Saving money -- sorta

[drcpunk]

So, a few weeks ago, I went to Neutral Ground, and saw various signs saying stuff on given shelves was 12-20% off. Mistaking which was which, I got stuff I thought was 20% off, but which was 10%, fair and square. Still, what the hey. I picked up Darkwood, a Robin Hood RPG, and Anaxial's Roster.

At home, I stared at the receipt, then called, trying to find out where the discount came in. The person on the phone put me in touch with the manager, Tony, who's always been a pretty swell guy. He confirmed that my math was not off, and that, for some reason, the discount hadn't rung up.

Now, he explained, it's a real lot of trouble to go back into the computer to fix this sort of thing, so, how's about he make it up to me with a one-time 10% off on any purchase?

I asked if that mean one item. He said it meant one -purchase-, regardless of number of items, and, hm, I'd bought 2 things, not 1, so, hey, make it a 20% discount.

This sounded reasonable. I figured I'd get the Angel RPG, which I was planning to anyway, and CoC d20, which actually looks pretty good, but I didn't want to pay full price for it.

Well, Neutral Ground is not the best at keeping current on rpg stuff, so it still doesn't have the Angel RPG. RPGs aren't its big focus, though Tony will order in anything someone asks for. But, as Beth put it, that seemed like cheating. And it meant I'd have to wait.

Yesterday, mnemex and I wandered around on New Year's Day, planning to meet my brother, in town with a broken leg, at the 34th street Express Bus Stop. We got off the #7 train at Grand Central, wandered up to Coliseum Books, and found that it was closed for the holiday.

So, we walked to Madison, to locate the 35th street Express Bus stop back to Co-Op City, then walked passed the Strategist, which was also closed. No real surprise, that.

Then, we went to Jim Hanley's Universe, which was open. Not actually a surprise. And, it had, as I'd kind of expected, the Angel RPG, with the Buffy PRG stuff. I figured I should buy it to reward the store for having what I wanted and being open when I wanted to shop.

I picked that and a comic book up, then we met my brother, and went to Won Jo for dinner. Fried dumplings, a seafood scallion pancake with shimp and octopus and stuff like that, barbequed beef, and a hwe moochim, which is like a hwe du bop without the rice -- raw fish, salady stuff, and spicy sauce to taste.

Then, we decided to do dessert. Serendipity III was closed, and would likely have been mobbed. Ferrara was open, so we cabbed there, but it was also mobbed. We went to Cafe Palermo around the corner. My brother had gelato with chocolate syrup -- ever notice how many places don't do hot fudge? I had a hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. mnemex and I shared a profiterole and a fruit tart.

mnemex put my brother in a cab, and he went to Stephen Tihor's to catch a game of Cities and Knights. I went to Neutral Ground to shop.

The store didn't have the latest Glorantha book, which I'd known was the case, but did have Hero Quest. I picked that up for mnemex so he won't have to keep grabbing mine. And I got d20 CoC, and, for reference, the 3.5 D&D Players' Handbook. And the Magic Box supplement for the Buffy RPG, which should work fine for the Willow RPG.

I brought all of this to the counter, deliberately passing on a couple of other things, and explained the story to the clerk. She got Tony, who rang everything up, with the discount. And it was over a hundred dollars. With the discount. RPGs have certainly gone up in price over the years. Made me really glad I didn't go hog wild.

So, that's probably my rpg shopping for the next couple of months. Well, I might break down for one or two specific things, but the ones I'd been looking for to date I've picked up. Got Armageddon, now that it's back in print. Got To Go, a campaign for Unknown Armies that I'm trying to figure out how to a) modify for my Cthulhupunk campaign and b) still use if I run UA for mnemex, Stephen, and Beth, when 2 of the 3 are in Cthulhupunk. I may be being overly ambitious here. Still, I modified the UA scenario Swap Meet in such a way that I could easily run at least the latter half of it again with the same group, and it would be different.

Anyway, I finally got to Stephen's. Took about 10 minutes to buy stuff. 20 minutes, maybe more, before a #1 train came to take me to 14th street. Then, after a long walk, about 10 minutes to get onto the wrong L train. That is, I forgot how the train ran, so let the one to Canarsie go by, forgetting that it was the one that stopped at 1st Avenue. Realizing this, I got on the one to 8th Avenue, which, after sitting in the station for about 10 minutes or so, maybe more, turned around, becoming the train I would have caught to 1st Avenue if I hadn't gotten on it earlier.

The Cities and Knights game was in full swing, remaining so until 11:30 or so, when Stephen really needed sleep and Dave really needed to go home. So, Dave headed out, and the game was set to end on mnemex's turn, regardless. The win condition was adjusted from 12 points to 10. But, on his turn, mnemex got not only 10 points, but 12, and felt that it was a cleaner win. Stephen and Luisa felt that this illustrated why they shouldn't be trading with him.

Anyway, this was meant to illustrate the dangers of saving money.