Wargaming at Origins, by Jim Zabek

Origins is different from many other gaming conventions, (I’m thinking of you, GenCon) in one particular way: wargames. Origins offers lectures on current military events and offers gaming sessions with wargames. One of the coolest was hosted by Grogheads this year (and I say that with all modesty), where Dr. James Sterrett ran a game that was based on the simulations (ed note: they’re games, he’s just not allowed to call them that!) he runs for the Command and General Staff College for the Army.

The game typically has six players and takes at least two, and possibly three or four referees to help facilitate it. Players are given assignments in the military, and if we were searching for a geekier gaming equivalent, I suppose you could say this is a kind of live-action role-playing sans elf ears and boffer weapons.

Typical roles are the Commanding Officer, Operations Officer, Intelligence Officer, and Fire Support Officer. Other roles can be added or removed based upon the number of participants, their experience, and the objective of the game. In our case we had an additional Task Force commander and a commander for air support.

Our game used On Target’s Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm as our game engine. The time was the late-1980s and we were US NATO forces tasked with punching a hole through a force of Soviets.

To begin with our team was given orders, a map, and some guidance on how the military structures its plans. Each player was given a specific task to help contribute to that objective. The plan of attack was broken into phases. Decision points on how to act on contingency plans or to continue forward with the existing plan were developed, along with event triggers to recognize when to act upon those plans.

I took the role of the S2, or intelligence officer, and quickly confirmed the stereotypical role of “military intelligence” being an oxymoron. As the rest of the team was working up plans to punch through a Soviet force and disrupt a large Warsaw Pact logistics center, I was busy attempting to guess what the Soviets would try to do. With limited time constraints I only was able to create two plans: offensive and defensive, and to determine a few event triggers which, if we saw the Soviets execute, I would be able to declare which course of action they were taking. One of the key learnings I was able to take away from the game was that if I made a fundamental error in the basic nature of my guesstimate, all future errors in analysis I made of the situation would be magnified accordingly. In other words, if I was wrong from the start, my errors would only get worse.

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(Hey, it’s sort of a Tuesday screenshot)

Costumes abound at Origins, and here’s, well, maybe not most of them, but a lot of them.  Some are more “costume” than others, but they’re all here.

 

Which ones are your favorites?

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Talk about Origins here >>

Jim Zabek continues his quest for the bottomless bag of gold with which to attempt to fill a bottomless bag of games.  As long as it’s not Jim that’s bottomless…

Click images to enlarge

What’s that sound? That’s the sound of my wallet screaming as I attempt to coax a few more dollars out of it and buy another game. Yes, today was painful. But the end is nigh – I can feel it.

The morning kicked off like any other, I wandered into the exhibitor hall just a few minutes early. Stopping by Crystal Caste I had to ogle the dice they had there. Several years ago I bought a set of RPG dice from them made of lapis. They were great dice. Unfortunately I lost them in my last move and have missed them ever since. Today is the day to rectify the situation, and if we escape from a chronological reporting of events for a moment, I ended up purchasing a replacement set in the afternoon. Not cheap, but oh-so-worth it.

As long as we’re breaking from chronology, my last purchase of the day turned out to be a game I didn’t think was on retail shelves yet: Galaxy Defenders. If that name sounds familiar, it should – readers may recall from as far back as yesterday I was getting a demo from Ares Games about it and their retail shipment was still stuck in customs (one of several companies at Origins having problems with customs apparently).

I only saw one copy of the game on the shelf and I pounced. I would have bought it from Ares if they’d had a copy. Now I get one anyway.

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Jim Zabek meanders the conventions, and reports thusly >>

The Night Before the Convention and All Through the House…

It’s summertime and I’m in Columbus; that means one thing: the Origins gaming convention is underway. I used to live far enough away that I had to fly to Columbus. But this year I was easily within driving distance. I hopped in the car and headed down the road.

Driving cross-country in a car is clearly a more scenic way to see the country than from an airplane seat, but it’s doubly a pleasure when you get off the interstate. That’s the route I took – the road less traveled. It also happened to be the fastest way to get from my origin to my destination (see what I did there?).

The cottonwoods were in full tilt and periodically I would zip through a cloud of them. It wasn’t difficult for me to imagine I was in a starship navigating through an asteroid cloud. Is that a little geeky? Yes, but I’m at a gaming convention.

Speaking of being at a convention, upon checking into my hotel it was immediately obvious that not only was I a welcome guest, but as a gamer I was very welcome, too. Both the front and back of my room key were logo’d with Mayfair Games’ Catan: Explorers & Pirates artwork. The guy behind the desk told me he was a gamer, and had a friend who is developing a new wargame. I gave him my number and told him to have his friend call me. It may come as a surprise, but I do happen to be friends with a few publishers in the industry and I would be more than happy to introduce him.

On the way up to my room the bellhop chatted me up about gaming – he plays Warhammer. And Dystopian Wars. This is the only time I have checked into a hotel and had guys bragging about being gamers. Thank you Hyatt for encouraging your staff to get into the spirit of the convention!

Driving in on Thursday night gives me the opportunity to settle into my room, look around the area to see what gamers are up to, and get ready to hit the ground running on Friday. I can already tell it’s going to be a great weekend.

Strolling down to the second floor I take a look around and find the upper lobby is packed with gamers. The first game I see is BattleTech. The second is the Star Wars X-Wing minis game. The third is a game of Gloom…and the list went on.

Back in the corner there were tables from Geek Chic for which gamers could make reservations and play on them. They are every bit as sexy as their website advertises and it is abundantly clear to me that I need one of these tables like I need oxygen to breathe. Yes, this is indeed going to be a great weekend.

Friday

It’s been a few years since I last attended a convention, so I was interested to see what might have changed. From year to year the changes are often subtle and can be difficult to discern, but this year the contrast was obvious: advertising.

From the time I hit the outskirts of the convention hall I noticed ads everywhere: banners on walls; ads wrapped around columns in the hotels; yeah, my room key from last night; projectors flashing companies’ logos. Ads were everywhere. Some people might have been annoyed, but I know better. I’ve been on the business end of having to draw in revenue to keep the lights on, and to me ads mean one thing: survival. One thing is clear: Origins should – at least in theory – be drawing in significantly more revenue than in the past. That’s good news because it means they are much more likely to be hosting conventions for the foreseeable future. And for a Friday I’m pleased with the con-goers I see. The numbers I see feel healthy. I’ll try to pry some official numbers out of Origins management later, but my gut tells me this place is booming.

 

Ads are everywhere

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