Origins 2004: the big boys

  • Wizards’ best schwag is the Eberron temporary tattoos. The magically-imbued “dragon marks” are one of the coolest things in the Eberron book in my opinion, so that was a good call. They have RISK Godstorm new at the show, which I hope to demo, and they have Star Wars CMG figures. Han looks cool. (The game doesn’t differ a lot from D&D Minis from what I can tell, although there are no charging rules and no specific ties to the SW RPG.) The only unreleased product they are actually demoing is the GI JOE CCG; I haven’t tried it yet but a friend says it’s nice and fast.
  • You already know I have some Pirates of the Spanish Main, but you might not have known that WizKids was also pre-selling HeroClix Ultimates boosters at the show. They are previewing, in one of those no-photos cases, some new MW figs that look rather dull on the whole. Jade Falcon Clan fans will be into it though.
  • Does White Wolf still count as big? They have DragonMech new at show, and they have the big monitor with the big speakers, droning on about Vampire: the Requiem with big animated-text effects. This episode brought to you by the letter What and the number Ever.

No Games Workshop booth that I can find, although I chatted with Chris Pramas about Green Ronin’s upcoming new edition of Warhammer FRP, still in progress. Now that Warhammer Online is cancelled, maybe GW will change their minds and launch a 40K RPG first, although that’s speculation on my part.