A Visit to the FLGS

Today was such a nice day I decided to spend lunch on a visit to the Dragon's Table, our Friendly Local Game Store. I've been up and down on the FLGS in the past, but today went fairly well. At least up until the point when I was ready to check out and the power went out on the whole block. I can't blame John (the owner) for the power outage, but he does get points off for refusing to look for the mechanical backup to his card reader. At least he agreed to set the item I wanted behind the counter until I came back tomorrow. Still, I shouldn't have to make a second trip. I will make a second trip though, because the item I wanted was the Traders and Builders expansion for Carcassonne, my favoritest German game. Assuming the weather tomorrow is half as good as it is today, it's worth the walk to get one of these. Especially since my sister has Traders and Builders and I don't. Such a situation cannot be tolerated.

I considered getting Fiery Dragon's Counter Collection III for my d20 Modern campaign, but it occurred to me that I may not have much use for modern counters outside my current campaigns. If I bought a set of fantasy counters I would know they would get used at some point, but I can't guarantee ever needed modern tactical markers after my UltraForce Omega and Home Team campaigns fold. This line of thought makes me reconsider my plans to get Green Ronin's Modern screen and various supers products like the Mutants & Masterminds Annual. The screen at least comes with d20M adventure, so maybe that would be worth the purchase. Of course, like every other d20M adventure I've ever seen for sale, I can find nothing that tells me what level range the adventure was designed for. That's very annoying and as far as I'm concerned completely unprofessional. Why is the pretty much entire d20M world like this? Level ranges have been on the cover of D&D modules since at least 1981, why can't these d20M people get this right? There are several d20 Modern adventures I'd buy over at RPGnow if only they'd deign to give me some clue as to the appropriate level range. Some of the free d20M adventures I've swiped from Wizards website are just a little too dark and gruesome for my tastes, so I'd love an opportunity to get some adventures from a different source.

While at John's store I pined over the collectible miniatures. Some days I'm really tempted to get started in one of these. Prepainted plastic figs are just so toy-rific. Between the superhero goodness of Heroclix and Star Wars and the RPG usefulness of both MageKnight and the D&D minis line, there seems to be a variety of these products marketed directly to me. Heck, if someone told me that the DC clicky line had figures for Black Vulcan, Samurai, and El Dorado I'd probably be fielding a Superfriends team in a heartbeat. And now that I own the d20 Star Wars game I could probably get some RPG use out of the 'Rebel Storm'. The other thing that appeals to me about Heroclix and Star Wars is the potential for using cool 3-D urban or sci-fi terrain. It was the kickass platforms and shit that really sold me on Necromunda all those moons ago. A lot of that sort of coolness can be recreated nowadays with snap-together kits or Microtactix paper models.