One Last Trip

That's right, another Line of Sight column about traveling. The good news (for me, and my air travel hating ways) is that I'm done now for a long time. In the past nine weeks, I've been to Indianapolis, Crater Lake, South Dakota, Virginia, Denmark, and Minnesota. I'm tired of traveling.

Really tired.

But my most recent trip -- brief though it was -- was a blast. I was invited to make a special appearance for Worldwide D&D Game Day at the Source Comics and Games in St. Paul, Minnesota. I flew in on Friday and was back by Sunday morning.

So let me tell you about the Source. Man, even if you don't know it, you wish you lived in the Twin Cities area. This is one of the coolest game stores, if not the coolest, I've ever been to. It's huge, and its selection is amazing. It has things I've never seen available in a store in the U.S. (only online, or at Gen Con or something). I mean, I'm talking about the complete range of Reaper Miniatures, as well as Confrontation (and the Arcana Unearthed miniatures, and every other miniatures line you've ever heard of). Tiny small press RPGs and all their supplements. A complete selection of German board games, wargames, and similar games. Historical miniatures and terrain. A huge amount of dice, battle mats, Dwarven Forge, Miniatures Building Authority... And that's just games. It's also got a whole room of comic book trade paperbacks, an amazing back issue selection of comics, toys, novels, collectibles, DVDs... okay. You get the picture.

But really, I'm still not done. Because the Source has a large gaming room in the back with enough room to run four or five games at once. It's equipped with a wide variety of drinks, snacks, and even sandwiches. And the staff is great: friendly and extremely knowledgeable about their products.

They turned Worldwide D&D Game Day into a two-day event. On both days, they had a big discount on D&D stuff, as well as free cake (two of them, each decorated with cool D&D scenes) and free root beer on tap. On Friday, they invited Dave Arneson (co-creator of D&D) and me to do a signing and Q&A session. On Saturday, demo games ran all day long (including a demo game of Arcana Unearthed run by Council of Magisters Tom Lommel) and the day finished with games run by some of the guys from the store, as well as one run by Dave and one by me. And to top it all off, the whole thing was in support of a charity to combat Lupus.

The store was packed. More crowded than I've ever seen a game store, and remember, we're talking about what I think is probably the largest game store I've been in. This was a really fun event. I signed an incredible number of books and met a bunch of wonderful people. A few readers of this website even asked me about Marley, which was nice. (I promise, we'll put up some more pictures of her soon.) The guys who ran the store treated me really well, and to top it all off I got to spend time with my friend Tom Lommel.

Back Home

But like I said, I wasn't there long. By Sunday morning around 11 (local time), I was already back home. While I was gone, however, Sue found out that one of my favorite authors, Stephen R. Donaldson, whose excellent new book, The Runes of the Earth, is finally out, was making an appearance at a local bookstore that afternoon.

So we went right from the airport to the store. Donaldson was, as always, pleasant and humble, two traits that seem unfortunately rare in publishing. As I stood in line to get my book autographed -- something I almost never do, because there's only a handful of people's autographs I would ever care about -- I thought about how nicely the experience tied the weekend together.

See, while some people might want to come to an event like the one at the Source to meet me, the real truth of it is, I'm just a fan and a gamer like them. Every time I'm at an event like this, someone invariably asks, "So, do you still play D&D?" My answer is always, "Of course," but honestly the question kind of disheartens me, because it implies that they'd be surprised to learn that I still gamed regularly. It implies that they assume I'm not like them.

But I am. I stand in line for autographs. I get excited when a good new fantasy book comes out. I'm thrilled to go to a great store like the Source (ask most of the people who were there, and they'll tell you they saw me on Saturday filling a shopping basket full of cool stuff to buy). I buy cool-looking dice. I look forward to my weekly game night more than just about any evening of the week.

My name is Monte, and I am a geek.

Photos courtesy of Tom Lommel

 

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