Origins Game Con

A few days ago I completed my event registrations for Origins 2001, and my
daughter and I were very disappointed to find that there were NO Full Thrust
games scheduled. I saw lots of SFB, Lightning Strike and Star Blazers. I was
under the impression that FT was a fairly popular system, is that no longer
the case?

> A few days ago I completed my event registrations for Origins 2001, and
 I
> was under the impression that FT was a fairly popular system, is that

FT is still quite popular, and we really have no one but ourselves to blame
for the dearth of events. Ooops. Anyone going to Origins?

Yes, it is -- unfortunately, Origins isn't a very popular convention
with miniatures gamers. I and most of the people I game with have to choose
between travelling to Origins, and travelling to GenCon, and we've always
chosen GenCon for our big summer convention.

-- Rick

[quoted original message omitted]

> Yes, it is -- unfortunately, Origins isn't a very popular convention

Hmmm, GenCon would be nice, but since Origins is only a 4-6 hour drive
from us, much cheaper in the long run. WI is just a tad too far to drive on
limited vacation time.

I the pre-reg book, I noted tons of mini games, in fact HMGS seems to be
represented in quite some force this year, with several of my favorites,
including JRIII and Battlefront WWII quite numerous.

Of course, the whole family role-plays, so we've mostly signed up for
those games, though my daughter and I managed to get signed up for some ship
battling, though its in Star Blazers. I also got into (hopefully) a Lightning
Strike game. Not sure how good the game is, but the miniatures are really
nifty!

> > Yes, it is -- unfortunately, Origins isn't a very popular

I disagree here.

Origins used to be THE wargaming convention, while GenCon was more for
roleplayers.

Over time, GenCon has begun to offer a broader range, and the miniatures
events there continue to grow. However, I believe Origins
still has it beat in the non-RPG department.

> On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 19:11:07 -0400, "stranger" <stranger@cvn.net> wrote:

> Hmmm, GenCon would be nice, but since Origins is only a 4-6 hour drive

Roleplaying was the main reason I went traipsing to GenCon, even though
Origins was a bit closer.

Origins was very much into miniatures years past. I've heard rumours that
Historicon, the big HMGS sponsored historical miniatures convention, was a
direct result of Origins not giving free entry to a bunch of historical
referees.

Origins is still much more of a historical miniatures convention than GenCon.
Historicals have been slowly dying the death at GenCon. On the other hand,
fantasy and scifi miniatures games are pretty strong at GenCon. Origins seems
to be pretty much the opposite.

The issue with these cons is that they are run by volunteers. The only way to
get the games played is to have volunteers run them. The best way to do this
is to have someone organize people to attend the con and do a block of games.
This isn't difficult, but it does require some running around. Oh, yeah, and
knowing people who would run a game or three!

Don't take the lack of games as a lack of interest, though. GenCon would
suggest that Full Thrust is the dominant game and that no one is playing
historicals...

On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 17:03:00 -0700, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker
> <s_schoon@pacbell.net> wrote:

> Over time, GenCon has begun to offer a broader range, and the

Except that historicals have been fading rapidly at GenCon.

I had an interesting e-mail from the board game and minis co-ordinator
at GenCon. He pointed out that there are more board game and miniature game
events in total than all the other games combined. Now, I figured this is an
unfair stat. A Magic: The Gathering tournament with 500 people, or a Call of
Cthulhu Masters tournament with 50 people are each one event. A game of Squad
Leader with 2 players is one event. Also, Hasbro now owns WotC, and Hasbro is
big into board games, so you can expect a bigger board game presence. I would
suggest that GenCon probably has Origins slightly beat in all categories, and
major in some.

That having been said, I thought GenCon was the largest game con in the world
with 25,000 attendees last year. (That number is odd: I was there for 4 days
so I was 4 people. If you think this is dishonest, ALL multi-day events
do it this way, including things like the Toronto Molson Indy and the
Olympics.)
Spiel -- the huge board game convention in Germany -- however, had well
over 100,000 attendees.

In message <pf5cetcablsf57inm31b8pkpde6u174tqg@4ax.com>, Allan Goodall writes:
> That having been said, I thought GenCon was the largest game con in

Everybody should go to GenCon once. I went last year and had a blast, but
mostly for the social atmosphere, new games and the drinking. There's a web
animation of me dancing at the Safehouse somewhere on
the Internet. ;-)  Anyway, this year I'm going to Historicon instead,
looking for more worthwhile gaming. I don't expect to have quite as

On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Allan Goodall stated:

> On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 17:03:00 -0700, Sean Bayan Schoonmaker
[Origins and GenCon stuff]
> That having been said, I thought GenCon was the largest game con in

Hmmm, is *that* how they do it! Well, I think that as one of the
organizers of GZG-ECC, I can say we don't inflate our numbers so!
How many people (seperate individuals) who showed up over the course
of the weekend is how many we had total.  :-)  I'm sure GZG-WCC does
the same. I certainly never considered it any other way (so gullible me, I
believed that the 25,000 or so at GenCon were all individuals, not multiple
counts of attendees)

Mk

(and as far as Andy's dance at the Safehouse being on the web

> On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 20:29:28 -0500, Andy Cowell <andy@cowell.org> wrote:

> Anyway, this year I'm going to Historicon instead,

I had intended to go to Historicon this year. But my vacation time seems to
have been taken up with other things. I'm envious. I had a good time at Fall
In! last year. Historicon would be a blast.

On Tue, 24 Apr 2001 21:43:15 -0400 (EDT), "Mark 'Indy' Kochte"
> <kochte@stsci.edu> wrote:

> I certainly never considered it any other way (so gullible

That's how they do it. But so do a lot of other organizations. Things that
sell tickets do it, because you can't tell the difference between a ticket
from someone who attended one day and a ticket by someone attending four days.
The numbers are usually "X people over Y days". GenCon can tell the
difference, since they sell passes and not tickets. I'm sure there's probably
some sort of accounting rule behind it.

> That's how they do it. But so do a lot of other organizations. Things

Actually, if you think about it, that's really the only reasonable way to
account for everyone (it isn't really an accurate representation of total
attendees, but that's beside the point).
Otherwise you have to count a 1 day ticket as 1/4 of a person.

Now granted they could just total the number of different names on their
rosters for a count of attendees, but I see why they do it the other way.

Besides, it LOOKS so much more impressive!

Yeah, but why don't I feel as valued as four people at Gencon??? ;->=

The_Beast (who has noticed one day attendees' badges DO get a bit more