JP On Gaming

Monday, June 20, 2016

Origins 2016: After Action Report

Origins this year would definitely be very different. I was at the same time excited and leery about it for a number of reasons (which I will explain/explore here).

After last year's rather underwhelming showing of and ticket sales, I initially planned on simply attending and playing. So I did not submit any events for the con. No worries.

However, real life has a tendency to play tricks on you... I had a few surprises (thanks Uncle Sam) that meant I could not simply cover the costs of attending and playing full time. I considered for the longest time simply not attending, but that would make mean missing out on the Arcanis finale of the current story arc.

So I thought to myself "what the heck, I'll just GM it." So I got on Facebook, contacted Henry from PCI and within a few emails, I was going to run Arcanis! Hence my worry and excitement.

Now I have said on this blog many times, that I really love playing Arcanis because of Henry's storytelling skills. These adventures were no exceptions! I won't spoil them here..

The Trip

My trip was done in two phases. After leaving work at 5pm, I came home and had dinner with the family.

Leaving home, I first drove to Louisville, KY to stop at a local Wal-mart where I stocked up on supplies: cheese, meat, bread, and mustard. Not great tasting, but spending 30$ for a weekend of gaming would be a great booster to my (tight) budget. From Louisville, I stopped for an overnight stay in Florence, KY. It was already late and a clean bed was all I ready cared for.

I made my way to Columbus in the morning, fighting through the traffic in Cincinnati, but otherwise no issues. My first game started at 1pm, so I had ample time.

Wednesday & Thursday

Seated and ready to run, I ran - with a few mistakes, I must add - Night of a Thousand Scream and later - with less issues - The Chosen. Of the two, I much prefered the Chosen because it has a very classic D&D feel, yet with a very Arcanis twist to it. Before you ask, "Night" is a very Arcanis adventure, one that called less to me because of its subject. (It's about the Elorii, a race I don't care about myself).

Thursday morning, I got to sit at Tony-N's table and play "Night" myself (and realize that my character is not well-built to take on the monsters therein). I really like Tony's style of GMing and thought he definitely did a great job. The table had Peter-P's Armand character who is a male version of my own bimbo character, though we branched out in different direction with regards to our advancements. Dirty jokes and innuendoes gallore. No, they were no longer innuendoes, we talked dirty. Plain and simple.

Friday

I was originally scheduled to run one of the 5th edition Arcanis. I had two adventures prep'd (one moreso than the other) and was ready to go. However, no player showed up during the slot. So I got to play WitchHunter for the first time since Gencon 2014.

Yup...

Almost two years without playing this game! *sigh*

The shape of the campaign has changed quite a lot... I am definitely anxious in seeing more of it and how it will evolve. The adventure I got to play was really challenging with the difficulty level definitely higher than it used to be.

But from the afternoon through the evening, was the first of two Arcanis special events. This one was part LARP, part battle interactive. Did someone say LARP??? This meant I had to paint my nails, don my dress, put on my wig and be ready for adventure!

I make no apology for the horrors I unleashed upon the players. Henry's fragile mind was further shattered...

Funny story, a little girl (of about 5 or 6) took a liking to me and we danced a few times together... She was really cute and I had a good time.

But wait, dear readers. Wait.

Someone took me for a woman!

Yes, they thought I was a lady!

Okay, okay, they did not have their glasses on. I was across a hall, so he simply waved back politely, not knowing who it was was waved to him.

But that's NOT important. My dressing up skills are increasing!


Next time: Saturday and Sunday

JP

No comments:

Post a Comment