Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University.  This week, Thorne shares his experiences with WizKids, Paizo, Wyrd, and WotC at GTS.

Still catching up on my notes from this year's GAMA Trade Show.  The most popular seminar/presentation of the show had to be the WizKids' session, likely because at each presentation, attendees received a highly desirable HeroClix Convention-Only figure.  However, WizKids also gave out a lot of information about the next Organized Play campaign, Fear Itself.  I won't go into detail about the Fear Itself OP program, as you have likely read about it elsewhere.  One thing I did take away from it was the increased importance WizKids has put upon online registration of both events and players.  In fact, in order to order the Fear Itself OP kit through Alliance, a store has to both purchase a certain number of boosters over the preceding period and register events on the WizKids' website (which is still a work in progress and somewhat clunky, e.g., there is no indication on the site when you request a password reset that it goes through until the email shows up in your mailbox).  The limited edition Fear Itself booster set of 40 figures and the Blitzkrieg packs are nice add-ons that will drive customers to participate in the Fear Itself event, though I would not take any bets on how long it takes before the Fear Itself boosters wind up for sale on eBay or other online locations.

Paizo Publishing had a pretty comprehensive presentation with a couple of announcements that made my customers quite happy.  First the announced gravity feed of goblins just in time for the release of "We Be Goblins Too" at Free RPG Day had more than one customers commenting that "you can never have too many goblins" and considering the purchase of a complete display to get a full set of the 13 figures.  Secondly, and this rather surprised me, they were quite happy about the planned reprinting of the Combat Pad.  This is a GM aid that we have had a number of customers asking for over the past few months and there was even applause when I announced this during a Pathfinder Society session.

I wasn't expecting much when I sat in on Wyrd Miniatures' presentation.  Puppet Wars seems a bit pricy to me and their Malifaux line had sold quite poorly here since the initial run of interest after it first arrived.  However, once again I found you can always learn something interesting or useful in every presentation.  This time 'twas Evil Baby Orphanage, a card game in which players attempt to score points by capturing history's greatest villains while they are still in their diapers and sending them off to an orphanage where they can be monitored.  I did not lay hands on a demo copy of this but was intrigued enough to bring it into the store when I returned and have it racked near Cards Against Humanity.  I'm always looking for a new twist on a quick card game and this one certainly qualifies.

Wizards of the Coast really put a push on Kaijudo at the show, much as the company has since announcing the (re-) launch of the game with announcements of PTQ style events, a Duel Day in May or June and (non-specific) programs reaching out to the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts as well as boys' and girls' clubs.  It does concern me somewhat, when I asked about the release schedule for expansions, WotC only has them on the schedule through the second quarter of 2014, since I was rather expecting to hear, based on the announced commitment to the game, a release schedule extending 2-3 years out.  Here's hoping we are discussing a release schedule for Kaijudo for 2015 and 2016 at the 2014 GTS.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.