wrestling / Columns

Just S’pose 7.15.07

July 15, 2007 | Posted by Ron Gamble

If you remember a couple weeks ago, I asked for your opinions about whether or not I should give my report on my third annual visit to Origins, the international game expo in Columbus, OH. The vote was close, but there was one voice that was louder than all others. Mathew Sforcina, he of the excellent column, the yin to my yang, the Thunder from Down Under, and the Steve Jackson Games freak, said I should just ignore the vote and give the report anyway.

So, thanks to Mathew, you get my latest report. Woo-hoo!

FRIDAY, JULY 6

I was forced to miss Thursday because I needed to work, so Friday was day one. I made it down to the Greater Columbus Convention Center around 8:00 and went straight to the Board Room, sponsored by the Columbus Area Boardgame Society (of which I am a proud member). If you go to other reports of Origins, everyone has raved about the jobs CABS did with both the Board Room and the War Room. I’ll explain about each of those, but I won’t comment about how great or awful it was.

The War Room was CABS first sponsored room, in which players could set up war games and keep them up for four or five days, without worrying if they would be torn down or even disturbed. Last year, CABS opened the Board Room, which was the same idea, only for board games. There was also an open area downstairs, but a lot of the table space was taken by companies for their demonstrations and other events.

Anyway, I headed upstairs to talk to fellow CABbies about their plans for the weekend. Rio Grande Games donated 75 games (their entire in-print catalog) to the CABS library on Wednesday, and along with other donations, the CBAS library is now over 500. All those games were available to people to play. I played something, and looked for a copy of “Feudo,” a game which I was supposed to demo for Z-Man Games (and, a game which I had never touched before, though I had read the rules the night before).

At 10a, I went down to the Exhibit Room (aka The Dealer Room), where conventioneers could buy almost every game they wanted. Well, normally they could. This year, several companies, including Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast, WizKids, Playroom, and Avalon Hill, were not there, as well as retailers Gamestation and Titan Games. The big game companies that were there, Rio Grande, Mayfair, Days of Wonder, and Winning Moves/Immortal Eyes, were joined by the latest player, Z-Man. I’m not just saying this because I volunteered for Z-Man, or that I am a fan, or even that I know Zev Shlasinger (Z-Man himself) semi-personally. There was a lot of buzz around their new unreleased board game, “Duel in the Dark,” their latest card game in the B-Movie series, “Bushwhackin’ Varmints Out of Sergio’s Butte,” and their newest available board games, “Stack Market” and “Owner’s Choice.” “Duel” will not be available until late July or early August, but there were about 50 copies available at Origins.

While there, I went to Troll and Toad’s booth and saw they had one copy of a game I was pretty much ordered to buy by my wife, “Bolide.” It is by the Italian company Ghenos, and is a grand prix race game, but unlike any other race game that has come before. There is only one 12-sided die, but it has nothing to do with movement. Instead, drivers determine their own movement. The game board is divided into one-inch grids. Let’s say you want to move three spaces forward. You move your car three spaces, on the intersections of the lines on the grid, then take a small pawn of the same color and move it three spaces forward from the car. Your next turn has to end within two spaces of the pawn, so you can move five spaces forward and two spaces to the right. Just remember, though, whatever you do with the car, you also have to do with the pawn, and it will directly affect what you do on your next turn. It teaches you physics without you knowing that you’re learning physics. When my wife, the theoretical physicist, heard about this game, she pretty much ordered me to get it. Yes, dear, I’ll buy a game…

After exploring the rest of the room, I checked into Z-Man’s booth to look at “Feudo.” It looked easy enough, until I started getting into all the intricacies of the rules. You can’t move a piece unless one of the three cards you have chosen that round activate it. You can’t move a mercenary unless you have also played a card with two or four shillings, and you only get to play those a total of four turns. You can’t allow your pieces to share a space, unless one of them is either the Baron or the Milady. You can’t take over a village or city unless you have either a mercenary or infantry to control the village/city after combat. It is a confusing amount of stuff to look at in four pages. But, once you get the rules down, it runs smoothly. I only had the chance to play it with two, but it will support four, and I would imagine there is a lot more player interaction with four than two.

After the demo around 3p, I had lunch, then back up to the Board Room. I had grabbed two copies of “The End of the Triumvirate” from Z-Man’s booth before eating, and had the chance to re-read the rules before hosting a demo at 8. I managed to play a little before I needed to pack it up around 7. I still needed to grab the Z-Man Games table in the Open Gaming room downstairs before it was taken.

Around 7:30, a fellow CABbie came to me, saw the game, and asked if there were other players. I told him there was no one else yet, and he grabbed two other players. I taught them “Triumvirate,” which is, in case you can’t tell by the title, a three-player game. It has rules for two, but no more than three. It is one of the very few games designed especially for three players, and it is balanced beautifully.

The game is set in 56 BC, at the Conference of Luca to continue the three-man council of Gaius Iulius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus that ruled the Roman Empire (I got all that information from the rule book, which includes a short history of the time period). Each player starts with five separate territories, each one either helping in political, military, or competency influence. Whenever you take a territory from another player, that player receives compensation in either weapons (which help to destroy other units) or competence. A player can win by being elected Consul twice, controlling nine territories at once, or having maximum influence in both political and military theaters.

The fun thing about the game is, if both players team up to beat up on one player, they cannot win without turning on their temporary partner. There is a constant balance between teamwork and watching your own back.

The demo ended at 9, and I joined a table at the nearby event of “Wits and Wagers.” You might remember me talking about this game last year, and how I played in the team event three times and never won. This game made it oh-for-four.

By the way, “Wits and Wagers” will be available at Target stores nationwide starting in August, and the second edition, with different betting rules, will be available around Christmas.

I went back up to the Board Room, looked around, and said my good nights before heading home. I had let my dog, Blackie, out of the house around 7 that morning, and our neighbor doesn’t like it if he barks before 9 (she works late, is usually in bed until then, and he normally barks right under her bedroom window). I made it back home by 11, and in bed by midnight.

SATURDAY, JULY 7

Up and out the door by 6:30, I went straight to the Board Room, where I met up with Scott Nicholson. Scott is the host of “Board Games with Scott,” a video blog where he teaches and reviews games for people, showing the viewer a step-by-step sample turn. Another guy and I had the chance to play a game Scott brought called “San Francisco,” a German game from about fifteen years ago. Each player takes turns rebuilding San Francisco block by block after the earthquake and fire in 1906, using either money or influence. I ended up getting lucky by having the most influence left on the final turn, which allowed me to rebuild one more city block and win the game.

I then went to the main gaming room downstairs to find out about the Hold-em tournament coming up. It was supposed to start right at 10, and I needed to return the copies of “Triumvirate” to the Z-Man booth at that time. I was also supposed to get a copy of a game right at 10, and asked a friend to get it for me. There were only four copies of this game available, and they were on a first-come-first-served basis. I returned “Triumvirate,” then ran over to the poker area and signed up to play before grabbing a pretzel.

Before I go on, I must tell you about the snack bars in the Columbus Convention Center. I went to grab a Snickers bar, because my blood sugar was running low. Not a super-dee-duper gigundous Snickers bar; just an extra-large one they sell at the grocery store for 75 cents. I took it up to the register, and the woman said, “Three dollars.”

FOR A FREAKIN’ CANDY BAR?!?!?

I ended up getting a pretzel with mustard for $2.50, but that was reasonably priced. I can see charging one dollar; heck, I can even see $1.50. But to charge four times for a candy bar, or any food for that matter, what it would cost at the store just because you’re selling it at a convention is beyond any decency. That pretzel was the last food item I bought from there, and it will be the last thing I will ever buy there.

Anyway, the guy in charge of the poker tournament made some general announcements, and said the winner would win a plaque which they could get engraved for free in the Exhibit Hall. I did some quick counting, and found out I was going to do better than I ever had before.

In 2005, out of about 85 people, I finished 30th. In 2006, I finished 30th again, out of 50. This year? Twenty players. Why does the number keep going down? Because every night of Origins, someone else runs a Hold-em tournament, where the winner can get cash or even a trip to Las Vegas. Of course, that tournament also costs $18 to enter, whereas this one cost $7.50. I’m not ready to play in a game where fights break out over you-called-no-I-said-raise every year.

Anyway, I’m at the short table; only six players. We go through the first hand, and I push some chips over to the guy to my left. I’m already deviating from my game plan of staying out of the first few hands, to try to get reads on the other players. Early on, I notice one thing about the player two seats to my right: when his hand is weak, he plays with his chips more. I make a note of that.

About one hour into the day, I’m up big. I have about 850 chips, and the second highest stack is around 500. I am in charge. The blinds go up, and I am dealt A-2 of diamonds. There are already two players who have called, and I’m the small blind. I raise and scare everyone out but the chip player.

The flop comes 8-3-4 rainbow. He bets 25, and I raise him to 50. He calls, and we go to the turn card: 5 of clubs. I have a five-high straight, and unless he has a 6-7, I have him. He wouldn’t call my raise to 50 with a 6-7 in the hole, would he?

He checks, and I know I have him. He starts playing with his chips like, well, something I shouldn’t say in a family column. I bet 50. He thinks, and raises me another 50, then goes back to his chips. I push him all in, and he calls. Meanwhile, something starts echoing in the back of my mind. What was it? Oh, yeah. The announcements.

“In this tournament,” the director announced before we started, “to keep things in line with the way we have been playing the Dealer’s Choice tournaments, and to avoid confusion with people who are playing in that tournament, the Ace is always high.

Shit.

He beat my wheel straight with a lousy pair of eights. Thirty minutes later, my implosion reaches its inevitable conclusion, and I finish in 17th.

I go over to the Exhibit Hall and find a copy of “Conspiracy,” a Milton Bradley game from 1983. It’s for two to four players, and each player takes turns moving eight spies around the board. The goal is to pay a spy more money than anyone else, then pass off the secret briefcase from person to person, trying to get a spy to take it to your headquarters. To win, you also have to be paying that spy more than any other player. A difficult game to master, and one that should come back in print sometime soon.

I briefly ducked into the auction room, where people take their unwanted games and try to get a lot of money for them, and where other people try to get games they’ve always wanted as cheaply as possible. I saw a first edition copy of “Acquire,” Sid Sackson’s first published game, from 1962, complete with wooden pieces, go for $130. I also saw a copy of “Battleship” from 1976 with a torn box go for $30. Say “Good night,” Gracie.

Back into the Exhibit Hall, where I worked a couple hours at the Z-Man booth. I demonstrated “Triumvirate,” “Feudo,” “Ubongo,” and “Dragon Parade” for prospective customers, and even managed to get a better look at “Duel in the Dark.” The game takes place in 1943, and focuses on bombing runs by the British over Germany. The British player has to map out a bombing run over a German city and land back in Britain before play begins. The British player also gets one fighter, while the Germans get four. The British have to guard against making it obvious where the bomber is going, while the Germans have to avoid the fighter and get to the bomber, while watching fuel. There are also clouds, thunderstorms, fog, searchlights, wind, new moon/full moon, and a few other variables to watch for. If you like strong strategic that take less than an hour to play, get this. It will probably sell for around $60, but the pieces are beautiful and sturdy.

Anyway, after working the booth, I looked around some more. There were a couple games I wanted to buy, but not nearly as many as last year. You may remember that last year, I brought home about 20 different games, not to mention expansions and freebies. This year, I can honestly say there were only three games I wanted to buy, but didn’t. And, as you’ll see later on, I didn’t buy much.

After dinner, I went back to the main gaming hall to play one final round of “Wits and Wagers.” I joined a couple guys who were just getting ready to name their team. When they put their team name on the table, I knew I had to stay. It was kismet. I can’t believe I’m giving my brother this ammunition.

We were “The Buddha Brothers.”

The game takes seven rounds to play, and after each player or team makes a guess, then each player gets to bet on which answer is closest, using “Price Is Right” rules: you can be closest, but not over. On the second question, “In which year was the Magna Carta signed?” I leaned over to my teammates and said, “It’s 1215. I KNOW this.”

We bet everything we had on 1215, and went on to win the game. Yes, we actually won the game, which means I finally won that game! I won plenty of times by myself, but this was the first time as part of a team at Origins! And, what did we win? Last year, the winning team got to split $100. This year, we each got to split $30 in Funny Money, redeemable at the Northstar Games booth to buy Wits and Wagers or Cluzzle. Since one other guy and I already had the game, we let the third guy take the money to get his own copy for free. Dominic Crapuchettes and Satish Pillalamarri (sorry if I got your name wrong, Satish, but I’m spelling from memory) are nice guys, but I wanted cash, baby!

Now, I headed back upstairs to the Board Room. I played a quick game of “Race the Wind,” a yacht race game from Ghenos. In each turn, you had to watch for gusts and dead spots, make the turns around the buoys, and stay downwind to win. I got caught going around the buoy when the wind was directly at my back, and there was no way I could get unstuck. I bought another game from Ghenos which I’ll tell you about some other time.

After “Race the Wind,” I found my friend who bought me the game early in the morning. Here it was, in my hot little hands: the American version of “Ca$h ‘n Gun$!” I reviewed this game last year, but as a quick recap: each player is a character from a 1970’s B-movie, trying to split the bounty from their latest heist. There’s Huggy, Lotus, Tito, El Toro, Igor, and Mr. Black, and each player has a gun. You can choose to either fire first (once), fire second (twice), or not fire at all (five times). You decide who to aim at, and on the count of three, you do. You then check out the situation to see who’s aiming at you. After another count of three, you either stay put or duck behind a table. There are then two shooting rounds, and whoever is left standing after all shooting gets to try to split the pot evenly. It’s quick, it’s inane, and it’s fun as all get out.

My only problem with it is, to release the game in America, Repos had to make the foam guns orange instead of black. Oh, well. After a few rounds, I went home. I made it home around 1:30, but it was okay as far as Blackie went. Y’see, Renee and Beth were supposed to be in West Virginia all weekend, but they came back around 10 Saturday night. I smooched them both and went to bed. One more exhausting day to go.

SUNDAY, JULY 8

After gaming for almost seventeen hours on Saturday, guess what time I woke up? 5:30. I also knew I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I showered and drove back down to the show.

Once again, up to the Board Room, where I met a guy from Toledo. He told me about his wife asking him to get rid of all those old games in the basement he hadn’t played in many years. He took them to the auction, and told me he thought he had made a lot of money. He would find out later today.

I then went to the main gaming room, where I talked with Vicki. Vicki is another CABbie, and was also in charge of the hall. She asked about my flame-out at the poker the day before. She didn’t know it had happened, she just knew me and my weakness of playing with middle pocket pairs. I told her the story, and in the middle of the story, the guy who ran the tournament walked up to us to ask her a question. When I got to the part about his announcement, ‘The Ace is always high,” she looked him in the eyes and said, “I oughtta smack you.”

YES! Vindication is MINE!!!!! I then let him off the hook, telling him that he made the announcement before play started, and I just forgot. That was true, but it was also a change in the rules he should not have made. Next year, look for me to finish 10th out of seven.

Over to the Exhibit Hall, where I made it to the Immortal Eyes booth. Each day, the first twenty people to their booth with a flyer was rewarded with the free expansion to last year’s “Conquest of Pangea,” “Atlantis.” I have not played this yet, and am not sure how it affects the game, but when I know, I’ll let you know.

I zipped over to Z-Man’s booth for another three hours. Everything was closing at 4p on Sunday, so I was putting in three hours. I explained the same games again, and sold several copies of “Ubongo” and “Dragon Parade.” At 1p, I took off, and was rewarded with a free copy of “The End of the Triumvirate.” I got the very last copy available. I wanted that game because it was specially made for three players, but if it was gone, “Duel in the Dark” would be in my house right now.

I walked around the hall one last time, looking for any kind of bargain I could find. I told Dominic at “Wits and Wagers” that I would see him next year, and told him the answer to the question he had asked the crowd playing the game. I made it to the Looney Labs booth, where they were celebrating, and got the free addition to “Fluxx,” which is a sudden death card. When you play this card, someone sets a timer for five minutes and hides it. When the timer goes off, if one player has part of the current goal achieved, that person wins. Otherwise, there is no winner. An intriguing addition to a game that can end anywhere from twenty seconds to forty-five minutes.

I also found the guy I was talking to that morning. He told me his wife originally wanted him home by 2p, but he talked her into 5p, because he wanted to learn a game. He then went down to the auction room to collect for the things he sold, and was handed $958. His wife called him around 1:30 and asked if he was on his way, and he said he wasn’t, and that he had gotten almost $1000 at the auction, she said, “Take your time.” Ah, money. It cures all things…

I thought about buying a couple things, decided against it, and found some friends. We left the Convention Center for the final time and went to BD’s Mongolian Barbecue. This was my first time there, and it won’t be my last. You create your own stir fry bowl, and then watch the chefs cook it on a huge baking stone. In the middle of my first bowl, it hit me: I didn’t play anything at all today. What a lousy way to end a game convention…

Anyway, here are this year’s Origins Awards winners:

Play By Mail Game of the Year
“Starweb”
Moderated by: Flying Buffalo Inc
Designed by: Rick Loomis

Board Game or Expansion of the Year
“Treehouse” by Looney Labs
Designed by Andrew Looney

Miniatures Game or Expansion of the Year
“HORDES: Monstrous Miniatures Combat” by Privateer Press
Designed by Matt Wilson

Miniature or Miniatures Line of the Year
“Colossal Red Dragon” by Wizards of the Coast
Designed by Andy Collins, Jesse Decker, David Noonan, Chris Perkins; Art Directed by Robert Raper

Non-Collectable Card Game or Expansion of the Year
“Munchkin Impossible” by Steve Jackson Games
Designed by Steve Jackson

CCG or Expansion of the Year
“Pirates: Davy Jones’ Curse” by WizKids
Designed by Mike Mulvihill

Game Accessory of the Year
“Settlers of Catan Event Deck” by Mayfair Games
Designed by Klaus Teuber

Fiction Publication of the Year
Dungeon Magazine by Paizo Publishing
Published by Erik Mona Edited by James Jacobs

Non-Fiction Publication of the Year
Dragon Magazine by Paizo Publishing
Published by Erik Mona; Edited by Jason Bulmahn

Roleplaying Game of the Year
“Burning Empires” by Burning Wheel
Designed by Chris Moeller, Luke Crane, Thor Olavsrud, and Radek Drozdalski

Roleplaying Game Supplement of the Year
“Deadlands Reloaded” by Pinnacle/Great White Games
Designed by Shane Lacy Hensley and B D Flory

Historical Miniature Game of the Year
“Vlad the Impaler” by Warhammer Historical
Designed by John Bianchi, Steve Schifani, Dan Minculescu, and Rob Broom

Historical Miniatures Line of the Year
“40mm American Civil War line” by Sash and Saber
Sculpted by Chris Hughes

Historical Board Game of the Year
“Command & Colours Ancients” by GMT Games
Designed by Richard Borg, Pat Kurivial, and Roy Grider

Origins Vanguard Awards
“Larry Bond’s Harpoon 3” by Matrix Games
Designed by Advanced Gaming Systems

“Pieces of Eight” by Atlas Games
Designed by Jeff Tiddall

The one award winner that most people had problems accepting was “Treehouse” as Boardgame of the Year. The voting was done onsite, and there were no safeguards to prevent stuffing the ballot box, so the suspicion is the Looney Labs Mad Rabbits (as they call themselves) ran downstairs and voted repeatedly for their favorite, while almost everyone else voted once, if at all. Of the other four nominees, “BattleLore,” “Hey! That’s My Fish,” “Oshi,” and “Shear Panic,” I had only played the last one, so I abstained. Still I didn’t think “Treehouse” was all that great. This was the Marisa Tomei of Origins winners.

Overall, I had a good time, and my haul was small:

“The End of the Triumvirate”
“Bolide” (French/British Grand Prix tracks)
“Bolide expansion” (Italian/Brazilian tracks)
“Conspiracy”
“Ca$h ‘n Gun$”
“Conquest of Pangea: Atlantis”
“Fluxx” expansion

That’s all. I’m looking forward to next year, and also looking forward to the end of September, for “Buckeye Game Fest VIII: Electric Boogaloo.”

Finally, Mathew? Start watching your mail.

Ron

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Ron Gamble

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