Octopus Overlords

Who else is attending the 2015 Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio from June 3-7?

I'm reserving the hotel this weekend and submitting my Paranoia GM events. I am planning to again run two Paranoia "Venture Brothers" sessions on Thursday and Friday morning. Friday morning will be the continuation of the Hero storyline -- in Space. I'm torn between running the same mission on Thursday or pulling an old favorite (possibly Guard the Invisible, Undetectable Train).

I am tempted to run the dice and character mechanics under Kickstarter playtest rules (which are pretty sparse), but without the cards. Still, I have 20 years experience running the old system(s).

Sadly not this year, and likely not next year either, but by 2017 life should be quite different.

Have to see what my money situation is. The wife going back to School to expand her teaching license has put a large dent in my disposable income, and that is with unemployment. She is interviewing for a few part time jobs, the most promising is it Home Depot. She had to actually not put her degree information on her applications. I guess when you have a masters of education most places will not hire you for a part time crap job.

Anyway, I can let you know closer to the event. Hopefully I can make it down for a day, just to see you and Hep(I assume he is going as well) and go through the vendor hall.

I was going to miss this year's Origins in favor of using that cash to go to Fantastic Fest in Texas, but I think I'm going to have to pass on it this year as I need to cave in and get a new car. Origins is a cheaper alternative so I'll most likely head down Thursday or Friday and stay until Sunday.

Event grid is now online, and event registration starts this week Wednesday.

Whoa, MUCH better event list than last year. I had to struggle to find even a half dozen last year. This time I found about 4 times that.

Yeah, this does look a lot better. But it looks like I am out for this year, except for a day trip down there.

The wife has had a few interviews, but even if she gets a teaching job now, her first check is not until September most likely.

She is working at Home Depot, for a few extra bucks, but not a lot of spending cash at the moment.

RPGs became huge at Origins last year, and miniatures games look very healthy this year. Board games have shifted to smaller publishers rather than Fantasy Flight. And there's always the Board Game room.

I sent you my first pass just a few minutes ago. I have at least 40 different things highlighted. I really was surprised by the breadth of games being represented this year.

Damn. That does look like a lot of fun events.

We've got room at the hotel for you if you're interested. You know that, right?

Finished the last touches on the character/NPC tracking sheets for my Paranoia RPG events. My bag for the convention this year is huge, I had to use the family's biggest suitcase to fit all things I need (clothes, dice, miniatures, paper handouts, poker chips, pencils, display, etc).

And it would help if my head partners didn't keep dragging out projects from 2-6 months ago for me to work on, but I'll just have to deal with that work after the trip. It's time to pretend to be a bachelor and catch up on gaming.

The kids have demanded Pokemon and Toothless shirts/goodies. And miniatures to paint.

Sleep or the board game room? Or perhaps...BOTH!

Don't forget to snag me the:

King of Tokyo/New York goodies
Magic the Gathering goodies

Interested in seeing the new stuff for Mage Wars...and daily promos!

Played:

Paranoia Kickstarter (GM)
Posthuman
Here Comes the Leader
X-Com

Zarathud wrote:Played:

Paranoia Kickstarter (GM)
Posthuman
Here Comes the Leader
X-Com

Any new 4X Space board games this year?

Haven't seen anything. Talked with a couple who were unimpressed with a space "cosmic egg" bluffing game.

Yesterday:
Paranoia (GM)
Fantastiqua
Roll for the Galaxy
Brewmaster card game x2
Soulfall x2
Pairs x2

Our session for Witcher was cancelled, so we stuck around in Open Board Gaming and stayed until it shut down at 1 am.

Saturday:
Paranoia (Player)
X-Men demo (a re-theme of Spartacus)
Francis Drake
Roll for the Galaxy
Pokemon demo
Browsing the miniatures area

I missed my game of Village while in the Dealer Room and the time for our session of Epic Spell Wars was misprinted. I was too distracted by everything to get in a demo of Elysium or Stockpile.

Sunday was a shopping day since I had an early flight back. After crawling through the Dealer Room for 2 days, I was surprised to find a weird, goofy miniatures booth tucked away that I passed a dozen times before. I'll order some of their figures online, because I spent too much on a handful of pre-painted figures already.

There were many more events during Wednesday and Sunday than I expected, probably because even more families spent the whole week at the convention this year. Hopefully we'll have a few more people from OO show up next year.

There wasn't a lot of interesting new releases this year, but there was still more to play and see than you could absorb. I'm looking forward to the Star Wars themed adventure by 9th Level Games of their Kobolds Ate My Baby event.

Okay the men game caught my eye. How was it?

It's Spartacus with superheroes and focus on the board. You draw an event that tells you the "mission" the factions compete over--some have a cooperative element that no one wins unless the challenge is defeated. So you have to balance who is doing the most to succeed with fighting the other person to set them back. Heroes can be trained and your leader can take the field if you're desperate or as required by the mission.

Figures are provided for the 4 leaders -- everyone else has a custom marker. There are only 6 influence to achieve so it's a faster game.

Finally got home late on Monday after my flight was cancelled...twice...due to storms. Ended up renting a car and just driving back as the next flight out wasn't until the next day at 2pm.

In spite of the travel frustrations, I enjoyed the convention.

Some of the games I played:

Fantastiqa - A great deck builder that I think is perfect for families with younger kids, while still being fun for adults. There's a rather inexpensive "rucksack" edition which eliminates the game board and just includes the cards and tiles.

Francis Drake - I really enjoyed this one while playing it, although after thinking more on it, I'm not sure it brings enough to the worker placement genre to merit adding it to my collection. The game is split into two parts. During the provisioning portion, you outfit your ship with crew, cannons, trade goods, special powers and various other things. Then the game moves to a mission section where you place your priorities on either pirating or trade, or a combination of the two. I liked the synergy between the two game portions and I felt they worked well. But as I said, it's not anything really new.

Battle for Souls - Probably my favorite game of the convention. It's a really unique and thematic take on deck builders that sees players as Satan and God, fighting over the souls of various humans. The artwork (like Fantastiqa) is taken from classic works of art from museums. Sadly, it's waiting a third printing and is hard to find.

I looked at the Fantastiqa game, and I am wondering what the big difference is between the $ 110 version and the $ 45 version. No board and about 25 fewer cards was all I could find. But do you need the board, if you were going to have younger kids play it?

I think the high price on the non-Rucksack edition is because it may no longer be in print? I believe the Rucksack edition was intended as a replacement for the older version.

In any case, the new edition should have everything you need to play. The board that's missing is actually just there to place the tiles on and that simply has lines connecting those tiles, so you can drop it completely and still play with no problem.

Forgot to mention another new game that I bought at the con. Three Cheers for Master is from the folks who gave us Gloom. It's a silly little piece of fun that tells the tale of a group of minions vying to complete the best cheerleading tower for the return of their overlord. You can place minions in your tower, or others. Each one has a special ability and attack arrows pointing towards the side they can hit. A group of battle cards initiates an attack, and if a space is created below any minion, they fall into that section. Sometimes with deadly results. Finally, a "Foreminion" can climb to the top of tower on your turn and during the end game, you score for everything below him/her.

It's light insanity that I can recommend for the measly price of 20 bucks.

p.s. Almost forgot another game system I looked at briefly and that I found somewhat impressive. The War Stories series of games (currently two exist in the series) looks to be an interesting take on two player war gaming a la Conflict of Heroes and Tide of Iron that relies heavily on a fog of war mechanic. I was tempted to pick up one of the games, but unfortunately I didn't have room in my luggage.