FLGS's and you

[scalydemon]

I guess this thread is a spin off of a spun off thread

Do you have a gaming store nearby? (lets say within 50 miles)

Do you go there? Do you like it? Do you make a point to buy things there? Do you play games there? Do you have one nearby but avoid it for whatever reason?

Seems like Amazon etc is killing some stores, just want to see on here how many have them available and frequent them currently.

[archersix]

As I posted on that first spun-off thread, I'm very lucky to have 2 good game stores in the medium sized city near where I live. They are both pretty good, and have good, knowledgeable, friendly staff. (which can be hard to do, trust me when I say working retail can be a real pain)

We also have 2 comic shops who carry some gaming stuff. One's the type where you're likely to not be acknowledged when you come in, and the store seems like a jumbled mess.
The other one is run by a nice guy, and he recently acquired a big lot of old TSR stuff from a collector. That's where I got my Holmes boxed set, a copy of the Rogue's Gallery and a few other bits( I was hoping to go back and get the 2 DA modules the'd gotten, but they were gone). It's stuff like this that really remind me how important a FLGS can be. Having a friendly place to hang out, maybe play some games, and run across some really neat stuff on occasion.

[lige]

I've got two where I live. My favorite - The Griffon - is celebrating 40 years in business this year with a convention this weekend (full disclosure I'm running an AD&D game and an Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of HYPERBOREA game at the con.) It's pretty much the most pleasant game store I've ever seen with a nice selection of non gaming books and other stuff that makes it possible to take say your non gamer spouse when you visit. The other store is more conventional but has a decent selection of new and old stuff.

[tkdco2]

The one in my hometown is called Heretic Games, a relatively new stor. They usually sell the latest editions. I got a bunch of Star Wars miniatures from there. They host games like Star Trek Armada and X-Wing.

There's one farther out, Gator Games. This is a larger store and has been around for a while. They do have older editions available. I was able to find a first print of Deities and Demigods, with the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythoi included. I also got my Carcosa book from that place. They also give demos and host games, mainly card or board games.

[religon]

I have a number of gaming stores nearby… at least 5 within 50 miles. I do not like to game in most of them. They are cramped and have specific nights set aside for each game. I have conflicts invariably on the night associated with my game.

One is large, airy and open… and happens to be the closest store 7 miles from home and 1.5 miles from work. It is a good store to game in, however is is often a challenge to find inventory of games that interest me. I have a large, mature gaming collection of about 30 years. I have most of what I like already. I do buy in store, but the majority of their trade is comic books, collectible card games, the "GW Hobby", kiddy games, nerd swag toys and trendy game-of-the-month stuff. I limit it to 3 or 4 games a year… arbitrarily commensurate with the $200 to $300 annually I spend in store.

[ffilz]

I have a number of good gaming stores nearby, though budget and time has kept me from visiting. The only RPG product I have purchased in a store in the last several years was at our local independent bookstore (Powells, Portland OR). The rest of the purchases I have made are all Kickstarter (only one physical book so far) or a couple cheap RPGNow purchases.

My purchases these days are extremely limited. I am essentially not interested in new games, and haven't even sprung for everything that's on my "I would buy this list" (notably several of the FFE Traveller CD-ROMs). I did spring for the RuneQuest Classic Digital collection finding it hard to pass up spending $100 to essentially get digital versions of every classic RQ product, and the only reason I sprung for that was that it really was too good a deal to pass up, and was only available during the Kickstarter window.

I did visit the closest game store last year to check them out for possible gaming, unfortunately, most of the stores are not available for gaming on weeknights in the time frame I need (7:00 PM to 10:00 PM or thereabouts). I would love to find a decent solution for in store gaming, but Saturdays don't work for me anymore, and evenings are just too impractical. Plus, the Saturday scenes I have seen are way too noisy (and unpleasant in other ways... I'm long gone from the unwashed teenage years...).

And I would love to have a bit looser gaming budget and be able to purchase the occasional RPG product at a store, but that just isn't my life anymore.

Frank

[tkdco2]

I'm not interested in buying new stuff for the most part, except for the occasional miniature or OSR product. However, I may buy an old-school Traveller or AD&D book, if I really want it. Case in point: the Deities and Demigods with Cthulhu and Melnibonean stuff. I couldn't really afford the $50 price tag, but I knew I'd never forgive myself if I let it slip out of my hands.

[tetramorph]

From what I understand, Great Hall Games is known, even outside of Austin.

I run a game there monthly and I am finally getting some other folks to run another game a month so we can have 2 going.

austinjimm had a group that played weekly for a while at King's Hobby. They were the group that welcomed me back into playing as an adult a couple of years ago. That kind of fizzled out as he moved on to working more on publishing OSR titles rather than running public games.

Great Hall Games was a shop for historical miniature wargamers! They started at the TX RenFest. Then they got a permanent shop in Austin. They've moved twice (always further north!). But they are still going!

Come to Austin and join us for a game!

[desertscrb]

Oct 7, 2016 15:09:15 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

From what I understand, Great Hall Games is known, even outside of Austin.

I run a game there monthly and I am finally getting some other folks to run another game a month so we can have 2 going.

austinjimm had a group that played weekly for a while at King's Hobby. They were the group that welcomed me back into playing as an adult a couple of years ago. That kind of fizzled out as he moved on to working more on publishing OSR titles rather than running public games.

Great Hall Games was a shop for historical miniature wargamers! They started at the TX RenFest. Then they got a permanent shop in Austin. They've moved twice (always further north!). But they are still going!

Come to Austin and join us for a game!

Hey, I'm in Austin! When do y'all play?

[MormonYoYoMan]

No shops in walking distance here.

[ritt]

There are two game stores in my hometown area, only minutes away from my house: One is ran by extremely morally sleazy, predatory creeps, and I don't patronize it because I want to not be ashamed of my hobby and to be able to sleep soundly at night. The other sells mainly expensive European board games about managing railroad lines, running sheep farms, establishing trade routes for rugs and vegetables and zzz...zzzz...zzz...zzz...

There is another comics/game store about fifty miles away that I really like, though. They get really into events like Free Comic Book Day and Free RPG Day and go all-out and turn them into little one-day mini-cons. Running and playing games with them is always a blast and the sense of enthusiasm and community is electrifying.

[Finarvyn]

Interesting, because my answer for the first 35 years of my gaming experience would be slightly different than my answer in the past 5 years. For all of my gaming lifetime I have always tried to visit local game stores and buy from them as much as possible rather than buy from Amazon or other mail/online sources. I have always felt that a local game store is a precious resource that should be encouraged and supported, otherwise they dry up and go away. I was counting the other day how many game stores and bookstores used to be in my area, but have appeared and vanished in the past few decades. The number is staggering and makes me very sad, but fortunately when one dies another springs up somewhere else to take its place. So far. Fingers crossed.

For the first 35 years of my gaming, I had never played at a game store. I had run a few demos here and there, but otherwise my relationship was totally financial. In the past 5 or so years I have started playing at a store near me, mostly because I'm the only DM of my regular group and I wanted to play again. Now I actually play regularly at two different stores in the area.

[ritt]

I occasionally buy "Mainstream" gaming stuff from a store, usually miniatures or mini-related craft tools (Last week I bought that little $8 Introduction to Age of Sigmar on a whim.). I also picked up the 5e core books. But... for the past ten years or so the vast majority of the actual RPG materials -rulebooks, modules- that I've purchased have been OSR stuff bought off of Lulu, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Kickstarter, and other small-press or self-publishing venues. No offence to Hasbro, but that's just the flavor of D&D that I'm into. I guess it was always the kind of D&D I'm into (Funky, personal, lots of horror & SF elements). It also doesn't hurt that the OSR community has been on fire lately with a string of great products (Maze of the Blue Medusa, Deep Carbon Observatory, the upcoming Driftwood Verses).

[tetramorph]

desertscrb, I'll send you a PM.