CHOOSE RANT

Title:   Origins '97 Day:    September 13th, 1997 Author:  Ruiner Reflections:   As I recode this, I look back upon this year, Origins 2000. It was lots of fun. But is it worthy of a page to it's own? I will either do it soon, or leave it be as my memory fades.				Origins 1997. The premier East Coast con I do believe. Just got back from it recently and man, am I beat. It was great! Me and the fellas went, six of us in all, this time around. The three of us (Jeff, Raymond, and myself) that went in '95 returned, and along with us were Eric, Artie, and Wade. It was a blast, with all the games and LARPs and everything. I don't plan to overdo it, but I just want to convey that me and the guys had a great time. Several things happened that I want to comment on. On with the good stuff. I did a lot of cool things, saw a lot of interesting things. Played Silent Death and was hooked for the most part. It's a cool little spaceship battle miniatures game. Nice bit of strategy, but easy game play. I recommend giving it a shot, and it's really easy if you go to a Con. The guys at I.C.E. ran free demos all the time. Just hop in and play. Also, Raymond, Wade and I participated in the Noir LARP playtest. For those who don't know, LARP stands for Live Action Role Play. It's where, instead of sitting around the table stating what your character does, you dress up and act out what the character does. We played in this 1920s style, cops vs. mafia game which was all-in-all really nice. It was shaky ground, since we had never LARPed before, but we rolled with it. Odd thing was I kept getting cast as a Cop, yet I always liked the mafia. Must be that Irish look I have, and the lack of goatee. May have to change that before next year. Other nice things I saw or heard about: Eric and Artie played in the Deadlands LARP which had Bruce Campbell playing his role as Briscoe County Jr. They had a ball there, probably because they got to play Deaders and had loads of success. I saw a scary Warhammer 40K scenario - The Battle for the Emperor's Palace, where all four Chaos Armies strive to break into the palace during the Horus Heresy. Huge battle, but great since I love Chaos. We attended Q&A sessions with Bruce Campbell and Jerry Doyle (of Babylon 5 fame). Those guys were great. I liked Jerry especially, because he was up front, frank about things, and he had a great cynical sense of humor. My kind of guy. Let's see. If you didn't know by now, I am a Planescape GM. I run games under the world setting from TSR because it is very cool and gives me lots of room to work. TSR had it's castle setup as usual, and this year Monte Cook was there. He's one of the main designers of the game, responsible for many of the sourcebooks and cool places therein. He's a nice guy, seems pretty relaxed about the whole thing. Unfortunately, I think maybe me and the guys might've disturbed him a bit. We were somewhat overbearing on somethings, including Wade's comments on Labyrinth of Madness (see below). Hopefully he won't think too badly of us. We are prospective designers as well, so I'd like to have good contacts with those I respect. Now, onto PS itself. To be such a great system, the game only had one adventure running. Mind you, it was a ten-hour adventure set to run once on Friday and once on Saturday. The Invitation, it was called. So we were game. Me and Art were both there to play, and it seemed kind of neat since you got to create your characters at the start (part of the extensive time frame). Friday comes, and we meet up with some avid players, five of them from the same town. But the GM never shows. Seems that he wasn't able to get a hotel room. Now maybe it's just me, but shouldn't this guy have known way in advance to set this up? I mean, c'mon, I hesitated and still picked up a room in late May. But no, everything in town was booked it seems, so the berk stays in Michigan. No PS game ran that day. I even got some crazy idea to talk with Monte and see if he could get someone to hook it up. In hindsight, that was bad form on my part. I would love to have him run a game, but to just come up and go 'can ya?' was out of line. I'll tell ya, we saw a lot of non-professionals out there at Origins. I'm sure some think it's easy to say, since we're not in the industry. What do I have to say? Not Yet. We will be, and who knows? We may be able to bring about some good changes. I don't want to generalize and stereotype, but we were not that pleased with RPGA either. I know they are an institution, and they are responsible for a lot of these events we go and play. But c'mon, everyone we've played with in RPGA seems to be one thing. A powergamer. You know, those who min/max their stats to get the absolute most out of a simple character. It almost forces you to do the same just to be on the same level as their characters. It is unreal. Perhaps we are getting jaded. The average age of our players is twenty-six and we've been at it for a while. We love the epic story, the setting, the role-playing. Not the kill. Not the decimation of the GM's plans. I guess we've just turned into something different than most. We did do a lot of what we call 'Schmoozing' at the Con. Talking to gaming companies, and verbally pushing our designs. Me and the guys have this dream which is nearing realization of putting out a gaming system/world for mass consumption. We figure that some of us have been headlong into the industry for close to fifteen years now. We know what works and what doesn't. And we'd like to think we know what the industry needs. So anyway, we talked to a lot of the good companies out there, ones who aren't the Big Boys, but are up and coming. Those who might have some pointers or might be at least somewhat receptive to our push. It's painful to me, and I don't know why. I work in the Corporate world. I know how these things go, how to achieve them. But I've never liked trying to sell myself. Don't get me wrong. I will do it, especially for something as important as this. One of those few jumps in life I'm ready to take. Oh yeah, as per Wade? He tripped us out. We'd be talking up someone in the game field, getting a feel for things, and then Wade would charge forward. You've got to know him to appreciate this. He's ex-navy and very unabashed with what he says. Frankly, he doesn't care what opinion he leaves on people, as long as they hear him out. I respect that and I fear that. He and I were talking to Monte Cook when he asked Monte if he was the one who made that Crack-Smoking Piece of Garbage called Labyrinth of Madness? All that with a smile, and he was playing around. I just wonder how Monte took it. Hmmm. Wade also suceeded in hitting on the president of FASA, and bagging on some other games right there at the booths. Scary thing is, sometimes that reckless approach is where you can gain respect. We'll see. In closing, the Six of us had a resounding good time at the Con. We've made a solemn oath to each other to attend at least next year, and probably several years afterwards. I'm also interested in going to Gen Con, depending on where it's situated. Of course, this will be a given, once we're all in the industry, right? B.Mooney