by Armchair Dragoons PAO, 11 June 2025
The last of our Origins preview articles has a couple of different pieces to it – a look back at some history, highlights from this year’s site book, and some advice for attendees.
Looking Back At Early Origins
Dragoons contributor Aaron Danis has graciously shared some looks back at the first several Origins conventions from the pages of some early Moves magazines, from back when Origins was heavily wargame-focused. Note that these are intentionally down-sampled to a lower, non-printing resolution.
1975
most images can click to enlarge
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
This Year’s Site Book
There’s a handful of key pages we wanted to pull out for this year’s site book. Unlike the magazines above, this one’s freely-available online, so these are higher resolution and easier to read. These include the advice for first-timers, the maps that include our spaces (2412 in the main game hall, A210 in the War College), the War College info page, and the conference info for the concurrent games-in-education program.
This is part of our comprehensive coverage of The 2025 Origins Game Fair from GAMA; you can find the links to all published articles at the end of each one
Random Advice & Other Tidbits
Many of these were cribbed from previous Origins discussions over the years, including ours.
Newbie Advice (plus more here)
Registering for games: get registered for at least 2 before you ever show up. Make one of them something you know fairly well and one you’ve never played before (but make sure they teach the rules; check description). That way no matter what, you’re guaranteed at least 2 sit-downs for games. If you want more, that’s fine, but don’t try to schedule every free minute of your day, because…
Leave at least 2-3 hours, on at least 2 days, to just walk around the exhibit hall and try new stuff. Demos on the floor cost nothing and you never know what undiscovered gems you’ll stumbled across. Even if nothing on that demo day becomes your favorite game, you might find something a friend would enjoy, it a gift for someone. Those vendors are taking a lot of time and money to be there, so don’t shy away from them. They’re gamers just like you!
You will never do everything you planned to do.
There will always be SOMETHING that jostles your schedule, bumps something to the side. A chance meeting with old friends, a dinner offer with new friends, a shift in plans that you can’t possibly foresee.
This. Is. Fine.
It’s hard to roll with the flow, but this is a con with over 20K attending and the chances of you accomplishing everything you planned to do can shift out of your control. Someone cancels an event, you find a cool new game… you get the idea.
Just Go With It.
GM’s and Event Ages (from a FB conversation last year)
The problem with “make an exception for this one kid” turns into another parent asking “why’d you make an exception for them, but not my kid!”
GM’s are not in the business of running maturity tests to qualify which kids are more advanced than others. They don’t have the time or wherewithal to try to justify exceptions, or evaluate potential high-maturity candidates.
It that can be hard on the really mature ones, but there’s a reason GMs have drawn those lines and jumping thru hoops to explain them leaves the impression that it’s OK for you to ask for an exception to them, which it shouldn’t be.
ABSOLUTELY NO ONE IS TRYING TO BE MEAN TO YOUR KID or discourage them from becoming a lifelong gamer. But there are games/events that some GMs (and players!) prefer to hold at a higher age level, and regardless of the reason, please respect it rather than fight them about it.
Media & Press Advice
Talk to everybody. Talk to the big companies. Talk to the little companies. Talk to the customers at the companies. Talk to people playing demo games. Talk to people runningdemo games. Talk to the CABS staff and ask them what the most popular games are so far. Talk to the Origins staff and ask them what they think so far. Talk to the War College speakers. Talk to anyone in a uniform. Talk to the food people and see what they think of it all (they’re very observant!). Find out who the designers are and talk to them (they’re all over the place).
You’ll be surprised where you unearth nuggets of info that make your coverage better, especially with the customers, volunteers, and staffers.
Which Events to Play
Go find the big “event” games and make sure you hit them.
Artemis Bridge Simulator
Battletech Mechpods
TrueDungeon
other years they’ve have life-sized Wiz-War, an aggregated tower-assault RPG (where each party was a ‘squad’ in an overall assault on a tower, and there were 10-12 parties total) or the 10,000-point HeroClix gameGo find those “big” things and do 2-3 of them because those are the kinds of things you can only do at a convention.
Yeah, it’s nice to get a 6-player Scythe game and learn some new tactics, but most decent local gaming communities can find 5 other players to pull that off on a regular basis.
It’s cool to play Carcassonne with literally every expansion (and have scores in the 200s) but 2 friends at the FLGS and push some tables together, and that’s any other Saturday.All of the things I listed above need some form of supporting infrastructure – people, technology, space, or all of the above – to really pull them off well, and conventions offer you that sort of structure to do so.
Yes, play demos and learn new games & new releases in the exhibit hall, but make sure you hit some “big” stuff, too, because conventions are the only time you can do so
Find something weird. There are a lot of homebrew events that are run, some of these are boardgames, some aren’t. Some are in the event system, some aren’t. For example, the Ottawa gaming society does a 16 player battle royale game most years that they created. I tried it last year and I quite enjoyed it. There was a teacher who made a CSI (as in the tv show) RPG and had you test stuff and find hidden messages and everything. She doesn’t run it every year (I haven’t done it since pre-covid), but it’s that sort of stuff that you should go “well, I can’t play this at home or at a mid-level con.” True Dungeon sort of fits into that same realm, and some people love it, and some don’t. National Security Decision Making Game would likewise also fit here (I do one game a year of it and often hit some of the presentations). My spouse loves The Smithee Awards after a long day of gaming as a way of decompressing. Sometimes it’s just wandering up to something and seeing if they have spare spots if they haven’t started. I once showed up to an author panel and cause it was (physically) moved, my spouse and I were the only ones there and we had private readings (that was emotionally powerful).
Hotels
The convention center stretches N-S along High St, which is a major road up and down the middle of Columbus.
There are plenty of hotels north of downtown right along High St (or within 1 block), especially near the Ohio St campus, and they’ll be cheaper than downtown.
You don’t need to drive to the convention center, either. The #2 bus is one of the busiest bus routes in Columbus b/c it runs alongside the campus, and it runs every 10 minutes or so between 6am – 10pm, and makes 2-3 stops on High St, right next to (or directly across High St from) the convention center.
I know a bunch of folks who stay just North of campus, around High & 17th st and then just “hop the deuce” to get to/from Origins. They don’t pay for parking at their hotel, and they spend about $8 in bus fare for the weekend or bum an occasional ride back from a local.
See you at the show!
Origins 2025 Coverage
Wargame HQ Events ~ War College Previews ~ Wargame HQ Previews ~ Exhibitor Spotlight ~ All The Wargaming Events ~ The Final Countdown ~ Setup & First Games ~ The Charles S Roberts Awards ~ The View From Above ~ AAR for A&A Arnhem ~ The Kind Spirit ~ The AAR ~ Exhibit Hall
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