Category Archives: Tabletop

Even More Useless

Posted by direflail on

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, I very much dig the neighborhood my new job is in. I almost fell over when I realized I’d somehow, for a month, overlooked the fact that a FLGS was right across the street.

I went in there for the first time today, helping a friend who played D&D years ago buy some stuff for his son, who was interested in learning how to play. I considered briefly having him sign up for the playtest, but I didn’t want to spook a brand new player with such things. I hooked him up with a D&D Essentials Rules Compendium. He wanted some adventures to run and some baddies to fight, so I suggested Monster Vault – a fine supplement I have used to great effect in my own game, chock full of stuff to kill and a low-level adventure.

We go up to pay, and the guy at the counter wrinkles his nose and goes “uhhhhhhh whyyy are you buying this”, pointing at Monster Vault. And I explain, my friend’s son is learning to play and these are starter materials. He wrinkles his nose harder, and says “I uuuhhhhh this is useless for a player”. I’m starting to get irritated, but I explain a little further. “He doesn’t have a group yet. He might DM or play, we’re not sure yet.”

This yielded an eyeroll, and an unprecedented LEVEL THREE NOSE WRINKLE. “This is even more useless then. I don’t know why you’re suggesting he buy this. Yeahhhh I dunno, I just…. I dunno….”

I thought about arguing, but I tried simply listening. No alternate suggestions or anything useful happened. Just “uhhhhhhh” filled with derision. This lasted for a good minute, laced with the finest awkward tension available over-the-counter.

There was a part of me that was curious what this guy wanted us to buy instead. That part was crushed by the part of me that wanted to scream “HOLY COMIC BOOK GUY STEREOTYPE BATMAN DO YOU HAVE AN ALLERGY TO THE MONEY OF CUSTOMERS WHAT IN THE NAME OF PELOR IS YOUR PROBLEM!!???!!?”

Instead, I simply said “I think we’re good. Let’s check out.”

I hope that guy wasn’t the owner. I am disinclined to return to that place, and that makes me sad.

 

Reliving the Dark Ages

Posted by direflail on

Tonight, we played Dominion (the Dark Ages expansion). I like that game, but I always get wrecked. It’s not like I’m the best in the universe at CCG’s like Magic and WoWTCG, but I haven’t wrapped my head around the continuous deck building and cycling like some of my friends can. Maybe if I played it more often, I’d have some strategies. As it is, I find myself only knowing what about half the cards do on the table, and then forgetting to read the rest until it’s too late halfway through the game. Still fun, though.

The Dark Ages expansion has some interesting mechanics in it. Lots of weird ways to trash cards and gain crappy cards to make deals for better cards. I bought a ton of Cultists and forgot to buy victory points before it was too late. (It was a nice change from buying too many golds and forgetting to buy victory points until it’s too late.)

We played a few games of that and sat around swapping old D&D war stories. Well, I should say two of us regaled the other two with old D&D war stories, because only half of us had played the game at all previous to this campaign. I hope they weren’t too bored. (I’d had just enough hard cider to not to care at the time.)

I find it endlessly strange and awesome that ten years down the road, it’ll be old war stories about our campaign they’ll be tossing around. Hopefully, I’ll still be there and then we can all bore the crap out of yet another person. It’s the circle of life.