By now word has traveled far and wide that last year's Origins-Gen Con (they did the other way around, of course, with a certain amount of type size changes, too) was a wash as far as the historical wargamer was concerned. As was brought out at our one seminar (which, I might add, we were lucky to get scheduled at all), there was little of interest for the historical gainer in the way of tournaments, seminars, panel discussions or what have you. In other words, wargaming had moved from ugly step sister of the (gasp) Adventure Game world, to third cousin, twice removed.

I can't do anything about last year's con-it's water under the bridge now. I have been assured by high ranking sources in GAMA that the combo with Gen Con will never happen again. Maybe. Regardless, with my limited position in that organization, I'm hardly able to dictate anything if they decide to go back and see if things got any better ... except to find another con for my company to attend that summer.

What can be done?

Many gamers have now expressed to me their dissatisfaction with Origins these days and expressed their desire to avoid it in the future. Aside from generating a self-fulfilling prophecy, this attitude is the potential choice of many hard-core gamers unless something is done to turn the thing around. There are two things which we are actively doing to try to help (both of which push our limited resources to the limit) and we can only wait to see if some of the other small game companies choose to follow our lead and help too. Avalon Hill has already chosen the "we'll just do our own" step already, which does nothing to help the current Origins, but does give an alternative.

Adding to the Existing Show

For this year's Origins, I've submitted for us to do no fewer than five seminars, two demos, and a tournament. For a show staff of four and having to keep our booth manned, that is pushing about as far as I dare. (More than that and guys like Sticky, Dave, and Owen who get thanks instead of a check are going to start wanting the latter!) I do not yet have the times of days when these will happen. I know when I requested them, but scheduling frequently doesn't end up looking like I wanted. Hopefully those powers that be won't screw this up by scheduling all of them at once. (Boy, is Owen going to get tired running them all by himself ... )

Lou Zocchi also contacted us to help support his War College and we will be doing so if we can find a positive way to contribute.

Going it Alone

The second thing we are doing is that we are opening up our in-house retreat to the general public as an alternative to Origins for those who want to wait and see before committing their hard - earned money to another trip. Our retreat this year (September 24-27) is the fourth such event. We had so much fun at the first, we tried two last year-and that was a mistake. From now on it will be annual in late September (depending on the U of I football schedule). It is a very informal affair with nothing but gaming & mixing on the agenda. There is no registration fee, but I do request pre-registration only since space is so limited. We are also trying to work out some sort of discount rate at the local Red Roof Inn for convention attendees.

Right now, the only game we are sure to be playing will be Enemy at the Gates. Others are sure to be involved as players divide across interest lines (and begin to start to throwing up breast works ... just kidding, too much Bosnia on the news). We have enough room to support numerous games.

The goal of opening our retreat is to give an alternative to Origins and allow it to take root before any sort of collapse of the larger con might occur, if it does. If you are interested in coming in to play (or just to see what Homer is really like), I'll look forward to hearing from you!