The Origins conventions that followed the loosening of control from Avalon Hill let the game groups running the show add in their own flavors to the convention.  For many years after 1977, it was not uncommon for Origins to actually share the stage with what was typically a local convention that had already been running in the area.  In 1978, Origins was run in conjunction with MichiCon.  In 1979, Penn Con XV.  1981 saw a merger with Pacificon in California for the first West Coast Origins, and so on from there.  Run by regional groups in different cities each year allowed an injection of local flavor to many Origins.  This could manifest as civil war battle reenactments, demonstrations from local Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA) groups, or other local quirks.  It could also cause a little controversy, as happened with the 1986 Origins in Los Angeles where the organizers decided to forgo charging for events and forcing attendees to line up to sign in to events one hour before their desired event began.  This was unheard of at the time, and their argument was that it made things more egalitarian, would help prevent people from no-showing to games by requiring they be present near the start time, and gave people more pocket money to spend in the exhibit hall.  This was not repeated for subsequent Origins, and is to this day something generally not seen for most large scale tabletop game conventions with the notable exception of PAX Unplugged.

There were some other issues Origins would occasionally run across.  Not having a set venue, for example, occasionally caused problems. This happened in 1980 when the planned convention site, the University of Delaware, rescinded their permission to host the event.  This was attributed to fears that an incident similar to the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in 1979 at Michigan State University, which was blamed on his involvement with D&D, would befall the host of Origins.  Even when problems like this occurred, the organizing entity was able to recover, as they did in 1980 by pivoting to hosting Origins at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania.