Bookshops and RPG's

[Carnifex]

In a town near to where my dad lives, there's an Ottakar's bookstore (Ottakars is a chain of bookshops in Britain, don't know if they are also in other coutnries). Anyway, I stopped in since I know they have a small but good section of rpg products, and only by sheer willpower managed t6o avoid buying the Warcraft rpg on the bassi of needing to conserve my money.

Anyway, the rpg section is a handful of shelves in the sci-fi/fantasy section, and at the end of the shelves section there was a noticeboard to whcih they had pinned a number of mini-guides to roleplaying.

It went somewhere along the lines of 'We stcok rpg products, and this has resulted in people askign us just what are these role-playing games?' Then there's a bit describing what an rpg is - I think they described it qutie well, considering it as a kind of interactive story that the group builds. They had an example of play from one rpg D&D I think, and advice on what genres of rpg were available and what books you needed for the various systems.

You could just take one of these mini-guides and have a read. I was really impressed by this, as it was a good, well-written introduction to the world of rpg's, and this was in a good bookstore chain too. I now feel I shoulda bought the Warcraft rpg just to give Ottakars some of my money for such a positive step for role-playing games!

Outside of specialist gaming stores, I've never seen anything like this in big bookstores. Has anyone else come across this kind of good treatment of rpg's in bookstores before?

 

[WayneLigon]

I've not been in a lot of bookstores in different parts of the country. Here, I've never seen such a thing. Was it in just that one store, or in all the stores of the chain?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

No, I haven't seen anything like that over here yet.

By the way, Ottakar's doesn't seem to have made its way over here. The big national bookstore chains here are: Waldenbooks, Borders, B. Dalton Booksellers, and Barnes & Noble.

 

[Carnifex]

I've not been in a lot of bookstores in different parts of the country. Here, I've never seen such a thing. Was it in just that one store, or in all the stores of the chain?

The Peterborough Ottakars is the only one of the chain I've been to for a while, so I don't know if they've done it in other stores. It looked of fairly good quality though and their rpg stock is usually pretty up to date, so I imagine it's also rpesent in other stores.

 

[Wombat]

The closest chain to me (Borders) carries a fair line of WotC, WW, and a touch of Decipher (LotR only) books, but only one person on the staff even knows what the games are; there are no guidebooks, certainly. Basically the books languish there. Oh, they've sold a fair number of the core books (3.5, V:tM, etc.), but beyond that they never know exactly what to stock or in what amounts.

Kinda comical, actually.

 

[diaglo]

we have specialty stores here too that treat rpgs rather well.

comic book stores sell more than just comics in the states usually.

hobby stores also tend to carry more than just arts and crafts.

heck we even have stores like Gamekeeper and WotC...well we did. but they aren't very good or friendly

and book stores. just like you mentioned. the rpg stuff is usually in the sci-fi/fantasy section if it doesn't have its own section in fun and games.

 

[Carnifex]

we have specialty stores here too that treat rpgs rather well.

comic book stores sell more than just comics in the states usually.

hobby stores also tend to carry more than just arts and crafts.

heck we even have stores like Gamekeeper and WotC...well we did. but they aren't very good or friendly

and book stores. just like you mentioned. the rpg stuff is usually in the sci-fi/fantasy section if it doesn't have its own section in fun and games.

We have comic, hobby and agem stores stocking rpg stuff here too, and often bigger bookstores have a little rpg section - but this is the first time I'd seen a big shop as part of a chain that actually bothered to go out of its way and *explain* what rpg's were, how to play them and what you'd need to buy in order to play them. You barely even see this kind of approach in gaming stores - if you walk into, for instance, Guildford Comics & Games then you're going in there because you're already a gamer/comic reader, so they don't go out of their way to give out introductory material.

 

[Davelozzi]

The big national bookstore chains here are: Waldenbooks, Borders, B. Dalton Booksellers, and Barnes & Noble.

And if I remember correctly, Waldenbooks and B. Dalton are owned by Borders and B&N, they're just the mall-size branches. I can't remember which owns which though.

 

[2d6]

Borders owns Waldenbooks.

 

[MarauderX]

I was just in Portugal for about 2 weeks and couldn't find any RPGs to save me. Nothing. Perhaps there were specialty stores or something cool like that that escaped me, but otherwise there was nothing in any of the bookstores. The cool castles and palaces more than made up for it though, so I can't be too sad.