Origins 2018

[grandmastergm]

Hello,

 

I plan on running a few HERO games at Origins this year.  I will require a sponsor, and am working on getting one.

 

I will probably run the following (subject to your recommendation):
 

Revelations 1001 (HERO System, Fantasy HERO):  The End Times of Book of Revelation are literally coming true in 1001 A.D.  Six heroes have been gathered by the forces of light, some of them far more reluctantly than others, to gather sacred artifacts that will help defeat the Anti-Christ and his forces. They must brave terrible monsters and great evil to acquire them, and then shall face the Anti-Christ and his army on the plains of Megiddo. This game is intended to be an entertaining and thought-provoking game, and every effort has been made to treat faith with the utmost respect, and no offense is intended towards anyone's individual beliefs. RPG. 4-6 Players.
 

The Temple of the Three Valleys (HERO System, Martial Arts HERO): Set in late-16th century China, a group of heroes from all over the world have come to a village to find a long-lost temple that contains the secrets of martial arts and great riches.  They must also use their martial arts skill and superhuman wu shu abilities to defeat a ferocious tyrant and his minions. RPG. 4-6 Players.
 

Con-Flagration (HERO System, Monster Hunter International): Set in the action-packed world of Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International, you are part of a team of monster hunters who wanted to go to an ordinary gaming convention to sit back, relax, and roll some dice. Unfortunately, two warring factions of monsters just decided to crash the convention in search of a powerful artifact. It's time for to cowboy up, grab your gun, kill some monsters, and hopefully get paid!  RPG. 4-6 Players.

[Brian Stanfield]

I'll be jumping on at least one of these. HERO events are always few and far between. Rod Curry usually runs a couple of Champions events at Origins, and sometimes more. You may want to contact him for some suggestions. 

[Brian Stanfield]

Is anyone else at Origins this year?

[grandmastergm]

2 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

Is anyone else at Origins this year?

 

Sadly, I wasn't able to schedule the events.  I thought I needed a sponsor, and I couldn't find one- so I was unable to to schedule them.  Apparently, I was incorrect.

 

I'll make sure to submit these events in September or October so that they are in place for the following year.

 

Sadly, there are only one or two HERO events this year- which is a bummer.  

[RDU Neil]

I'll be at Origins Thurs-Fri-Saturday... got my badge this evening. I'll be playing Indie Games on Demand most of the time, but I'll look around for Hero games, to see if anything is being run. To be honest I've always struggled with Hero at Cons, because it is played so very differently than I play my versions... but that doesn't mean I don't learn a few things. Had a blast many years ago playing in Plush vs. Plastic game that was a hoot.

[Brian Stanfield]

Have you found anything good to play yet?

[RDU Neil]

Just online after returning. Played five really fun games...

 

Playtest of Catpocalypse... a PbtA homebrew where we played a gang of cats after a plague has wiped out most humans, and we had to save the Golden Girls from a gang of wasteland raiders. I'm not saying we saw the game headed in that direction, but when we drove off in our war-machine, commandeered by one of our compatriots, a robot cat called M.I.T. 10 (or Mitten) with Blanche flirting with a handsome raider who joined our side, and the them song "Thank you for being a friend..." started to play, the table was literally rofling so hard our faces hurt from laughing hours later.

 

Dogs In the Vineyard... one of the definitive "indie" games, finally got to play it, and our posse of misfit Dogs managed to redeem our Order and the town of Whitestone from the Sin of pride. (Really want to figure a way to use something like their conflict resolution system with Hero for non-combat/social conflicts).

 

Praxis: King of Storms... a GMless game where you choose the roll of a fallen godling, (Godborn, Titanborn or Gorgon) and I was the Prince of the Dead, at war with fellow gorgon Kyron, the Iron Spider, betrayed by a Godborn, confronted by King of the Titanborn, , dealing with Calypsa, Ocean titanwitch... and we managed to obliterate several struggling human kingdoms, flooded much of the earth, ascended the war to heaven, etc.  A truly epic scale game that is really more organized story telling, with minimal dice rolling.

 

Iron Edda Accelerated... a new Fate system game, Vikings during Ragnarok, using seer's magic, shieldbearers and those "bonebonded" with the skeletons of dead frost and fire giants against the Dwarves of Svartalfheim who have raised up out of the earth with mechanistic monsters and Destroyer mechs... it is basically apocalyptic mechwar... where we inadvertently wiped out all the Dwarves and all humanity by reviving Ymir and all the dead giants of ages past.  (Whoops.)

 

An East Texas University adventures (Savage Worlds)... Buffy style adventures of college students in East Texas fighting occult threats while trying to pass their midterms. This was a murder mystery of a ten year old girl from 1958, whose ghost came to us begging for help. Lots of occult investigating and hilarity ensued.

 

Good times all around. 

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

Those all sound great! I didn't get to pre-register for anything because of a screwup on Origins's part, so I was pretty much stuck demoing games and stuff like that. Kind of a bummer. I went and met Jason Walters, but he was always busy so I didn't get to talk to him much. It was still fun all around, but not exhilarating.

[RDU Neil]

1 hour ago, Brian Stanfield said:

Those all sound great! I didn't get to pre-register for anything because of a screwup on Origins's part, so I was pretty much stuck demoing games and stuff like that. Kind of a bummer. I went and met Jason Walters, but he was always busy so I didn't get to talk to him much. It was still fun all around, but not exhilarating.

 

Just FYI if you haven't done them before... Indie Games on Demand (IGOD) is great because you can pre-reg, but you don't have to. You show up with generics and you'll get a game. (They hold three gaming periods a day 9am, 2pm, 8pm, every day, and only twice, the big times , Friday at 2pm and Saturday at 2pm did they fill up and have to turn a few people away. By pre-regging, I was just guaranteed a slot in a game over those who only brought generics, but 99% of those folks got in anyway.)  Get there 15 minutes before hand. Get a "boarding pass" (a card with a letter on it), they randomize the letter drawings. Your letter gets called, you go up with others of that group and choose a game that hasn't been filled yet out of 12-15 different games being offered. The Catpocalypse, Storm King and Iron Edda were all "I dunno... let's try it" situations, and they were a hoot. So you don't always know what you are in for, but if you are open to new gaming experiences and enjoy the cooperative storytelling (in general) branch of RPGs over heavy crunch system RPGs, you'll have a good time.

 

Try it out, next time.

[Brian Stanfield]

12 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

 

Just FYI if you haven't done them before... Indie Games on Demand (IGOD) is great because you can pre-reg, but you don't have to. You show up with generics and you'll get a game. (They hold three gaming periods a day 9am, 2pm, 8pm, every day, and only twice, the big times , Friday at 2pm and Saturday at 2pm did they fill up and have to turn a few people away. By pre-regging, I was just guaranteed a slot in a game over those who only brought generics, but 99% of those folks got in anyway.)  Get there 15 minutes before hand. Get a "boarding pass" (a card with a letter on it), they randomize the letter drawings. Your letter gets called, you go up with others of that group and choose a game that hasn't been filled yet out of 12-15 different games being offered. The Catpocalypse, Storm King and Iron Edda were all "I dunno... let's try it" situations, and they were a hoot. So you don't always know what you are in for, but if you are open to new gaming experiences and enjoy the cooperative storytelling (in general) branch of RPGs over heavy crunch system RPGs, you'll have a good time.

 

Try it out, next time.

 

Wow! This is good to know! How are they listed in the paper book? Are they listed by event like usual? Do you check with IGOD beforehand to see what they are offering?

[RDU Neil]

In the book or online, search under Indie... that should find them. If you are going to GenCon they will be there and running the same system. The demand for game might be higher, so there is a chance you don't get in unless you prereged, but I don't know. I stay away from GenCon... too many people.

 

To know what is being offered, get there twenty minutes before hand, and they have sheets laid out that show the games. Mostly each GM (all volunteers, often the games designer) will have two games listed, and the first player to choose one of the games decides which game will be run, the other is crossed off and no one can choose it that session. Sometimes the game you really want is either not selected, or gets filled up before you can choose (I've still never been able to get into one of Jason Morningstar's Fiasco games) but I've never been disappointed by one. You have to be in a "go with the flow" kind of mindset anyway, so...

 

The listing in the convention catalog will simply have Indie Games on Demand (IGoD) and show a time (again, usually 9, 2 and 8:00 ). 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

Now if I can only remember this a year from now!

[RDU Neil]

On 6/19/2018 at 12:23 PM, Brian Stanfield said:

Now if I can only remember this a year from now!

 

If you are anywhere near southeast Michigan in November, I'm trying to work with U-CON to up their game (pun intended) with regards to IGoD. Try to drum up more GMs and more interest and do some real indie gaming, not just "games on demand" but some hard hitting, experimental, boundary pushing indie stuff.

 

Nice little con if you can get to it.

[grandmastergm]

13 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

 

If you are anywhere near southeast Michigan in November, I'm trying to work with U-CON to up their game (pun intended) with regards to IGoD. Try to drum up more GMs and more interest and do some real indie gaming, not just "games on demand" but some hard hitting, experimental, boundary pushing indie stuff.

 

Nice little con if you can get to it.

 

Yes, I have been going to U-Con since 2016 (I went from 2005-2009 until I moved to DC and spent the next 6 years utterly broke), and it's a lot of fun.  I will probably run 2 HERO games there actually (one fantasy hero, the other will be either martial arts hero or champions).

[RDU Neil]

1 minute ago, grandmastergm said:

 

Yes, I have been going to U-Con since 2016 (I went from 2005-2009 until I moved to DC and spent the next 6 years utterly broke), and it's a lot of fun.  I will probably run 2 HERO games there actually (one fantasy hero, the other will be either martial arts hero or champions).

 

Cool... and this time grandmastergm, I'll make a point of seeking you out IRL to say hello, and maybe join one of those games.

[grandmastergm]

I played the following games:

 

Heroes of Altamira (Flashback Episodes 2 & 3): The PCs were a group of swashbucklers.  This is an organized play game run by the Guild of San Marcos for 7th Sea (first edition).  I did enjoy it, despite having to improvise up a character based off of a pregen while most of the other PCs were designed and had played other adventures.  The first adventure had the PCs trying to rescue a kidnapped tavern server from the Inquisition, and the second adventure had the PCs work for a villainous merchant in order to keep him honest in a race.

 

Summer Camp of the Damned:  It was an interesting idea, but had rather poor execution.  The PCs were a group of normal teenagers who found themselves in a summer camp full of "demons" (a catch-all term for supernatural creatures).  The GM improvised a variety of skill challenges and social situations, as the game had little combat.  Unfortunately, the GM wasn't very good at directing and guiding the party- and a number of PCs didn't really take the game very seriously which kind of ruined the game for me.  I did like the concept, and I'm a fan of the system (Savage Worlds)- but it really could have used a stronger storyline and better direction.

 

Complete Guide to Peasants: This was a 5th edition D&D game run by a pair of DMs from Amorphous Blob Games.  Both were a hilarious stand-up comedy duo (similar to Penn & Teller) who added a lot of humor to a really dark story.  The PCs were a group of peasants and town residents (who had 1st level D&D character stats) who suddenly found their village elders missing and/or acting strangely.  It turned out that they had been inducted into a cult by a coven of Harpies, who were using the elders' greed to enjoy meals from missing villagers (as you can see, this is a bit horrific and depressing but the DMs turned into a comedy).  I had a lot of fun, and it was the right group for the kind of game it was.

 

Suicide Squad: A Change in Plan: My favorite game of the entire convention.  This was a Mutants and Masterminds 3rd edition game where the PCs were the Suicide Squad (I played Captain Boomerang  complete with an Australian accent) from DC comics and the 2016 film.  The group was tasked with retrieving (kidnapping) a renegade bioweapon scientist on a cruise ship.  Of course, the simple mission went terribly awry when the Brotherhood of Evil showed up, along with Aquaman and Mera, and the scientist decided to unleash the bioweapon and create a horde of zombies from the ship's crew and passengers.  It was wacky, wild, and a ton of fun- with a fantastic GM and the perfect group of players.

 

Countdown to Terror:  This was for Hollow Earth and the PCs were a group of British and American agents who traveled to Bikini Atoll in 1946 to uncover a secret Japanese-German weapons program.  We discovered that the two Axis powers had unleashed a rift to another dimension full of dinosaurs and also a zombie biological plague.  My character was a secret Soviet agent, and I ended up dying at the end of the game, but I probably inflicted a TPK on the rest by detonating a grenade on the plane we were on once my cover was blown.

 

Bullet in the Mountains: This was a playtest for a RPG module (for the Apocalypse system) designed by a Wyoming GM where the PCs were a group of residents of a small frontier town in Wyoming.  I played the token Native American.  The game was more of a "sandbox" than a "railroad" so it was an interesting opportunity to see a system focused on cooperative storytelling.  Thankfully, we had a party of GMs so we had a successful session.

 

Good Dogs: The Cancer Maw of the Red Forest: This was a playtest for a RPG where the PCs were a group of dogs in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone trying to protect the outside world from the evil within, as well as trying to survive in the area.  The game also had a substantial cooperative storytelling component and gave the players the opportunity to roll up, design, and play characters as well as do an adventure within 2 hours- which we all managed to do.  I highly recommend this game, although it is still in the design and playtesting phases.  I ended up being the great dane alpha leader of the group, as we sought to investigate a strange beast that had begun terrorizing our territory.

 

Atomic Sky: Waters Weeping: This was also a playtest for Nova D20, a modification of D&D 5th edition but set in a post-apocalyptic world similar to Fallout.  I ended up customizing a post-apocalyptic bard/scrounger and had a lot of fun with the character.  We had a fun group of characters and players, but ended up nearly suffering a TPK after we accidentally activated 3 encounters into a single encounter.  Somehow and thanks to some lucky rolls, we survived.  Shane Harsch is a great GM, and I highly recommend his Nova 20 and Nova 6 systems, as well as his Narossia Sea of Tears fantasy setting for HERO.

 

DC Adventures: Gotham Uncovered: This was the best adventure design of the convention, as the GM also wrote a really impressive adventure with a thorough knowledge of the Gotham and DC universes.  We had a fun group that was half Bat family (Nightwing, Red Robin & Batgirl) and half wild cards (Azrael, Red Hood, and The Creeper), however the GM could have done better time management (we went significantly over time) as well as directed the party better (the wild cards players got a bit out of hand at numerous points).   I played Cassandra Cain Batgirl as this was the canon where Barbara Gordon had become Oracle.  I still had fun, and really liked the adventure's design and story. 

 

Umerican Burger Wars: I'm not a fan of the Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg, but I found the setting interesting enough to try out; as I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic settings.  It was a zany party and an awesome DM, but it was a bit too dungeon-crawly for my tastes- I think I would have enjoyed an adventure with greater roleplaying and intrigues- but I still recommend the setting and adventure.

 

Heart of Endekor Castle:  A fun D&D adventure where the PCs were dispatched to investigate a mysterious and foreboding prophecy of doom at a castle.  The DM and group were a lot of fun, and apparently we did things very differently from the other groups that had played the adventure.  Still, the secret of the castle was interesting.

 

Tomb of Whores:  Another Amorphous Blob Games adventure: this one also had a pair of DMs acting as a comedy duo dressed in parody pimp outfits.  This adventure parodied the Tomb of Horrors adventure by turning the lich into a pimp-lich named "Ass-Rack", and his undead minions into undead prostitutes.  The game featured 70s porn music, sexually explicit references, and political incorrectness- almost as if Deadpool had decided to run a D&D adventure.  It was enjoyable, but we only managed to get through half of the adventure in 3.5 hours, and had to rush the second half in the remaining half hour.  However, one of the GMs was a hilarious rapper- and the other one was the perfect "straight man" to his outrageous colleague.

 

I certainly had a lot of fun at Origins, although I am disappointed by the Director's decision to rescind Larry Correia's invitation (I happen to be a huge fan of the latter, and would have boycotted if I hadn't already purchased tickets and made arrangements with friends).

 

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

4 hours ago, grandmastergm said:

I certainly had a lot of fun at Origins, although I am disappointed by the Director's decision to rescind Larry Correia's invitation (I happen to be a huge fan of the latter, and would have boycotted if I hadn't already purchased tickets and made arrangements with friends).

 

Is this why there were all those armed officers around Origins? I heard there was some sort of death threat or bomb threat because an author was scheduled to appear.

[RDU Neil]

9 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

Is this why there were all those armed officers around Origins? I heard there was some sort of death threat or bomb threat because an author was scheduled to appear.

 

I heard nothing about any author death threat... it was Pride Weekend, and there was a lot of security on hand for the parade and events, and that takes place basically right outside the convention center the same weekend as Origins. 

[Brian Stanfield]

15 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

 

I heard nothing about any author death threat... it was Pride Weekend, and there was a lot of security on hand for the parade and events, and that takes place basically right outside the convention center the same weekend as Origins. 

 

The past few years they didn't have security the way they did this year, and not just for the Saturday parade. I know a couple of people who volunteer for Origins, and they said there was a particular threat made against an author, who then pulled out of the event, and thus there was heightened security. I didn't clarify who it was, so I guess I just now put it all together. It's disappointing that Correia pulled out. I've never read his books or heard him speak, but I'm familiar with the radioactive fallout that seems to follow him, which is disappointing.