View From the Bushes

I just got back from running to the local Albertson's. As it turns out, the route to Albertson's takes me by a gaming store, or as it appeared this afternoon, it takes me by what used to be a gaming store. In part, this is my fault because rather than going to Table Top Games (the game store in question), which is within spitting distance of my house, I would go to Hastur Hobbies. So it's not like I wasn't supporting an independent game store (though I order a lot of stuff from the ENWorld store) -- I just wasn't supporting the closest independent game store. But of course, the question remains: why? Why didn't I go to the one that was within walking distance? Well, it was all because of the mother.

You see, Table Top Games was owned by, or at least run by a mother and son team. Before I moved out to this area, I had friends tell me horror stories about the mother. Certainly I believed the stories, but I figured that it was a rare occurance; that you had to go by the store a dozen or more times before you might have a bad experience. It wasn't until I bought a house in the area that I had the occasion to swing by. I was looking for Relics and Rituals, so I thought I would try there. To begin with, they had never heard of it, and there were insinuations that I didn't know what I was talking about. There wasn't a smoking gun. They didn't swear at me, but there was just this attitude. What can I say, I never went back.

That doesn't mean that it doesn't make me a little sad to drive by the store and see a real estate sign on the outside. In general, I would like the game market to be as huge as possible, and to a certain extent when you include computer games it is already really big, but obviously as much as DireKobold relies on quite a bit of programming, it's not exactly the same thing. I'm hoping for an expansion of the D20 market. In reality there is some expansion, but mostly it's just gettin' crowded. Anyway, on that somewhat depressing note I'll end here.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross