I finally got around to visiting Tribe Comics & Games today. I'd first heard about the store in mid November, but at the time Life was raining great gobbets of flaming poo on my head, and I didn't have time to visit. Today, I took a small wad of Christmas money by the store and burned through it rather quickly.
It's a great little store, and we certainly need one down here, since gaming and comics stores have become rather rare in south Austin (motto: We're all here because were not all there!). It's only two months old so they don't have a big stock of older stuff, but if you really want that sort of thing, there's a great Half Price Books just across the street. The gaming selection at the Half Price is hidden beneath their music, but it's got a nice variety, including a number of 1st edition AD&D books.
Right now, Tribe has the major standbys: D&D 4e, White Wolf's World of Darkness and Exalted, and SJ Games' GURPS. The very friendly gent behind the counter said the turnaround on ordering games they don't have can be as short as 24 to 48 hours. They've also got a lot boardgames, miniatures games, and all the other sorts of things you'd expect in a store like that. And they've got a nice selection of mainstream and indie comics. It's one of the few places where I've asked for Finder and they've known exactly what I was talking about.
I forgot to ask if they did any gaming on the premises. The store seems a touch small for that, but I could see them moving a few of the displays around and opening up the middle area for tables. It's certainly not crowded, and as we've come to expect in the Austin area, the store is well-lit, clean and inviting. They were doing a steady trickle of business the entire time I was there, which bodes well for its future.
If you're on the south side of town, maybe eating at Kerby Lane South Lamar or shopping at Sun Harvest, be sure to stop by Tribe and check them out.
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We were in Austin on Saturday, ostensibly to visit some of the eateries from the show "Man v. Food" (if I had less sense, I would have gone for the Don Juan challenge at Juan in a Million, I ate two and a half Don Juans and felt I could have kept on going). However, while we were there I decided to hit the Half Price Books on N Lamar and S Lamar on your recommendations. (We didn't make it to Tribe or any other game stores in town, since my wife isn't a gamer and I knew at Half Price she could at least peruse the CDs while I looted the gaming section.)
At the N Lamar location I was pleasantly surprised. I picked up a copy of the Holmes rulebook (just the book), a book from the Flying Buffalo Catalyst series I'd never seen before (a book that's a catalog of rule- and game-abusive specialty products for adventurers, heh), Riddle Rooms #3 to complete my collection of those books and a copy of Grimtooth's Traps Too.
They had a fair copy of GURPS Horseclans, but I wasn't prepared to shell out thirty bucks for it. What really hurt my soul was that the Holmes rulebook was classified in their inventory system as "nostalgia"! Ouch!
I think somebody looted S Lamar, though. There was a 1e PHB, an OA, a decrepit DMG and one Fiend Folio falling apart. There were some interesting bits, but I left empty-handed except for a copy of a book I had been looking for that I have been considering sending to someone.
My wife has been dreaming about a return trip to "Hey, Cupcake!" sometime in the near future; where else in Austin is good to loot for gaming goodness?
P.S. My word verification for this comment was "resigil". How cool is that?
Yeah, the Half Price's are a bit hit-or-miss, but I usually see something interesting.
My favorite gaming store remains Dragon's Lair. I'll probably catch a little flack for this, because it's kinda cool among some circles to talk down the Lair, but it's the only brick-and-mortar I've ever been in that carries Dogs in the Vineyard. The store is huge, with a large gaming room in the back. The staff can be a bit hit-or-miss at times, as some of them are primarily comics folks and not so much into gaming, but they're always friendly, and the place is well laid out and excellent for browsing.
If you're looking for gaming goodness from years gone by, you've probably hit the best of it. The Half Price near campus used to be a great resource, but they've moved that store, or so I've heard, and I have no idea where it is now. Also, I imagine the kids selling off their collections there are more likely to dump 3.5 than Holmes.
- Brian
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