Young Dragonslayers Origins 2026 Wrap-Up
The Young Dragonslayers crew who came to Origins! Liv, Maddy (pictured), Jesse, Katie, Jaclyn, and Steph (not pictured).
Last week, a record number of us at Young Dragonslayers went to Origins Game Fair, an annual tabletop-gaming convention in Columbus, Ohio, and the Game-Based Education & Therapy (GBET) conference-within-a-conference, which focuses on the power of tabletop games as tools for learning, growth, and connection. It was the first time many of us had met in person, and we got to explore the convention, and share meals and ideas together. We all had a blast (and did more than could possibly fit in a single blog post), but here are some highlights for the Young Dragonslayers community!
Meeting People
Four out of five of the YDS crew about to host their panel! Left to right: Jaclyn, Jesse (top) and Katie (bottom), and Maddy
One of the best parts of conventions (of any type, but especially the geek-minded ones) are all the amazing people you get to meet there. As gathering places for people with similar niche interests (and, in the case of therapeutic tabletop roleplaying games, VERY niche), they’re great for reconnecting with old friends and meeting new ones. This was Young Dragonslayers’ biggest presence at the convention to date: Founder Katie and Game Masters Jaclyn, Jesse, Liv, Steph, and Maddy all came! It was the first time many of us had met in person, and we got to explore the expo hall, attend events, play games, and share meals and ideas together. We got to see Adam Davis, who runs therapeutic game-master trainings; not only did we learn from his presentation, From Game Master to Story Guide, but Katie got to discuss therapeutic applications of tabletop games with one of the great minds in the field! We also connected with speech-language pathologists Jenny Siler and Jessica Gerth, who use tabletop roleplaying games in their practices, and got to see them present about communication in tabletop games alongside GM Jaclyn. Perhaps the coolest connection was meeting one of GM Jesse’s YDS players, who came with their family from out of state to play games and meet Jesse in person!
Giving Presentations
GM Liv sharing about guidelines and boundaries at her presentation.
As well as getting to meet folks, we collectively gave a wide array of presentations to convention attendees. In addition to her seminar with the speech-languages pathologists, Jaclyn teamed up with GM Liv and Nina Liu-Geuchev, a therapist who uses tabletop roleplaying games in her practice, to share about the importance of player agency in storytelling games. GM Steph, through their project TTRPGkids, hosted Games for Little People, an event centered around using tabletop games and RPGs with young people, and a storytime at the conference for “mini heroes” to practice social-emotional skills. Steph also teamed up with Super Heroines, Etc (SHE) to host an info session sharing tools to support femme and nonbinary leadership and help create inclusive, diverse, and safe spaces for gamers. But the biggest Young Dragonslayers presence was Jesse’s talk about how tabletop RPGs teach resilience through play. Not only did he have some great insights on the power of failure in games, but he also brought in Jaclyn, Katie, and Maddy to serve as panelists! We got to answer lots of great questions, share stories from our games, and even host trivia (with Young-Dragonslayers-themed dice by GamerMedium as the grand prize)!
Exploring the Hall
This little guy is going home to GM Jesse’s young dragonslayer!
The expo hall at Origins was absolutely filled with cool games, art, gaming accessories, t-shirts, plushies, and other geeky goodness. We got to wander the hall together, playing game demonstrations, talking to designers, checking out the cool merch, and, of course, choosing new items to add to our own inventory. Katie’s highlight was stopping by Epic Armoury, which sells LARP-friendly polyurethane foam weapons, including tiny little kid-friendly 5-inch ones! Her geeky friend is expecting a baby, and she was happy to be able to gift them with Baby's First Mace, “which everyone needs but nobody thinks to add to their registry.” Jaclyn really enjoyed getting to talk with the designers at MythWorks, who created PiCO, a whimsical RPG where you play as adventurous bugs exploring a post-human world, and CBR+PNK, a minimalist RPG where you play as cyberpunk runners living on the edge. Jesse scoped out the entire hall to find a gift for his own young dragonslayer and selected some adorable plushies from My Little Demon.
Playing Games
The four heads of the many-headed tentacle creature: Bork, Bob, Blip, and Sam. (The variant heads’ names were Krob, Bob, Pilb, and Mas)
But we can’t skip the most essential part of a gaming convention: playing games. Maddy, Jesse, and Jaclyn got to meet in person right before their first game of the convention, in which they made characters like Ben Jones, the most statistically average human man, and Tannen, a leaf-person from the tides acting as an ambassador to the human world, and crafted a world for them to live in. Jaclyn also got to take the Delicious in Dungeons & Dragons one-shot they created for Young Dragonslayers and run it for a new crew of dungeon-delving chefs. And, in perhaps the most memorable moment of the con, Katie and Steph teamed up with Jenny and Jessica to each control one head of a many-headed tentacle creature. This creature’s evil variant (also played by Katie, Steph, Jenny, and Jessica), was defeated by the power of Adam’s character’s tea and Jaclyn’s character’s greatsword. It was truly the team-up of the ages.
In Conclusion
We loved being able to go to Origins Game Fair. From the people we got to meet to the games we got to play, the whole experience has already become one of our most cherished memories of the year. If you’d like to come meet us in person next year, listen to our talks, and maybe even play a few games together, we could love to see you. And if you somehow got this far without knowing about our games, hello! We’re a crew of therapists, educators, and youth professionals who run safe, inclusive, and fun online games of Dungeons & Dragons for tweens and teens. More details about Origins 2027 and Young Dragonslayers games are available below. Thanks for reading!
