Ya Basic! Trying To Understand the Perception of AD&D and the Sales of Basic

kronovan said:

Interesting. There were a few hobby stores in my area that carried them too, but they tended to be those that also sold figurines for miniature war gaming. Once the fantasy themed figurine brands like Ral Partha became available, they was a noticable uptick in the number of RPG books on their shelves.

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Correct, I remember they also sold WWII miniatures.

Later, a toy store started selling D&D. After that a young man opened a fantasy wargaming store which sold 1e Warhammer Fantasy Battle, hex & chits wargames, D&D and other RPG products. A cool place. We now had three venues selling D&D. That was from 1980 to 1983.

I moved to Montreal, the big city in 1984. There I found the 'Mecca of RPGs', with rows upon rows of Grenadier and Ral Partha miniature blisters. It's still open today. They survive selling board games. The RPG books section is very small these days. It used to be a 20 feet long bookcase filled with books from top to bottom.

Casuals pretty much.

Haedcore and forums are not remotely representative. Started having my suspicions in 2002.

Mannahnin said:

Did you run through the combat sequence step by step with BOTH sides acting in each step, as the example of combat implies, or did you have EACH side separately go through the combat sequence, one side doing everything and then the other side doing everything, as the rules instruct?

I've seen a lot of folks get tripped up (including me!) by that example.

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About 10 years ago, I played with a group that used the Perrin conventions (both sides going through each step). It baffled me because how are melee characters going to interrupt casting?

Sample size of one and all. My into to D&D was when I started college. Started with OD&D boxed set + supplements. Then on to AD&D. Our small by most standards college town was lucky enough to have a Game Store(actual name) that carried RPG, Board games, War games, dice, minis, etc. I don't remember ever playing any version of Basic. Played D&D, Traveller, SFB, a few others. I have hazy memories of sometimes seeing such things show up in 'main stream' stores like TG&Y(long gone), K-Mart, and the up and coming Walmart. It always seemed like it was a test amount to see if the store could cash in on the 'D&D craze' while avoiding irritating the religious folks that were preaching 'D&D is Satan's work'. (Buckle of the Bible Belt) Likely the store buyers looked at the list of things available and would pick Basic as a good test item. Probable that parents bought a set for their kids not knowing that the kids already had a nice collection of AD&D they had bought with their own money. This was toward the end of the Free Range Children era so kids often went places without fulltime parental survalence.

As for dice, still have few of the soft impact well rounded D&D dice. Some were sacrificed in an attempt to make metal dice(failed). My college Statistics class prof mentioned dice other then d6 but only used d6 for dice examples. Early 80s so D&D was still pretty new.

The Soloist said:

Locally, the hobby (trains & radio controlled) store was the one who sold D&D basic and AD&D. They didn't like it much but there was money to be made.

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kronovan said:

Interesting. There were a few hobby stores in my area that carried them too, but they tended to be those that also sold figurines for miniature war gaming. Once the fantasy themed figurine brands like Ral Partha became available, they was a noticable uptick in the number of RPG books on their shelves.

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Ja. That was one of the sales/market penetration advantages of the Basic/Expert and BECMI lines, that they were also sold in toy stores and big department stores. Though my local chain book stores (due to the Random House distribution deal, IIRC) and toy stores in the 80s also had some AD&D products and Dragon Magazine. I got my first issue of Dragon in a B. Dalton Booksellers at the local mall. I also got some D&D and other RPG products at more generalist hobby shops which sold a lot of military and other model kits, train supplies, paints, etc.

my reason for 'buying the boxed set and never playing it' was 'wandered into a toy store in the mall in 1980, saw a really cool display of gaming minis, figured out they were for a game called Dungeons and Dragons, saw the boxed set (Holmes version) moments later, bought it... then later figured out that most people were actually playing a slightly different game called AD&D, got the books, joined a group at the college.' All these years later, the box has disintegrated, the module vanished, but still have the blue rulebook...

The Soloist said:

Locally, the hobby (trains & radio controlled) store was the one who sold D&D basic and AD&D. They didn't like it much but there was money to be made.

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The Hobby Shop in the Bizarre Mall in Mt. Kisco, NY is where I bought most of my AD&D books. They had Tunnels & Trolls, but I don’t think Basic.

I bought my PHB at a toy store in my hometown.