My Origins 2016, Or How I Spent Three Days Demoing Games in the Exhibit Hall

I went to Origins Game Fair again this year. It was only my second time attending. I went thinking I wanted to play board games, maybe get in a roleplaying game or two, and try out that neat looking live dungeon thing they have, but I ended up giving into my husband's whims, spending most of my time in the Exhibitor Hall, window shopping and demoing board game after board game.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and quickly discovered that there wasn't much to do beyond picking up our badges. The line up was ridiculous. It took us about an hour, standing and inching our way along, to pick up our pre-paid passes from the self serve kiosk. We hadn't pre-registered for any games. Much of the convention wasn't set up or open yet.  We had planned to head into the Exhibit Hall, but it was closed (turns out it doesn't open until Thursday). We walked by the spot where they normally set out that live dungeon crawl thing that I wanted to try, but it wasn't there (yet). We tried to head over to the D&D Hall to trade in our coupon for some Dungeons & Dragons themed swag but were told, "What the coupon doesn't say is we're not giving anything out until Thursday. Try again tomorrow.".  We had frittered away the afternoon with hotel check in, registration line-ups and walking around trying to go to things that weren't actually open. It was getting close to dinner time so we decided to head across the way to Barley's to pick up our D&D themed pint glasses.

Barley's is a MUST. Great food and fantastic beer. We'd be in there even if they didn't offer a coupon for free barware. Unfortunately 99% of the people attending Origins either feel the same way about the place, or were really kean on picking up their free glass "while quantities last".  We waited almost an hour to get into Barley's. It was still worth it.

Several pints and a relatively early bedtime later we were ready to tackle Day Two of Origins. After snagging breakfast at the local market (another must), we headed into the convention centre. I was happy to note that the "Edhellen Dungeon" as the live dungeon crawl was billing itself in the Origins guidebook, was now open. However my husband had zero interest in doing a live dungeon crawl, so at his urgings we made a beeline for the exhibitors hall, and then pretty much stayed there for three days.

It was certainly never my intention to spend 99% of my time at Origins in the dealer's hall, but that's how it played out. We were slow and methodical and demoed pretty much every game that was offering a demo. If there was an open spot, we played. If there wasn't an open spot we either waited, or made a note of where we had to double back to.

This was mostly my husband's idea. Dude loves to shop. He was thinking of buying this, thinking of buying that, and weighing each potential Origins purchase versus waiting to buy it online at home (Were they offering a con exclusive? Selling the Kickstarter edition? Was it one he actually wanted? Was the game discounted? How did it compare to the online price?). Now this isn't to say we bought a lot of games at Origins. Mostly my husband was window shopping, making a mental list of what he's planning on buying online over the next few months. He was a man with a plan. Dude didn't want to miss a thing.

On the upside this cost nothing (over our entry fee). Demoing games in the Exhibitor Hall is free and doesn't require any Generics (purchased tokens) to play. On the down side, most of the demos were partial games, just meant to give you a feel for whether or not you'd like to purchase. This was fun for a while, but after two days of playing partial demo games, ones where frequently the person running the demo was intentionally trying to let you win, I was pretty desperate to get some "real" gaming in.

As Thursday came to an end we both marvelled at how we hadn't managed to finish going through the exhibitor's hall. At days' end on Friday, we still hadn't seen everything, or played every demo, but by then the novelty was wearing off. I was seriously sick of playing partial demo games and just wanted to play something, anything, with a cheerful table of strangers.

However hubby was locked in. He was determined to demo every game he could, so that he could determine what he needed to buy. I will admit the completist in me wanted to finish that damn expo hall, and I continuously disillusioned myself into thinking we would somehow finish the expo hall and move on to some real gaming.  So Saturday morning we were back at it.

By the time we finished up it was almost time to go home. It sort of felt as though I was waking up from a dream. I was left feeling disappointed, groggy and confused, with smashed up memories of playing parts of dozens, and dozens, of different tabletop games. Had we just spent two and a half days in the exhibit hall? What happened to roleplaying? What happened to my dang live dungeon crawl?

Our initial plan was to leave for home by 4pm on Saturday, but we ended up getting a hotel room for the extra night and staying until Sunday. I spent Saturday afternoon playing rapid fire Mayfair games in a quest to earn my ribbons and become a "Knight of Catan". Then I dragged hubby over to the Puffing Billy area, in search of someone to trade for an ore ribbon. I wanted to play a full game of something, anything, but didn't want to lock myself in for a three hour (or longer) train game. So we ended up playing a game of Spike. I enjoyed myself, but hubby was grumpy that we were playing a game that was already sitting at home in our basement. In his mind the only point to playing games was to determine if we needed to purchase it or not. Why play a game we already own?

Hubby and I had a spat, as I expressed my frustration at spending the entire con following him around while he went shopping. We agreed that next time we would split the party, he could do all the shopping and I would enlist in a nice chunky board game tournament or something.

I thought I might squeeze in a live dungeon crawl on Sunday morning, but they were already packed up. Turns out they only run from Thursday through Saturday. Maybe next year, I guess.

Personally, I think the exhibitor hall might be ensorceled. Bleeping never ending rows of demo games that only let you loose at the end of the night when they close up shop at 6pm.

What about you folks? Have you ever been to Origins? Did you make it out this year? Did you get sucked into the dark abyss that is the exhibit hall, or did you payout some generics to play scheduled games?