Origins 2000 - Personal diary
Andrew S. Davidson
thereat, including games of Doomtown, Shadowfist, Brawl and Vampire.
I spent Wednesday morning packing and ended up with:
1 large suitcase full of clothes & games - Gunslinger & Paths of Glory
1 large suitcase full of cards - Doomtown, Vampire, Brawl & Shadowfist
1 travel bag full of gadgets - Swiss Army knife, geiger counter, etc.
1 laptop bag and computer plus accessories (Homeworld - yeah!)
1 gumph bag (Yuit's name for a cotton shopping bag for magazines,
loose papers, SF books, moccasins, pullover, umbrella etc)
This was travelling light for me and I anticipated less hassle than
usual with the airline. However, I lingered at the duty-free shops in
Heathrow and couldn't resist buying some items on special offer:
* noise-reduction headphones - good for playing computer games en
route.
* an MP3 player. I liked the idea that it could record 2 hours of
speech but never found time to master it. Watch what you say next
year though ...
* a folding metal scooter. I'm working on my image as a mad scientist
and this makes a great prop. It turned out to work well and I wowed
the doormen at the Hyatt every morning as I zoomed up at a great pace.
No-one in Columbus had seen one before but, on the way back, I read in
Newsweek that they are all the rage elsewhere and so the novelty will
soon be gone. Not that they're very novel to start with - I had a
nifty scooter when I was in short trousers and that one had a useful
pedal crank.
Last year's flight was a misery but this year's went quite well -
American Airlines seem a lot better than United. The inflight movie
was rather stale though - fancy showing Mission Impossible 1 when what
we want to see is John Woo's kick-ass direction for the sequel. That
would have really got me in the mood for some butt-kicking Shadowfist
action.
I squeezed into a small plane for the final leg from JFK to Columbus.
I managed to stow myself and my bits and bobs without too much trouble
but I can't imagine how XL-size gamers would manage. And Chris Foley
did well to stay away - you don't want to try this on crutches.
A fast taxi-ride downtown then saw me ensconced in the quiet and
efficient Marriott Courtyard. And so to bed.
With the jet lag working for me, I rose early and had time for a long
leisurely breakfast. I was then fairly pleased to be joining the
registration line at 8 am - in plenty of time before the Vampire event
at 10, or so I thought. It was puzzling to find that the line just
didn't move though. At first I suspected queue-jumpers but when I
reached the head of the line over 2 hours later the reason became
clear. I was still in a fairly good humour having had some pleasant
conversations with my neighbours but this soon changed when I stepped
up to the booth and handed in my form. The hapless young woman led
off with some marketing questions - where did I hear about Origins and
so forth. I told her what I thought of that and gave her some Mickey
Mouse answers as she persisted. She then spent some time keying in my
details - my VIP number was no use now, it turned out. She was quite
flumoxed by my coming from the UK - we didn't have states there, I
explained. After much rolling of eyes, we got through all this and I
got my badge. I was timing the whole process and it took 14 minutes.
This was just amazing but I don't blame the counter staff -
minimum-wage temps with no prior knowledge and 15 minutes training.
What was inexcusable was that there was no on-the-spot supervision or
management who could cut out the BS and get the line moving.
I subsequently checked with the head of the line for event tickets
throughout the weekend and the wait was never less than 30 mins - way
too much. Fortunately there was a separate, comparatively fast line
for generic tickets and I made do with these for all events - there
seems to be little need for specific event tickets at all.
I'd missed the Vampire event now but this gave me time to wander the
exhibits and dealer area for a while - something that I usually don't
find time for until the last day. The Shadowfist booth was looking
good with a colossal back-drop of card art and I signed up for the
continuous challenge event.
Each player had one starter and 2 Flashpoint boosters to make a deck
from and wore a cool "Who Wants Some?" button. You could call out
anyone wearing this button and the winner would claim a signed trophy
card as a scalp. I soon called out Ben Handy and trounced him quickly
in two games. This was all I found time for and so I wasn't in the
running for the title. This was subsequently won by Ben himself who
racked up a score of +15! He must have found a gang of Mooks to
Whirlwind Strike because he hadn't give me much competition. I coulda
been a contender! This was a shame as I'd have liked to win the uncut
promo card sheet that was Ben's prize. He said that he wanted to sell
it to pay for repairs to his car and so I offered him $20. Not
enough, he said - look for this item on eBay if you want to help Ben
get back on the road. Note that it features the new art for Sting of
the Scorpion. You'll be amazed to see what she stings you with now!
I then hung out with the Vampire players for a while and met the
famous LSJ - a laid-back, Californian type with pony tail and cut-offs
- most unlike his forbidding net persona. It was interesting to see a
familiar Doomtown player, Kevin Masterson, among their number. I saw
list chatterbox Ken Kurpiel playing with them later too. It's a small
world.
One of the group told me that there were cheap Vampire boxes for sale
on site. I hastened back to the dealers and located the stall in
question. Altogether I snapped up 3 boxes of VTES boosters, 1 box of
Jyhad starters, 4 boxes of Shadowfist starters, 2 boxes of Flashpoint
boosters and 1 box of Revelations boosters. This was quite a load so
I stopped in a luggage store in the complex to buy some wheels. It
turned out that they were having a clearance sale. They offered me a
giant trunk on wheels for a song but this seemed too big even for me
and I settled for a more normal trolley-case which swallowed up all
these boxes - a snip at $40. Then back to the hotel to unload.
I had had lunch at a great market near the convention centre - a
Kellner jar full of soup, some hunks of tasty organic bread and a
gingery juice cocktail. Later, Kerry and I looked for some food while
waiting for the Acme event to start. The Char Bar was too much of a
dive for us, Barley's was packed and we ended up at a quiet cafe round
the corner - a BLT and a beer topped me up nicely. It was then off to
the Acme Doomtown tournament.
Acme is a game store run by enthusiasts and they do a great job of
running a Doomtown event every year - a good crowd and great prizes.
The details are a blur now but I made the top 8 only to go down in the
first round of the eliminator. I was playing the deck which my
successful "Ghost Town" deck from last year has now evolved into.
This is "Cabin Fever" - so-called because it contains many copies of
Heavy Rain, A Slight Cough, Quarantine and Riot! With no Lions or Los
Diablos, this can afford to start a few influential dudes like Sandra
while still relying on events to do much of the work.
I started off well by beating a Coalition and WCO deck quite easily.
I then met Jeff "Nicodemus" Hannah playing Whateleys Extended Family.
Jeff rolled over me very fast with The Motherlode is Found and
experienced Lord Grimely's Manor. I had been beaten by Lissane Lake
in a similar way at Shorecon and it looked like the Fear level was
still high enough for such decks to thrive. Jeff played next to me
in the Swiss for the Worlds and we were neck-and-neck throughout that
I was very happy not to meet him again.
I finished off by playing against a Sweetrock shooter. I put out
extra dudes at the start and we drew for four of them - CL, Sandra,
Abel and the Mad Dog. I forget the details but I'm guessing that I
did best in this and then overpowered him with my strikes.
Despite the loss, I made it through to the top 8 and now met Jason
"Jackelope Jay" Hawthorne playing Dixie Rails. I screwed myself by
over-reacting to the possibility of him starting Ezzie and left out
low starters like Sandra. This was especially silly because he
didn't, in fact, start with Ezzie. The game was decided by a big
shootout at one of my strikes. I might have won if I'd cheated but I
played it clean and my full boat went down to his 4-of-a-kind. I
pressed on but things just got worse after that.
Jason went on to the final. While he didn't start with Ezzie, he had
lots of potential in this area and, in the final, he destroyed the
opposing Blackjacks player by Withering all his dudes. This was a
fine victory - first blood to Dixie Rails.
It was now getting late so I went to acquaint myself with the
creatures of the night once more. These were a crowd of Vampire
players, habitues of the jyhad newsgroup, who were playing in open
gaming. They were well into it and as it was now many hours past my
UK bedtime, I bade them farewell and so to bed.
Rising early again, I dressed in my running gear and headed out for a
jaunt on my new scooter. I dropped off my fanciest duds at a
dry-cleaner so that I'd have something sharp to wear for the big
Doomtown event on Saturday. I then ended up in the Hyatt lobby where
I met Zev and Paul taking delivery of the new uncut card sheets for
Shadowfist, hot from the presses. I looked these over and they looked
impressively error-free. It turned out that this was because the
layout had been done by Stefan Vincent - a keen player. It's best to
have a knowledgeable enthusiast do this kind of thing rather than a
jobbing professional who doesn't really know the game. So many games
fall at the last hurdle because the final production is done by folk
who can't recognise glaring mistakes when they see them.
A full breakfast back at the Courtyard and a shower and then I was
ready for the fray. First up was the Vampire Sealed deck (Noon 14th)
Ohio (5pm Fri)
Final Brawl (7pm Fri)
Sabbat draft (9am Sat)
Brawl (10 am Sat)
Doomtown champs (Noon Sat)
Swiss
break
2 elims
Meals
Fri Wendy
Dinner Sat
Dinner Sun - Barleys - Rochester guys