BiggusGeekus
That's Latin for "cool"
Origins was my first gaming convention and I had a blast. While the rest of my experiences and discoveries will be listed later in the post, I thought I’d start with the good stuff: in other words, my Monte Cook stalking story.
The Monte Cook seminar was my last event at Origins. I didn’t really know what it was supposed to cover (as it turns out, neither did Monte) but the topic was about the design of the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. As I have three characters who have died to that thing and I’m working on a fourth, I thought I’d see what this malicious bast— um, I mean top game designer had to say. Plus, I have several of his other products and I thought it’d be a good opportunity to pick his brain.
So I’m wandering about where I think the seminar is supposed to take place and I’m walking behind another guy who seems to be doing the same thing. He was circling the floor, as was I. I started to wonder about this other guy. He seemed to be looking for the same thing. I thought I recognized him, but surely wouldn’t Monte Cook be hovering off the floor, moving only by the power of his mind alone? As we walked around I realized that I was standing a very good chance of freaking this guy out. I had already done that to City of Heroes’ “Statesman” earlier at the con, and I had no desire to give two game designers the willies in as many days.
I introduced myself and managed not to drool all over him. He’s a very nice and mellow guy. We chatted for a bit and found out where the lecture room had moved to.
The discussion of all things elemental and evil was pretty interesting. Monte went over some of his inspirations, the constraints he was under (both corporate and his own personal vision), and what he’d change around next time. The big thing I came away with was to design things as if I was the bad guy and not like a DM looking to challenge the players.
Monte also dropped some hints about his next big project, but if you’ve dropped by his website, you probably already know it will be announced in Dragon #334.
Anyway, on to the rest of the con (no more Monte stuff below this point).
The first thing I noticed in my pre-registration “goodie bag” was the upcoming wench card game. That’s because it’s basically gamer pr0n. Nothing wrong with that, it was just a bit of a surprise next to the Reggie Jackson baseball mini and the CCG booster packs that also came free.
The highlight for me was meeting ENWorlders, notably Crothian and Brown Jerkin. Crothian was at the Paranoia LARP and I wish I had gotten to talk to him more. The event ran to 3am and I was a little incoherent by the end. Brown Jerkin was running a Car Wars game that used Hot Wheels cars. It was a 17 person event and there was much chaos and mayhem, especially the part where a five car pileup happened at the same time the guy in the middle fired off his four flamethrowers. KA-BOOM!
I played a couple of board games. The publisher Days of Wonder (daysofwonder.com) had Ticket to Ride: Europe and Memoir’44. Ticket to Ride is a railroad building game and if it looks or sounds stupid, it isn’t. It’s a lot of fun and there are several levels of strategy involved. Memoir 44 is a decent two-player WW2 game. I liked it because most of the scenarios were deliberately imbalanced to reflect historical conditions. However, the idea is that you play it twice, once as the Nazis and once as the Americans. You total up the victory points you got in each game and determine the winner that way.
There was a poker game going on that used two decks, one with a white background the other with a black background. That added a new dimension to the game and it looked very cool. However the lines were long, likely due to the booth babes present.
I played a demo of the Lord of the Rings card game. It looked neat, but I’d only recommend it to LotR fans who also like CCGs. The Gloom card game (atlas-games.com) looked really cool, a buddy of mine picked it up. The premise is that you are trying to make your dysfunctional family miserable and die. The artwork is very Edward Gory and I recommend at least checking out the website.
Another company whose name I do not recollect was selling 1’ hole punches and these different colored magnets. The premise is that you punch out holes in your unused CCG cards, glue them to a washer, and place these differently colored magnets underneath if you wanted to indicate a given status (e.g. green for poisoned, blue for flying). I went across the dealer floor and found a guy willing to sell 1000 random and unsorted Magic cards for US$10. I bought the hole punch (you can get them in any craft store) and I’ll give this a try.
Speaking of minis, Ral Partha is apparently now Iron Wind (ironwindmetals.com). The sales manager was there and she was super nice. They had some great minis on display. However, I was more attracted to a company that they produce miniatures for: Magnificent Egos (magnificentegos.com). They have some of the most outlandish minis I’ve seen in a long time. I recommend checking out their nightmares gallery in their online store.
I chatted with the Shadowrun people briefly. Shadowrun 4th ed sound neat and all, but I asked what were the odds of a d20 version coming out and the answer was a very swift “0”. Ah well.
For those who play Diplomacy, a buddy of mine was in the tournament. I forget the winner’s name, but it was the woman in the wheelchair. Actually, I could probably just have gotten away with saying “the woman” but you never know.
For me this was a great con. I got to see some family members who were in the area as well as my college buddies. While I wasn’t doing that I was either gaming or drinking things my mother told me not to. It was a good time.
Well ... except for the part where I made an ass of myself in front of Statesman.
The Monte Cook seminar was my last event at Origins. I didn’t really know what it was supposed to cover (as it turns out, neither did Monte) but the topic was about the design of the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. As I have three characters who have died to that thing and I’m working on a fourth, I thought I’d see what this malicious bast— um, I mean top game designer had to say. Plus, I have several of his other products and I thought it’d be a good opportunity to pick his brain.
So I’m wandering about where I think the seminar is supposed to take place and I’m walking behind another guy who seems to be doing the same thing. He was circling the floor, as was I. I started to wonder about this other guy. He seemed to be looking for the same thing. I thought I recognized him, but surely wouldn’t Monte Cook be hovering off the floor, moving only by the power of his mind alone? As we walked around I realized that I was standing a very good chance of freaking this guy out. I had already done that to City of Heroes’ “Statesman” earlier at the con, and I had no desire to give two game designers the willies in as many days.
I introduced myself and managed not to drool all over him. He’s a very nice and mellow guy. We chatted for a bit and found out where the lecture room had moved to.
The discussion of all things elemental and evil was pretty interesting. Monte went over some of his inspirations, the constraints he was under (both corporate and his own personal vision), and what he’d change around next time. The big thing I came away with was to design things as if I was the bad guy and not like a DM looking to challenge the players.
Monte also dropped some hints about his next big project, but if you’ve dropped by his website, you probably already know it will be announced in Dragon #334.
Anyway, on to the rest of the con (no more Monte stuff below this point).
The first thing I noticed in my pre-registration “goodie bag” was the upcoming wench card game. That’s because it’s basically gamer pr0n. Nothing wrong with that, it was just a bit of a surprise next to the Reggie Jackson baseball mini and the CCG booster packs that also came free.
The highlight for me was meeting ENWorlders, notably Crothian and Brown Jerkin. Crothian was at the Paranoia LARP and I wish I had gotten to talk to him more. The event ran to 3am and I was a little incoherent by the end. Brown Jerkin was running a Car Wars game that used Hot Wheels cars. It was a 17 person event and there was much chaos and mayhem, especially the part where a five car pileup happened at the same time the guy in the middle fired off his four flamethrowers. KA-BOOM!
I played a couple of board games. The publisher Days of Wonder (daysofwonder.com) had Ticket to Ride: Europe and Memoir’44. Ticket to Ride is a railroad building game and if it looks or sounds stupid, it isn’t. It’s a lot of fun and there are several levels of strategy involved. Memoir 44 is a decent two-player WW2 game. I liked it because most of the scenarios were deliberately imbalanced to reflect historical conditions. However, the idea is that you play it twice, once as the Nazis and once as the Americans. You total up the victory points you got in each game and determine the winner that way.
There was a poker game going on that used two decks, one with a white background the other with a black background. That added a new dimension to the game and it looked very cool. However the lines were long, likely due to the booth babes present.
I played a demo of the Lord of the Rings card game. It looked neat, but I’d only recommend it to LotR fans who also like CCGs. The Gloom card game (atlas-games.com) looked really cool, a buddy of mine picked it up. The premise is that you are trying to make your dysfunctional family miserable and die. The artwork is very Edward Gory and I recommend at least checking out the website.
Another company whose name I do not recollect was selling 1’ hole punches and these different colored magnets. The premise is that you punch out holes in your unused CCG cards, glue them to a washer, and place these differently colored magnets underneath if you wanted to indicate a given status (e.g. green for poisoned, blue for flying). I went across the dealer floor and found a guy willing to sell 1000 random and unsorted Magic cards for US$10. I bought the hole punch (you can get them in any craft store) and I’ll give this a try.
Speaking of minis, Ral Partha is apparently now Iron Wind (ironwindmetals.com). The sales manager was there and she was super nice. They had some great minis on display. However, I was more attracted to a company that they produce miniatures for: Magnificent Egos (magnificentegos.com). They have some of the most outlandish minis I’ve seen in a long time. I recommend checking out their nightmares gallery in their online store.
I chatted with the Shadowrun people briefly. Shadowrun 4th ed sound neat and all, but I asked what were the odds of a d20 version coming out and the answer was a very swift “0”. Ah well.
For those who play Diplomacy, a buddy of mine was in the tournament. I forget the winner’s name, but it was the woman in the wheelchair. Actually, I could probably just have gotten away with saying “the woman” but you never know.
For me this was a great con. I got to see some family members who were in the area as well as my college buddies. While I wasn’t doing that I was either gaming or drinking things my mother told me not to. It was a good time.
Well ... except for the part where I made an ass of myself in front of Statesman.
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