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I've got no complaint about the MTG customers, just the bizarre practice of serving them first regardless. They're no doubt the bread and butter of the store, but it still rankles.

clively wrote:
So.. you're old enough to drink and you have a job.. but you live at home? wow. Words just fail me.

Lots of people live at home until late into their 20's. Getting your own place isn't exactly easy.

Whats your point?

Stuebi wrote:

clively wrote:

Stuebi wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
@the shrouded lord & stuebi

Yeah I agree that some stinks are unavoidable, and while I don't profess to know the full situation with these kids, but from my observation they were all young enough that they would still be in school, probably still living with parents, and were dressed in clothing that indicated that they weren't exactly destitude, but they were old enough to understand personal hygeine and at least the basics of how to maintain it.

Underlying issues or no, if I was a parent, my kids would not leave the house smelling like that.

Agreed, my Mom flat out tells me if I smell. It can happen in vacation or on a long weekend involving a lot of drinking, but I shower before I leave the house, and im pretty sure my parents would chase me with a garden hose if I didnt.

Besides, I usually wonder if people like that...dont notice how they smell. After a hard day of work I usually notice myself that a shower is in order, so it just amazes me that people supposedly ignore the issue.

So.. you're old enough to drink and you have a job.. but you live at home? wow. Words just fail me.

Im 21 and still in my apprenticeship. Most people over here can only afford to move out once they got an actual job. Currently, I could only afford to pay rent and then i'd have to hunt rats for nourishment. But good to know that you judge with barely any background information.

I apologize for him. He may speak for a 40% of the population, but it's a 40% we try to ignore when we're having a polite discussion.

There's an unfortunate preconception among conservatives in America that being poor means you are lazy. Not unlucky, not young, not crippled, just plain lazy. We hope that someday they will educate themselves as to the REAL state of the average poor person... but it hasn't happened yet.

On subject... There was one time I was playing a blood bowl game at a store that had it's gaming area in the basement, and the sales floor on the main floor. We finished the game and went upstairs... only to find the store had closed and the clerk had forgotten to come down and 'kick us out.'

Fortunately the owner's phone numbers were easily found and we called them to let us out. They were so sorry... and I'm pretty sure the clerk found himself hunting for a new job afterwards because I never saw him there again.

clively wrote:
So.. you're old enough to drink and you have a job.. but you live at home? wow. Words just fail me.

So... You post for no other reason but to be rude to another person? Wow. Words just fail me.

Well, enough feeding the troll. This wasn't in-store, but on the local GW Facebook page. Right after the Death From The Skies or whatever it's called was announced, a customer asked for some information. The thread was deleted in the end so I can't give exact quotes, but the gist of it was that he asked whether or not this book was just a WD compilation, or had new contents as well. The store replied (incredibly unhelpfully) by copy-pasting the info from the GW site.

The customer said that did not answer his question and the whole thing turned into a 10-15 comment long thread of the customer and the employee arguing, where the employee argued that the customer had unrealistic demands on the staff for expecting them to know everything about new releases, and where the customer argued that a simple "We do not currently have that information" would have sufficed.

The page admin first made an attempt to clean up the thread by deleting some of the comments, but in the end the whole thread was deleted altogether.

It was cringe worthy, to say the very least. They often post stupid things on their page, but this particular one stays with me for some reason.

 Vulcan wrote:

Stuebi wrote:

clively wrote:

Stuebi wrote:

 Leigen_Zero wrote:
@the shrouded lord & stuebi

Yeah I agree that some stinks are unavoidable, and while I don't profess to know the full situation with these kids, but from my observation they were all young enough that they would still be in school, probably still living with parents, and were dressed in clothing that indicated that they weren't exactly destitude, but they were old enough to understand personal hygeine and at least the basics of how to maintain it.

Underlying issues or no, if I was a parent, my kids would not leave the house smelling like that.

Agreed, my Mom flat out tells me if I smell. It can happen in vacation or on a long weekend involving a lot of drinking, but I shower before I leave the house, and im pretty sure my parents would chase me with a garden hose if I didnt.

Besides, I usually wonder if people like that...dont notice how they smell. After a hard day of work I usually notice myself that a shower is in order, so it just amazes me that people supposedly ignore the issue.

So.. you're old enough to drink and you have a job.. but you live at home? wow. Words just fail me.

Im 21 and still in my apprenticeship. Most people over here can only afford to move out once they got an actual job. Currently, I could only afford to pay rent and then i'd have to hunt rats for nourishment. But good to know that you judge with barely any background information.

I apologize for him. He may speak for a 40% of the population, but it's a 40% we try to ignore when we're having a polite discussion.

There's an unfortunate preconception among conservatives in America that being poor means you are lazy. Not unlucky, not young, not crippled, just plain lazy. We hope that someday they will educate themselves as to the REAL state of the average poor person... but it hasn't happened yet.

On subject... There was one time I was playing a blood bowl game at a store that had it's gaming area in the basement, and the sales floor on the main floor. We finished the game and went upstairs... only to find the store had closed and the clerk had forgotten to come down and 'kick us out.'

Fortunately the owner's phone numbers were easily found and we called them to let us out. They were so sorry... and I'm pretty sure the clerk found himself hunting for a new job afterwards because I never saw him there again.

We have them over here. Their called Tories, and some stupid buggers voted them into power. So most people my age will not be moving out for a long time.

But back on topic, that was a great story Vulcan

clively wrote:
So.. you're old enough to drink and you have a job.. but you live at home? wow. Words just fail me.

College costs are climbing in the US and a lot of recent graduates are ending up back at home as their student loans are crippling. There's a lot of degrees that don't support a livable wage and compound that with the debt burden or lack of jobs and there's a lot of people who can only make due by moving back in with family.

I know a bunch of people in their 30's who have been forced to move back in with their parents due to losing a job and in most cases losing their home due to being underwater with their mortgage. One of my friends did a stint back at home with his parent for a year so they could pay for their wedding and put money down on a house. There's plenty of hard working people that have very practical reasons for ending up living with parents. It's hardly a rarity nowdays.

 Vulcan wrote:

On subject... There was one time I was playing a blood bowl game at a store that had it's gaming area in the basement, and the sales floor on the main floor. We finished the game and went upstairs... only to find the store had closed and the clerk had forgotten to come down and 'kick us out.'

Fortunately the owner's phone numbers were easily found and we called them to let us out. They were so sorry... and I'm pretty sure the clerk found himself hunting for a new job afterwards because I never saw him there again

*snipping the politics*

That sounds pretty awesome, a lock-in at a game store

So long as some food and beverages are available, I would have stayed the night, playing games until the wee small hours, having deep philosophical conversation to pass the time, painting the first person that falls asleep to at least a tournament-standard 3 colour minimum

And when the owner turns up in the morning and finds, to his suprise, the impromptu squatters in his basement, I would boldly exclaim:
'Well I hope you brought breakfast!'






for the non-UK folks, for whom I am unsure if their respective cultures have a similar custom, a 'lock-in' is when a publican chooses to follow the legal procedure of closing up &locking the doors of a bar/pub/tavern after the time at which his or her license prevents him from selling alcoholic beverages or remaining open for business, without first removing the current patrons, then continuing to serve alcohol, although not exactly 'above board', long into the night and well past the aforementioned closing time.

customer had unrealistic demands on the staff for expecting them to know everything about new releases

Is that not your job as a redshirt? Oh wait GW doesn't give a skaven's buttox about their customers silly me


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nothing wrong with living at home, there are simply too many people living on this world and with all the money I save I might be able to afford GW product.

It's not GW related (well, maybe one is) but I had a game store owned by a highschool friend's father many many years ago. I used to go there almost every day just to "hang out" and played Fantasy, 40k and the like there.

The GW-related story is a tournament that the store ran for WHFB (I think it was 5th or 6th edition), I want to say 1,000 points, with first prize being like $50 in store credit and second prize being like $20 or something. Anyways, the owner's son (who also worked there and dropped out of highschool despite being super smart because he felt it was a "waste of time" and this with him only having class for half the day due to work program) entered the tournament with a Brettonian army that consisted of a lord on a dragon (they could take 75% of the total points in characters at this time) and a unit of archers or something that hid in a forest. He proceeded to steamroll everybody in the tournament as nobody had the means to deal with a lord who was around 800+ points on his own (this was the days of "Herohammer"). Basically all the other players in the tournament dropped out because nobody could defeat him, but as I didn't care about winning I stuck around with a Vampire Counts army and ended up facing him in the final round; I nearly did kill his lord (using the magic power that dealt a ton of wounds without save, I forget its name) but in the end he killed my lord and the army was dissolved. So the end result was that he won store credit at his own store. I did come in second by default though.

Another story from this store involves the game Hackmaster which at the time was a comical parody of 1st edition AD&D (as featured in the comic strip Knights of the Dinner Table). The store was having several campaigns going on so I picked up the books to join in. What I found was that the son's character was higher level than everybody else due to people dying (Hackmaster always made a new character start at 1st level) and was basically treating everybody else in the group as his slaves. They would invite people to the group and, as part of the campaign, you got a free magic item of small value. They would then proceed to get the person killed and take the magic item. He even played a trick on a rather short-fused player by making him think a sword was a cursed sword that killed its wielder, and actually got him to storm out of the store threatening everybody.

Here comes the fun part: At the time the company that made Hackmaster had a special "club" for retailers that made them official. I posted on their forums basically asking for character advice as I had two characters die already and was treated like a slave by the owner's son's PC. I mentioned the store and someone who had been run off from the store chimed in to say all the stuff they were doing. The company then got involved and kicked the store out of the retailer association for undisclosed reasons. Then, a horde of people from the store came to the thread (including the guy who stormed out due to being tricked) and made death threats against me, my family, the other guy, etc. for getting the store removed. I was summarily banned from the store (I once was looking at joining a 40k club that went there and asked them to just casually ask about me, the response I got from them later was and I quote "Club or not, you are not welcome at the store. In fact, I wouldn't even stand across the street while we're playing"). The store closed down years ago though (and the one started from its ashes with the regulars closed as well), but to this day I remember how much of a storm it caused when all I wanted to do was get advice for making a PC that would fit in to the group!

Death threats? I would have passed those messages on to the local Police. One guy making angry threats over the internet is one thing, but an entire group of people who know you and would recognise you in person making threats of violence?

Definitely a criminal matter.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Death threats? I would have passed those messages on to the local Police. One guy making angry threats over the internet is one thing, but an entire group of people who know you and would recognise you in person making threats of violence?

Definitely a criminal matter.

I don't quite remember if it was just the one guy or the others (I know they were insulting me though). I was young at the time though, like 17 and a senior in highschool so it didn't cross my mind at the time.

WayneTheGame wrote:

Here comes the fun part: At the time the company that made Hackmaster had a special "club" for retailers that made them official. I posted on their forums basically asking for character advice as I had two characters die already and was treated like a slave by the owner's son's PC. I mentioned the store and someone who had been run off from the store chimed in to say all the stuff they were doing. The company then got involved and kicked the store out of the retailer association for undisclosed reasons. Then, a horde of people from the store came to the thread (including the guy who stormed out due to being tricked) and made death threats against me, my family, the other guy, etc. for getting the store removed. I was summarily banned from the store (I once was looking at joining a 40k club that went there and asked them to just casually ask about me, the response I got from them later was and I quote "Club or not, you are not welcome at the store. In fact, I wouldn't even stand across the street while we're playing"). The store closed down years ago though (and the one started from its ashes with the regulars closed as well), but to this day I remember how much of a storm it caused when all I wanted to do was get advice for making a PC that would fit in to the group!

Before I played 40k, I posted a LOT on the KenzerCo forums. While I don't recall this story, this does sound like something that would happen. LOL!

 kronk wrote:

WayneTheGame wrote:

Here comes the fun part: At the time the company that made Hackmaster had a special "club" for retailers that made them official. I posted on their forums basically asking for character advice as I had two characters die already and was treated like a slave by the owner's son's PC. I mentioned the store and someone who had been run off from the store chimed in to say all the stuff they were doing. The company then got involved and kicked the store out of the retailer association for undisclosed reasons. Then, a horde of people from the store came to the thread (including the guy who stormed out due to being tricked) and made death threats against me, my family, the other guy, etc. for getting the store removed. I was summarily banned from the store (I once was looking at joining a 40k club that went there and asked them to just casually ask about me, the response I got from them later was and I quote "Club or not, you are not welcome at the store. In fact, I wouldn't even stand across the street while we're playing"). The store closed down years ago though (and the one started from its ashes with the regulars closed as well), but to this day I remember how much of a storm it caused when all I wanted to do was get advice for making a PC that would fit in to the group!

Before I played 40k, I posted a LOT on the KenzerCo forums. While I don't recall this story, this does sound like something that would happen. LOL!

Once the threats and insults started the thread was deleted, so it didn't last very long (maybe a day or two) and no trace of it remains. The store was called Ground Zero Games though.

I remember hackmaster. was the first and only dnd style game I played. Couldn't keep any of my characters alive though. Mainly do to idiotic companions I think. Gave up after that.

 wowsmash wrote:
I remember hackmaster. was the first and only dnd style game I played. Couldn't keep any of my characters alive though. Mainly do to idiotic companions I think. Gave up after that.

My group was big time into the HMPA and HMGMA. We hosted a lot of learn to play events and hosted tournaments. Our last OwlCon tournament was the largest HackMaster event outside of GenCon (run by Jolly Blackburn and David Kenzer).

After about 7 years though, we got burnt out and switched to Pathfinder, which we like better.

I always wanted to get into that style of rpg but I can't seem to find a group of reasonable people. The ones I run across give me a bad vibe or they go over the top and want to go to the park and act it all out with simi-real weapons and costumes. I just want to gather around a table at somebody's place with some burgers and stuff and just have a fun game. O and have companions who actually do stuff rather than stare at each other for 15 min cuase nobody wants to be the one to touch a door.

 wowsmash wrote:
I just want to gather around a table at somebody's place with some burgers and stuff and just have a fun game. O and have companions who actually do stuff rather than stare at each other for 15 min cuase nobody wants to be the one to touch a door.

I had that for 13 years.

The few characters I did make died in some fun ways though. First one was killed by his own party. Second one drowned while fighting a dragon do to one of my companions deciding he would rather be in the boat with me rather than swimming to the dragon and fighting with the other close combat oriented characters which he was one. Since he tried to get it knocks me overboard mid spell. This happened like 4 times during the fight. And my last one was shocked to death by a door 10min in to the adventure. Nobody wanted to touch the door so after 15 min im like fine I'll touch it (healer). GM rolls to hit and crits a bunch. In short I died like 5 times over from the door.

Hackmaster started as a loving parody of 'old school' D&D, and some versions (I believe it was essentially a licensed reprint of an old edition + a bunch of extra material for a version or two) were really meant as a joke that happened to be playable. It's definitely a throw-back to the style of gaming that tended to be somewhat adversarial (mainly player vs. GM, but occasionally player vs. player) and was full of nasty stuff that doesn't fly in many modern RPGs.

I mean, 2nd Edition AD&D (which had already 'softened' a lot form 1st edition) you could still end up playing a Fighter with 2-3 HP at first level, so one hit would kill you. Until 3rd, 1st level D&D characters tended to be meat for the grinder, and whomever made it through could feel entitled.

Still, the easiest and often best response to a not-fun game is to not play it.

 bossfearless wrote:


Now, here's something interesting that not a lot of the store's customers apparently know (or knew, whichever). They sold porn there. Live action and Hentai. This store is so...odd. There are a couple areas that like nobody actually goes to, not because they're roped off or anything but because they're just off to the far end of the store, which itself is the size of a supermarket. You'd find some weird stuff, like porn on display and hentai comics opened up to the pages with the tentacle rape scenes, all the fun stuff. And, children being poorly supervised and naturally inclined to explore, would sometimes wind up in the sections where porn was housed. I'll let you soak that in for a minute. The porn section of the store was such an oddity. Combine this with the awkwardness of the average geek (this was before geek became chic) and the (completely surprising) number of very attractive girls who worked the register, and you occasionally had the hilarious spectacle of a stuttering ultranerd buying porn from a really cute girl, and all the awkward antics that go with it.

Thats actually hilarious. I think i'll go there. I must go there...

Somewhat related - http://scenesfromagamestore.tumblr.com/

Reading those posts, I've just got to ask one thing.

Is there some sort of massive underground Magic:The Gathering Crime Ring going on?

 Compel wrote:
Reading those posts, I've just got to ask one thing.

Is there some sort of massive underground Magic:The Gathering Crime Ring going on?

Considering the value of the cards and the ease of theft of a deck, I can see being careful in a larger city.

 Compel wrote:
Reading those posts, I've just got to ask one thing.

Is there some sort of massive underground Magic:The Gathering Crime Ring going on?

Massive player base and by their nature, cards are easily lifted items. Do the math.

 Dullspork wrote:
Somewhat related - http://scenesfromagamestore.tumblr.com/

That store owner sounds like a bonafide Comic Book Guy.

My local store had a manager about 5-6years back and he was so obsessed with making money we couldn't go in and have painting days even if we bought paint. We couldn't just go in for games even if we bought models or books. He used to whinge at us if we had a couple unpainted models on the table even though the rules of the game area stated (for those who remember bare metal weekend) bare models were permitted.

When i asked him what gives he said "you come to a store to buy stuff play games elsewhere".

The new manager will go out of his way to help you save moneywwhen building an army. He'll go out of his way to help new comers and veterans alike. I once bought 3 boxed sets and ran out of special weapons. On his lunch break he went home and came back with about 50 special weapons and asked what i wanted out of the pile. All he asked for in return was a few purity seals i didn't want.

Some stores turn good but there are some real a***holes out there

3rdGen wrote:

The new manager will go out of his way to help you save moneywwhen building an army. He'll go out of his way to help new comers and veterans alike. I once bought 3 boxed sets and ran out of special weapons. On his lunch break he went home and came back with about 50 special weapons and asked what i wanted out of the pile. All he asked for in return was a few purity seals i didn't want.

Honestly man, if I had a store manager/owner like that, I could probably still be playing 40k... Even as he's doing what he can to help his customers out by saving money, his ideas would inevitably lead me to have more ideas, which mean more modeling/painting/gaming, which means that money goes to him

I know what you mean. I just see it that i prefer to have a mate behind the counter instead of a sales rep. If i line his pockets its all good because he not only helps but gives me an opponent as me and him have had numerous battles against each other.

He's that good at his job him and i were the only ones in the store he looks at me and says "i want a break from painting i want to play LOTR". Now about 6-7 years ago i painted a batch of wood elves for the store for LOTR.... Their still there. So i say to him "damn i didn't bring any i only got 40k here" so he insists "we have elves, goblins, uruk hai and rangers painted for the demo games. Pick one we'll make 350point armies and have a game on the demo table for fantasy".... So we played, even through his lunch break he went got food and came back while he ate we gamed.

If more managers were like that i think we may have more hobbyists.

Another story. Up north from me is another store. This guys is the biggest c*** you will meet. He kicked a kid out of the store for "arguing" because he used space marines as red corsairs.... ORIGINALLY RED CORSAIRS WERE JUST SPACE MARINES WITH RED "X's" THROUGH THEIR ICONGRAPHY. When in this store i was refused service because i looked at ravagers and talos and ended up at the counter with a haemonculus because i decided to get some other stuff on the way home... Just because i considered a more expensive product he actually refused to serve me because i took a cheaper option.

This guy was sacked after (don't know if there rumours or truth) he received "numerous" complaints, apparently the most they've had about an Australian employee

3rdGen wrote:
I know what you mean. I just see it that i prefer to have a mate behind the counter instead of a sales rep. If i line his pockets its all good because he not only helps but gives me an opponent as me and him have had numerous battles against each other.

He's that good at his job him and i were the only ones in the store he looks at me and says "i want a break from painting i want to play LOTR". Now about 6-7 years ago i painted a batch of wood elves for the store for LOTR.... Their still there. So i say to him "damn i didn't bring any i only got 40k here" so he insists "we have elves, goblins, uruk hai and rangers painted for the demo games. Pick one we'll make 350point armies and have a game on the demo table for fantasy".... So we played, even through his lunch break he went got food and came back while he ate we gamed.

If more managers were like that i think we may have more hobbyists.

Another story. Up north from me is another store. This guys is the biggest c*** you will meet. He kicked a kid out of the store for "arguing" because he used space marines as red corsairs.... ORIGINALLY RED CORSAIRS WERE JUST SPACE MARINES WITH RED "X's" THROUGH THEIR ICONGRAPHY. When in this store i was refused service because i looked at ravagers and talos and ended up at the counter with a haemonculus because i decided to get some other stuff on the way home... Just because i considered a more expensive product he actually refused to serve me because i took a cheaper option.

This guy was sacked after (don't know if there rumours or truth) he received "numerous" complaints, apparently the most they've had about an Australian employee

Agreed on your first point.

But damn, that 2nd guy sounds like a complete fethball.

Shortly after I moved to the town I am living now, I found an Store with an Tabletop/RPG club attached to it. While I had many nice evenings, days or even weekends there. After the club virtually died off I started to go to another club next town led by friend of mine. One day they organized an Convention to promote Tabletopgaming in our area. One of the storeowners of the previous club agreed to come to the con to sell some stuff. He would get an own stand an everything.

Half an hour before the con started he informed the organiser that he wouldn't come but would send someone to replace him. The bloke came.... two hours to late. And brought alot of material with him, including a lot of used miniatures. So I was walking around the con during a break from demonstrating 40k and checked out what he was selling. I noticed that one of the younger club members bought an Dreadnought painted in an Ultramarine scheme that looked strangely familiar.

Guess what. In the clubrooms there was still a closet with miniatures people stored there. The respective Owners would have picked them up in a few days. But the Storeowner told his replacment that he should take the miniatures from that room, probably thinking that the minis where left for good (when he was thinking after all) I imformed the guy about that but he refused to giv the money back. Even after I informed him that the Dreadnought still belonged to someone. His Answer? The owner of the Dread should talk with the buyer if he want it back. He wouldn't even listen to the organiser/clubleader.

This incident poisoned the relationship between the two clubs for the next 8 months.