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Over the holiday weekend I had the good fortune to attend the Origins game convention in downtown Columbus. This annual event is kind of a massive gathering of gaming enthusiasts from around the word, attracting some 10,000 visitors a year to Columbus. The convention offers sessions on the game industry itself (e.g., how to get a game published, how to improve a game's design, etc.), opportunities to play various games (everything from Monopoly to computer games to Dungeons and Dragons, and many more you've never heard of), and the chance to buy games and game-related merchandise. If you enjoy playing games, especially the non-computer variety (though video games are represented there), you'll find something to interest you at Origins. Waiting in Line for Badges
 Waiting in Line for Tickets
 As for myself I went down after work on Thursday, June 30. I spent the better part of two hours in line getting my convention badge and signing up for tickets to various events I wanted to take part in. I then spent 6pm to 10pm playing Car Wars with other attendees at the Rogue Judges area in the miniatures gaming room (Exhibit Hall C of the convention center). We had a good time. The Rogue Judges gamemasters are a personable bunch, who clearly enjoy the games they host, and who try to maintain a delicate balance between adherence to the rules and a sense of logic/fairness. The unfortunate part of this game experience, to me, was that a young boy who either wasn't aware of the rules or chose to ignore them won the game. I'm pretty certain that (intentionally or not) he was cheating a fair amount of the game. I noticed a couple of the other players calling him on things he was doing, but he managed to "squeak by" somehow. He made maneuvers with his car that I didn't think were legal, managed somehow not to get destroyed in spite of having no armor on one side of his car, and I'm pretty sure fired more than once in the same round. Still, as I said, my brother and I had a good time in the game overall even considering this one player. I want to make it clear that I don't hold Rogue Judges responsible for what the kid was doing. They had 16 players to cope with, all of whom needed their assistance at different times, and there was no way they could keep track of who had and hadn't shot, who had and hadn't turned, etc.
Car Wars
 Car Wars
 Car Wars
 On Friday, I played Injurius Games - Keep What You Kill that Red Shirt Games hosted. The guys at Red Shirt are really a class act, in my opinion. They know the rules to the game, administer the rules fairly and impartially, keep things moving, keep them fun, cater to new players without making them feel like idiots, and generally uphold the highest standards of "gamemastering". I have never walked away from a Red Shirt game (and I've played several) feeling like it was anything but a positive, fun experience. That's probably why I've subsequently sought out and bought every game I've ever played with their people during the last couple of years. Friday evening I played another round of Car Wars with the Rogue Judges crew. This time the game went perfectly, everyone played by the rules, and a good time was had by all. The only hitch in the whole game was the amount of time it took the gamemasters to sort out a multi-car collision and the resultant damage. But given that it was a complicated crash and they wanted to determine the outcome logically and fairly (which I believe they did), it was a great experience. Rogue Judges seem to be another good bunch of GMs and I wouldn't hesitate to sign up for their games in the future. Injurius Games Ready to Begin
 Injurius Games Underway
 Saturday my step-son Austin, my brother, and I all went to Origins. We took a brief walk through the vendor area in Exhibit Hall D. Austin enjoyed watching the live action RPG chess game and battle demonstrations with foam weaponry, seeing all the games and costumes, etc. So did I. Around noon, we took part in the "Reaper Paint and Take" session, where you could receive a free figure and paint. Believe it or not, this was the second or third time I'd ever tried to paint a figure, and those didn't really count because they were mostly one-color spray jobs. I think I did pretty well for a first attempt, painting a dragon hatching from its egg. After the painting, we played Sudden Death - Red Shirt Smash (a.k.a., Astrosmash) with the gang at Red Shirt Games. As mentioned earlier, it was a great experience as I expected. Austin, who had never played any miniatures game before, loved it - in large part because the Red Shirt GM (Rob, I believe) and other players were patient with him and taught him what he needed to know. We lost, but still had fun. Silent Death
 Silent Death
 After dinner, we came back to check out "Barbie's Bad Hair Day". We got back too late for me to actually take part in it, but I watched for a few minutes to get the flavor of it. The gist of the game is that Barbie's hair looks really bad, so she's gone postal. She's in the top of her dream house with a rifle, ready to shoot anyone in the yard out front. In the yard are several groups of her fellow toys, including the stuffed animals and the GI Joes. The animals want to sneak a fashion magazine into the house that tells her "bad hair" is in. The Joes, it appears, want to take her out military style. On our way out, we stopped to play a demonstration game of Mayfair's Pirates Cove, run by the folks at bigboxgames.com. They played a 10-minute video for us, showing the basic play of the game, then let us sit with some other folks and play a game of it. We all agreed that it was a fun game to play. At $37.46 plus $9 shipping, I'm not sure I'll be buying it any time soon, though. It wasn't much more strategic or detailed than something like Risk, and didn't strike me as being worth that kind of money. Still, if I find it cheaply somewhere (say $20-25) I would pick it up. Sunday I spent most of my time in the dealer room, picking up some bargain bin games and miniatures, some not-really-bargain T-shirts and a polo shirt, and some decently-priced computer games from Matrix Games. After that, we headed home and called it a day (and "a convention"). While in some ways I didn't quite have as much fun as I did at Origins 2004, overall I did have a good time there. I got to play Car Wars for the first time this year, and played a couple of favorites from last year (Injurius Games and Silent Death). I ended up buying more shirts and miniatures this year than actual games, though I did pick up two games (Spammers and something else that was $1) as well as three video games (Starshatter, Reach for the Stars, and one other). As it always is with "Origins weekend", it was all over way too quickly to suit me, but as always it was a good time.
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