With the BI over I am done this year. I catch an early plane back to Portland in 4 1/2 hours. Everyone will be happy to know that by (about) a 36/24 (3/2) split the heroes of the BI - scurvy as some of them are - managed to prevail over the opposition in Tultipet and prevented the Dragon from being re-summoned to the Blessed Lands. OTOH c'mon guys that was cutting it pretty ^&%& close! The Tomal Khan's forces also suffered horrendous casualties in the range of 90%. The glib should see that as a sign of great job opportunities in security related employment. A further BI write up will come from me somewhere sometime (after I get home and sleep).

There is a whole host of people I get to see only infrequently at origins. It was great to see them all. And a special thanks to Eric, James, Jimmy and everyone else who put together the BI. A double special thanks to Henry and Pete for running the special table Tukufu had the pleasure of participating in. And a shout out to the other *great* players at the table who both took and shared the spot light. Simply it was the highlight of my con. And if Tukufu never sees Gemmelus (he reads my letters ?!?) or Loshnek (eep!!!) again it'll be too soon.

I'd like to throw a shout out to Eric Gorman who served as our GM at the BI. He not only withstood the full force of the "Armand de Beaumarche Experience," (which if you have had him at your table you know what we're talking about) but managed to put the fear into us on many an occasion. Thanks Eric for a fun and scary experience. Hope you made home safely and with some measure of sanity intact.

Had a great time again this year, just wanted to drop a quick thanks to all of the PCI staff and volunteers who made it happen. The BI was tough, but enjoyable. It was really nice to get to spend time with so many people from the Arcanis community!

I'll chime in with a thanks to everyone who made it a wonderful con! In particular, my GM's for the weekend:James, Ken, JP, and Tony.

John

Let me add my own thanks for a fun Origins. Thanks to Bill, Ryan, Tony and Ken for running. Thanks to Henry, James, Matt, Eric and the others that wrote the mods and BI. All the tables were fun and really pushed us. The events will certainly shape continued character development. Hard to ask for more than that.

It was great catching up with old friends and finally meeting some folks in person.

Thanks for a fun Origins, and I hope to see many of you before or at Origins next year.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

Hello everyone,

I'd also like to add my thanks to those who traveled to Origins and helped make it another great PCI convention! Special thanks to the James, Ken and Heather Walz for organizing and running the Gathering so flawlessly; Matt Flinn for his outstanding work on the stats write up for my Hard Point adventures as well as the Battle Interactive, as well as co-Gming the KS special table that was run for the B.E.A.S.T. players; Tony, Melinda, Joe, Josh, Clint and many, many others for stepping up and making all this come together.

As an FYI: We try and learn from each and every event we hold and this year was no exception. I won't bore you with all the minutia, but I will say that I felt that the BI ran wayyyyy too long and people were exhausted. So, we'll try and get the BI down to eight or so missions so we can get you guys out and rested for the next day.

Thank you again!

An eight encounter BI should work well. Four encounters say from 2-6PM, then a one hour dinner break then four encounters from 7-11PM, a wrap up and we are done by 11:30. If they want to have a players meeting we could do that from 11:30 to 12AM. And we still get out at a reasonable hour.

For those who don't know, BI missions usually run either 30 or 45 minutes. More missions that run 30 minutes (rather than 45) would also get us through the BI faster. And maybe add tension to get things done.

Speaking as someone who was not there, I think an 8-scene BI is the best way to go as well. That said, I'm all for experimentation (especially, when it doesn't work, I'm not the guinea pig ).

Though, I know that BI's are supposed to be Con-exclusive events (and I understand WHY they are and should remain so), I'd love to see "abridged" versions released for homeplay. For example, if you have an 8 Combat BI for XP/sweet rewards, have a 4 Combat "abridged" version for half combat/less cool rewards. While wanting to play these is one reason for this, I mostly suggest this for continuity's sake as many of the HP's lead into the BI and there is a risk of no pay-off for the Home Players with that storyline. Don't do anything as awesome as at an actual BI, but focus on the bare-bones plot-lines (make it back to the city, defend the walls, clear the city, final push). Kind of similar to the 3.x adventure (The Serpentine Path?).

Hello Cody,



I don't believe this is an issue as I've gone out of my way, (since we made BIs Con Exclusive events) to assure that people playing at home won't feel that they're left with a cliff hanger.

Now, I understand that this isn't as satisfying as actually getting to play, but its the best I can do under the circumstances.

Thanks!