Showing posts with label FLGS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FLGS. Show all posts

Monday, September 2, 2024

Dungeons & Dragons 5.5 at Midnight!

 I *may* have convinced my Favorite Local Game Store to open up at Midnight to sell the D&D 5.5 Player's Handbook.

Games Plus

They went back and forth a bit over this past weekend, and I woke up to this this morning.



I'll be picking up the new D & D 5.5 in about 14 hours.

If you want yours and you live in the Chicagoland area then head on out to Games Plus to get your pre-order.

Expect a mini-review after I pick it up!

Thursday, August 4, 2022

#RPGaDAY2022 Day 4 - Where would you host a first game?

This one is easy.

If it is the first game for people I don't know well and I am teaching them the game then I usually want to do it at my Favorite Local Game Store, Games Plus in Mount Prospect, IL.  This way if they want to buy the game in question everything they need is right there.  Plus it is a nice neutral environment.

Games Plus

If it is for people I know well then I prefer my game room here at my home.  I always wanted my own game room and now I have one.

My Sanctum Sanctorum

I just need to convince my kids they need to clean up when they are done using it.


RPGaDAY2022


Saturday, July 25, 2020

Games Plus Fall Auction

I have mentioned my Favorite Local Game Store, Games Plus, many times here.
They have a games auction twice a year, in October and in March.



This year they are looking for some advice on how to run their October auction.
While COVID cases are slightly down in Illinois, Cook County has seen some minor increases.  The state is generally going in the right direction, but things could change if people lose vigilance.

This game auction is often the source of all my rare and wonderful items I find.  

Why am I bringing this up to you all?  Well, one of the options includes a virtual auction that would allow you to bid from anywhere.   While I have absolutely no desire to have all the gamers that follow me bid against me, one of these options opens the auction up to people that have never been able to take advantage of the joy that is a Games Plus game auction.




So let them know what you think if you would like to take advantage of this.  

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

Busy day. spent the whole day gardening with my wife.  But I sneak out to go to my FLGS.


Grabbed a hobby-store exclusive and regular cover of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

260 some odd pages.  Filled with monsters, background on the Blood War, new racial variants for all the races.  Tons of monsters. 

It's going to take me a bit to digest it all.  But so far I love it.

Monday, January 29, 2018

The Kids Are Alright, 2018

So. I got into it with one of the luminaries of the original RPG scene.  I am not going into any details (no need) save that I was a little more caustic than I should have been and I obviously hit a nerve.

But I have been seeing a lot of this around.  People not just bashing editions that are not their particular favorite (that always happens) but people bashing the players of those editions.  Often the ones doing the bash have zero knowledge and/or experience with the game in question.
Go to any group on Facebook and you will find people complaining about any edition newer than their own often with ideas of what they think is in the game but have nothing to do with the game at all.  When pressed I invariably get the same answers "oh I have not played it" or "I have neve even read it".

I am glad I did not argue the points further online, either with those groups or individuals. 

Later that day I was headed to our local fish market so my son could smoke some fish for us and we all stopped at my Favorite Local Game Store. 

That was a refreshing treat.

First off I was not planning on getting anything but they had this.


The Classic Creatures collection.  Including a giant Demogorgon, a purple worm, and Pig-snouted Orcs!  The owlbear looks like the AD&D 1 MM one, not the 5e one (I am partial to the 5e look myself).

So yeah I grabbed that.  My youngest son pointed out all of the families there.  And there were a lot, with some young kids.

One girl, maybe 9 or 10, was walking around with her dad holding her latest treasure; a collection of D&D 5th edition tiles for minis.  I saw other kids holding books for other new games and even a small group in the game room playing.

It dawned on me (though it should have been obvious).

They don't care what we say.  In fact, they are not even listening.

I have been gaming for close to 40 years now. I am full of advice.  They won't listen to a word of it.
And that is FANTASTIC!

They need to find their own ways, make this game their own, do what they want and damn what anyone else has to say because that is what is needed to keep the games alive.
The future is not ours. Only the present.

The kids will be doing fine despite us yelling to get off our lawn.

My son smoked some fish and worked up a Succubus race to play in D&D 5.



Thursday, January 18, 2018

This Old Dragon: Issue #95

Ok, this really is less of a cheat than it might appear.  This issue was actually third on my list for this week, it gets promoted due to one article that I'll mention in a bit.  For now, it is March 1985, Madonna rules the radio and MTV.  Eddie Murphy dominates the silver screens with Beverly Hills Cop.  On the way to our shelves is Unearthed Arcana (more on that) but there now is issue #95 of This Old Dragon!

Our cover is something of a classic from Dean Morrissey.  I will admit I did not like it when this was new.  I liked the idea, but the cover left cold.  Over the years my mind has changed and I consider this one of my top 20 covers.  Not quite top 10, but certainly up there.

The table of contents promises a lot of things, but at the bottom we get a note from Kim Mohan.  Titled In defense of advertising Kim advises us to read the letters on the next page and then come back.  I'll talk about that in a bit.  This article is a defense of the number of ads in Dragon magazine.  He points out that while the magazine has grown the price, $3.00, has been consistent for nearly five years.  Having grown up in that time with a limited income from a paper route I appreciated the price stability.  Plus I *loved* the ads.  That's how I knew what was new and what was going on with other companies.  Some games I bought solely based on their ad in Dragon.

Ok Letters. Dan Fejes sends in one titled "Hard of hearing?" where he complains about the number of ads in the magazine AND the fact that the editors are "not listening to the readers".  Dan can't defend himself here, so me ripping into him is counter-productive.  But seriously?   I understand that no one is really made of money, but this sounds like typical entitled-gamer bullshit to me.  Unless he has a degree in economics where he can show his price per useful content ratio is somehow less...but I digress.  Forget Dan. I love the ads.  My only beef is when the ads went exclusively to TSR. But that is some time away yet.

Speaking of ads...We get our first look at the nearly-mythical D&D Set 3: Companion Rules!


Suck it Dan.

Gary is up first with Demi-humans Get a Lift in his From the Sorcerer's Scroll feature. This covers the new level and class limits for Demi-humans in the AD&D game.  A preview of sorts for the new Unearthed Arcana he announces at the end of the article.  We also get an update on the D&D movie.  That is to say that there is still a D&D movie being shopped around.
Gary mentions that Gen Con was attended by 8,000 people, the most ever of this kind of convention.  I bet it will grow!  This is cover some sort of argument over which one con was better/larger Gen Con vs. Origins.

Here is the article that bumped this issue to the head of the queue today.
The influence of J. R. R. Tolkien on the D&D® and AD&D® games. Why Middle Earth is not part of the game world by Gary Gygax.
Let's take a moment and remember when this article was written.  1985.  I.C.E. has the MERP game now and TSR has already had a litigious past with the Tolkien estate.  I am going to forward this quote first,
The popularity of Professor Tolkien’s fantasy works did encourage me to develop my own. But while there are bits and pieces of his works reflected hazily in mine, I believe that his influence, as a whole, is quite minimal.
- Gary Gygax, p. 12. Dragon 95, March 1985.
Now there are plenty of reasons for him to state this, and he follows up in the article going over now well known ground on how the pulps, Howard in particular, were the source of most of his fantasy thoughts.  None of this is really in dispute.  What follows is a breakdown of creatures D&D and Tolkien share in common and where Tolkien might have derieved them.  All of which has the benefit of being true, we know this from Tolkien's own letters, and completely not really the point.
Gygax might be trying to make the point that D&D would have come about with or without Tolkien. He might be right, but it would certainly not have come out like it was in 85.  The fertile ground that D&D grew in was tilled by Tolkien.  Others have also tilled and sown those fields, but our good professor did a little more than his fair share of work.  Plus I can't help but feel there is a bit of revisionism going on here.  Lest we forget that the original D&D rules featured Hobbits, Ents and Balorgs by those names.  Halflings in D&D are defacto Hobbits right down to their hairy feet and subrace names. Harfoots, Fallowhides, and Stoors for Tolkien and Hairfoots, Tallfellows and Stouts for AD&D.  I am not going to belabor this point really other than to point out that Gary is both correct and wrong in his article.  How much of this was oversight or even on advice from his lawyers we will really never know.  There have been a number of follow-up articles, interviews and the like since then and right on up to his death.
For me. I am content that Tolkien is a model of a good D&D world. Maybe not a by-the-book one (any or either book) but for me, Tolkien and D&D have been together since the very, very beginning.

Whew!  We are only on page 15!

The Convention Calendar is up.  I see my FLGS is having a Game Day on March 30.

Yes. They are still open and they still have the same phone number!  Well, the area code has changed twice since this ad.  It is now 847-577-9656.  Not too bad really.  Want to buy a copy of the Dragons I review?  I usually buy them here!

Ok I do want to talk about this ad.


So DragonRaid got a lot of grief in the gaming communities I was apart of.  I had some Christian gamer friends that thought it was a cheap attempt to capitalize on their faith and some even that did not want to mix their D&D and belief.  As an Atheist, then and now, I thought it was interesting. As someone who was interested in psychology then and someone with degrees in it now I also thought it was an interesting way to learn something, in this case, Bible verses.  I always wanted to see the game for myself.   You can still buy the game directly from the publisher.
Anyone ever play this game?

Next up is How taxes take their toll: The king’s collectors don’t have it easy, either by Arthur Collins is done as a faux interview.  The basic premise is how to do taxes in your fantasy medieval world.

Ecology of the Cockatrice is next from Ed Greenwood.  He has another entry later on. This is another good piece and reminds me why I liked these "Ecology of" articles so much.  They can take an uninteresting monster and really do a lot with it.

In the days before the internet, this next article by Glenn Rahman was pure gold.  Prices for the Roaring 20’s: A way to measure PCs’ purchasing power gives us price lists. I remember sitting in my then local library for hours looking up prices for one of the first Victorian-era games I ever ran.  Now it is a click away.

Katharine Kerr is back with more advice on experience rules in Credit where credit is due. This article looks to examples from other games to award some non-combat experience and in particular the use of skills.

Next is an article I actually used quite a bit. The many shapes of apes: Giving primates the attention they deserve by Stephen Inniss gives us some stats for various primates including the Gigantopithecus, which I used quite a lot.

We get to the main feature of this issue. A new mid-level adventure from Ed Greenwood called Into the Forgotten Realms.   This might not be the first official Forgotten Realms entry in the pages of Dragon, but it is the biggest so far.  Run as a tournament module at Gen Con 1984, this adventure has you begin in the Realms. There are characters provided.  It has been my plan to use this adventure in my Realms based game someday. I am still planning this.  It looks really fun to be honest.

Battles above the dungeon by Tim W. Brown has advice for combat in open spaces.

The fiction section is next, Desperate Acts, I know nothing of the story save that it has one of my favorite pieces of art to appear in a Dragon magazine. No surprise it is by Denis Beauvais.


I thought she was an awesome looking character.

The Ares section is next.

We get some new starships for the Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks game NOW back in print.

Penny Petticord has some answers to various GammaWorld questions.

Jeff Grubb talks Iron Man in the Marvel-Phile.  Though at this point it is Rhodey wearing the armor of Iron Man and not Tony.

We get Dolphins as a space-farring race for RingWorld by Sherman Kahn.  Now we know how they left Earth in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.  Interestingly enough a Star Trek TNG novel had dolphin crew member and I always pictured this art for it.

Small ads.
Big ad for Gen Con 18.

Wormy, Dragonmirth and Snarf.

Wow.  What another packed issue.  So much here that I remembered and so much more I had forgotten.

Want to know what I was saying about White Dwarf from the same time period?  Have a look at White Dwarf Wednesday #63.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Mighty Protectors + World's Greatest Screen

Picked up my screen inserts for Mighty Protectors Referee's Screen a bit ago and they were a nice cheat sheet when working on characters.

Stopped by my FLGS today to do a little Christmas shopping and picked up another of Hammerdog's The World's Greatest Screen (I think I have five or six of them now) to use.  And it looks great!








Can't wait to use this!

Monday, November 7, 2016

Monstrous Monday: 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendiums

So no new monster today.  Been pretty busy this last week or two.

But some things I am working are a couple of auction and Craigslist scores.




For all four binders, I think I have now paid something like $25.  They are not in great condition and there are a lot of duplicates.

Like so much of my D&D material, I lost my originals sometime in the 90s.  I have not picked these back up till now because 2nd Editon is the edition I am least likely to play anymore.

But I really couldn't pass these up and they are still compatible with 1st ed for the most part.

So I have a lot of sorting and digging through my own material to see if I have any other pages.  I think I keep all the demons and devils from the Planescape sets, and I have all (or at least most) of the Mayfair Demons ones.  Not sure if I'll try to complete the collection, kinda like keeping them like this.

Who knows maybe one day I'll play some more 2e.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Old Games

Contrary to some belief I am not an obsessive collector of games.  I have things I like and genres I follow and I usually stick to that.  Outside of those I am pretty much open.

This week the Games Plus Fall auction begins and I still have some time to get some of my books in.
I am planning on selling of some of my more recent Tunnels & Trolls purchases as well as the last of the True20 material I still have laying around.

I figure anything I have not played in 5 years is good to go and anything I am not likely to play in the next 3 is also good to go.  

Do ever pare down your collection?
If so, how do you decide what to sell and what to keep?

Thursday, March 6, 2014

What Will $50 get You?

So I am slow at this. Sorry, been sick.

The price point for the first releases of the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons has been leaked by Barnes & Noble.

The Player's Handbook has a MSRP of $49.99. (link now dead)
The "Starter Set" has a MSRP of $19.99. (link also dead)
(the Escapist has commentary and screenshots)

And queue the rounds of people saying it's too expensive.

Let's look at the Player's Handbooks over the years. I have included the price, the number of pages, and the retail price. I am also including the adjusted price for inflation based on the US Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.

AD&D 1st Ed. (1978) 128 pages, $19.95  ($71.68)
AD&D 2nd Ed. (1989) 246 pages, $20.00 ($37.73)
D&D 3.0 (2000) 302 pages, $19.95*  (special intro price, increased to $29.95)  ($27.10, $40.68)
D&D 3.5 (2003) 302 pages, $29.95 ($38.07)
D&D 4th (2008) 320 pages, $34.95 ($37.97)
D&D 5th Ed. (2014) xxx pages, $50.00 ($50.00)

Maybe $40.00 is the sweet spot on this, but $50.00 does not seem too far out to me.
Compare this to a new video game, $60.00.  Ah, but you say, you can't play D&D with just the player's book, you need at least another 100 bucks for the DMG and MM.  Well. You can't play a video game by itself either you need a system (anywhere from $300 to $400).

So really. This is not a huge expense in today's market.  It is also likely to be 300+ pages, full color with, what I have seen so far, great art.

I am planning on buying these at my Favorite Local Game Store.  I believe in keeping game stores in business and supporting my local economy. So yeah, that means I am in for at least $120.00.  I will get the starter set too.

But you know what? I am an adult. I make good money. I can drop that much on my favorite hobby, on my favorite game.

Currently the modules for D&D 5 run from $5.00 (Vault of the Dracolich) to $18.00 (Dreams of the Red Wizards: Scourge of the Sword Coast) to $30 ($18 on sale) (Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle).
I like the art and expect that the rule books will be about the same.

So honestly, this sounds fine to me.

Friday, February 21, 2014

D&D40 Bloghop: Day 21

Day 21: First time you sold some of your D&D books--for whatever reason.

Not sure when the first time was.  I do recall though a great 2nd ed purge around 1997 or 1998.  I had a ton of books and I wanted to get things down to the bare essentials.  This also corresponds to the time I was getting out of D&D.

I remember selling some items at the local Game Plus Auction, but I also sold a more significant amount on Ebay.

This was right before the Dragon magazine archive went for sale so I unloaded my old Dragons for a decent price. I sold all my 2e splat books.  My best sell was a near mint Complete Book of Necromancers. I had bought it for $15.00 and it was then being sold at $18.00  I made $83.00 on it.

I almost always regret selling my games and have often bought them back.  I have owned over the years 3 different copies of Chill and Quest of the Ancients, two copies each of BESM, Vampire, Mage and various Star Trek games. There are more.  Interestingly enough I recently picked up a copy of the Complete Book of Necromancers at Half-Price books for $9.00.  That is the same price as the PDF.

Friday, October 4, 2013

Games Plus Game Auction

Games Plus in Mount Prospect, IL



Headed out to the Games Plus Game Auction tomorrow.
Should be great!  I am looking to fill some gaps in my Greyhawk collection and of course see what odd, rare or new-to-me game shows up.

I have gotten some pretty nice deals in the past and I am hoping that will be the case tomorrow.

If you live in the Chicago Area head out to Mount Prospect (in the Northwest Suburbs) and join in.
Their doors open at 9:00am and the auction starts at 10:00am.

Games Plus on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/GamesPlus
And the auction event page, https://www.facebook.com/events/383498218445628/

So come on by and buy my old games so I can buy new ones!

Friday, March 22, 2013

New Book Stores

I am HUGE advocate of supporting your FLGS and your local book store.
If you have the choice, please always support your local stores when you can.

That all being said there is a new online book store that I am calling "The Book Store of all of Tim's Favorite Things."

Wednesday Mourning from "Oddities: San Francisco" has started a new online book store Orphic Vellum Books.

You can read about it here: http://wednesdaymourning.com/blog/?p=18#comment-38
And see the store here: http://www.wednesdaymourning.com/zencart/

A lot of the books I would want here I already have, but I am hoping to see more soon!
The place looks great and getting these old books would really be nice.

If you buy something from her tell her I sent you!
Not that it would matter at all, but I have always wanted to say that about something...

Monday, October 15, 2012

How I learned to stop worrying...

and like the Realms.
(I don't quite love them yet)


I have always been a Greyhawk fan. Some of my very first games were looking for ancient Suel mysteries or exploring the dirty streets of the Free City of Greyhawk.   While I ran my adventures in the Known World of Mystara, I played in Oerth and Greyhawk.

For years I even combined the two into one world, and that worked out pretty well.

I remember reading about the Realms in Dragon Mag and I was never impressed.  The increased fetishization of the Drow and Drizzt worship turned me off as well. I can't tell you how much I despised "Lloth", it's LOLTH goddamn it. Any way. I saw the Realms as an upstart to Greyhawk and not even a good one to be honest.   This oddly enough was right around the same time I played my first game of OD&D set in Greyhawk.  To me Realms fans were snotty little kids with delusions of adequacy.

My opinions have softened since then.

This weekend before last I was at the Games Plus game auction.  I was able to pick up the Forgotten Realms books for 1st and 2nd Ed. AD&D.  I picked up the 3rd ed stuff a while back and had the 4e stuff from Half-Price books.  All in all I was able to get all these books for under 50 bucks total.

The 1st Ed box is in fantastic shape, minus some shelf wear.  The 3 and 4e books are in mint condition.

I have been using the Realms for the 4e game I am running and I have been enjoying it.
Sure, I am still using elements from the Points of Light campaign that 4e is built around, but all of it is in the new version of the Realms.  There are lot of things that came together nicely for this for me really.  In the 4e game I am running the kids are going to go after Orcus.  Much the same way as the old H1-4 Bloodstone series a while back.  That was set in the Realms, so it is kind of fitting really. Plus it would help me flesh out some of the 4e Orcus arc (HPE series).  Not sure how I'll fit Hell into it all, but I might not have to worry about it.

I love the gonzo feeling of two worlds mystically crashing into each other.  I like that the place has some history to it.  Plus I really liked the 3e Realms book. This might irritate some long time Realms fans, but I think the Realms fits better with 3e and 4e.  Greyhawk is better for 1st ed and the like.  At least in my mind.

So maybe it's my age or something, but I feel I can finally sit back and appreciate what the Realms really are and not what I think or thought they were.  I have the main books/sets (for the most part) for all four editions of the game.  Honestly I think that is enough. People have done far more with less.

Here are my other thoughts in my introduction and use of the Realms.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/12/could-my-answer-be-in-realms.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/03/drow-should-be-lawful-evil-among-other.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/06/new-game-new-world.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/07/gods-of-new-game.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/01/church-of-lolth-ascendant.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/07/nothing-like-sun.html

Thursday, July 5, 2012

EN World Game Day

Please don't forget that if you are in the Chicago area come by and play Ghosts of Albion with the author (that would be me)!

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/325572-chicago-gameday-32-july-14th-sign-up-play.html

Saturday July 14, 2012.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Supporting the OSR (Sell me your game!!)

This link is making the rounds of Facebook right now, it is a good read and I am sure we have all been in the author's or the father's place before.
http://in-the-cities.com/2012/05/30/the-old-school-revolution-one-step-at-a-time/

Which go me thinking...

I like supporting the OSR.  Sure, I have bought the "same rules" dozen of times over now which would be under other circumstances insane.

Anyway not trying to ramble here (oops, failed that one so far) but I guess here is where I am at.

I plan on showing my support of the OSR at Gen Con again this year in the best way I know how.
With money.

The second way I know how is talking about it here.

So...If you are selling anything for the OSR or related products (like say dice bags with the OSR logo) at Gen Con then tell me here!  Go ahead and post something below.

IF you are not selling something at Gen Con, that's cool, post here too.  Let me know about your Kickstarter too.

I am not promising I will buy your product, I am promising though I will buy something posted here.
I'd like to buy it at Gen Con direct from you if I can.  Failing that I'll buy it from my FLGS.

Help me help you.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

In praise of your FLGS

I was talking with a friend yesterday on how we have both used Amazon to buy a bunch of gifts in past years Christmas.  I sat down to do it again last night and felt a twinge of guilt.   I had been talking to one of the guys at my local game store and he was mentioning how they are not moving as much product as in the past  (of a certain game) but he sees lots of people in the game area of the store playing the game.  Seems that many are getting their books from Amazon.

I see the allure, hell I have been the band leader in the past of the allure parade. Amazon is fast, easy and cheap. I can avoid paying the insane Illinois + Cook county sales taxes (which are some of the highest in the country). And going out to the Mall???  There are at least 100 good reasons to stick with Amazon.

Except I am loyal to my Favorite Local Game Store (FLGS).

You hear people of a certain age wax on about their favorite local comic store.  How it was a place of wonder to their young eyes and how it later it even became a place of amusement to older eyes (if Our Valued Customers is any indication).  Game Stores don't get quite the same press.

Well today I want to honor the Favorite Local Game Store and remind you all that to keep these places alive we need to purchase our products there.

My first local game stores were book stores, Waldenbooks, B. Daltons, and Belobrajdic's Bookstore. I detailed my experiences at those stores here and here.  They are all long gone now.
I am happy to say that my old home town now has a real, honest to goodness game store, "Off/On the Square" in Jacksonville, IL.  I picked up Pathfinder Ultimate Magic there recently to support the local biz.  Plus it isn't too far from where Belobrajdic's used to stand, so it was nice to be buying a "D&D" book in my old hometown again.

While in college I had the chance to be there the first years that Castle Perilous had opened in Carbondale, IL.  Great store and I purchased the vast majority of my 2nd Ed collection there.  It was great. I am glad to see they have grown over the years and are still serving Southern Illinois.  One day I'll need to go back.

But my first true game store and the one I returned to after college was Games Plus in Mount Prospect, IL.
When I lived downstate I used to mail order items from Games Plus I could not get locally; like the entirely-too-risque-for-central-Illinois Eldritch Wizardry or individual lead minis (back when they were lead).

When I moved to the Chicago land area after grad school, they became a place I could go too anytime I got out to the burbs.  When I moved to Mount Prospect, they moved to their current location.

To me Games Plus is the model of the perfect game store.  Huge inventory of thousands of games, books, minis and more dice than anyone will ever need.  Knowledgeable and friendly staff that can answer questions   and really enjoy the hobby; both as a past time and serious business.  It also has one of the best in-store gaming areas I have ever seen.  There is a certain feel of camaraderie and even brotherhood going into a room where eight groups of guys and gals across all social strata are here for the same reasons.  I play-tested Buffy and Ghosts of Albion there.  I run into ChicagoWiz there every so often.  It really is like Mecca for gamers; or at least the closest one to me.  Honestly there is not a single book I have wanted that they could not get for me.  They are better and cheaper than eBay.

The really nice feature of Games Plus is their Game Auctions, held twice a year.  It is a great way to get something rare and old for your collection, or unload something you don't want anymore.  You have read about my successes at the auctions in the past ([1], [2], [3]), so I am rather fond of going.

So if you are in need of a new game or gaming book, please visit your local game store.  These places are the starting place for so many in this hobby and they are a dying breed I fear.  Plus helping out the local business is helping out the community and keeping your neighbors employed.

To my readers: What is YOUR favorite game store?  Where are they, why do you like to go?  Post their url or FB page and share the love.  Don't have one?  Maybe you can find a new one here!

Links
Games Plus on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/GamesPlus
Castle Perilous Games & Books on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Castle-Perilous-Games-Books/142184075822321
Off/On the Square on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/OffOn-The-Square/329762308228

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Alas, Borders

I have waxed on about Borders and it's previous incarnation Waldenbooks before.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2011/04/o-is-for-otherworlds-club.html
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/09/reflecting-on-d-sometimes-you-cant-go.html

Sad to report that Borders is now facing it's final doom.

I will miss Borders, even if I rarely if even buy gaming material there anymore.

The trouble I think is the same reason why you don't see that many old-school record stores anymore.  The digital media revolution came and Borders did not change fast enough.  Yes there was also that revolving door of CEOs, and I have heard others complain about how the quality of the stores just went down hill.

I feel bad for the employees; this is a hard time to be out of work.  I still feel bad for the company too, they seemed to have been doomed really since the start of the 2000s.  And I also can't help but feel a tinge of guilt.  Sure there was nothing *I* could have done.  But I did choose to buy from Amazon and my FLGS instead, though my involvement one way or the otehr would not have helped Borders.  It will help my FLGS though.

I hate to see this happen all the same.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Noble Knight Games is really Awesome

I love my FLGS. I do.  I would rather buy from them for just about everything.
But every once in a while I find something somewhere else I want and I go with that store.

9 times out of 10, I get what I want.  But sometimes I take a risk and it doesn't pay off.
But then sometime the company I buy from makes it right and everything is great again.

Recently I have been going on about Quest of the Ancients.  I have a 1st Edition but not the 2nd Ed.  I saw Noble Knight Games had one for sale at a great price so I grabbed it.  Normally I wouldn't have, QotA is fun, but it's not great and I have the 1st ed.  Getting the 2nd ed would only be worth the satisfaction of my curiosity.  If I had seen at the store, I would have just spent a couple minutes flipping.
So I bought it anyway, knowing the risk.  And I ended up with a 1st Edition.

I contacted them and they bent over backwards to make it right. They didn't have a 2nd ed in stock, but they were completely awesome with want I did get.

I had ordered from them in the past and ALWAYS got great service and exactly what I wanted.  This aberration did nothing to make me think less of them.  Just the opposite, it made think more highly of them and I am more likely to order from them in the future.

I have a great local game store that can get me anything.  But those are planned purchases or stop in at the store and impulse buys.  Noble Knight is great when I am browsing on the net, come across a game I have never heard of or had forgotten about and then go over and see what it would cost.  If I like the price then I can get it.

So if you are unlike me and don't live within easy distance of a fantastic game store, then please give Noble Knight Games a look.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Finally got my Expert Set!

So here is a story and it is a familiar one.   Young boy in the early 80's playing Atari and listening to Thomas Dolby gets the gift that will change everything, the D&D Basic set.  Later, with his well earned and saved money he buys the D&D Expert set.  Life is pretty good.  Advanced books follow.  Boy becomes a young man and moves away to college.  Books are taken in some moves, left at parents in others, many years later that milk crate of D&D books, including those once prized Basic and Expert sets (and a crap ton of AD&D hardcovers) have disappeared.

Sad tale to be sure.

Well no more, because after years of looking (albeit not very hard) I finally got a decent looking Expert set.


The box has some wear, yes, but let's look inside.


The books themselves are in fantastic shape.  Almost mint I would go as far to say.

Much better than the one I had (bought a couple years back),


The box also had a near mint AD&D 1st ED DM's screen and a full booklet of AD&D NPC record sheets.

Of course now I have four copies of X1, Ilse of the Dread; three of them in near mint condition.

This was pretty much the last thing I wanted to buy.  Now my long lost collection is complete again.  Well, I don't have the Dungeon or Wilderness Survival Guides, but that's fine.