by latindog

I don't watch new releases very closely and have no idea whether anything will or will not be released.

Silver Age: Ecstasy.... has not yet been released but gets semi-regular updates on Kickstarter so it should be released one day.

The Starfinder Bounties 07 and 08 are released -- I know this because I own them. If it is helpful I can check on all the Pathfinder Society scenarios as well. I am part of the venture society program and can see which have been released.

by latindog

I ran a session of Arkham Horror RPG today at Cosmic Comics in Baldwin. We actually played last year's giveaway Comets of Kingsport because I had not seen this year's New Orleans themed adventure until this afternoon. Had five players at my table (including my daughter and son-in-law) and were able to finish in about 3 hours,

Before that game, I arrived to participate as a player in the earlier session and played my first game ever of Dungeon Crawl Classics. As promised, it was a wild and crazy ride and my dwarf was officially stamped dead by the GM - along with 3 other party members. The only one to survive ran once the odds were absurdly against him.

by Rachel Carpenter

I'm all caught up on SGOYT! Wahoo! June's going great and it's not over yet, there's still plenty of time to stop on over and say "hi": Solitaire Games On Your Table -- June 2026

Also, #SaveStargate made some noise today:

I couldn't be there in person, but once again participated in the tweetstorm.

Catch you all tomorrow!

Happy Saturday and happy playing!
-Rachel

Thank you for reading my blog. If you liked it; then please click the green thumb [microbadge=23724] at the top of the page. If you really liked it; then please subscribe. And follow me across social media with my Linktree:
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by aramis

I went to the shop, got 3 of the 4 items I wanted, namely Vikings, Vaessen, and DH. I did’t get the bikers one… already gone by the time I got there.

by pixatintes

An item RPG Item: The Dee Sanction has been added to the geeklist Registre de partides 2026

by Devin Skelton

Origins Game Fair has come and gone once again. Origins is currently the only "big" hobby convention we regularly attend, and we always have a great time! Every year, we sign up for way too many events and tell ourselves we need to leave some breathing room the next year. And yet, every year, we still sign up for too many events. We're always exhausted come Sunday, but there are just so many games to play!!

On that note, let's talk about all the cool games we played at Origins! We've broken our wrap-up into three parts:
Part One covers Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Part Two covers Saturday, Sunday, and games we checked out at their booths over the weekend.
Part Three covers all the stuff we brought home with us and all the games we took pictures of but didn't have time to learn about.

We rolled into Columbus pretty late Tuesday night due to some tire problems that we needed to get sorted before hitting the road. Thankfully, we opted to stay in the Hampton across the street from the convention center this year, so we didn't have to worry about a 25-minute commute to the parking garage the next morning like we usually do. This was our first time staying so close, but wow, did it make a difference in the experience! At one point, we even came back and took a nap in between events to recharge a little. Our only complaint was that our room was facing a bar patio that played loud music well into the night. That would have kept us up on any other nights, but we were so exhausted from the convention every day, that we just fell asleep despite it. Still, next time we will be sure to pack ear plugs!


Origins Day 1 - Wednesday
Wings of Glory WW1 (Snoopy's Revenge)
Devin
I started the day with a silly scenario for Wings of Glory WW1. While the game is normally for 2-4 players, this massive scenario had probably about 10 people playing all at once. Snoopy led British forces against the Red Baron to crash his birthday party and steal his root beer supply. Each player took control of a single plane and did their best to complete the mission objectives (attack/defend key ground targets, down enemy pilots, etc.). This was my first time playing Wings of Glory, but I certainly had fun! I've previously played Attack Wing and X-Wing, which are based on the same FlightPath system, so it wasn't completely unfamiliar to me. It's a very simple system to get going with. Of course, this was helped a lot by the dedicated game manager checking the field for valid shots and keeping the game moving at a steady pace. I think next year I'll try to sign up for a WW2 event! So far, I like the Wings of Glory system, but I feel like I'm already bogged down with other aerial skirmish games on the shelf, so I probably won't be picking it up anytime soon.



Kriegsspiel
Devin
I saw Kriegsspiel being played in the Armchair Dragoons area last year, and I was fascinated by it. I saw all of these blinders set up across three tables and couldn't fathom what was going on. I talked to the host about it, and I decided that I had to try it this year. Kriegsspiel is a gaming experience unlike anything else I've played so far. Players are tasked with commanding a subset of military forces with very limited information - only what your own troops can see, and what you receive in periodic notes from your fellow commanders. You're challenged to quickly and accurately detail your positioning and plans to keep your allies updated, but these missives are often "out of sync" with when commands are issued. Like battles of old, you may receive a missive with key information on an enemy's position just after ordering your troops to march. Crucially, each team is generally unaware of where the other team deployed on the field. The umpire is the only one with complete information, and they move all troops and resolve all combat on a central map that is hidden from both teams. Once the scenario has reached a natural end (e.g., it has become clear there will be a decisive winner even if there are forces still in play), the umpire calls all the players together for an after action report. The umpire goes over the final orders given, the final battles, and the overall result of the day. This is then compared to the historical outcome, if there is one, and each team is given the chance to go through how they started and what their though processes were for ever order they gave.

This was such a cool experience, and I'm itching to play it again! I'm thinking that, after playing again next year, I'll go ahead and pick up the nice boxed set that Catastrophe Games has put together so I can try my hand at running it locally. Anyone can play Kriegsspiel very easily - you just give your orders in spoken or written word, and the umpire takes care of everything. There's absolutely no rules overhead, so I think this makes it a great choice for a special event night!



Canvas
Kim
First thing Wednesday, I had an event to play Canvas where the rules would be taught. I decided to sign up for this event because I had never played Canvas before and always heard good things so I decided Origins would be the perfect place to try it. It was a 5 player game where most of us hadn't played before but the rules were very straight forward so we all got the hang of it pretty quickly. On your turn you either draft a card from the display paying its appropriate cost or you make a painting by layering exactly 3 of your cards together in the best way to try to meet the scoring objectives. The game ends when everyone has created 3 paintings and the player with the highest score wins. Our 5 player game with 4 new players still only took about 30 minutes which makes this a really good warm up game for game night. I'm glad I finally tried it and I would definitely play it again, but I don't think this is one we need to own.


Gruntz
Kim
Since Canvas was over very early I had a big gap before my next scheduled event so I wandered over to AllPlay's area in the open gaming space. Their scheduled events didn't start until Thursday so all their tables were available for walk-ups. I saw Gruntz set up on a table and decided to sit down. One of the AllPlay event staff ran me through a whole game. Gruntz is a two player area control game where the players deploy different types of units to the board. All the units have different abilities and movement speeds. The game ends when a player has 3 Victory Stars or they capture the Enemy HQ. Victory Stars are earned when two control points are held by your Gruntz/Captain at the end of your turn which will earn you 1 Star; if you hold all three control points, you earn 2 Stars. This is a super fun, quick 2 player game that I really enjoyed, but I knew immediately that Devin would like even more so. This was an immediate buy along with a few other AllPlay games that we'll talk about later.


Sagani
Kim
My next scheduled event Wednesday was Play to Win Sagani. The rules were taught before our game, but it wasn't the smoothest teach since there were two games of Sagani going on at once. I had never heard of Sagani before so I thought why not try it out - I always enjoy doing the Play to Win events! Sagani is a tile drafting game where each player is building out their tableaus and trying to match symbols on the tiles to score points. Our 4 player game took about 40 minutes to finish and one of the other players ended up winning and taking home the game. It's a neat little tile drafter that I would be up to playing again.


Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game
Kim
I've never read the Mistborn books or played the game, but I've heard good things so when I saw this event on the list I was excited to give it a try. This was a four player game, and since most of us had never played, we decided to do the cooperative version of the game. This was a pretty unique (at least to me) deck-builder where you had to pay the cost in metals to play cards from your hand which is very thematic to the books. I really enjoyed my play of this and look forward to trying the competitive version next time.


Crokinole
K+D
The annual crokinole doubles tournament is a staple for us. Browncastle Games has a huge presence at Origins, and they have top-quality boards and accessories. Crokinole is such a fun and fast dexterity game all about skill! We never do well, but we're always happy to play. After we were eliminated, we even stuck around to play one more game with our last opponents! Kim really needs to consider the solo tournament or finding a new doubles partner, haha!


Mikey's Late Night Slice
K+D
Now that the first day was wrapped up, it was time for a little celebration! Mikey's is just a few buildings down from our hotel, so we stopped in, ordered an entire pizza and a couple of beers, and had ourselves a feast. It was magnificent. We ended up having Mikey's several times during our stay this year, but this was the only time we ordered an entire pizza (later, we just got slices). While you can grab a slice and go relatively quickly, a freshly baked pizza is leagues above in quality if you're willing to wait!

On the way back to the hotel room, Kim took a photo of downtown to capture the mood. Very cool.



Origins Day 2 - Thursday
On the Underground
K+D
Today was the vendor hall opening day, but we had several hours to kill in the morning before then. We signed up for a game of On the Underground, a clever train game of classic route-building and tense passenger movement prediction. We own it, but it's been a while since we played. This session was originally full with six players registered, but when we got there, it was only the two of us and one other person! That was okay, though - On the Underground scales very well at all player counts, even at just two! While playing, we chatted quite a bit with the other player, a long-time official with TGA - the Train Gamers Association. We had a very pleasant time! But once it was over, we raced into the vendor hall to get started exploring new games (and buying what was on our list)!


Vendor Hall
K+D
The vendor hall was chock full of games, art, crafts, and books like always! We spent many hours making our way through, taking pictures, and stopping to learn more when something really caught our attention. While we would end up coming back through here and there over the weekend, this was the day we dedicated to running through and at least giving everything a first look. You can see what we ended up buying and some of the booths we checked out in the other parts of the wrap-up!


Leverage RPG
Dev
Leverage was (and actually still is, with Leverage: Redemption) a heist TV series about getting payback on the rich and powerful. The RPG uses the Cam Banks' Cortex system, which was frequently featured in RPGs published by Margaret Weis before they decided to move on from game publishing. I've played a good amount of the Firefly RPG, and it remains one of my favorite games I've ever played. I really like the Cortex system for its simplicity and how it encourages players to really get engaged with the narrative and set up their own interesting failures and twists. In essence, when players want to do something with an uncertain outcome, they'll select dice from an attribute, a skill, and any dice from applicable factors (like Assets) and roll them all together. Players will sum the highest two dice, and that's their total for the check!

This was my first time playing Leverage, and it's been many years since I played Firefly, so I was definitely being re-introduced to the system (especially since Leverage has its own little twists). Overall, I had fun! There were six total players, and everyone was friendly and there to have a good time. I didn't completely jive with the GM, but they did a solid job keeping the story rolling with every new idea we'd try, playing up each of the major NPCs, and managing six individual people who all wanted to get a chance to do something. I'd be willing to play another session with them in the future, but it looks like they only run this one scenario for Leverage each year. I did see them running Star Trek Adventures at one point, though, so maybe I'll end up with them again! I think the only sticking point I would have is that the scenario's ending felt a little rushed - I was expecting things to go on for a little bit longer so the story and characters could flesh out a bit more, but it was still okay.


Earth w/ Animal Kingdom Expansion
Kim
Earth! I've played the base game several times, and played the Abundance expansion a few times. The idea of this event was that everyone should already know how to play the base game, and only the new expansion, Animal Kingdom, would be taught. It was super fun to play a game where everyone knew how to play already! I'm really looking forward to doing more gaming like this next year. As for Animal Kingdom, it seems like there were mixed feelings at the table on this new expansion, but I really enjoyed it so I ended up picking it up along with a few other small expansions we had missed out on.


Bareburger
K+D
After our events were over, we picked up a couple of classic cheeseburgers from Bareburger just a couple of buildings over from the hotel. We retired to our hotel room to chill out, chow down, and watch some softball. A perfect ending to the day!


Origins Day 3 - Friday
Gaming Hall
K+D
Today was our big gaming day! We had a lot of events scheduled together back-to-back, and we planned to meet up with some friends at the end of the day for dinner and maybe a little more gaming, too. Here's a photo of the gaming hall before 10am!


First Monday in October
K+D
We saw First Monday on a table next to us last year, and it looked very interesting with a unique theme. We wanted to give it a go this year, as Fort Circle Games won us over with Votes for Women when we played that at Origins 2025. Players represent "schools of thought" and will influence and operate the US Supreme Court from its inception up until about 2010 trying to ensure their ideas are the most prominently represented (which in turn scores points). When we sat down to play, we were pleasantly surprised to sit across from the person we played Votes for Women with last year! It was great to hang out again, and the game itself is incredible! While very mechanically distinct, our closest reference point would be Versailles 1919 from GMT. There are a lot of factors to balance to ensure that you come out on top when a court case is resolved, and it can be tough to get anything done on your own. You'll sometimes need to help another player out so you can benefit yourself, or even jump on a bandwagon to get a little credit for a ruling that someone else championed. The constantly rotating bench of judges is very interesting and adds an element of uncertainty that is still heavily influence by players' decisions. We liked First Monday in October so much that we ended up pre-ordering it from Fort Circle Games!


Great Western Trail
K+D
A tried and true classic. Great Western Trail is another game that we try to play at every opportunity. TGA hosts a tournament every year, and we always sign up for it. We don't expect to advance, but it's nice to play a game of GWT with folks who are very familiar with the rules and strategy. Kim did pretty well in her game, but Devin was way, way behind in last place when his game was over!


Shakespeare's First Folio
K+D
First Folio is another Fort Circle game. Like we said, we really liked Votes for Women, so we wanted to try more of their games! First Folio is an interesting combination of trick-taking and worker placement. Players will play out a hand of trick-taking, with the winner of each trick only claiming (printing) the card they won with. Cards that lose tricks stay in front of their players to provide consolation resources going into the worker placement phase. During this phase, players will collect resources and spend them on either "printing" cards from a central market or hiring people with extra scoring or special powers.

The game has an interesting development history - The Folger Shakespeare Library actually commissioned Fort Circle to design this game for them! As such, it is on the lighter side, but it still offers exciting gameplay. It's pretty fast, too, with our entire session taking about 30 minutes. Shakespeare's First Folio provides a very satisfying experience with very charming art, so we went ahead and pre-ordered this alongside First Monday in October.


Tiger + Lily
K+D
Once we wrapped up our last event of the day, we met up with some friends who were attending Origins for the first time. We walked a few blocks to a ramen place that we had eaten at before during another visit to Columbus. Kim was not a big fan this time around, but Devin was more than satisfied. To each their own!



Colorado Midland
K+D
After dinner, we made our way back to the convention center and made a quick stop at the game library to check out Colorado Midland. We knew it was a fairly quick and easy game, so we could teach it and get a whole game played fairly quickly so our friends could still get home before too late. We played this for the first time recently at Winsome Choosesome 2026, and Kim fell in love with it. It was as good as we remembered, and its deceptive simplicity may have you thinking, "that's all?" just before someone makes some very clever plays with timing to earn themselves some major points in back-to-back rounds. It's worth checking out, as it's very different from many other cube rails titles.

We made sure to get a selfie with Crit the Origins mascot and the Dragon I Don't Know the Name Of (But is Always There) before we all left for the day!




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by JugglinDan

JugglinDan previously rolled d2 = 1 (I ate) of the hearts in my jar

by sdonohue

I think the hold up was the stone and the next procedure being July 29. The timing made the infectious disease docs nervous. My urologist visited Friday afternoon and moved my procedure to July 1.

With less than a week until the probable end of the crisis, I was sent home today with some antibiotics until the procedure and beyond. So I’m home now.

One weird thing, they gave ma some pain meds too. I didn’t take any pain meds while I was there. There was pain, but not enough to require medication.


Thanks for the kind thoughts. I’ll catch up on things tomorrow.

by wildthayne

Related Item: Hero Wars (1st edition)

I've haven't forgotten about you, Pedro. Maybe I can get a draft made tomorrow.

by wildthayne

Related Item: Alice is Missing

Fresh version with more wind for the hair.

by tdphillips

An item RPG Item: PARA the Roleplaying Game has been added to the geeklist 2026 edition of What was the last RPG book you bought?

by Maneloblast

An item RPG Designer: Reiner Knizia has been added to the geeklist 2026 Favorite Designer Challenge