I was in, and was an awesome player. It was a pleasure gaming with the Gnoll that I called 'Boot-of-Anger,' because I couldn't pronounce his name. (Ungavengr?)
It's my third Origins, and I like the Con better than GenCon. The convention center is nicely laid out, the people are very friendly and I had a lot of fun and got to hang out with and / or game with some cool people (including Jack Emmert, designer of City of Heroes, who showed up as a player in an M&M game I signed up for). We had stuff signed by Steve Jackson, Steve Kenson and some other people I don't remember...
That's probably my only complaint. Not enough hours in the day! I gamed from 8 am to midnight, and squeezed Dungeon Delves into the odd hours between games. I barely remember what my hotel room looked like... My roommate even got us invited to some 'midnight madness' game with the GMs of some of the RPGA games, but sanity prevailed and we chose to get a few hours of sleep each night.
There were, as always, games I didn't end up enjoying, and systems that I walked away thinking, 'Never again.' But that's my favorite thing about Cons, exploring new systems that I would otherwise have to spend $100 buying books to determine if I like or not. It's hardly Origins (or GenCons) fault if I end up not caring for System X.
