Recently I had the chance to journey to OrcCon which is the winter convention put on in Los Angeles (actually Orange County but it is all the same). I rode down those three hours from Santa Barbara with Rick Spence, the designer of Kaiserschlacht, a big game in the 1918 campaign in Europe, and long-time game friend John Michalenko, a confirmed D&Der. We had started off in typical fashion with Rick, our driver, oversleeping but we all arrived by 10:00 which was plenty early on that Saturday.

This convention is not as large as Pacific Encounters was. OrcCon had about 500 attendees while Pacific Encounters in the San Francisco region has 2,000, But fun was had by all.

The biggest attraction was the SPI booth because Jim Dunnigan and Brad Hessel had both decided to come out for this convention. It was a chance for the great unwashed to hand Jim Dunnigan $14 for The Ardennes Offensive and ask him questions about The Next War. The most quotable quote of Mr. Dunnigan, a man who kept his jogging happening in the morning smog of L.A., had to be that our "Hobby is for the over educated."

Interestingly enough for SPI, Ardennes Offensive and Great War in the East Quad sold just about equally well. Brad Hessel pointed out to me that he had only played the 1940 scenario for the Sedan map of Ardennes Offensive but that it was quite good. Later I spoke with David Fristrom who was playing it and he thought the "rules look good." He went on to say that "Sometimes SPI's rules are unclear." He also said that "I must be reading them wrong as they seem good." I might add that the maps and the counters looked smart and it appeared to me to be an exciting game, one I will get or at least try to play at some point.

Interestingly enough The Great War in the East Quad had a big point in its favor because there is a Rommel counter in the Caporetto scenario. This point sold it to several buyers! Jay Nelson of OSG (Rommel & Tunisia) did the Serbia/Galicia 1914 quad in that one. Rick Spence congratulated Jay for being accurate in his order of battle. Rick and I had discussed this one at some length before arriving at OrcCon and had both realized that it would take some effort to dig up a good order of battle. It is interesting in that the game begins with virtually no units on the board except the Serbian army. But with each turn the board fills up with troops to make an interesting game.

Rick asked Brad what percentage of SPI's feedback suggestions come from readers and it was a surprising 30%. Brad went on to say that the hot fields according to SPI's feedback remained the Nazi era but that the 19th century was doing better especially the giant TSS type of game.

One aspect about OrcCon that was nice was seeing several old friends from my San Diego days. Todd Roseman was there, an old Triton wargamer, who had just bought SPI's Acre game---a siege game. He usually did not get SPI games but this one looked different and interesting. Dave Buchbinder was there representing Command Perspectives (935 Chalcedony Street, San Diego 92109) and they had just published Sharpsburg for $16. Another old Triton man, he had worked on the classic La Bataille de la Moscowa series. Sharpsburg has ten scenarios and 1,000 counters and will remind one of the La Bataille series of games. The Rebel counters are in butternut and two Whitworth artillery counters are present as well. It represents plenty of research and is a long game, though the map is not overly large. A tactical delight it seemed to me.

Another show stealer had to be Jay Nelson, the designer of Highway to the Reich, who was there representing OSG. I looked at Panzerkrieg, a redo of John Prados' Von Manstein, which is a little game in a big box. The Rommel & Tunisia mapsheet was there and looked quite good. The game was not quite ready as the counters were not finished. It is a two-map game dealing with the 1943 campaign in Tunisia. Jay said that it was "not what I started out wanting." It looked good enough to me to go ahead and order a copy of it though OSG prices are on the high side. For example, an $18 game with a print run of 2,000 mapsheets (at 10c a map) is high to me. But they have to support their office in New York City.

OSG is made up of good talent that has left SPI for one reason or another. Kevin Zucker, formerly of SDC as well as SPI, runs OSG as the president. It is "Zucker's fevered vision (as to) where these games can go," as Jay told me, that directs OSG direction. Jay sees these games of ours as the "tip of the iceberg with the future of our games on culture and art." If a cultural game appears then "you must know the culture." Jay hopes that OSG games achieve that as a "good game submerges you into a different culture." The cornerstone in approach for OSG is that they are not mechanistic in their approach but the human factor is key, as it is manipulating the technology. Jay hoped that gamers would "experience their games more fully" and that they would buy less and play more.

Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo wag there. He told me that his little card game of Nuclear War had sold about 2,000 copies. His other good selling titles were Tunnels & Trolls, any Metagaming game, and that GDW's Traveller and his Berserker did quite well too. Rick, like Lou Zocchi, makes virtually all the shows.

Another San Diego group that was there was Marshal Enterprises of the La Bataille series of games. I knew both Monte Mattson and Dennis Spors from my old SDC days and the Triton wargamers. Now they are famous wargame publishers!! They were working up a Talavera game which sounds exciting as it will pit the English redcoats against the bandit troops of France. Dennis told me that the French can win at Talavera but they must be cautious. Their rumored Austerlitz game is on the back burner until it is further debugged.

Saturday evening they unfurled a tricolor and set up La Bataille de Preussisch-Eylau. It was an exciting and bloody game with several old Triton salts. I bungled around with Davout for a turn and then had to leave. Marshal Enterprises' philosophy extends to their production; 1,000 copies of a game are to be produced and that is it. They did admit to me that it is extremely hard (too hard in my opinion) for the Prussians to win in their first production, La Bataille de Auerstadt.

Dennis and Monte did bring up an interesting point about Fire & Movement, and it is a point that applies to other magazines as well. That is that smaller game companies do not receive as much exposure as the big companies get. As Dennis put it, there is "an Ancien Regime of wargaming" in which "creativity is automatically downgraded." There is definitely an inner clique or group which is made up of AH, SPI, GDW, and the other large companies and those personalities who are well recognized designers or the like who automatically accrue certain "attention" points.

The example Dennis used was comparing the number of articles that have appeared on Wellington's Victory. We thought there were three major articles on it. La Bataille de la Moscowa, Auerstadt, and Preussisch-Eylau have generated one review to the best of our recollective knowledge. This is even more interesting when one considers that Moscowa was voted best amateur game of the year when it appeared and spawned the entire TSS series!! One natural reason for this lies in the fact that any game from AH or SPI automatically will sell to several thousand gamers as opposed to hundreds. But it also sets up a cycle that is hard to break into. It is my opinion that editors should try to examine innovative third world games as often as possible to keep the Hobby growing and creative talent a chance to strut their stuff on the stage of the printed article.

Turning to GDW they were not in real evidence here. I did see Richard Snitzer and his friend Dan playing Indian Ocean Adventure. Richard had bought it as it was the only game on the subject. We all agreed that the mapsheet was one of the blahist mapsheets around, but the game counters were up to their usual smart looking GDW quality. GDW's new magazine had sold well, with Grenadier #4 being sold out. Imperium was the other solid seller here.

Mike Mishler of Mishler Games (another San Diego company with roots going back to SDC) was present with an improved Norad and with a Nebula game. Norad had been made into a more balanced game and both games had excellent graphics done by Dana Lombardy.

One theme that has occurred in my writings in the past is the entire question of violence in our hobby and do we market and play violent games. This was a question raised at the seminar I participated in with Jim Dunnigan, Brad Hessel, Jay Nelson, Dennis Spors, Monte Mattson, and Rick Spence. It was a question that drew more comments from both the panel and the audience than any other single topic. Jay Nelson had mentioned earlier in the day that he felt that games like "The Next War and October War are immoral" as they suggest, rather than study something in the past. These games in fact can create false impressions that might give someone an idea to launch a war. Jay also felt that war is a true art generated by man "like theater, (but) it is one of man's baser instincts." One person in the audience mentioned that games are "graphic violence between two competitors."

A young black man pointed out that at his school his wargame club was sort of tolerated and was viewed as some sort of campus plot. It was assumed by the non wargamers that all of the wargamers were bound for ROTC! Brad made the point that if one studies cancer one is not a cancer monger and that by studying history we can avoid future wars. While nothing was really resolved except that we all have our rationalizations for playing these games, it was good to kick the topic around. Jim threw it back at me by asking if I felt guilty about playing and designing wargames!

One of the events that dominated my stay at OrcCon was the Victory in the Pacific tournament. My sparring partner, Dave Smith, and I had gone over that game for a month previous for this tournament and Dave had developed a strong Japanese strategy very similar to the one Don Lowry had in his article, though I had forgotten it and Dave never saw it. We later plan to do a Series Replay for the General using Dave's strategy and my American counter to it.

Roy Easton entered the VITP tournament and sat down with Don Brynt to set up a game of it. James Myers, famous for his mind controlling of dice and ESP, drew lots for partners and coincidentally matched those two together though none of the other 17 players had started setting up! Don Lowry also was there but went down as the Japanese against Gilbert Anderson who later ended up a semi-finalist.

The first round saw me playing as the Japanese against an inexperienced player who surrendered on the fifth turn after Pearl Harbor and American Samoa fell, cutting off all his reinforcements. I repeated this in the second round though the American player did not know that when those two ports fall the American receives no further reinforcements. He thought he was winning up to that point (he was doing quite well point-wise) and was very bitter and James had to explain it several times before he angrily left the table. I did not enjoy that victory at all.

Mark, my semi-finalist opponent, gave me one of the most enjoyable games of my life. I did not capture American Samoa, though up until that point my luck was superb at rolling 5s and 6s. I was hot with the dice but he hung on and stopped me. It went down to the last turn and I ended up with 2 points in spite of the dice reversing themselves and he managing several incredible feats. We were jumping up and down for this one and had a grand old time.

The final game was against a man who won it last year and his psychological warfare was worth two aircraft carriers. He was also playing a finals game in the Napoleonic quads! Interestingly enough this would be my fourth game as Japanese (I won the toss) while he had won his first three matches as Japanese. I missed three rides home finishing that game and again failed to take American Samoa but I had modified my strategy slightly after the near disaster with Mark by picking up points here and there. I had enough POC to squeeze by and win in the last turn, largely by keeping some good carriers together for raiding. It was quite exciting.

One aspect about OrcCon was that many large games were in progress. War in Europe was being fought out several times. Greg Bart was playing Next War and I asked him if he liked it. "Sure I do, it's so massive. The air war in itself is a game." He told me that it took six hours for two players to make one turn. Wellington's Victory was being played too. Everyone agreed that the French had it rough unless they were given free deployment. One man remarked that the mapsheet looked like Dagget, California, (a desert town) and not Belgium! War in the Pacific was another game where I heard it needed a full day to play six turns with several players on each side. Gary Green ended up giving me a ride home late Sunday night and he thought very highly of Crusader. He felt it was the most realistic big game he has ever played and it captured the elan of the Napoleonic era and put it into the Western Desert in 1941. Interestingly enough it is based on the La Bataille system! He told me an Englishman he played that day was a German player who had a good "feel" for the combat situations and could be very accurate in assessing what hidden units were approaching his line. A game that can put that type of quality together is obviously one that should be looked at.

Finally there are some odds and ends that don't fit quite anywhere. OrcCon was the first game convention I have been to where players were snorting coke! OrcCon also had more in the way of older players here; several men were in their 40s and 50s. Finally I got to speak with a woman who attended OrcCon as sort of a helper and observer. Karen remarked that many of the gamers "wore (clothes) like what their fathers wore." I asked her if she thought gaming was violent and she felt it sometimes was because it is competitive. Karen wondered if many of the gamers there had other dimensions to their personalities.

Well, I had a good time at this convention and the people who put it on did a good job of it. It seems to me that if Origins comes to the west coast it should be held up in the Bay Area, though. This is for a very simple reason. More people will attend there. I think, too, that Pacific Encounters has more in the way of organization to host such a large convention. I'd also like to thank members of our local game club, the Santa Barbarians, for turning out fairly well for this convention and not only doing well in the competitions but also in finally getting me home Sunday!