Game Store personality #113: "The Sidecar"

So there you are, knee deep in a Warhammer game with all your pretty minis marching across the table, and your opponent struggling to counter your thought-out strategy. Without warning, a stray customer or bored staff member drags up a stool, cracks open a new 2-liter of Mt. Dew and comfortably settles in to watch the remaining 2.5 hours of your friendly game.

He is "The Sidecar," and he's there to provide commentary, play-by-play and after-the-fact tactical advice only when things don't work out.

And by the Gods, I know this character well. He'll pick up one of my painstakingly-painted, and strategically-placed models and say "wow he looks pretty cool" and then set it down in a random spot on the table. First rule of gaming etiquette: ASK before you grab someone's item.

The second rule is obviously regarding the fact that you do not have an open invitation to take part in someone's game. I don't want your opinions, your comments, your advice. I don't come into your home, sit on the arm of your futon and say "whatcha doin?" And like most parasites, they are hard to get rid of. Engaging them in conversation only welcomes them with open arms. And ignoring them doesn't get the point across.

For this type of parasite, I always keep extra granola bars in my army case and I start eating them. This usually makes the Sidecar hungry. It may leave your table in order to satiate its appetite. But it may also have its own food on-hand, in which case, the hunger strategy fails.

And I honestly don't have a good backup plan.

D&D

If, after a long night of drinking Drano, I decided to throw my time and money away into a failing business model known as a "game store," I would call it D&D Games. The "D&D" would stand for "Dice & Deodorant" and would require everyone to bring both of those items with them in order to be allowed entry into the store.

The gaming industry is rife with stereotypes, but as we know, stereotypes come from SOMEWHERE. And as someone who was once paid to visit independently owned game stores across the country, I can assure you that those labels are right on the money. Not everyone who is called a "gamer" has a problem with hygiene, a few bad apples...

What's worse is the number of people who show up to play, and simply don't bring their rulebook or dice or tape measure (which they DO own), and ask the staff to borrow theirs. I was going to make the point that these people remembered to dress and feed themselves, and how could they forget the essential components to the very activity they planned to do that day, but I can't say that with a straight face. Some people BARELY dress or feed themselves before coming to the game store.

My next entry will focus on why I like to game at home.

You get my goat...

I only have a Bachelor's degree from the University of Akron, but if there's one thing I've learned, you can't bullshit the bullshitter.

So when the red-shirt tells me "Don't worry, the new 8th edition rulebook will make your Beastmen book make sense" I could see the company line buying its ticket, boarding the insane train, and start huffing down the track towards me.

Hey man, it's not that the Beastmen book doesn't make sense to me, it's that the book is a train-wreck! And no new rule in that 8th ed phone book is going to enlighten me on what a beautiful gem the Beastmen book must really be. Face it, this is (pretty much) how it went down:


(Nottingham, UK)
Scene 1, Studio Manager enters stage left, looking forlorn. At Phil (Kelly): "Did you hear about Andy? 'Is desk is cleaned out and he's not with us anymore."

Phil: "Oh drag, that's chav. Fancy a pint?"

Manager: "Nay, but we need you to collect his notes and finish the Beasts book."

Phil: "Blimey, I've got so much to do already!"

Manager: "Righty-O, well the rules are about halfway done already, so don't spend more than 15 minutes on it, 'coz we have to get it to the printer-bloke."

Phil: "Cheers, mate. I'll just put the ungors back on 20mm bases and call it a day!"

Manager: "Right, that'll do!"

(Three months later)

Me: O_o

Girl, you have such soft hands...

Girl…I see you giving me eyes from across the game store. Yeah, I know it, ‘cause I’m lookin’ right back. I see you leaning against the Bawls machine, while your Twilight t-shirt belies a voluptuousness that I can’t get back home. You picking up all that I am throwin’ down, babygirl?

Yeah but I’m hungry for something a little lower… around all those curves and past your jelly bracelets. I see those hands, those soft paws with little sausage-fingers wigglin’ at the ends. Girl, your hands give you away… you want to paint my army!

Baby you KNOW what it does to me, to see you laying sprawled on the floor of my studio apartment, prostrate with paint as you put love on a brush and give it good to my 40 clanrats with spears.

I’m gettin’ Frenzied just thinking about it.

And I know after a long day in the warehouse, I’m coming home to that finished unit…and to you, paint flecks on those sausage-fingers. Yeah, you’re on your back waiting for me… passed out on the floor next to that snack-size bag of funyons that we saved from the other day when we split that Quizno’s from next to the game store.

Girl, that clanrat unit looks so fine, and only another 40 to go. Damn baby, we make a great team. I throw down some squares and toss some dice, dishin’ out PAIN on the terrain. My opponent just standin’ there, lookin all fool. And I just smile cause I got you, girl, to paint all my armies.