by Armchair Dragoons PAO, 12 June 2024
There are certainly some folks that are familiar with the history of Origins. Pretty much all of them are wargamers. It would be interesting to take a poll of the convention-goers today to see how many of them recognize Origins as an old-school wargaming convention run first by Avalon Hill1 and later shared with TAHGC and SPI, before GAMA stepped in after a few years to take over.
Going back to the, uh . . . “origins” of Origins, let’s take a look at what was actually published by the hobby magazines at the time, as they talked about those early conventions, as well as some of the first magazine advertisements for the first 3 years of Origins, from 1975-1977.
Here’s your first-ever Origins ad, from The Avalon Hill General, Vol 11, No 4, Nov-Dec 1974. The event was held at Johns Hopkin University, conveniently in Baltimore with TAHGC. Many of the early Origins conventions were held on college campuses during their unoccupied Summer months.
Want a good laugh? Check out the 2nd star bullet 🤣
“the latest miniatures craze”
The next ad for Origins I started to show up in other places too, like Diplomacy World magazine, as well at The General, and others.
As the buzz around the first Origins built, there was a long column in The Avalon Hill General, Vol 11, No 6, Mar-Apr 1975 that gave updates on some other TAHGC business, then shifted to Origins with this quote
The lion’s share of the Philosophy this time around shall be devoted to the time table for ORIGINS I. Perhaps the first order of business is to explain that this convention is a very special project. At this time, we have no plans to repeat it again next year as it is just too much of a drain on our limited staff time; time we need to design and playtest games.
you can continue reading the extensive column below, just click to embiggen!
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And hey, why not publish the campus map that . . . doesn’t bother to tell you which events are in which buildings
Diplomacy players made up an early chunk of the Origins player base, and the first mention we found of Origins in Diplomacy World was Vol 1 No 6 dated NOV-DEC 1974, in their “News of the Realm” column, followed by a short Diplomacy-focused wrap up 2 issues later
In 1980, Avalon Hill published “The General Index Volumes 1 to 16 – Index and Company History, 1952-1980” and included not only the game releases for each year, but some sales info, and staff changes. Key in the annual roundups are several mentions of Origins. Of note, there are -zero- mentions of GenCon in that index & history.
Note that there was no mention of Origins in the 1978/79 columns
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As Origins got more established, we started to see more regular advertising, as well as registration info, showing up in all of the major wargaming periodicals, such as this ad from Dragon Magazine #6 . . .
. . . and this pre-registration form from Strategy & Tactics #50
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There were certainly some criticisms of those early Origins, as well. One of the more scathing ones came from the pages of Dragon Magazine #23, in an editorial penned by editor TJ Kask as he was asking what happened to the month of July in the 1979 convention season.
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The Space Gamer included mentions of early Origins conventions in their “News & Plugs” columns, but virtually no detail, and there were almost no ads in TSG until after Origins 77.
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Got any old mentions of the first 3 years of Origins? Shoot us a link or an attachment, or drop them in our forums in the Origins discussion thread.
ORIGINS 2024 COVERAGE
PREVIEWS:
WARGAME HQ EVENTS ~ MiD PREVIEW EPISODE ~ WARGAME HQ GAME PREVIEWS ~ WAR COLLEGE PREVIEWS ~ CONSOLIDATED ALL WARGAMING EVENT GRID ~ EXHIBITOR SPOTLIGHT ~ THE ORIGINS OF ORIGINS
AT THE SHOW:
SETUP & FIRST GAMES ~ DAY 1 REPORT ~ THE SHAMAN ASCENDS ~ THE EXHIBIT HALL ~ THE VIEW FROM ABOVE ~ BINGO ~ GAMEPLAY PHOTOS ~ WARGAME HQ EVENT REPORT ~ COSTUME PHOTOS ~ CONVENTION PHOTOS ~ KRIEGSSPIEL ~ AAR ~ YOUTUBE PLAYLIST
DISCUSSION FORUM THREAD
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At the Origins Game Fair, so vast,
Wargaming enthusiasts amassed,
With armies in sight,
They prepared for the fight,
And victory was theirs at last.
In Jon Peterson’s book “Game wizards: the epic battle for Dungeons & Dragons” (2021), most chapters cover a calendar year, and end with a summary of TSR’s business progress, including a comparison of Origins vs GenCon attendance. The conventions are compared in some of the chapters, as well.
I’m very nostalgic about the 1977 convention at Staten Island. Not because I was there, but because I lived in nearby Queens at the time and it was just a couple of months before I discovered these kinds of games. The memories…