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gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah, I mentioned this in the next thread, but the context of "OGL will allow all sorts of shovelware to be shat out" is different when you don't have any official products for the shovelware to outshine. It's a way for people to answer "well look at all these third-party products!" when someone pipes up about how there hasn't been an announcement for a new adventure/supplement in months. Well, since the DMG has hit, it's really no mystery regarding what it's being flooded with, and that's mostly micropayment crunch. Looking at it right now, the "Most Popular" products are: a gunslinger archetype, the "blood hunter" class (blood magic to fight undead, it seems), the "D&D Denizens" and "D&D Citizens" artless collections of monster statblocks (minstrels have a CR of 1/8th, apparently, so you can encounter a marching band standing watch over a chest in a 10' x 10' room), savage heroes (monster races as PCs), and it isn't until entry #11 that we see an adventure (and the first product on that list that uses Faerun at at all). But it's mostly monsters, with some classes / archetypes and the occasional adventure, a lot of which is PWYW but what isn't often seems a bit overpriced. $3 for like eight variants on a monster block with no art? Also notable at #20 is "Monsternomicon: Kyuss and his Faithful", which has somebody backdooring Greyhawk content in since it's appeared in Faerun. You know, I remember a Forgotten Realms adventure that tied in with Planescape... Maybe I'll do a more detailed look once we're a month in or so, but it'll be interesting to see if anything actually... well, interesting comes out of this, or if the store will just be buried in this generation's equivalent of Power Classes.
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Jan 14, 2016 21:12
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Evil Mastermind posted:I'm assuming you mean the Dungeon World Guide. Scrape printed out a bunch on his own and distributed to stores in the Boston area to sell. I know Modern Myths in Northampton had a few pretty recently. Did the Citadel finally close down? They were in Groton.
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Jan 14, 2016 21:21
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Thomamelas posted:Did the Citadel finally close down? They were in Groton. No, it's still open. I've just never been. Which is pretty dumb, because they're 10 minutes from where I work.
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Jan 14, 2016 21:23
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Evil Mastermind posted:No, it's still open. I've just never been. Which is pretty dumb, because they're 10 minutes from where I work. I haven't been there in 15 years so it may have changed but back then it was the prototype for bad FLGS. Poorly lit, crammed with stock, no organization. I'm curious if it still is that way.
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Jan 14, 2016 21:37
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Nah, the Citadel is still exactly like that. It's still fun to go to when I have an excuse to be in Groton just because they have so much stuff jammed in there, especially old and OOP games, but expect to spend a bit of time in there since everything's in giant stacks and piles and good luck actually finding anything. At least it was like that last I went, like a year or two back. They've moved to the much larger basement downstairs sometime in the past few years too, so it's even darker and even more crammed with stock but at least you aren't literally tripping over inventory. 
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Jan 14, 2016 22:00
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Asimo posted:At least it was like that last I went, like a year or two back. They've moved to the much larger basement downstairs sometime in the past few years too, so it's even darker and even more crammed with stock but at least you aren't literally tripping over inventory.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:04
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It's not as bad as it sounds! Just... mostly as bad as it sounds. Still worth visiting at least once if you're in the area just due to the sheer selection though. Also my mistake, it's actually the cellar a few buildings down from the old location, not the same one.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:30
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I'm reminded of a local store where I accidentally walked in the back door of the store and nobody stopped me as guys sat hunched over their computers playing something Blizzard-published in the middle of the mess, and it was a sea of pizza boxes, garbage, and wooden boxes with painted 40k armies with furrows to walk through. I walked from there into a room where boxed games were stacked high in no seemingly organized fashion, with the lowest boxes having been crushed by the weight. Some shops are just amazing that way.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:39
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Asimo posted:It's not as bad as it sounds! Just... mostly as bad as it sounds. Yeah, it's on the other side of the river from me. I should probably poke my head in there on my way home from work, at least.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:39
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I'm reminded of a local store where I accidentally walked in the back door of the store and nobody stopped me as guys sat hunched over their computers playing something Blizzard-published in the middle of the mess, and it was a sea of pizza boxes, garbage, and wooden boxes with painted 40k armies with furrows to walk through. I walked from there into a room where boxed games were stacked high in no seemingly organized fashion, with the lowest boxes having been crushed by the weight.  ... Definitely the piles of disorganized books and boxes though.Evil Mastermind posted:Yeah, it's on the other side of the river from me. I should probably poke my head in there on my way home from work, at least.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:42
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, since the DMG has hit, it's really no mystery regarding what it's being flooded with, and that's mostly micropayment crunch. Looking at it right now, the "Most Popular" products are: a gunslinger archetype, the "blood hunter" class (blood magic to fight undead, it seems), the "D&D Denizens" and "D&D Citizens" artless collections of monster statblocks (minstrels have a CR of 1/8th, apparently, so you can encounter a marching band standing watch over a chest in a 10' x 10' room), savage heroes (monster races as PCs), and it isn't until entry #11 that we see an adventure (and the first product on that list that uses Faerun at at all). But it's mostly monsters, with some classes / archetypes and the occasional adventure, a lot of which is PWYW but what isn't often seems a bit overpriced. $3 for like eight variants on a monster block with no art? Also notable at #20 is "Monsternomicon: Kyuss and his Faithful", which has somebody backdooring Greyhawk content in since it's appeared in Faerun. You know, I remember a Forgotten Realms adventure that tied in with Planescape... All that is old is new again. Long live the 3.0 third party bubble!
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Jan 14, 2016 22:48
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Asimo posted:The Citadel had no pizza boxes and garbage last time I went. If you're in the area, Sarge's Comics still has some RPG stuff. They have a few shelves of ancient D&D stuff, and last time I was there they had the original Star Frontiers and Marvel Super Hero box sets.
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Jan 14, 2016 22:58
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I'm reminded of a local store where I accidentally walked in the back door of the store and nobody stopped me as guys sat hunched over their computers playing something Blizzard-published in the middle of the mess, and it was a sea of pizza boxes, garbage, and wooden boxes with painted 40k armies with furrows to walk through. I walked from there into a room where boxed games were stacked high in no seemingly organized fashion, with the lowest boxes having been crushed by the weight. working in a store that has stayed open and expanded over the years by, you know, acting like an actual store, stories like this always blow my mind
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Jan 14, 2016 23:10
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Asimo posted:The Citadel had no pizza boxes and garbage last time I went. It's seems organized ish? There is a poo poo ton of games I haven't thought about in years. fake edit: HOLY poo poo THE HAVE A BUNCH OF TORG STUFF
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Jan 14, 2016 23:17
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Literally The Worst posted:working in a store that has stayed open and expanded over the years by, you know, acting like an actual store, stories like this always blow my mind 1) A money losing writeoff from a rich parent so their useless child has something to point to as a "job" (there was a magic/ccg store near me that was pretty much daddy subsidizing his son playing businessman. It stuck around a lot longer than you would have thought). 2) Something run as a labor of love (retiree always wanted to run a model train or fabric store, now they're living the dream). 3) Something that barely meets the minimal definition of "store" so the owner can buy hobby stuff at wholesale prices (I've been in more than one hobby/game store that was clearly just a front for a Warhammer club to buy minis and stuff at a discout). It's fun to look at unlikely little retail stores and try to figure out what their real economic justification for existing is.
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Jan 14, 2016 23:38
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FMguru posted:A non-trivial number of hobby-focused retail stores exist as: Yeah, I get the impression the store runs on having a regular crowd that helps support it, as well as a relative lack of competition. There was another local comic / book /game shop that was an utter mess and was rank with cat piss smell (I found a copy of Orcslayer there, which should give some indication how long it's been running), but it survived because his family owns that block of downtown, so they can make him happy despite his possible mental illness. He doesn't need to sell anything, just go through the motions of running a shop. They've been revitalizing the area, though, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten sold off yet. There are a lot of great, clean shops around, though, and these shops aren't the norm.
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Jan 14, 2016 23:45
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I like to imagine that somewhere there's at least one store that exists as a money laundering front. "Hey steve, isn't your cousin into that dungeons and pokemon poo poo?"
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Jan 15, 2016 00:18
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Since it's relevant to the discussion, here's a picture of Citadel Game's RPG shelves. See all that stuff? There's a ton of old out-of-print RPG books there going back to the mid-80's. However, about a third of what you see there is third-party d20 products. I think the entire middle shelf on the right was all d20 stuff. e: that said, the stuff they do have is all in incredibly good condition, and was more-or-less organized since they apparently just did an inventory. It was also pretty clean, albeit dusty.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:28
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Wow, dig those 70s library shelving units!
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Jan 15, 2016 00:31
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Evil Mastermind posted:It's seems organized ish? There is a poo poo ton of games I haven't thought about in years. Evil Mastermind posted:Since it's relevant to the discussion, here's a picture of Citadel Game's RPG shelves. And hooray, more TORG for F&F...  Error 404 posted:I like to imagine that somewhere there's at least one store that exists as a money laundering front. Comic shops have similar sort of dynamics there, but that's a hobby that isn't quite as small/dead yet so there tends to be at least a bit more competition that drives the more egregiously dingy stores out of business eventually.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:33
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Well, since the DMG has hit, it's really no mystery regarding what it's being flooded with, and that's mostly micropayment crunch. Looking at it right now, the "Most Popular" products are: a gunslinger archetype, the "blood hunter" class (blood magic to fight undead, it seems), the "D&D Denizens" and "D&D Citizens" artless collections of monster statblocks (minstrels have a CR of 1/8th, apparently, so you can encounter a marching band standing watch over a chest in a 10' x 10' room), savage heroes (monster races as PCs), and it isn't until entry #11 that we see an adventure (and the first product on that list that uses Faerun at at all). But it's mostly monsters, with some classes / archetypes and the occasional adventure, a lot of which is PWYW but what isn't often seems a bit overpriced. $3 for like eight variants on a monster block with no art? Also notable at #20 is "Monsternomicon: Kyuss and his Faithful", which has somebody backdooring Greyhawk content in since it's appeared in Faerun. You know, I remember a Forgotten Realms adventure that tied in with Planescape... I also spotted 3 books which were around $16 for about 45 pages each. All by the same guy.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:34
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Asimo posted:Oh wow, they really cleaned the hell up since last I was there. Before, the lights in back weren't working, the shelves were in disarray, all that sort of stuff. It's actually really nice to see them like that. Now I'll definitely have to find and excuse to head over. Also gently caress you for telling me about this place; it's like the stores I used to go to in the late 80's and I couldn't afford stuff. Do you know how much this place is going to cost me?  e: Now that I think back, I don't think they had any "indie" stuff like Fate or PbtA games. It was all traditional RPGs. e: All the books, even the 20-year-old stuff, was all in surprisingly good condition, which was a huge plus. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 00:38
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There's one store here that's owned by a guy who basically made a fortune in oil and retired to run a comics and games place. It keeps such odd hours that you basically have to call ahead to know if they're open and they may be closed by the time you get there anyway.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:42
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Evil Mastermind posted:Do you know how much this place is going to cost me? quote:e: Now that I think back, I don't think they had any "indie" stuff like Fate or PbtA games. It was all traditional RPGs.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:42
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Asimo posted:Oh right, that's why I don't go very often...
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Jan 15, 2016 00:48
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Evil Mastermind posted:Dicemasters: City of Doom  You are going to write it up for F&F, aren't you?
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Jan 15, 2016 00:52
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FMguru posted:You are going to write it up for F&F, aren't you? But yeah, probably.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:54
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Asimo posted:Yeah, it's a super groggish sort of store, in that I'm pretty sure the original owners were 70s wargaming types.
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Jan 15, 2016 00:54
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FMguru posted:The shelves and shelves of Osprey books definitely supports this. I cut my teeth on wargaming by getting roped into a game of The Campaign for North Africa there when I was 12. It looks like there is new management there which is good. When TSR still existed I worked in the Waldenbooks near by and we were a stop on the TSR Silver Anniversary Tour. And knowing their collection of OOP stuff was massive, I got the mall to offer them a kiosk right next to the store for one day for $100. In return I got an angry letter from them.
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Jan 15, 2016 01:02
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Thomamelas posted:I cut my teeth on wargaming by getting roped into a game of The Campaign for North Africa there when I was 12. It looks like there is new management there which is good. When TSR still existed I worked in the Waldenbooks near by and we were a stop on the TSR Silver Anniversary Tour. And knowing their collection of OOP stuff was massive, I got the mall to offer them a kiosk right next to the store for one day for $100. In return I got an angry letter from them.
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Jan 15, 2016 01:05
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Thomamelas posted:I cut my teeth on wargaming by getting roped into a game of The Campaign for North Africa there when I was 12. It looks like there is new management there which is good. When TSR still existed I worked in the Waldenbooks near by and we were a stop on the TSR Silver Anniversary Tour. And knowing their collection of OOP stuff was massive, I got the mall to offer them a kiosk right next to the store for one day for $100. In return I got an angry letter from them. Someone who's actually played in a game of The Campaign for North Africa  EDIT: In other news: https://www.burningwheel.com/?p=983 quote:We here at Burning Wheel Headquarters are proud and excited to announce that as of January 1, 2016, we have become the official publisher of Dungeon World and its future supplements. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 01:20
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Literally The Worst posted:It also took a giant court battle that was also partly about who owned the rights to Marvelman, and it's generally assumed that Marvel took a big truck of Disneys money to Todd Macfarlane in exchange for wrapping that poo poo up quick, once they had Disneys money. This is literally the first time I've ever seen anybody suggest that Disney paid anything to McFarlane, and considering that the courts consistently agreed that he didn't have a case at all, there wouldn't even be any reason to pay him when Marvel got the same result from paying Gaiman's legal fees instead.
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Jan 15, 2016 03:07
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Maybe I'll do a more detailed look once we're a month in or so, but it'll be interesting to see if anything actually... well, interesting comes out of this, or if the store will just be buried in this generation's equivalent of Power Classes. Well if someone was going to make a proper adventure I'd hope it would take more than a couple days. There could be a chance that crowd-sourcing in this way would have a beneficial effect on development like Murano glassmakers. A hope, not an expectation though.
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Jan 15, 2016 03:15
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Error 404 posted:Sounds like your place is the golden exception to the rule. Give them money to stay open.
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Jan 15, 2016 05:49
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MadScientistWorking posted:There are multiple stores and there is one that actually stocks stuff weirdly more exotic than RPGs. I only end up in that one more often because I usually play RPGs on Sundays there. Boston is a weird city in regards to gaming in a lot of ways. Most of the gaming stores are really good though I would say that one is more of a hobby generalist store than a gaming store. We have a relatively large game designer presence. We have a gaming cafe. Are we talking about Pandemonium Books & Games?
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Jan 15, 2016 07:35
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I hate you people, i live in rural buttfuck nowhere Ohio and i'm pretty sure there are 0 gaming stores within 100 miles.
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Jan 15, 2016 10:54
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Elfgames posted:I hate you people, i live in rural buttfuck nowhere Ohio and i'm pretty sure there are 0 gaming stores within 100 miles. That depends entirely on how far you are from Columbus, pretty sure.
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Jan 15, 2016 14:47
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Elfgames posted:I hate you people, i live in rural buttfuck nowhere Ohio and i'm pretty sure there are 0 gaming stores within 100 miles. Sounds like it's time to open your own mediocre money pit!
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Jan 15, 2016 16:40
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RiotGearEpsilon posted:Are we talking about Pandemonium Books & Games?
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Jan 16, 2016 05:27
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Mors Rattus posted:That depends entirely on how far you are from Columbus, pretty sure. bout a hundred miles or so.
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Jan 16, 2016 07:19
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