Your family plans to go to Origins with your kids…and if you ever want to go again, everyone needs to enjoy your four days of gaming.

Corinne Mahaffey, 25 June 2014

With many thanks to all the parents I spoke with, especially Kristy, and the Kids’ Room supervisor.

Click images to enlarge

Begin with solid preparation.  The first thing you should have done is pre-register, because there is no way your kids should be sitting in the registration line for 2 hours.  You get a kid’s badge free with an adult badge.  If you haven’t, get there early (by 7 am if you arrive Saturday).  The last place to open is the Exhibit Hall, at 10 am.  In the meantime, whoever isn’t in line can walk around the convention with your kids and the map from the convention book, and start scouting out the games you and your kids might be interested in, see the cosplayers, and locate essentials such as the Kids’ Room, the food court… and, of course, coffee.

The second key part of preparation is to book a hotel within very easy walking distance of the convention.  Look for an in-room fridge, free breakfast, and coffee. Yes, it is much more expensive than that distant hotel that you and your friends used to split costs on before you had kids.  But being close has all kinds of advantages beyond not having to try to get comfortable in a chair while your friends snore.  When the kids get tired and cranky, or over-stimulated, you have only a short walk back to naps, free coffee, and the hotel pool.  If you or your co-parent (meaning your spouse, or partner, or significant other, or the adult(s) who attend the convention with you and is/are helping with the parenting) is staying at the convention for a late, late game, you don’t have to coordinate transport.  We found that a two room suite with a fold out couch for the kids worked very well.

The third key part of preparation is packing properly.  If any of your children use a stroller or carrier, even just sometimes, bring it.  You can try out demos, play games, and eat while they sleep in it, and they, and you, will be more cheerful if they are not dragging around the convention, exhausted from walking.  Pack more of the essentials than you think you’ll need: diapers, wipes, snacks (especially snacks!) and everyone’s medications, because you don’t want to run out some late evening after the Kids’ Room is closed and you can’t ask their advice on where the nearest grocery is (North Market, across the street, btw) or the pharmacy (CVS, in the strip mall at the intersection at Neil and Collins).  Add some headache medicine and Pepto Bismol for the adults.  And more snacks for the kids.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

(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?

Talk about Origins here >>