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Does anyone else lament the loss of local gaming stores?
Coarse Language
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I remember a time when there were three gaming stores within a couple miles of my home. Books for every system worth playing. Shelves upon shelves of crap that would give any gamer a hard-on. Now all I see is a book case at Borders or Barnes and Nobles -just one- and on that book case is D&D4e books, several copies of the core books, then a FUCKLOAD of Prima strategy guides for video games that no one cares about. If you want to play Shadowrun, go fuck yourself. If you have any interest in SJ Games Gurps you can have a secondary rule book, if you want more see above. If you happen to like anything that WoD put out you can have a rulebook for vampire, not the WoD core.
Anyone else notice this sickening trend? What the fuck happened to our hobby?
Anyone else notice this sickening trend? What the fuck happened to our hobby?
Coarse Language on
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The Black Hole of Cygnus X-1
How does playing by post work? I've only sat around a table and threw IRL dice while sucking down entirely too much mountain dew.
After a group of players what you need is a room, a few tables and chairs and a restroom.
It depends on your local area but most libraries or community centers have areas you can reserve that fit the bill if no one wants to or are able to donate their own home.
The main advantage of using message boards or other online ways to interact is one can play with people across the world and at different times which might be more convenient.
There are major differences between face to face and online. If you want to enjoy the advantages of face to face gaming it seems that devoting some time to looking at non-gaming store socializing resources in your area is more productive then lamenting the demise of such stores.
Edit: there are many of examples to look at on these boards and if you check in from time to time people will be recruiting. I personally would be interested as well in other tabletop or RPG gaming boards that people know of.
Dice are generally rolled on Invisible castle or orokos around here. Posting in a game that's currently running except in a Out of Character (OOC) thread is generally frowned upon like if you were to interrupt in the middle of a physical game, but it varies.
To keep the place I enjoy playing games at open.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The internet and digital product have revolutionary impact on what we do, not just in this hobby alone, but it can't simulate everything.
Hippie rant aside, I've seen a lot of local gaming stores close down or threatened by poor sales, but then you hear about people where their FLGS seems to be thriving, that whole scene. So who knows? It might be dependent on where you live, or it might be a slow decline. Hopefully not.
The new market has also blown the door wide open to indie publishing and distribution, which I think is a terrific thing.
And none of my housemates are interested in walking that far. (It's about a 40 minute walk.)
I've been in a few times, and made purchases there, like the Ravenloft board game, and some expansions for Arkham Horror. They also have a gaming afternoon on a Wednesday, mainly for sixth-formers and university students (though I'm not sure if it's exclusive to those, I found out about it when I dropped by on my way home from a hospital appointment and stumbled into a shop full of NERRRRRRDS playing M:TG and that miniatures game that isn't Heroclix or Mage Knight or Warmachine, and has the different factions one of which is CTHULHU and another of which is GUNDAM (pretty much)).
I'll try and head down there next time I have a weekend free, and ask them if they do any other 'events' and suchlike. Thing is, you can't beat the store in my parents' hometown, where I was friends with 50% of the staff (before they started working there), was a friend of the family that started the thing up in the first place, and was really into the games they played at the time (M:TG when it was shiny and new, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, D&D, White Wolf RPGs, etc), mainly because they stayed open late two or three times a week and made their tables open for gaming - we played through the entire Dragonlance module based on the first trilogy, which involved the hilarious session where I was handed a guitar and some sheet music and expected to play and sing Goldmoon's song in there over the course of a year - and would pretty much order in whatever you asked for. This was before the internet was so widespread in the UK though, so... maybe Amazon is responsible in part.
I don't game half as much as I used to now, and I still have a few ancient M:TG decks someplace in this house, I just don't know where.
3DS FCode: 1993-7512-8991
I managed okay on submarines. Chances are someone else in your crew or unit would play if you wrote material.
I jumped into probably three different systems while browsing the shelves at avalon books before it was shitcanned. Mostly because of some other customer walking past, stopping and having a convo. I've met three of my most recent players at that store. It also used to be a purveyor of all things caffinated. Yes, there are some neck-bearded basement dwellers that I want nothing to do with, but for the most part the experience is good overall. Amazon can't give me that type of experience. If you mention D&D at a bar the only thing you can guarantee is that you won't be getting laid that night, I fail to see how you can meet someone elsewhere.
First, I'm Air Force. And I've tried once before and got one person who later got kicked out. So it's me and vagrant_winds to play any games and he's done with M:tG and you need more than 2 people for a nice RPing session. I've got friends back home who play in college (which is 8 1/2 hour drive) and I know there use to be some players at one gaming/manga store here one. But after I started night shift the first time, it got bought out by home realtors place.