Conversely, I’ve never seen the hardcover. I discovered the soft back of TTB in 1984, and over the next couple years, Starter and Deluxe boxed sets and a smattering of LLBs.
Which Edition? Differences between CT and Mongoose
- Thread starter Baron
- Start date
Conversely, I’ve never seen the hardcover. I discovered the soft back of TTB in 1984, and over the next couple years, Starter and Deluxe boxed sets and a smattering of LLBs.
Yeah, inthe 80's getting books was hit-or-miss. I thought Bk5 was new in '85, until I actually read the copyright after purchase... It came in with Bk 4. My then FLGS wasn't very good. One rack, no boxed sets; what would later survive Anchorage's "Hobby Game Wars" was Bosco's and the Dimond Center Hobbycraft. The Eagle River Hobbycraft didn't even survive to those wars... too small for a decent selection of anything.
If your local game store didn't carry the magazines, you only knew about what they wanted to carry.
Funny, you seem to have had a better selection of Trav material way up there than we did in Cincinnati, which was basically just down the road from GDW (though I’m completely ignorant of how/where they printed and shipped, markets, etc).
We had King Authur’s Court, a boutique hobby/games shop which carried quite a bit of TSR products and the limited selection of Trav I mentioned above. And Dragon magazine.
By ‘86 we had D&D boxed sets and AD&D hard backs in the local department store toy sections and book stores, with Star Frontiers, Gamma World and other TSR games filling the shelves in the hobby/game shops. Still precious little Traveller tho.
A tangent, my grandmother found an AH game called Luftwaffe that she got for grand dad one Christmas but he wasn’t interested in it and gave it to me. Couldn’t find AH games anywhere until we took a trip up to Wright-Patt in Dayton and I scored Squad Leader and my buddy got Panzer Leader. RPGs took a back seat for a while, especially after we discovered Military Modeller magazine and Tamiya 1/35 scale WWII models.
Good times.
We had King Authur’s Court, a boutique hobby/games shop which carried quite a bit of TSR products and the limited selection of Trav I mentioned above. And Dragon magazine.
By ‘86 we had D&D boxed sets and AD&D hard backs in the local department store toy sections and book stores, with Star Frontiers, Gamma World and other TSR games filling the shelves in the hobby/game shops. Still precious little Traveller tho.
A tangent, my grandmother found an AH game called Luftwaffe that she got for grand dad one Christmas but he wasn’t interested in it and gave it to me. Couldn’t find AH games anywhere until we took a trip up to Wright-Patt in Dayton and I scored Squad Leader and my buddy got Panzer Leader. RPGs took a back seat for a while, especially after we discovered Military Modeller magazine and Tamiya 1/35 scale WWII models.
Good times.
People forget that Anchorage has been over a quarter million people since before 1980.
ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
Traveller was in all the stores in La Mesa, California in the mid '80s. Even in non-game shops like drug stores.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
There were two stores in Newcastle upon Tyne that sold Traveller stuff back in the day - Games Gallery which later was bought out by Games Workshop and Beatties the model/hobby store, there were actually two of them so technically three shops.
Then there was a place in Sunderland whos name escapes me that also sold it.
We were spoiled with Traveller goodies, including third party stuff from FASA etc.
Then there was a place in Sunderland whos name escapes me that also sold it.
We were spoiled with Traveller goodies, including third party stuff from FASA etc.
I bought AHL from "The Command Post" back in the day. I used to walk around Kearny Mesa mostly poking my nose in to every computer store they had -- and they were EVERYWHERE.
I got AD&D from a store in some mall near La Jolla.
Later, my go to game store was "The Game Castle" in Fullerton.
However, after one of local game conventions, a friend of mine drove around to pretty much every store that sponsored it.
Honestly, I think the only one that survives to this day is Brookhurst Hobbies, which is more a modeling store. I haven't been there in decades. My go to game store in the 90's was a model store in Torrance (now gone, who's name I can't recall, the name is still on the price sticker on my TNE book).
Heh, got an odd idea reading this line.
How about a threat race or org where they are some sort of hightech zombie/reanimator/clone leftovers-populated with nothing BUT chargen fails the players have discarded?
Particularly fun if the undead has it in for the live character the failing player has now.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Had to be 1983, then. I remember clearly when I bought it because I had just moved to the Dallas area and knew nobody. Me and my brother played RPGs that summer before school started, which was the 1982/1983 school year. I bought ST that summer.
Hm.. I had no idea that it was a new item when I bought it.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Nope. I've never owned the Deluxe Box. I owned the ST boxed set (still have it) shown in the pics above.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
I remember taking a vacation with my girlfriend back in the early 90's. I was already out of college and working with my first job. We drove down to New Orleans for a day and and a half, then I drove into Gulfport and Biloxi, looking for the casinos.
I got into a habit, during this pre-internet time, to check the phone book for game stores. I'd always try to make time to check 'em out and see what they had.
Well...
I had never heard for Zocchi's store in Gulfport, but I discovered it during this trip. I went into this amazing wonderland of RPGs. Zocchi's was a distributor with a store front. Shelves and shelves of RPGs and other stuff.
It blew my mind!
I bought the MegaTraveller adventure, The Flaming Eye. And, I bought the MT Alien Modules 1 & 2. And, I bought one of Zocchi's infamous 100 sided dice that he designed.
I never knew these items existed.
That was good times.
I got into a habit, during this pre-internet time, to check the phone book for game stores. I'd always try to make time to check 'em out and see what they had.
Well...
I had never heard for Zocchi's store in Gulfport, but I discovered it during this trip. I went into this amazing wonderland of RPGs. Zocchi's was a distributor with a store front. Shelves and shelves of RPGs and other stuff.
It blew my mind!
I bought the MegaTraveller adventure, The Flaming Eye. And, I bought the MT Alien Modules 1 & 2. And, I bought one of Zocchi's infamous 100 sided dice that he designed.
I never knew these items existed.
That was good times.
ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
Me, too.
Me, too. Worked at a few of them.
I think I got mine from Sears.
There might be one game shop left still from the '80s. But parking is terrible.
Heck, I’m in New Orleans right now. I see a short road trip coming on this weekend...
MichaelSTee
SOC-12
I grew up on Mississippi gulf coast (Pascagoula), but moved to Atlanta in '81. Found Traveller a few years later. On a regular visit back to visit family, I (like Supp4 above) looked up game stores in Gulfport/Biloxi and found Gamescience. It was great - tons of products, since Zocchi was a distributor. But don't bother looking for him now - he sold the distribution business.
Ah, thanks for the heads up.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Yeah, when I went there, it was, like 92 or so. I've heard that he has since closed the doors.
He sold off to Chessex.
Chessex then dumped a bunch of really old inventory onto the market.
ShawnDriscoll
SOC-14 1K
Knoble Knight Games sold a bunch of Zocchi stuff for awhile. Most is used by now probably. Still has Traveller dice though.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Too bad it closed. It was the most awesome game store I've ever visited. I felt like I had found Willy Wonka's factory, and I had stumbled across a golden ticket, to boot.
It was a gamer's paradise.
I don't remember the prices being too bad, either.
It was a gamer's paradise.
I don't remember the prices being too bad, either.
Zocchi would do history lectures in his own style at cons, I caught one.
He had some of if not the first ST game out, hardcore mini style.
I would have loved to see the shop in it's prime.
