first off, how much are tickets to origins this year?  they make you register on the website to even find out, and i'm not playing that game.  of course, i couldn't afford to go anyway, no matter the price.  i'm just curious.

as far as cons in general, what's everyone's impression of gaming conventions?  i've been to anime cons (otakon, twice) and one trek con (a small one in pennsylvania, many years ago), but never a gaming one.  how are the games?  are there good deals in the dealers' room?  

i figure i should probably attend one some day, just for the hell of it. . . .

Quote from: beeberas far as cons in general, what's everyone's impression of gaming conventions?  i've been to anime cons (otakon, twice) and one trek con (a small one in pennsylvania, many years ago), but never a gaming one.  how are the games?  are there good deals in the dealers' room?  

i figure i should probably attend one some day, just for the hell of it. . . .

I like them a lot.  I've gone to GenCon every year since 2000 except last year (when I went to Otakon instead) and will be going this year, plus there's a small local con that I go to each year as well.  I've met a lot of cool people through cons; I've found that it's easier to meet people at gaming cons than at other cons because you have more direct interaction with people by gaming with them.

The games themselves vary.  For me the breakdown has been (roughly) 10% lame ones, 50% great ones, and 40% OK ones.  It's a good way to play games you haven't played before, or games you don't get the chance to play too often.  

Dealer's rooms depend on the con.  The local one I go to has a small number of local/regional retailers there, nothing special really.  The only companies that have been there officially while I've been going have been Fantasy Flight and RPGObjects, since they're local.  GenCon, on the other hand, has every game company you've ever heard of and a bunch you haven't, in addition to all the independent game retailers and companies there selling other stuff (weapons, t-shirts, etc).  You can usually find some great deals if you look around, and sometimes you can get games before they are available to the general public.

A big difference between gaming cons and anime cons that I've noticed is age.  I'm 28, and at gaming cons, that makes me in the younger half (if not third, and when I started going to cons it was more like quarter).  At anime cons, it puts me in the oldest 10%. Plus, anime cons have a pretty even male-female split, whereas gaming cons are definitely mostly male.  There's still a fair amount of females, though.

cool, thanks.

i should try to hit a local one and a big one one day, just for the experience.

i suppose the GMs bring premade characters for the games they run?  would make things easier. . . .

ORIGINS is only maybe two-thirds the size of Gen-Con. Also , I don't know where the other poister has been...but at BOTH GEnCon and ORIGINS I saw lots of YOUNG gamers of both genders.  The women gamers were pretty good looking at both conventions.

 At ORIGINS its a smaller crowd - so it feels a bit more intimate than GenCon.

- Ed C.

I avoid cons because I'm afraid of crowds. I went to my first convention (a mixed gaming, comic, anime and horror con) last summer to meet a friend there, and it was very crowded. There were some cat piss men, but they weren't particularly common, and they were clustered in the comic section when I was there, so I just avoided it.

I was surprised at how much commerce was going on, especially since I hadn't brought any spare cash. The deals were pretty good, but there was very little free product being given away of any sort. There were supposed to be some game-rooms somewhere, but I couldn't really find them or figure out how to sign up for them, since it was confusingly explained on all the written material I got.

There was also a long queue to get in, and I wish I'd brought something to read or do during it. There were also long queues to get to meet some celebrities related to nerd fandom, and if I'd gotten into those lines, I would've wanted something to do there as well.

I ended up sticking around for a few hours, then meeting up with the friend and spending a long time outside smoking and discussing RPGs. That was the best part of the experience for me.