So the Origins 2009 schedule has officially been published. I'm perusing the SR events, but I don't see a tournament listed this year?
So no tournament this year? WTF?

I also see two $26.00 events. Are those typos? What could Mr. Johnson's Table include that's worth the $26.00 cost of admission?

Who's going this year, and who's planning on playing?

The Origins Shadowrun tournament was canceled due to lack of interest. Last year there were not enough players to completely fill two tables.

Someone wasn't doing their job promoting the event then. I've never heard of Origins till just now.

As for Origins... It used to be a big deal for industry awards and what not.
As much as I would like to whine and complain, I don't know if its profitable for Catalyst to support Shadowrun outside of GenCon.
Indy is in the same region, so they kinda go to to go with what gives them the best coverage.

BlueMax

Oh, Catalyst is still going to be at Origins and will be running more than 40 events there. We just won't be running a tournament.

... Then I don't think any of the Shadowrun community have any right to complain. Zip, Zero, Nada. Zilch.

They should check out the conventions in my neck of the woods. No Shadowrun at all. Spycraft, Tunnels and Trolls, even Feng Shui... but no Shadowrun.

BlueMax
/me mumbles something unintelligible.

Fair enough. That makes me sad though. I could have sworn there were more than two tables playing last year...
Figures the one year my team wins the damned thing, and they shut it down the year after. I know we broke the script, but come on!


So that answers that question. What about the Mr. Johnson's Table Friday and Saturday night games?

I know I have no room to complain, I LOVE SR and Origins is the ONLY time I get to play.

Next year, could we get some descriptions for the events though?
NONE of the events have any kind of description, and that makes it tough to choose between events on an already cramped schedule.

News flash:

Subject: Events Purchase Delayed

Hello everyone –

Some days, technology just isn’t your friend.

Due to unavoidable issues on the back end, Origins events purchase will be delayed until Thursday, May 7, at noon Eastern Daylight Time (9:00 a.m. PDT). We greatly regret the inconvenience, and thank all of the fans of Origins for their patience while we get this matter resolved.

If you haven’t taken a look at the events list yet, you can do so over at http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.orig...-origins/events.

Thanks again for your patience.

-Trey

Trey Reilly
Program Director, GAMA
programs@gama.org
614-255-4500 x103
http://www.facebook.com/l/;www.gama.org

And the problems continue...

Hello everyone –
Unfortunately, our tech issues continue. It's a problem with the software that we use to run events. The company who supports that software is working on it, and there's not a lot we here at the office can do. Origins events purchase will again be delayed, this time until Friday, May 8, at noon Eastern Daylight Time (9:00 a.m. PDT). If we need to extend again, we’ll keep doing so in 24 hour increments until we can safely open events for everyone. We greatly regret the inconvenience, and thank all of the fans of Origins for their patience while we get this matter resolved.
If you haven’t taken a look at the events list yet, you can do so over at http://www.originsgamefair.com/2009-origins/events.
Thanks for being patient, and we'll get things up as soon as we can.
-Trey

I'm curious what these games are. The events list doesn't have any description for any of the games.

The SRM runs are all Missions, and if you like SR, it's always a safe bet. These are the official modules for the season, and are persistent. I've enjoyed them when I've played.

The "One Shots" are an unknown, but probably pretty safe.

I'm still a little weary of the "Mr. Johnson's table". At the costs listed, assuming 6 seats per table, we'd be paying GAMA more hourly then I make at work....
That's kind of sad.

If I knew it would be worth it, like one of the main developers were running a game, I'd probably reconsider.

Do I get that right? At US conventions you pay admission and then you have to pay again to actually play?!
Here in Germany most conventions have an admission fee of less than 10 EUR (for a whole weekend) and games are filled simply on a "first come, first served" principle (with some conventions offering online pre-registration, again free), Seminars and workshops, unless explicitly limited, have an access cap of "room size"...

Sadly, yes. This is one of the things that's been pissing me off about cons for years. Last year was the first one I've attended in several years.

<semi-old guy>
When I started going to conventions about 16 years ago, you only had to pay extra for big events, like 50+ player LARPs, and even then, the registration was all of $10 or $15 for a weekend long event.
</semi-old guy>

Now you're looking at $80 to $100 just for admission, then about $2 to $5 for each event, plus room and board, food, shipping in the dealer's room.



Must be nice.

-paws

This is only for Midwest and East Coast conventions. The game companies like this model and support it with manpower, whereas they do *not* support West Coast conventions. On the West Coast you pay to get in , usually $45 for the whole weekend if you pre-reg, and thats all you pay.

What bothers me more is having to pay to GM. Ohh sure, if I run 3-4 sessions and I want to wait in line an hour on the last day I can get reimbursed. So for 18 hours of work I can liberate my $45. More of an insult than a return if you ask me.

Hey Matt, did some digging for ya, found out a bit about the Mr Johnsons Table games. I haven't looked at the published schedule, so not sure what description they have (if any), but here's what I have for it:

"To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Shadowrun, you can have your very own Mr. Johnson. One ticket reserves the entire table for a party of 6 players. Just tell us 24 hours in advance which game you want to enjoy and your Mr. Johnson will GM it for you. Snacks provided."

So that 26 bucks is for 6 players. Basically, it's a way for a group of friends to guarantee that they can sign up and play together. Plus hey, snacks!

I'm GMing again this year, and the call for signing up for games went out while I was offline for a couple weeks, so I'm dreading that I may get stuck running some or all of these I don;t really know any of the fine details yet, I'll poke Chuck and get back to you.

Bull,
As always you are in the know. I appreciate the heads up on this.

Sadly, I have no team this year, so no table for me... But a weekend of SR missions and a few other things should be fun.

Poor chuck.

As part of the Catalyst Demo Team, this gets taken care of. Instead of an hour in line for reimbursement we go to the nearest watering hole.

Yeah, there's an advantage to working with a gaming company.

Well, that and free swag

Sure fine, rub it in. While your all having fun at the cons east of the Mississippi, I just drown my sorrow in our frigid California weather.

The watering hole statement brought back a memory. WotC had some "Winter Fantasy"?? con in Chicago during the mid 90's and I went to one. (worked out I was going to Wisconsin for other reasons ). I was shocked to see gamers at the bar. At that time at the Southern California Conventions, you gamed every waking hour.

When I got back, I found out that it was only the gamers who were busy. Booth folk were already smart enough to hit the bar.

Frigid California weather???? Yeah, right.

Shit, for a few years there we spent more time in the Big Bar at Origins than we did in the Exhibit hall or Gaming. Now we're smarter. We bring our own booze and hang out in the hotel room. Much, much cheaper that way

For what its worth, that is also SOP for Marcon, a smaller gaming/sci-fi convention held at the Columbus Convention Center. Honestly, its more about the room parties than the convention. Just beware the room parties featuring drinking games (especially the ones involving porn). Even alcohol poisoning can't make you un-see everything...

-paws

*shudder*

Yeah, avoiding porn when surrounded my mostly male gamer geeks? Probably a good plan

Marcon has plenty of co-ed parties - its not just gaming, its sci-fi and fantasy fandom too.

Not sure about Origins though - I've never bothered to hang around that late.

-paws

Not all Midwest Conventions... At Anime Central you pay to get in the door and then you play as much as you can stand.

Just over a week ago we had one SRM table running each RPG slot (the poor GM who ran them all I owe big time). Same went for LFR, heck even our 128 seat Magic: The Gathering Booster Draft was free to the first 128 con attendees who walked up to play.

What kind of Dumpshock turnout is Origins seeing this year?

Trying to decide whether to get a day pass or spend my time at Commfest.

-paws

I know Aaron, Bull, and CaineHazen will all be there. Not sure who else.

Amongst others.

Origins finished yesterday and I saw lots of people (including me) having a great time playing Shadowrun. Chuck organized a great set of GMs and between them all they ran about 15 events each day. There were many new players, which is wonderful. About a dozen of the new Shadowrun 20th anniversary rule books were available for sale each day at the booth, and they sold out quickly. Buy a copy at your local game store if you can get one. SRM events were heavily attended. One shots were heavily attended. Sunday morning wasn't. Most of us got by on 4 to 6 hours sleep each night.

I asked about it and was told that the idea for Mr. Johnson's table was that one person would 'buy' a table for $52 just for their gaming group and friends. They'd tell Catalyst what they wanted in a game and Catalyst would provide a great GM and snacks. Unfortunately Origins wouldn't run an event with just one signup... they required at least two players. So it became $26 each. But then Origins made it for 6 players. Ultimately it just didn't happen. (I bought a $26 signup during online advance registration for both the Friday Johnson's and Saturday Johnson's, without knowing what they were. I figured if someone thought it was worth $26 then I just *had* to find out what it was. Unfortunately I didn't know I had to have friends. )

I went down Saturday morning with a buddy. Got there about 0930 and pretty much started the line for the dealer's room. I'd like to say that everyone was orderly and didn't make a mad dash to the Catalyst booth to try and get the limited quantity prints, but that would be a lie. My buddy and I calmly, at least, walked to the booth and in the end, I managed to get the last SR4A copy for the day. Yay!

Chatted briefly with some folks working the Catalyst booth, mostly about Battletech. Got to chat a bit with the folks working the Battletech tables in the Open Game room too. Nice looking intro box set, BTW. If anything, this con got me really nostalgic for Battletech. I'll probably pick up a copy if I can find someone around here who'll play.

And then there were the Mechwarrior (or was it Battletech?) Pods. Those were kind of cool. Expensive though ($6 for a 7 minute mission). I had to try it though.

The $3 Day Pass was such a good deal. I'm really hoping they do it again next year.

-paws

PS To whomever had all the Heroscape tiles for use with Battletech: You're brilliant and crazy and have too much money.

I didn't even know the pods were there till Saturday night... there went any chance of sleep that night.

Hey, were there any NERPs Cards or special Con-only SR surprises at Origins this year?

Yes.

Secret surprises?
Do tell!

I just want to throw in here my deep appreciation for Bull and the others running Missions for helping introduce me to the mission system and putting up with all my dumb questions. Also my thanks to all the other folks who put up with my dumb questions and just in generally made me and "Red" welcome in the campaign.

Galen
aka Dr. Rattler

This is not hyperbole. When we arrived there, there were four others in front of us, chatting the time away, none of whom I later saw at the Catalyst booth (at least not initially). Others soon gathered around/behind the six of us, eventually forming a blobular pseudo-line leading back towards the escalators as the time crept closer to opening (except of course for the pants-on-head thickos who had to be told repeatedly by one of the door staff to keep a particular path clear). Further proof of my contention that Americans don't understand the concept of queueing for shit, and can't be arsed to look past their own agendas to figure it out.

paws and I spent the half hour chatting about the current game he is running, various bits and bobs about my character in the game, and about general con related minutiae (such as the fact that while neither paws nor I would normally be considered "svelte", but compared to the pack of 5XL t-shirt wearing bastards in attendance, we felt rather slim and spry that day). In general, t'was a pleasant half hour spent hanging out with a friend.

Then came 10:01 am...



...unlike the trundling horde of flankers who decided "ettiquette, propriety and self-control be damned!" who went tearing around the right hand path to the Catalyst booth in short order, as soon as their spasmodic bodies could press past the calmer and more rational clientelle without knocking anyone down (although given the overall boorishness of said throng, I'm not sure why that stopped them).

The funny thing here is paws is, as usual, being rather more polite about the situation than I feel is warranted. He failed to mention that he actually said something to the effect of "It's nice to see that it didn't turn into a frenzied mob", to which I agreed. No sooner had those very words left our lips than did the galloping idiots come around the corner into sight aimed straight at the Catalyst booth.

Our pace (well, my pace at least) may have picked up a bit at that point, but we did indeed still walk to the booth, despite the lack of decorum from others.


Which in general is a good thing, or else someone was likely to get a 35+ pound satchel to the back of the noggin for general asshattery. After working retail in a gaming store for years, it doesn't take much in the way of self-important geek dickery to set me off, and the selfish, immature prickishness of SR4A customers #1-9 that Saturday morning did it right quickly.

Not only were you clowns amazingly rude to your fellow gamers there that day, but as a former game store employee (and occasional con booth staff), I can only empathize with the guys at the Catalyst booth there first thing in the morning that had to deal with your ridiculous crap. The doors were barely open for 30 seconds, and there you buffoons are barreling down on the poor lads like a herd of deranged wildebeests. Couldn't have walked up politely could you, given them a few seconds to breathe and direct you in an orderly fashion?

My hat's off to the guys from Catalyst at the booth that morning for dealing quite professionally and quickly with the ravening hordes. You guys shouldn't have had to put up with that crap, but you handled it well. Kudos to you.



Not a chance in hell! I need to be involved in something involving more miniatures like I need voluntary bowel surgery. I wish you luck though...



While I am still philosophically opposed to the idea of having to pay to enter an area where it is hoped that I will pay some more to vendors (i.e. buy stuff from them), I will have to say the Day Pass thing turn out alright this year. This is mostly due to the fact that:

1. paws paid for me to get in, on account of my general broke-assedness (summer as a student sucks) and
2. the Take and Paint table was there in the Dealers Hall, allowing me to distract myself from all the glaringly obvious reasons why I generally don't like cons for a few hours. That one free fig alone essentially paid for the cost...

Did anyone who attended Origins have feedback on the Missions events or One Shots? How well were they written? How well were they run? Suggestions for future events? Comments on the gamemaster organization overall? Help us help you to have a better con.

You didn't complain...even when I learned how to cheat Can't believe I came out on top of a few of those games.


They hated it all... I hated running them all Actually I didn't get to run one of yours and one ofmine cause everyone liked Bull more than me ... but I liked what I read. I know Chuck got some feedback on things though.

I missed having the creepy guy dressed in black cov ops gear running around waving his hand gun and threatening to stomp players with his combat boots keeping GMs and players in line.

Don't worry, I'll be out in full force at Gen Con.