This week in Columbus, Ohio thousands will gather to attend Origins Game Fair, a gaming convention organized by GAMA. The convention organizers were kind enough to give me a media pass so I can share with you all some of the highlights for me and the convention.

So here’s my recap of Day 1 of Origins Game Fair 2026.

Trying Out The Marvel Multiverse RPG

As someone who has been a lifelong fan of Marvel comics and a TTRPG hobbyist, you would think that I would have played the RPG that is set in the Marvel Universe. Well – I haven’t. The reason being is that I thought it would be tough for me to mentally get into that space. Playing in a comics universe was just something that never seemed to entice me. But I’ve had many people who I know and respect their opinions about TTRPGs that have said this is a great game to try out. So – I decided to take the plunge at Origins Game Fair to try out the Marvel Multiverse RPG.

And it was a lot more fun than I was expecting it to be.

If you’re not familiar with the Marvel Multiverse RPG, it uses a unique dice pool called a d616 system (get it?). Essentially it is 3d6s with one of them being the Marvel die, which is a distinctly different color than the other two with the Marvel logo on it. What’s unique about the Marvel die is that it’s in the place of the 1 on a d6, but if that side lands on top, it’s treated as a 6, and it can give you other special bonuses. (If you roll a 6M6 – the M being the Marvel logo – then you receive the Ultimate Fantastic result!) Anytime you roll for a check, you will roll all 3 dice and add them together to see if you succeed by meeting or beating the target number. If you are doing an attack and succeed, then the Marvel die is used to determine the damage by taking the result of the Marvel die and multiplying it with your damage score (plus any other bonuses).

We played the X-Men: Asset Retrieval adventure, where I played Forge the Cheyenne technopath and one of my favorite X-Men growing up. The women at the table noted that all of the pregens were all male characters, so I hope that in the future, that’s something the event runners or designers (not sure who made the decision for which character sheets to use) will take that into consideration.

It was really interesting to see how this game is played, and we were able to catching on to the basics and used our powers in a lot of fun ways. Some abilities uses a Focus cost (which you have a pool of at the beginning), so it was something that you have a limited amount of supply, but the higher the cost, the bigger the effect as you can imagine.

This is a game I initially enjoyed. I want to try to play it a few more times before I feel like I can determine if it’s a good game for me or not, but it definitely moved up from not interested to interested!

Let’s Go On A Quest!

One of the areas that caught my eye was XP Network. They have a section in the convention hall that they have transformed to make it look like a fantasy-themed tavern with a sign advertising for quests. I was mildly curious so I checked out what it is all about.

This is a badging system where you earn XP by completing quests, just like in a roleplaying game. The staff for XP Network (all dressed in fantasy-themed costumes and in character) will interact with you and tell you what your next quest is. The more quests you complete, the more XP you earn, which in turn can mean real prizes to be won. Since this was the first day, I haven’t made much headway with it yet but I did sign up and took on the class of Fighter (Barbarian wasn’t an option – boo!) and had to take an Oath to complete my second quest. The next quest that awaits me is to be trained in sword fighting, but that will have to wait for another day.

Media Demo Night

One of the benefits of attending Origins Game Fair as media is attending “Media Demo Night”, an evening where those with media badges have a chance to meet with game publishers to demo their latest games. This was held in the vendor hall in a section that had rows of tables, and each publisher had their own table to spotlight those games that we can sit down and try out their games.

I spent my time chatting with two game publishers. The first one was GameHead Games, shared with me 5 games that are new for Origins in limited supply: Wild Magic, Size Wise, Pet Quartet, Friendly Fishing, and Trick To The Future. I really liked Friendly Fishing because of a unique semi-cooperative strategy where you are trying to score the most points in the game, and your point total is based on the points you and the person to your left scored. So it encourages you to set up the person on your left to get as many points as they can because it benefits you.

I also got to meet with the wonderful people at Waterbear Workshop, where they were displaying their latest game, Sinister. This is a social deduction game where you are trying to exorcise a demon before it escapes. They also published two other games prior to this one, and they’re planning for a new Kickstarter to release soon for their next game.

Day 2 Preview

For Day 2 (Thursday) of Origins, my day will be filled with learning to play Builders of Baldur’s Gate, playing in a Dragonbane adventure called “The White Feather IV” (if you know or follow me, you know I am a huge fan of this game), and trying out Pirate Borg for the very first time. I’ll also wander around the floor, checking out the various vendors and possibly interview some people to showcase them (which I’ll post those interviews on my YouTube channel), then later in the evening I will be playing Commander (Magic: The Gathering) with a few friends of mine as well as playing Blood On The Clocktower (which I have also never played before. So stay tuned for that!)

Here’s to another adventure! Go reckless or go home.