Welcome to My Game World, Part Four

    This week, I will be covering the other places where I have picked up my RPGs.  While none of these stores come close to the numbers as the previous three, each one holds a special place for me, albeit for differing reasons.  Here is the list, bulleted as always.

• Read-a-lot bookstore, Paintsville.  I usually make a pre-Christmas shopping trip around Thanksgiving.  Mostly before, be sometimes after.  For November 1998, that trip was to the Huntington Mall.  As tradition, we stopped off in Painstville for groceries and here.  I bought an exercise magazine and two books:  the Player's Guide to the Sabbat for V:tM and Mage:  the Ascension, 2nd ed (M:tAs), which would become my most favorite game line in the WoD. (I liked it so much that it was the only older rule book I tried to get back after the 2003 flood.) I would stop back here after every trip to the Huntington Mall, and whenever I could sneak off on my trips taking my mom to work.  I would look at their small selection, but I never could make myself buy anything.  I was just too unsure about wanting any particular book. However, after the 2000 pre-Christmas trip, I found out the store had closed.  I'm sure it was only a coincidence that one of the books I had been looking at turned up at Page 3 in a used condition, along with a bunch of other recent trade-ins.
• Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Lexington.  I used to make shopping trips around my birthday, sometime between mid-January and early February. (I have since moved these trips to late February to avoid the worst of the cold weather and to get early Easter treats.) The trip to Lexington in 1998 was cold, but otherwise clear.  That morning I picked up Changeling: the Dreaming 2nd ed (C:tD) as my next game line. It was the only one in color, at the time. (Turns out, all of the 1st ed books for the line had been in color. The treatment ended after this book came out.) The summer trip brought out the biggest catch ever with Beyond the Barriers: The Book of Worlds for M:tAs, my most favorite supplement of all time.  It was also the largest paperback supplement they ever published.  I actually had my mom drive much of the way back, just so I could look at my books [see next entry].   For my birthday trip in 99, I just missed hailstorms in the morning and the threat of rain all afternoon, but I was able to pick up three supplements for C:tD and W:tO that afternoon. The 2000 summer trip brought me two books for V:tM and the Revised ed of M:tAs, which Page 3 somehow missed for me again. It wouldn't be until 2003 that I would pick up any more books from here, as I was able to get a few replacement after the flood. The final book I would get there would be a CoD core book, Mage:  the Awakening, M:tAw. Again, missed order from Page 3. After that, the selection really started to wain, even before the books left physical stores.  I guess the employee who was into  RPGs, the WoD specifically, had left.  As of my latest visit there, they had very few RPGs, basically some stuff for D + D, and the books were shelved under reference and no with games.  Odd choice, but at least they had some.
• Waldenbooks, Fayette Mall, Lexington.  I had looked at a few WoD books here before, but it wouldn't be until they moved next to the Apple Store, that I would find something there in the summer of 98.  After getting Book of Worlds that morning [see above], I would get Wraith: the Oblivion 2nd ed (W:tO) early that afternoon.  It was the last of the first games that I needed to get.  I would look through it while my mom was shopping and trying things on. (I'm now the one who seems to be doing more of that nowadays.) In 99, my luck would continue, getting Wraith:  the Great War (W:tGW) in the summer and Hunter: the Reckoning (H:tR) at Thanksgiving. Again, missed orders from Page 3. After that, my luck ran out.  For while they still carried WoD through the end of the line in 2004, I never did find anything I wanted.  By the time of the Thanksgiving trip that fall, Waldenbooks had gone out of business.  I'm actually surprised it lasted so much longer than other sites.  I miss not being able to get anything to look at though, while waiting around for others to finish their shopping.
• Borders and BAM, Huntington Mall.  I'm combing these two, because neither one had that many books that I got.  When a bunch of store closed to allow Borders to come in (including a hobby store that probably had RPGs, but it closed before I started collecting them), I was thrilled that the Mall finally had a mega-book store similar to Joseph-Beth in Lexington. Sure, the smaller ones the Mall had were okay, but I thought Borders would be much better.  Well, it was, sort of. I would get one M:tAs supplement in the summer of 99, and another in the fall.  [I think I made extra trips that year to help mom look for a new dress for one of her 'off-year' reunions.] I would find other books, but I would mostly buy them elsewhere. The only time I had a great haul there was in 2003 when I bought over $80 worth of replacement books from the flood, the most I ever spent at a book store ever. (I may have bought a mag or two as well, I can't remember the full details.) When Borders went out and BAM came in, the selection remained about the same.  By then, I was pretty much getting everything through my store, so I was just there to see what was out.  The only time I actually bought something was in 2010 when I discovered the last books that were coming out physically from White Wolf. I had somehow missed the notice that they are out. I would buy one of them and looked at it a bit while shopping.  To this day, it is the last time I bough a book on a shopping trip.  As of the last time I stopped there, BAM still had a selection of RPGs, including some V5 books.  At least one of them had been there since it came out.  However, all of the books appeared to be first printings from the original publisher, not the current one.  How a store could still have books that are six years old, replenishing stock and not new, is beyond me.