Things I Saw at the Tabletop Gaming Store

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ArbitraryC: Jan 28, 2009; Pick a number, any number; Pillbug

nutranurse posted:

i've always wanted to try out a tabletop rpg b/c i love reading sourcebooks and poo poo and it looks genuinely interesting, but gently caress me, no way am i playing a tabletop rpg b/c have you seen/heard/smelled the type of people who play them

Really depends on who you play with, but really not all people are like that. I played a lot of tabletop games in middleschool/high school/college. In high school it was mainly magic, the friends I played with were normal looking guys who all bathed regularly, couple were on the ultimate frisbee team so they were actually in decent shape from all the running. I remember there being the fat smelly dudes at gameshops or tournaments when we went to them, but everyone I knew who played magic was a bit asocial but not like unattractive or unsanitary.

College I got invited into a DnD group by a comp science friend but only showed up to play a couple times because the entire group was full of walking talking stereotypes. The nerdy nasally voice guy, the guy who looked like someone just dumped a bucket of oil on him his forehead shined like a greasy streetlight (he also clearly cheated constantly), everyone was really overweight except my friend and I. Perhaps best/worst of all is the DM was a girl that you could tall the entire group wanted to get with and made really creepy jokes to constantly.

Later in college after I had started smoking/drinking a lot one of the people I bought from invited me to play in their 2nd edition campaign they had weekly at Grindhouse. Grindhouse was a known partyhouse so I was surprised that my stoner friends a: played the game, b: played it in the place you'd go to if you were looking to do lines, and perhaps most surprising of all c: were playing 2nd edition. But yeah apparently all sorts love this game and even the people who spend their weekends pretty much entirely not sober like to light up and kill orcs and poo poo. I will say it's pretty surreal just playing DnD while the cops show up to break up a party going on in their back yard.

I think one of the things about nerd games is there's basically two kind of people who play them: people who just like the game, and people who define their personality/themselves based on their hobbies. The ladder stands out far more for obvious and tends to be where all the bad stereotypes come from, but there's plenty of people who enjoyed the game but weren't using it as a way to fit in with nerd peers.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 16:51

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ArbitraryC: Jan 28, 2009; Pick a number, any number; Pillbug

Chill la Chill posted:

On top of this stellar service is an insistence on using an MSRP that's nowhere near the price online stores have. It's not like their clientele is internet savvy or anything

Yeah there was a brick and mortar store I went to a fair amount with my then girlfriend (it was also a comic book shop and she was a huge dc fan), I bought dice and such occasionally but pretty much never bought any games because it's guaranteed to be at least 25% off msrp online if not more. I felt kind of bad about not supporting them but I really don't get how they could possibly charge more than people who have to ship the thing directly to my apartment.

Entropic posted:

Isn't MSRP usually significantly lower than what ends up being charged for a lot of that stuff?

Nah msrp is basically the highest anything will cost you outside of niche "convenience" fees (like vending machines or buying 10 dollar bottle of water at a festival). You know how almost every product on amazon has a slash through the original price and is like 10-50% off? That's because the msrp is always way more than anyone ever actually pays for the item. Some businesses actually function almost entirely off using this strategy to make it look like they're having killer sales, I've never seen an invicta watch that wasn't like 90% off for example.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 01:40

ArbitraryC: Jan 28, 2009; Pick a number, any number; Pillbug

naem posted:

"See my friends who like me are children want to play this game with army mans and, well there thwy are behind the counter"

** angry glaring **

"It's pretty expensive the game haha, um, yeah my friends parents have like a lot of money it seems like, I've only just realized how money works and well, here is $700 dollars"

** glaring **

"Do I, go behind the counter? To get the thing? Allow me to once again remind you I am a child. I have in my hand $700 I would like to hand you."

** GLARING, FARTY SMELLS **

Maybe I just got lucky but the guy who owned the game shop I went to to buy magic cards when I was like 10 was super nice and protective of my brother and I when we were there without our mom. I remember one time I wanted to get one of the larger packs rather than just the regular booster and referred to it as a box (because the boosters were in plastic wrapping while the bigger packs were small boxes) but he thought I meant I wanted to buy a booster box (36 packs around $150) and was like "no you have to be 18 to buy those" because he knew that was too much money for me to spend.

He also let my brother and I just sort of hang out there with customers on the pay per hour computer gaming things. I mean we were well behaved, but he knew we'd only buy like a buck worth of commons after being there for 2 hours so pretty nice of him on hindsight to be a sort of free daycare for my mom.

e: The shop I mentioned in my previous post was owned and ran by a cute older lesbian woman who was hugely active in the lgbt stuff in that area. Also a pretty nice place to go and just hang out with staff but I was less into gaming stuff in college so I didn't go as much.

ArbitraryC fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Oct 9, 2014

# ¿ Oct 9, 2014 02:09

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > General Bullshit > Things I Saw at the Tabletop Gaming Store