Another Shot to the Head

[thebitterguy]

Occasionally, I want to have a copy of Unearthed Arcana. The original one, the first ed AD&D book.

No. That isn’t right.

I don’t want a copy. I want to be reading a copy.

I want to be standing in Leisure World in the Cataraqui Mall, a long dead store in a long dead chain (in a mall that needs way more parking) that sold a staggering variety of hobby products for a staggering variety of hobbies.

Leisure World took its mandate seriously. If you wanted knitting supplies, you could get them. Model kits? Yep. Next to the paint. Trains? Aisle three. Today it would probably be filled with scrapbooking supplies and quilting materials, although they probably carried those somewhere in the shop. I know that they were around long enough for me to get an Antiquities booster from them, but they fade from memory after that.

What I was concerned about, of course, were the RPG books. I got a decent amount of my older stuff from their shops. I’d get Top Secret SI books from them on occasion; I bought my copy of FREElancers from their Belleville branch once after I got my braces tightened. My orthodontist was Dr. Solomon, who received every year a Hanukah card from my dad. I believe he got the same one every year, since dad had a box of them in his office, but who really would notice?

I also shopped for a lot of Marvel Superheroes books from them, before I learned about Champions. I to this day think that Nightmares of Futures Past would be a kickass campaign.

But what I want is to be 16 again, standing in Leisure World, flipping through it and seeing the Cavalier and Barbarian and Thief Acrobat for the first time. I want to see all the gadgets. I really want to see the polearm chapter. I want to look at the Weapon Specialization rules again.

It's not that good a book, really. But occasionally I miss the time I saw it, and the person I was then.

Comments

[the-adzo.livejournal.com]

I used to have two copies, let me see if I still do. If you would like, you could have it to enjoy the memories...

so chock full of magical items and a cavalier class that was unbalanced... was that also where we got the half-ogre?

those were the days.

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

Half-ogres weren't in Unearthed Arcana. Gygax wrote them up in a fairly early Dragon magazine article, and they were reprinted in one of the "Best of" compilations.

I think the first time they made it into a sourcebook was The Complete Book of Humanoids for 2^nd Ed. AD&D, 1993.

[thebitterguy]

Yeah, the Half Ogre was in either BoD two or three. I wonder what happened to my copies of those, now that I think about it.

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was in BOD #1 or #2, kind of thrown in as an afterthought in another article, and then it was in #4 in its own article, "The Whole Half-Ogre."

[thebitterguy]

Sweet Christmas, man.

The half ogre was just a bad idea then and today. I've never seen one that didn't ruin the fun in a game.

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

I played a half-ogre once, and the rest of the party sure didn't seem to mind. In fact, it went over a hell of a lot better than when I asked my DM to let me play a German Shepherd with sentience and psionics.

Ah, youth.

[nottheterritory.livejournal.com]

There was a Leisure World in the Eaton Center - bottom floor (or it was then, anyway) hard up against the entrance to Eaton's itself at the north end. There's a little magazine / drinks /chips place there now, I think. Occasionally the magazine racks fool me a bit when I see them as I'm coming down the escalator and I get this little rush of adolescent enthusiasm, until I take a second look. Often times I've processed the fact that the store is totally uninteresting long before I can actually remember Leisure World and why I thought it might be interesting in the first place... but the memory is there.

Of course that's nothing compared to the melancholy I feel looking at the building that used to house Mr. Gameway's Ark, south of Yonge and Bloor... *sniffs *.

[thebitterguy]

I've heard a lot of awesomeness about Mr. Gameway's. Another thing I wish I could have seen.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Leisure World was the best. It was bar none my favorite place in the mall and the place I made a beeline to every time we went to Square One. I spent hours in that place. It had everything, model kits, balsa wood and foamcore for school projects, it was where I first got my RC car and my Warhammer 40k figures and any number of 1:72 scale military models. And I shoplifted from it like crazy, maybe that's why they went out of business!

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

There used to be two Leisure Worlds up in Barrie, one at the Bayfield Mall, and another at another local mall, and while I browsed the RPG stuff in both stores, I was loyal at the time to my then FLGS, Huronia Hobbies.

That being said, when stuff went on sale at ridiculously low prices at Leisure World because of stock overflow (I think I bought the module Castle Amber from them, and the Agent 13 sourcebook for Top Secret), I would buy it from them.

And yeah, I can get the nostalgia vibes you are emitting...

::B::

[papajoemambo.livejournal.com]

When I was 13 years old my Mom bought me this boxed set here:



at the Leisure World at the Carlingwood Mall in Ottawa, and everything, as they say, was much different after that. I also bought the original boxed edition of ESPIONAGE from Hero Games and the two TSR Marvel Super Heroes RPG boxed LEAD figure sets from them as well.

Leisure World was a great chain.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I got my copy of THAT above blue box D&D set from Shop-Right for just $9.99 in September 1979 when I was 13 as well. When Shop-rite (along with Consumer's Distributing, another Canadian catalogue store) was still in business.

::B::

[thebitterguy]

I have some of the MSH minis. Quite nice. I was never a good painter, though.

[tenzil.livejournal.com]

Nightmares of Futures Past was a kick-ass campaign. I ran it all summer, right after my freshman year of college.

[thebitterguy]

Cool. Did you go all the way to the end?

[tenzil.livejournal.com]

We played through all four modules plus tons and tons of spontaneous other stuff. It was great, huge fun, one of the most memorable campaigns I ever ran.

[absinthe-dot-ca.livejournal.com]

They don't actually sell games there, but there's a local hobby store in New Westminster (about 6 blocks from our new place) that really is a relic from bygone years. They have model kits, trains, rockets, doll house stuff, doll-making supplies, craft kits, etc., etc. The sort of place you don't find much anymore.

[fraidycatx3.livejournal.com]

Leisure World. Seriously.
That's the name of my Dad's Nursing home and that's one place you don't want to be.

[thebitterguy]

Really? Odd little coincidence.

[kinra.livejournal.com]

It's occasionally invigorating even to read it, in its present form, today. It's so full of vitality, promise, elitism, and a winking, inclusive smugness that it made you proud to care about what was inside.

I still have your mechanical pencil. When I bring it back, I'll bring you my copy of Unearthed Arcana.

TSSI

[(Anonymous)]

I absolutely LOVE Top Secret/S.I. and F.R.E.E.Lancers. The greatest.

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

Leisure World was the shit agreed!! However I would not like to be the same person I was back then...not at all!