stevekenson | Origins

Day Zero — Wednesday
It was up at 6:00 a.m. to catch our flight to Columbus. We flew Southwest out of Manchester, since they just started offering service there and their prices are competitive. Odd airline: they seem to have that “mandatory corporate happiness” thing going on, going out of their way to be cheerful and entertaining. After a while, it starts getting a little creepy.

After getting checked into the Hyatt at the convention center and getting lunch, I went over to get our exhibitor badges for the show, only to be told “some badges didn’t print,” so they didn’t have them. I supplied them with a list of people for whom we needed badges and they said they’d get new ones made up in about an hour. Since

roninevil was still 68 miles outside of Columbus at that point, I headed back to the hotel to await news of his arrival, since there wasn’t much I could do until both he and the badges arrived.

Once Rob and Rodney arrived, we headed over, collected the badges, and commenced setting up the booth. Since we’ve got a smaller booth this year, it took a bit of jockeying to get things set up while still having some room. After knocking the display down (twice) we set it at an angle to allow us to stack the boxes and graphics case behind it. Naturally, the air-conditioning in the hall was off while the loading-dock doors were open, making it warm and humid in there.

Once setup was complete, it was off to Barley’s for food, then to the Big Bar on 2 for drink and company to while away the evening.

Day One — Thursday
The opening day of the con marked the arrival of

righteousfist as well as most of our additional product from the printers: True20 Bestiary, True Sorcery, and Mansion of Shadows, our first Bleeding Edge adventure. While carrying boxes of books from the hotel to the exhibit hall, I was stopped by Mike Selinker, who asked me to take his place on a panel that evening on secret identities in RPGs (reasoning that, since I was actually developer of a superhero RPG and he hadn’t been for some years, I’d be better for it). We had the booth all set and ready to go by the opening of the hall.

Thursday is generally a slow day at Origins: there are sporadic sales, but most everyone is looking, and assessing, and making lists (mental or actual) of things they want. Only the impulsive and the certain buy immediately. Still, it was an okay day. We quickly learned that there was barely room for four people behind the booth at once, so we took turns walking the show floor, getting lunch, taking bathroom breaks, and so forth so only two or three remains in the booth at a time.

After the hall closed, I did the secret identities seminar with James Lowder, Sean Patrick Fannon, and Mike Miller (author of “With Great Power”). It was a fun panel and a lively discussion. Afterwards, I hung out and chatted with Jim Lowder, Dale Donovan, and Steve Long for a while, so long, in fact, that I forgot to turn my cell phone back on so Christopher could call me about our plans that night!

Realizing the time, I called to find out how Christopher’s talk at Pearls of Wisdom went (quite well), where he was (getting a friend’s car back from being towed), and where we were meeting our friends from Between the Worlds (at a bar a few blocks from the convention center). It was a great time getting together to chat, drink, and catch up with our BTW tribe and we got back to the hotel quite late.

Day Two — Friday
Thanks to the restorative powers of a hot shower and some OJ and coffee, I still found myself the first person at the booth Friday morning. The morning’s sales were a bit more brisk than Thursday’s, particularly folks who bought multiple products all in one go, but the afternoon lagged a bit. We sold out of M&M GM screens in the afternoon, and lots of folks expressed interest in the upcoming Golden Age and Ultimate Power books.

I scavenged up a few out of print products I was interested in: the remaindered game dealers are doing good business at least. There are plenty of booths filled with the remains of product lines from the height of the d20 boom and the remnants of companies not seen at Origins (now or perhaps ever again).

I signed a few books here and there and heard our various demo events were going well. I had dinner with Ann Dupuis and we chatted about the future of Fudge and the Deryni Adventure Game (amongst other things) before she had to head off to the Origins Awards (since Deryni is nominated for best RPG). I (like the rest of Green Ronin) passed on the awards; Christopher and I took a walk up to the Short North instead. I will have to say that at least this year the Origins Awards are again being held in a ballroom, with an actual ceremony and invitations, rather than announced sideshow barker fashion in front of the closed doors of the exhibit hall first thing in the morning. No idea right now who won and, honestly, although I wish the best for my industry colleagues, I don’t particularly care.