Earl is an LA-born actor/improviser that wants desperately to be loved. Hah, not really. He'll eat all your leftovers if you're not careful. He's done it before. Tweets at @earl_baylon. Earl Baylons at earlbaylon.com. Tumblrs at Nerdoholic.

brick-n-mortar

So, a little backstory. Sometime last year, I was on an insane hunt for a good mini to represent my Grey Elven Bladesinger. Grey Elven? What? Yeah, I was still playing AD&D 2.5 at the time. Haha I know, right? THAC0! No really, I liked it for what it was.

Anyway, I was looking  everywhere online and offline for a suitable mini.  For a while, I was scouring the internet, looking through old Ral Partha catalogues and stopping by my local gaming stores… but I came up zip. Zilch. Goose egg. Finally, I found this guy: Ian, Ivy Crown Mage, by Reaper Minis.

Could I have just ordered it online?  Yeah I could have. But then I would have had to pay for shipping. Worst of all, I would have had to wait a week or whatever for it to come in the mail.  No way, man. I wanted this bad boy pronto.

So, I started looking on the internet for more gaming stores in the area that I hadn’t yet heard of or hit up.  You know what I found? Hardly any.

First of all, what do I look up? What search terms? Board game stores? Gaming stores? I would just get video game hits. Wargaming stores? Tabletop Stores?Hobby Stores? Too non-specific. I feel like there’s not really a general term for a type of place that sells D&D, Warhammer, paints, polyhedrals, board games, and the like.  Maybe there is a term, and someone can enlighten me.

Whatever the case, I could not find a reliable, up-to-date listing of these places on the internet.  And, come to think about it, I always discovered a new place, not by looking in the white pages, or some other online directory.  I heard by either word of mouth, or because I happen to drive by the place.

Anyway. I figure we could do our small part to remedy that.  This post will be continually updated as we hear about more places.  It may even just transition to a permanent page on the site tabs. Who knows, depends on the response I suppose! Also, I’d like to add comic book stores here as well, but Agent Denise informed me, there’s already a site called ComicShopLocator.com, so maybe that’s unnecessary!  Anyway, here goes:

 

The Big Bad Database of Brick n’ Mortar Gaming Stores

Currently not so big and bad, but we’re working on it!  Would you like to give us the heads up about a store, contact us!

[table id=1 /]

Contributors: Mark Quinto, Jeff Torres, Agent Aaron Hoffman, Anthony Foronda, Megan Wilson

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