Origins 2025 is in the books; I had a decent time this year. Some of my usual standbys– a DCC game or two, a game or two of Blood on the Clocktower, some miscellaneous boardgaming, a stop off in Unpub– and some new stuff, too. I’m definitely going to add Crokinole into the rotation in future years (even if I’m not great at it), and I enjoyed the (somewhat slow) game of Necromunda I played in as well. I even really enjoyed the engine building board game I tried out: I’m not a fan of Wingspan, but I liked Undergrove a lot more. Maybe not totally my thing, but I enjoyed the mechanics and the way all of the pieces fit together, and the way the mechanics link up with the biological systems they’re trying to represent is very much something I appreciate.
And I loved getting to spend some time with and see some gamer friends of various kinds. I didn’t run into a ton of Cbus gamer friends (outside of work friends I see regularly), but I did get to chat with one non-work friend who I only seem to see at Origins now, and who seems to be doing well, which is lovely to see.
For whatever reason, it did feel like a bit of an off year, at least in some ways. In many years, there seems to be an abundance of novel TTRPG things to try, and the offerings this year seemed a bit thinner than usual. Goodman Games is still working out the kinks in their Organized Play system; I enjoyed aspects of the funnel I played in, but there were some things that didn’t really work, frankly. And the convention seemed a bit more chaotic than usual.
Maybe I’ll change my mind, but in coming years I might stick to the things that I know work well at Origins: more Blood on the Clocktower, probably some DCC, an Unpub session… Maybe I’ll branch out and do more Indie Games on Demand, or even some Pathfinder– those groups always seem to be having a lot of fun.