From Wednesday night:

As I write this, it's storming pretty heavy. The tornado warning finally ended, and I've emerged from my host's basement.

This after noon I packed up mu little white S-10, which I call "Sally" in the deluded belief that it runs better if I talk sweetly to it. Sally and I drove on down to Columbus and the Origins Game Fair. I'm not entirely sure why I decided to run a game on Wednesday, the first night of the con. I guess it seemed like a good idea in February when I decided on my schedule. It's alright, though, because as I'll explain in a moment, the game went pretty good.

Hex Games has two staffers here in Columbus, Ian and Debbie. As with last year, I'm crashing at Debbie's place. She has a scandalous number of dogs, but they're all pretty friendly, and they don't come out on the sun porch where I am staying.

Ian and I both had games tonight. I had bad feeling about things when we got there, because Origins had already decided to change our rooms form the ones listed in the con book. When we got to our rooms, we discovered that the previous occupants (some conference for well-dressed senior citizens, by the looks of things) were still there. So the Origins staff had to move us again. Two unexpected room re-assignments before the con had even started. I took this as a bad omen.

Fortunately, the Origins staff did a good job of rounding up lost gamers and reuniting them with their displaced GMs. Ian and I both wound up with sold-out tables---eight player's each. Ian was running an M-Force adventure called "Pastapocalypse" that involved a cult of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I ran a QAGS game set in the "Champions of Valistar" ficton, a setting based on 1980's science-fantasy cartoons. My game went great, once the players got a feel for the cartoon setting. They did a great job of balancing the "Don't plan it, just do it!" atmosphere of the game along with the genre-convention of making overly-elaborate traps for the villains. At one point, the heroes built a fake boutique in a cave in order to distract and trap Salamandra, an evil East Coast Lava Girl. It has also been proven to me yet again that the "stupid" or "useless" plucky comic relief character is often the most useful. Boffo the baker-imp's creme pies and "Comedic Bad Luck" and "Everybody's Buddy" stats came in hand time and time again. I was very pleased with how the game went (the heroes rescued the great herd of Tunga Beasts and saved Little Coyote Town in the Ferran Badlands!), and it has helped rekindle my excitement for writing the Champions of Valistar book later this year.

Debbie has wireless access in her house, and I had tohe foresight to brung my laptop along for the trip. I think I'm going to try and keep a running blog-post on Origins. Tomorrow I only have one game--"You Stand on the Edge of a Silver Future," a QAGS game based on "Children of the Sky" by Robert Heinlien.

Now excuse me, it's late, and I still need to hide from the thunderstorm raging out side. The sky is a funky pink color, and if DC Comics have taught me anything, that means the Multiverse is collapsing.

Thursday was fairly uneventful for me. The one game I was scheduled to run ("You Stand on the Edge of a Silver Future") only had one player, so I had to cancel. The guy was a Rocket Jocks fan, though, so it was fun to talk with him for a while. It looked like both of Ian's games both went off. On the plus sided, since I had free time, I was able to sign up to play in someone else's game. The "Burning Wheel" Game I wanted to play in was sold out, and the ticket-booth couldn't find the "Unknown Armies" game in their system. Instead, I played "The Savage World of Solomon Kane," a setting for "Savage Worlds" from Pinnacle. I had played in a quick Savage Worlds demo at the Pinnacle booth earlier that day, so it was a treat to actually play in a full session. The Pinnacle folks are a swell bunch.

This was also the first day for the Dealer's Room. It seems smaller than it was last year. I did a good job of sticking to my vow to only buy stuff from the Pinnacle and Indie Press Revolution booths on the first day. I finally picked "50 Fathoms" for Savage Worlds, and the "Shab-Al-Hiri Roach" from Bully Pulpit. Any game that gives my group a chance to talk/act like stuffy Ivy League professors is a winner in my book! I also stopped at the Pokemon booth to pick up a few freebies for my son.

Tomorrow promises to be busy. I'm playing in a "With Great Power..." game at 8am (I should really get to bed). I'm also running two games ("Weird Times at Charles Fort High" and "Sex, Lies, and Ultraspies.") and helping run a panel called "Genre-Palooza."

Friday at Saturday at Origins turned out to be pretty busy. Leighton Connor and I didn't get in until way late both nights. As such, I haven't had a chance to sit down and talk about the convention until right now, Sunday afternoon. I am currently sitting in Delaware B while Leighton is our second game of "Sex, Lies, & Ultraspies" for a packed table. There is no wireless connection here (at least nothing free), so I'll have to wait until I get home to actually post this.

So let's talk about Friday. I woke up early to play in a "With Great Power..." superhero game. I had been waffling for some time on whether or not to buy this game, but after the insane amount of fun I had playing it that morning, I had to go to the dealer's room and buy it. I even convinced Hex Creative Director Leighton "Don't Call Me Chief"Connor to pick up a copy.

That afternoon, I ran "Sex, Lies, & Ultraspies: Gorilla My Dreams." The ultraspies ahd to infiltrate the fiendish Dr. Gorilla's artificial underground volcanic island and thwart his scheme to steal the superlative powers of his rival super-criminals. This game sold out at BASHcon, but this time I only got four players. This made the game a lot easier to handle, though and it ran smoothly. The players all had a good time and only four civilians were killed in the crossfire. After that, Hex had the Genre-Palooza panel to run. Unfortunately we only had one audience member show up, but Leighton Connor, that trooper, went ahead and ran the panel anyway.

That night, I got to demo Hex's new game "Weird Times at Charles Fort High,"a game about a high school for paranormal kids. This game could not have gone smoother. The players all focused the game on the "teenager" aspect instead of the "superpowers" one. All I had to do was wind them up and let them go. All eight people played off each other for three hours with very little nudging required from me, and managed to incorporate just about every teen-movie cliche they could think off. It was a blast. After suffering near-burnout from putting together the Fort High book, this reminded me how much I love this game. Good job players!

Leighton ran "Life is Random," randomly generating the adventure and character concepts using the "Book of Dumb Tables." He had a full table of spiritual martial artists king ass and saving hostages from an evil nation. Everyone sounded like they had a great time. After that, we went up to some friends' hotel room and watched Tom Baker-era Dr. Who for, like, three hours, and got back to Debbie's at 2:30 AM.

Saturday morning came really quick. Leighton's "Project Eightball" game failed to go off, as did my Golden Age "10¢ Superheroes" game. This saddened me, but with only one player each, there wasn't mauch that could be done. Ian's "Necromancer's Apprentice" game went off, though, attracting a couple of regular QAGS fans.

At 4PM Hex Games ran the "Art of Collaborative Storytelling" panel. I was very pleased with how this pannel went, and I think I managed to share a lot of good ideas with the audience. All the indie games I've been playing this past year or so gave me a lot of great material to work with. I actually got to reference "Kill Puppies for Satan"--of all things--as an RPG that gives good information on how to establish PC group relations.

On my last pass-through of the Dealer's Room for saturday, I ran into the podcast booth for "The Pulp Gamer" and pleasantly chatted for a while with the guy that runs "The Tome" podcast. I dropped off a promotional copy of "QAGS Second Edition" for the Pulp Gamer guys, and since The Tome is a D&D podcast, I gave him a copy of "Qerth; Apprentice Level Rules." I hope they enjoy it!

After meeting my grognard uncle for dinner, I had "Qerth: the Dungeon of Almost Assured PC Death" to run. Yet again, I had another full table. What encouragement! Leighton also had a full table for his "Post-Apocalypse Suerhero Western" game at the next table. We both had to shout as GMs, as both our tables were laughing and cheering so loudly, such was their enjoyment. Again, it was very fulfilling.

After our games were done, Leighton and I were felling pretty punch-drunk, and started spinning shtick of each other. We sat in Debbie's sun-porch riffing off each other for three hours, basically delving into the sordid personality of Hex Games mascot, the Happy D20. It got pretty surreal after a while. The good news, however, is that we now have a pretty solid idea for a Hex Games podcast.

Now it's Sunday. My voice is rough, but not quite gone (unlike at Dieon earlier this month, when I could barely speak.). The persistent rain and constant shifting from sweltering humidity to cool air conditioning has played havoc with my sinuses, and I think I'm coming down with a cold. I'm feeling a bit feverish, but the con's almost over. Ian's last game "Anabasis: a Thousand in Crosstime" failed to attract any players, and Leighton is running his last game right now. Ian jumped into that game, and they all sound like they're having fun. After they wrap up, it off to the Old Bucket of Nails for endless fish & chips. It's been a great con, but I'm ready to return to my family.