Origins

[jazzfish]

Drove up Wednesday so we could get the lab set up. "Got" to build the horrible wireframe boxes again. These consist of metal grids that slip and crush your fingers, "held together" by plastic connectors that pinch your fingertips. I think this is the fourth year that I've "gotten" to put these things together. [If I actually minded I'd go find something else to do.] Dinner at bd's Mongolian Barbecue again, which continues to rock my world.

The rest of Origins is kind of a blur. Five Fluxx prelims [congratulations to Fluxx World Champion vt_andros], ranging from 20-32 people. Also ran the Stoner Fluxx tournament on Friday night, with 24 contestants. Hung out in the lab and demoed things, spent a thankfully brief stint in the booth handing out promo cards for Chrononauts. Played Cosmic Coasters [better than I remembered], some Fluxx, a few Icehouse games. Demoed Early American Chrononauts, which is way cleaner than normal Chrononauts in terms of gameplay and mechanics. Got several interesting demos on the exhibition hall floor, including a card game called HexHex that's like Lunch Money, only, well, fun, and not horrendously clunky. You don't have to keep consulting a cheatsheet to figure out what the cards do; it's all simple and clean and vicious.

Carried my crystal ball around with me all weekend because I figured I'd need a fidget. Got lots and lots of compliments despite feeling rather clumsy. Turns out Dan Efran does some contact juggling; talked briefly with him about it. Also got to hear cthulhia's amusing James Ernest story. Also also spoke very briefly with James about smoothing up my back-to-back transfers [rolling the ball from the back of one hand to the back of the other] and determined that I mostly need to keep the ball moving and not let it stop between tricks. So that was good.

Placed sixth in the International Icehouse Tournament. Managed to get one-third of a win [shared with xalolo and misuba] in one game, and beat Jake in another. T'ai chi really is a good relaxer. [My 1.333 wins is as nothing to misuba's 1.867, though. Now that's comedy.] Mad props to cthulhia for being Cooler than Ice, misuba and ubiquity for making the finals, and zyxwvut for finally walking away with the whole enchilada. Scepter. Whatever. Also, Crystal Caste's stone Icehouse pieces are damn near too beautiful for words. Especially the hematite.

Was privileged to sit in on the first couple hours of an RPG run by Phil Brucato. I was sufficiently awed that I went out the next day and bought his game. It's called Deliria, and vies with Nobilis for the title of Prettiest RPG Ever. Phil is a really neat guy, and a damned fine storyteller. If I'd ever seen him in the Big Bar On Two as I staggered back to my hotel room I would have bought him a drink and made him babble at me for awhile.

Talked a bit with lots and lots of very cool people that I don't see very often. Hmm. I think that's reflective enough that it wants its own post later. I continue to really like just about everyone I meet at Origins, and to eagerly await the next one so I can maybe get over fear/discomfort/whathaveyou and actually talk some more.

List of acquisitions is as follows:

RPGs:

Dark Ages: Fae, finally. It's thinner than I'd hoped it would be. Asked the developer about the possibility of more stuff for it; "In this life there are nothing but possibilities. . . but don't hold your breath."

Deliria, about which I cannot possibly gush sufficiently. In Phil's words: "I wanted Deliria to have everything that I liked about Vampire, that I wanted to put in Mage, and that didn't get into Changeling." Urban fantasy RPG. Very pretty. Neat mechanics.

Land of Og / Complete Caveman's Sourcebook. A cute RPG about cavemen. Note that your cavemen only know a few words, and thus you, the player, can only say those words. Anything further you want to communicate has to be done by grunts and gestures. Could be amusing, and hey, it was ten bucks.

Soap: A Game of Soap Opera Mayhem. Tagline: "More or less a role-playing game." Looks like Baron Munchausen; will be fun to read, at least.

Board/Card:

Samurai, by Reiner Knizia. In French, since the English edition is out of print. There's no text except for the rules, though. It's a tile-laying game similar to Through the Desert, only with buddhas instead of camels. Tricky to wrap your head around. I like it.

Sleuth [thanks nixve], by Sid Sackson. Clue without so much randomness. A multiplayer logic puzzle. Fantastic.

Flaschenteufel [Bottle Imp], by Günter Cornett. Trick-taking game with some weirdness, and also a wooden bottle. Plus the Robert Louis Stevenson short story in both English and German. At ten bucks I feel like I overpaid a bit, especially since I don't expect this one to come out all that often. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.

Saga, by Wolfgang Kramer and Horst-Rainer Rösner. It's got a very thin theme about castles and knights. As it's from the designers of Pueblo and Nicht Die Bohne!, this should not come as a surprise to anyone. This might be pretty cool; I can't quite tell from reading the rules. [Bought it because Überplay were selling their demo copies for $10 off, making it a $7 game; I figured "What the hey."]

A nicely printed copy of the Puerto Rico expansion [thanks uilos].

Also:

Time for Freedom t-shirt from the Looneys, with "It's time for peace. Legalise" on the front and a lengthy screed about why marijuana should be decriminalised on the back. Most excellent.

An Origins die, given away for the 30th anniversary of the convention. I have been to one-fifth of the Origins conventions that have been held. Wow.

A plastic punch-out pirate ship, for use in a collectible game I'll probably never play.

A :cueCat [thanks vt_andros] for scanning in my book collection.

A wonderful, wonderful convention. Thank you all so much.

Comments

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

I admittedly know practically nothing on the topic, but something I noticed that was different between your style and James' was that you keep your ring finger up as you roll, and he doesn't. I assume that's for balance purposes, but it might slow the ball down, as well.