Game Shop Experience

[geneweigel]

I popped into a sizable gameshop while I was up in Albany for the past week. I spent way over a few hours looking through things and I was exasperated trying to find something to buy.

I saw the Greyhawk book and was like: meh - bleh - feh! Just what I thought it would be. Whatever, who cares? Anyway, I couldn't find anything in this assortment of game supplements, adventures, etc.. (Has the average shop become that piss poor?) I looked at a book called Lanhkmar and it made the 80's/90's versions (not faves of mine) look like "gemstones of the gods". There was a Conan rpg that resembled just another "third turd" once the reintroduction to the Hyborian Age was seen past. The pseudo-TSR modules by some company were just 2e flavor/style with a 1e cover and a 3e rule style. Ack! Eventually (after pouring through things that I wish never to return to or mention) I started looking for a good miniature. How can you fuck up over a thousand miniatures? With persistence! So I ended up getting a "thornwart demon" which looks like a Type IV Demon knockoff. It comes disassembled so the blister is your typical "motley pile of metal of yore". With hard to clarify assortment of pieces within shifting to and fro. I get it home and the first thing that I notice is that he's wearing a loincloth fastened with an innocuous plain belt.

SIGH

[ghul]

Gaming stores are a strange lot these days, and I wonder if more and more will disappear or simply merge with comic stores over time. Thing about comics is, it's still a viable business as the books are weekly (thus the customer base) and there is a certain charm about standing there on a Wednesday afternoon and checking out all the new releases. Granted my tastes are limited these days, and I tend to just buy trades of storylines I enjoyed in the 80s, but it's still a cool place to shop. I want to pick up more of those 60's marvel collections with Kirby's art shown in B&W. The "Essentials" I think they're called. Speaking of comics, I loved Dark Horse's new Conan comics, and bought about the first 20 as they were coming out. I wonder if these are in TPB form yet... I think I just digressed from the OP, sorry Gene...

[geneweigel]

Well, comics? That is a digression! The amount of Trade Paperbacks is good. Better than ever in fact! Plus Marvel has a new digital subscription library that you can try (Its pretty cool!) so they are still viable although the kids are still out of luck with the prices and the comprehension of continuing stories...

That said, I went to a chain bookstore as well and while there was absolutely nothing in the sci-fi/fantasy (I'm petered out on ever buying a Star Wars or Star Trek guide again), I always buy a huge stack of non-fiction to satisfy my brain whether its science, history, art, etc.. But still where's the beef in the sci-fi/fantasy? Still looks like a pile of either reprocessed shit, or stuff that I've had for decades or "Swords Against Candyland".

[GRWelsh]

The problem is, Gene, you're old and cranky... and the direction you're heading in is to get even older and crankier. I'm no different than you, except I can't even muster up the will to bother complaining anymore.

You're better off staying home and drawing, and working on your own creative ideas.

I did read some science fiction I liked lately, though: "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy, and I'm enjoying Jack McDevitt's "Odyssey." And I've been meaning to pick up Vernor Vinge's "Rainbow's End" since I liked "A Deepness in the Sky." But then those authors are kind of old, themselves...

[geneweigel]

Alright, I'll check those out but the last few attempts at insisted sci-fi recommendations were real shitty "drops in the trash can".

[grodog]

I regularly find better game stuff at used bookstores than I do at current comics/games stores or big-box-bookstores like Borders or Barnes & Noble. Sometimes there's some decent used stuff at game/comic shops, but in general I do much better at the used bookstores....

[geneweigel]

NYC metro has always had a problem with used bookstores. They're always "picked clean" and overpriced. Heck the former can be said about the chainstores here but the prices are at least cover price.

[GRWelsh]

It seems odd to me that the used book stores in NYC are picked clean, because New York is the center of the publishing/literary universe -- but that might be the explanation, really. I remember when I drove by that New York Times building in Queens and my eyes got real big and I thought: "Oh yeah, I guess it WOULD be here, wouldn't it!" (longtime reader of the NYTimes)

For the past few years, I've been scouring the past, also... eBay, used bookstores, garage sales, any chance I get to buy literature that is off the beaten path -- fantasies that aren't thousand page doorstops or the Octology of the Never-Ending Plot. In the past few years, I've read all the "Kothar" and "Kyrik" stories by Gardner Fox, some Clark Ashton Smith, and bought The Worm Ouroboros, old Isaac Asimov magazines to read, Jurgen by James Branch Cabell, some big chunks of Judges Guild. I never seem to get tired of my Archive of the first 250 issues of Dragon Magazine, either (spend most of the time on the first 100 issues or so).

Since I have two friends that own their own game shops, I could order just about anything new that I wanted, at wholesale price -- it's telling that I don't. When I buy stuff from them, it's usually paints or miniatures, or a boxed board game, something like... hardly ever RPG material.

[geneweigel]

grashyewl said:

I remember when I drove by that New York Times building in Queens and my eyes got real big and I thought: "Oh yeah, I guess it WOULD be here, wouldn't it!" (longtime reader of the NYTimes)

Naw, the main building has always been in Manhattan and that Queens building has been there as long as I can remember. I don't know what the Queens building is for as they were printing in Manhattan at least up til the early 90's ( I knew a guy who was typesetter.).

[ghul]

A lot of the shops have closed down up here in New England. The most local shop to me (10 minutes away) is only good for miniatures as well, but most are these mech-warrior looking things that are probably warhammer. I shop there a lot, buying my kids pokemon cards and whatever, picking up the occasional monster figure or dice set. I've mentioned to the owner that I have a few RPG modules that have recently been published, but she just says, "That's cool," and shows absolutely no interest in carrying them. *shrugs*

There is an excellent shop about 45 minutes away from me, and I'm going to run a game there after x-mas. They carry all kinds of weird stuff, and have a fantastic sci-fi/fantasy paperback selection. In their back room they have a rack of out-of-print, and you never know what little treasures will pop up there.

[geneweigel]

My local one "The Strat" AKA The Compleat Strategist was once a shining jewel in the days of yore. Now that place that I just went to at least had tons of items for sale which makes "The Strat" look like a "nub" of its former self. Yup! Just a place where weirdos converge now. Thats all. Thats no joke either there are some serious rpg weirdos in NYC (vampire club nuts, etc.).

[GT]

We used to have two excellent places in downtown Lafayette--the General Store and Larry's Hobby Shop... both sadly disappeared in the '90s. Everything since then has been 3E/Manga-oriented...