Origins

I got back from Origins on Monday, took Tuesday off, and spent Wednesday wading through the emails, expense reports, and missed work waiting for me when I got back. Wheee.

But it was a great trip. I arrived late Tuesday night and pretty much went right to bed. Wednesday I went to help set up the booth and discovered that the diorama we were using for the Dungeon Delve was not there. It got shipped fast and made it there before noon on Thursday—with the exhibit hall opening at 1:00! So I actually skipped out on some of the hard setup and went back to my room to get some work done. In the afternoon I went back and did help more with setup. Then I played a game of Risk Godstorm with Charles Ryan and Eric Cagle. We played right outside the exhibit hall, so lots of people stopped to watch and ask about the game. We told everyone it was going on sale the next day in the WotC booth, and so we take credit for it selling out over the course of the weekend. :) Charles creamed us, despite not having played any form of Risk since college. On my last turn (the last turn of the game), I owned a single territory: plague-ridden Gaul. I got three armies to place in that territory, and two of them promptly died from the plague. Because I hated him at that point, I attacked Charles in Brittania. He rolled a one for his defense! Perhaps I could win one small victory before the end of the game! Alas, no. My plague-ridden Greco-Gauls rolled a feeble one on their attack as well. Game over. I had a ton of guys in the Underworld, but it just didn't matter.

Thursday morning we got the Delve set up in time for the opening of the hall, and I spent pretty much the next four days talking to people about Eberron. I was pleasantly surprised at the very positive reaction it received—lots of people were really excited about it, we sold a whole bunch of the books in our retail area, and I signed quite a number of them. 

OK, if I keep trying to write about everything I did the whole weekend, I'm simply never going to finish this entry that I started three days ago. Saturday night I played in a Call of Cthulhu game run by Jeff Simpson, who does web work for the RPGA and must be the nicest person at Wizards. He's been running this game, set in Roman Britain near Hadrian's Wall, at conventions, with the players consisting of volunteers who help out at conventions. Great fun. 

So... not enough sleep, too much fun, a couple of great games, and lots and lots of Eberron—I call Origins '04 a success. Just about the only down side was the Origins Award ceremony Friday night—Draconomicon did not win either category it was nominated in (Best Roleplaying Supplement and Best Graphic Design of a Book Product, or something like that), and Wizards as a whole won no awards (though DRAGON Magazine won Best Periodical). 

I'm slated to head to GenCon Indy in August, so more convention news then!