Well, this is the final report of our trip to Origins. Sunday was pretty much: visit the Exhibitor's Hall one last time and pick up anything interesting. It was a bit disappointing that more of the publishers weren't having specials for the last day, but I guess they would rather just pack it up to GenCon.
I do have to say that I was unimpressed with the quality of the Hawkmoon books that Mongoose was selling. I thought that the print quality was such that it was obvious that the book was POD, not to mention the fact that the covers were bowed because they used too much glue on them. Not very impressive over all.
However, I was impressed yesterday. Brad Elliot of EOS Press offered a demo of Unhallowed Metropolis for Aren and I. The character generation was pretty easy, we managed to make two characters in about 20 minutes or so, and the simple combat that we ran through was pretty easy and quick. The game utilized a simple Attribute or Skill plus 2d10 versus a set target number for resolution. Like I said, quick and easy. In a lot of ways, the system reminded me of Unisystem. Which, frankly, isn't a bad comparison for me. The setting of the game came across and very evocative and interesting, and the ashcan copy that he had at the con was actually very nice looking as well.
The only bad thing was that I couldn't actually preorder a copy of the book, which after the demo I really wanted to do. EOS doesn't offer preorders until the book is at least on the ship coming back to the States. All in all, I think a good way of handling it. This is something that I am now officially looking forward to however.
Other pluses: I found a dealer selling EOS's Weapons of the Gods for $10. I couldn't really resist the price, and I've heard a lot of good things about it. Brad was also kind enough to sign it for me. Finally managed to find a copy of the Magic Box for the Buffy game, as well, so that was a good thing too.
Overall, I saw some people that I hadn't seen for a while, met some nice new people, and had a pretty good time at Origins. It was a shame that the con was so much smaller this year. I hope that if attendance was down, it was only due to the registration problems with their website. I really like have a con like this in "the backyard" so to speak. It was a good time.
Oh, one last thing. The batteries in my camera died on Saturday so I wasn't able to get as many pictures as I wanted and I can't upload them just yet either. Probably tomorrow.
