Forums of the Megaverse®

Origins Game Fair event submission is open and will run until 3/1/2013. My Rifts/Chaos Earth/Dead Reign events sold out last year and I expect even better attendance this year as the dates are more favorable. This years theme is Superheroes so it would be great to see some HU games offered. Further information can be found here

My events are submitted and approved, I am running Dead Reign on Wednesday night, Chaos Earth Friday night, Rifts on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Please let me know if you have any questions or need any further information about Origins.

Do you think you could get a video of the games and upload it to youtube?

I can look into that, I know of others that have shot some video and got flak from the con staff.

Reelamn, Let me know if me or any of the other Megaversal Ambassador Coordinators can be of assistance!

That is a pity but give it ago! I'd like to see how it goes and I can't be there myself.

NMI, thanks brother, I think I am good but I appreciate you guys having my back. As we get a little closer, I will post my game info and updates on how the prep is coming.

I've asked about that in the past at some of my local Cons, and there's a few concerns:
1) Did you advertise it as an event that may be recorded?
2) Do you have the permission of the Con Organizers?
3) Do you have the permission of the Venue? (hotel or hall management, generally)
4) Do you have a release form for each participant?

For me, there's also a #5 & #6...
5) If advertised as a recorded event, you get a different set of players than you might otherwise. Some people love the camera.
6) During play, people will respond differently, knowing they're being recorded. Some people hate the camera.

My wife tells me we should also have a #7 & #8:
7) Need to see what the profanity rules are for the site hosting, for most of my games. They're not Tarantino films, but they're definitely PG-13 and above.
8 ) Given the general clamor around a gaming table, will you get anything worthwhile out of the recording, beyond 7 people trying to shout over each other, and me drowning them all out.

One week until Origins and prep (sadly not final) prep is under way. My Dead Reign, 1 of 2 Rifts, and Chaos Earth game are coming along nicely, my 2nd Rifts game still needs lots of work. Minis to paint, Dwarven Forge to pack, and one of my non-Palladium games need some work too, but I have a week. I will try to post the game info today as well.

Here are the Palladium events I am running at Origins this year:

Frommer's Zombie Guide
Dead Reign
The Vatican tour was the best part of your Euro Trip but the Zombie wave put an end to that. Can you and your tour group survive?
Wednesday 7:00 PM
8 Players - Sold Out

Locals Only
Rifts:Chaos Earth
People are usually happy to see NEMA protectors roll into their town to take on the abominations from the Rifts but not the freaks in this town.
Friday 8:00 PM
8 Players 3 tickets remain

Back in Black
Rifts
Months of tracking agents of the Black Market are about to pay off as you close in on your quarry. Will your Coalition strike force find more than it can handle?
Saturday 7:00 PM
8 Players 2 tickets remain

We’re all gonna die
Rifts
Life in the bowels of Chi-Town offers plenty of opportunity. Something about this job is too good to be true but the money is too tempting.
Sunday 10:00 AM
8 Players Sold Out

I am also running a card game, 3 board games and 3 RPGs by other publishers, if interested, please PM me.

This will be my 15th consecutive Origins and 10th year running events. Starting to get jazzed for the Con. If you have the means, I highly recommend it!

13 events!?!
You're a madman Reelman; a glorious beautiful hard-working madman!

Do we know if Ninja Division will be in attendance demoing RTT?

Wow! You are doing some fantastic work.

I don't believe so, I think Gen Con is where the next demos will take place. Origins would be a good con for them though as there is a strong mini/tabletop presence.

Well, I do have a Co-GM for one of the board games and a couple of the non-PB RPG games, so I am not that mad. I have actually cut back my schedule by a couple of events in the last couple of years. The card game and board games are a little easier on prep/event duration but garner just as many "con hours" as RPGs do, so that gives me a bit or relief while maintaining my hours. The other reason for the slight cut back is I am getting old and I have so many friends I only see at Origins and Gen Con it is nice to have time for lunch or an adult beverage and catch up. Mostly getting old...that reminds me gotta remember to pack my Geritol and Metamucil! Thanks for the props, it means a great deal coming from you!

These 2 sound great - Is it possible to get the NPC - Game notes so I could run these two at a couple game conventions in Alberta, Canada?

I will be glad to share what I have with a couple of caveats; it may be a few weeks before I can put everything together (ping me if it appears I forgot) and I usually run kinda fast and loose so besides characters, I only create a rough outline and some scenarios and notes.
Also, the Dead Reign game is based off characters in the movie Euro Trip.

Let us know how it goes! Good luck, and good gaming!
And seriously, 13 games? Wow....

Character sheets printed for all games, minis painted and packed. Finishing up some backgrounds and scenario details to finish, gotta pack, and do a few things around the house and then off to Origins!

Back from Origins, safe, sound and exhausted. Should have a report in the next couple of days. All 12 of my events went and a good time was had by all.

Awesome! Welcome back, and thanks again!

Great!

I look forward to any game notes you might have to share.

Sorry for the delay work is crazy and a number of other issues have taken a toll on my free time. Let me know if you have any questions.

We headed out from the NKY at O dark thirty and headed north to Columbus. The nice folks at the Drury Inn had a room ready for us, so we dropped our stuff and ran off to our 10 AM game. The crew from Amorphous Blob was already running the first games of the Con when we arrived at our usual room in the D Pod. We had 4 players for our Axis and Allies anniversary edition game and ran for 5 hours before the winner was evident. I played the Italians valiantly and even helped the Germans take Moscow but in the end the Americans and their industrial might prevailed. I headed back to the Drury for a little unpacking and prep for my evening Dead Reign game. After a little down time, we headed down to the managers reception at the Drury and a couple of other con attendees asked us if the convention center was open, dumbfounded we said yes and that we already ran a game this morning. They asked if that was before the fire! Turns out that a transformer behind the dealer hall ball room blew up and caught on fire. The fire was very minor but it knocked out power for several hours. The started letting GMs back in to secure their stuff around 6 and we went into our rooms and had partial lighting and the AC was on. Around 8 they started letting attendees in but registration was down for most of the evening. Frommers Zombie Guide went off with a full table and only an hour late. A couple of newbies and some regulars, everyone had a good time and they did not all die. When we ended around midnight, I was still pretty jacked up so I went ahead and build the Dwarven Forge for my Thursday/Friday games. Finally threw in the towel around 2:00 and trudged back to the room for a little sleep.
My internal clock rousted me around 5:30 so I got up, showered (I know right at a con!) and headed to breakfast. Had a leisurely breakfast with some of my fellow GMs from ABGames and headed off to my Thursday AM games. I ran 2 sessions of Flash Point: Fire Rescue, a cooperative firefighting board game and 1 session of Monster Cards, a card game for younger players that combines rock/paper/scissors and war. I discovered both games via Kickstarter and both were well received. Once those were in books, I headed to the North Market with the crew from ABGames and had some outstanding brisket from the BBQ shop.

Stuffed with BBQ, we headed to the dealer hall and make a quick spin thru. While attendance is approaching pervious levels, the dealer hall continues to be a shadow of its former self. Catalyst had a large presence with the new Shadowrun release/demos and Leviathan (looks cool but is $$$), Games Workshop is back after years of absence, Kenzer, of course Crystal Caste/Klowpow/Chessex were all in the house, and Mayfair had a large presence but that was it for “big” companies in attendance. Reaper a show sponsor who usually had a large/busy booth only had the paint-n-take with no sales presence. The aisles were wider but the dealer room never seemed full or had much buzz and besides the new Shadowrun there was nothing new or really exciting. I picked up a mini case, some dice and earrings for my wife, lightest Origins purchase ever.
Had a little down time and final game prep and then it was back to D-Pod for my Thursday night game, Keys to the Kingdom a Hollow Earth Expedition game using minis and Dwarven forge. A couple of my regulars and some first timers made for a good time. After the game, I quickly reset the Dwarven forge, we were going to use a similar setup for our 2 D&D games, Friday morning and afternoon and then I crashed.

Friday’s 2 D&D games ran well but entirely different and a good time was had by all. Tear down took way too long but I still had time to grab a bite before my Chaos Earth game that evening. Locals Only – Rifts: Chaos Earth took several hilarious turns, the Para-Arcane (a Chaos Earth newbie) was a total mad man and was flying around the game like he was impervious to damage and the Chromium Guardsman played his character like he had egg shell armor and in the final battle abandoned his team mates and ran back to the rally point to await extraction. What caused this powerful behemoth to flee in terror, basically super-powered teenagers that could fly; they were tough but no match for a Chromium Guardsman even on a bad day. The game was great fun but not really what I expected, goes to show you just never know with a Con game.

Saturday is always great fun but a bit sad as it is the last full day of the Con. My buddy and I ran a rival table mobster style game where the 2 tables confronted each other in the final hour. It is a ton of work and coordination to get 2 separate groups to end up at the same place after three hours of game time but when it clicks it is pure awesome. This time was no different, all the players embraced their mobster archetypes and really got into the spirit of the game, after the first hour, I just sat back the players basically ran the game. I am not sure how my fellow GM and I pull it off, especially since we have somewhat different GM styles but we have done the dueling table games 6 or 7 times now and it is always great fun. I usually take the Saturday afternoon shift off to catch up with old friends and experience the con. First we hit the deli in the North Market for our traditional monster Roast Beef sandwiches, then off to check out the miniature hall. As usual, the mini hall did not disappoint, there were two epic scenes depicting the battle of Endor from the ground and space. The displays were beyond huge and highly detailed. The pictures I took do not even do them justice, they were just too huge to capture properly. When we stopped in to see the game, the players were inside the Death Star and it was just too cool. The other notable entry was what appeared to be an Epic battle between My Little Pony and the Smurfs. The game was not going on when we stopped by so I can’t be sure but that is what it looked like. We did a quick spin thru what passes for the card hall, checked out the board games area and went back to the dealer hall to look a little more closely at the couple of items of interest. Pre-packed the car as much as possible, grabbed a bite to eat and headed our separate ways to our Saturday night games. Saturday night was my first of 2 Rifts games – Back in Black. The party was a long range recon Coalition squad tracking the Black Market. We had a nice mix of regular players, newbies and have not played in a long time players. My game style does not usually run anywhere near the gonzo range, especially when I am running military style games but I guess this game was the exception to the rule. We started out ok, a little overly cautious but ok. The first sign of trouble (if you can call it that) was the CO and XO had wildly different styles and ideas about how the mission should be run. Several botched rolls, bad ideas and tactical mistakes later found our group of heroes at the front door to a Black Market stronghold. I made it pretty clear they were facing overwhelming odds and they promptly surrendered! I think the last time I had a party surrender I was running Basic D&D in Junior High. I am almost never completely surprised by a parties actions and this floored me. No rope-a-dope/fake surrender, full blown unconditional surrender! After I wiped the dumbfounded look off my face we continued and things got a little crazy. Several wildly successful concealment rolls and a few blown detect concealment rolls later, they were locked up and the interrogations began. The CO promptly spilled his guts and begged for the chance to join the Black Market. The Commando and Dog Boy managed to break out and a full blown battle ensued from there. The next 90 minutes of game time were completely over the top gonzo craziness. Most of the party managed to escape and they all had a great time but it has been a long time since I had a game that went quite this far off the rails. Once we were cleaned up, I hooked up with the ABGames crew for some adult beverages and a con wrap-up round table. All of our events were well attended and overall attendance seemed to have bounced back after last year’s late May schedule fiasco. We said our goodbyes to those leaving in the early AM, prepacked the car a little and hit the sack.

Sunday is always a day of mixed emotion, sad the con is ending and saying goodbye to friends that I don’t get to see often enough but happy to return to the family and my own bed. We packed the car, fired down some Drury waffles and headed for our last games. I was setup and ready to go early for my Rifts game Were all gonna die, so I played a quick pickup game of Road Kill Rally with my buddy and his little brother, quick, fun and brutal game. Sunday’s games usually start a little late but are almost always well attended as people usually want to get in one more game before the con ends. By 10:30 we had a full table and everyone was awake enough to soldier on. Everyone really got into the story and there was some great roleplaying, especially considering how tired everyone was including yours truly. The party of city rats, mercs, and Vanguard fought hard to stop the assignation attempt on the Emperor and a few even survived despite my best efforts to live up to the title. Sunday’s game is always filled with regulars and old friends and this year was no different, so ending the game and saying goodbye was especially hard. Once everyone was on their way, I hooked up with my buddy to wander the dealer hall, look for deals, and soak in the fleeting moments of the con. We slid out just before 4:00 to beat the rush, had our traditional late lunch in Grove City and headed home.

This year’s Origins was a great success, all my events went, my fill rates were over 80%, and introduced 7 new players to Palladium games. I had tables full great players, got to spend some time with old friends, and enjoyed some great food at the North Market. Lots of people inquired about Palladium, Rifts, Robotech and the Kickstarter, if we would ever see the other 2 BTS books and half a dozen people asked about the status of Warpath. I gave out catalogs and answered the questions as best I could and encouraged them to contact Palladium with about books they want to see. The team running Origins still has plenty of room for improvement, especially in the pre-registration area but they were responsive to fans in moving the dates to a more reasonable time, they handled the fire/power outage like pros, and were visible and involved during the convention. I doubt Origins will ever return to its former glory it is still the best pure gaming convention going and one of the best game conventions you could choose to attend.

Now that Origins 2013 is in the books, time to start planning my events for Origins 2014. Hopefully I will have some Robotech Tactics in there and maybe even a Northern Gun game.

Thanks for your continued involvement and support!! Glad it went well!

Eek, not sure I could keep up a pace like that anymore!
Bravo, Reelman; Bravissimo!