Quote from: Panjumanju on January 24, 2021, 05:09:41 PM
Even so, how do we expect to get new people into the hobby without brick and motor representation?

The same way I and thousands of others did, by playing at your friends house with your friends. I live in a city of 3 million people but I can count on one hand the number of places that you can play D&D in public. I don't see how brick and mortar stores can represent a significant percentage of new players.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on January 25, 2021, 10:18:11 PM
The same way I and thousands of others did, by playing at your friends house with your friends. I live in a city of 3 million people but I can count on one hand the number of places that you can play D&D in public. I don't see how brick and mortar stores can represent a significant percentage of new players.

Seconded simply not enough LGS to make a difference. I first played D&D not buying go to one I saw someone off in a corner at my high school reading the 1E PHB. The art really drew me in. Not to mention and maybe it's a sad state of affairs of our culture most are taught or simply go online to order everything and anything. If I decide to purchase the 5E PHB at 3 am in the morning I can go on Amazon and have it delivered to me door with Prime the next day. As opposed to waiting to the weekend or Thursday or Friday night to go to the LGS.

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 18, 2021, 11:22:31 AM

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on January 18, 2021, 11:12:19 AM

Quote from: Brad on January 18, 2021, 10:14:30 AM

Quote from: finarvyn on January 17, 2021, 11:45:43 AMOne guy ran a demo of a Conan board game and it was so neat that I bought a copy, and later I found out that he got in trouble because some of the stuff he was using was from a kickstart instead of from the store so he was told not to run demos any more if he couldn't follow the rules.

If true, this is probably one of the dumbest things I've heard of a store doing. Please, don't run games at our store that results in direct sales if you use something literally unattainable from the store itself.

Especially in combination with the fee to play.

I can understand the fee (though I think that varies by city - likely not viable in the cities where people are likely to have game space at home) but once you have the nerds paying to come hang out at your store, let nature take its course and they'll buy a decent chunk of stuff.

I've seen a place that had pay to play, but every purchase (books, minis, snacks, etc.) included credit toward this. If you wanted to play in store, regular buying habits made it essentially free. If you didn't,  it was a freebie you could ignore (it wasn't transferable though except on gift purchases, so use it or lose it). Worked well enough for that store for over 10 years.

I mentioned two game stores near me. The other one has a policy much like this -- it costs $5 to play at an Adventurer's League table, but right away they deposit $5 credit into your account so that when you buy stuff that credit can come right off a purchase. Essentially, folks who buy stuff get to play for free.

Last couple of days of our Support Your FLGS initiative. If something is of interest, we encourage you to pick it up this weekend!

I also want to say that I appreciate the publishers who have participated! We'll find more ways to continue working with local game stores in the future.

Just an update to say:
Ship to Store returns! With our January promotion ended, you can once again use our ship to store option to have RPG books delivered at discounted shipping to your local Canadian game store. Your friendly local retailer receives a 10% credit on all ship-to-store sales, and gets to see RPG products they may not have otherwise. This option is visible on check-out and lists the current stores we work with in your province. (We're always looking to add more too!)

In addition, for a short time, you can designate any Canadian FLGS to receive a 5% affiliate bonus on all sales (including PDF sales).

I hope folks will continue to discuss FLGS and suggest ways to support them in this thread.

Meanwhile, I've provided some details for FLGS and potential publishers over in this thread in the News & Adverts forum, and plan to add product details their semi-regularly.

Found the FLGS near me that I didn't think existed. Attended game night to meet folks. After years of playing with only friends and coworkers, I was a little shocked by how smelly the dudes were. I've been to Rainbow Gatherings that were were less odiferous. Come on guys, it's called soap.

Also, I get that nerds tend to be less athletically inclined than others, but if you're too heavy to roll a couple of dice without getting winded, it starts slowing the game down!

It was like a leper colony or something, where people only go when they have nowhere else that will take them in.

Are these "my people"? I felt very out of place.

I've always been a big proponent of shopping at my local store.  Though, the past few years i've cut cards with the devil and made my
peace with ordering online, i still prefer to go to an actual shop to buy things. 

Problem is, many years ago my beloved local shop (Pheonix Games) shut it's doors, and since then i have a fairly long drive to the Source
outside St. Paul for many years after, they had (and still do to an extent) a huge selection of comics, RPG's, wargames, print books and
hobby supplies.   Though over the past several years as the old guard who ran it have moved on, there's less and less there that i'm
interested in.  Since the hobby has gotten popular, a few shops have opened up much closer, and while they are OK if i need something
quick, i feel like a fish out of water there, heh, perils of being old.  I think they can SENSE i've never bought a pack of Magic cards in my life.

So it's probably going to keep me going on to St. Paul.  But hey, i like old fashioned Brick and Mortar stores, and it's still worth supporting 'em.

I'm guessing that partly due to the unknown virus of unspecified origin but the FLGS near me closed it's doors. So now the closest thing I have is down town and (never having been there) I don't know if it's trully an FLGS or it just sells some of the parafernallia: Dice, miniatures, stuff like that.

Quote from: Zalman on May 03, 2022, 09:43:17 PM
Also, I get that nerds tend to be less athletically inclined than others, but if you're too heavy to roll a couple of dice without getting winded, it starts slowing the game down!.

Years ago one of my players brought a new guy to play Alternity. As we were helping him with a quick rules overview and character creation, he looks over at another of my players and asks, "what's that on his arm?" I looked and saw nothing so I asked him what he meant. He pointed at the back of the player's arm. I said, "that's called a tricep."

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 04, 2022, 12:09:53 AM

Quote from: Zalman on May 03, 2022, 09:43:17 PM
Also, I get that nerds tend to be less athletically inclined than others, but if you're too heavy to roll a couple of dice without getting winded, it starts slowing the game down!.

Years ago one of my players brought a new guy to play Alternity. As we were helping him with a quick rules overview and character creation, he looks over at another of my players and asks, "what's that on his arm?" I looked and saw nothing so I asked him what he meant. He pointed at the back of the player's arm. I said, "that's called a tricep."

That can probably work in reverse too, right?

"What're those?"

"Moobs"

One of the best things about the FLGS is browsing and talking with people. You don't know what you don't know. Looking at shelves and flipping through books is the best way to discover games that you didn't know existed.

Quote from: rytrasmi on May 05, 2022, 10:45:24 AMLooking at shelves and flipping through books is the best way to discover games that you didn't know existed.

YouTube has been significantly more useful for learning about new games than browsing a game store ever was.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on May 05, 2022, 11:40:34 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on May 05, 2022, 10:45:24 AMLooking at shelves and flipping through books is the best way to discover games that you didn't know existed.

YouTube has been significantly more useful for learning about new games than browsing a game store ever was.

Sure, if that works for you great. As one who sits in front of the computer all day to pay the bills, that's not for me.

Awesome to see folks talking about FLGS again!

Quote from: rytrasmi on May 05, 2022, 10:45:24 AM
One of the best things about the FLGS is browsing and talking with people. You don't know what you don't know. Looking at shelves and flipping through books is the best way to discover games that you didn't know existed.

I can't agree more. I setup a table at a gamestore recently with the titles from my Marketplace and just talked to people coming through the store. It was fantastic.

I think some people also make the mistake of thinking that all local game stores will serve all hobbies. Most do CCG cause that's a cash cow (some ONLY do CCG, which I find odd), some have a ton of boardgames while some have very few, some do minis others don't, some also have comics, and some do RPGs perhaps only a few but some strive for a wide array. Those are the gems we all hope for.

Quote from: rytrasmi on May 05, 2022, 01:00:02 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on May 05, 2022, 11:40:34 AM

Quote from: rytrasmi on May 05, 2022, 10:45:24 AMLooking at shelves and flipping through books is the best way to discover games that you didn't know existed.

YouTube has been significantly more useful for learning about new games than browsing a game store ever was.

Sure, if that works for you great. As one who sits in front of the computer all day to pay the bills, that's not for me.

Both are valid. Generally I'd prefer to spend more time talking about games at a place like this or reading the game itself than listening to someone on youtube (but I do find myself doing so fairly frequently). Of course, I also do videos there on the games I carry . . . but a big part of that is trying to recreate you looking at a book in a store and reading a passage, showing what it's like inside etc.

Unfortunately not every game store allows one to browse the games.

The FLGS I sometimes go to has a few copies of RPGs to look through. The most are shrink wrapped in plastic. As it should be imo as it's a gaming store not a gamer personal library.

So like it or not YouTube ends up being the place to find out about RPGs for many.