Ben Calica

Ben is the owner of D20 Games.

Spend time with people on Friday, but Save the Date (Bucks) Black Friday/Small Biz Saturday

By / Leave a Comment / Main Page, Sale & Deals, Updates

If you’ve been a customers with us for a while, you know that every year I do the same stupid thing and try to get people to stop feeling the need to take away time on a holiday to friggin go shopping.  I know from the business side, taking advantage of being part of a great conspiracy (really, that is the correct use of that for once) to get consumer’s whipped into a frenzy is smart.  But it ain’t what we believe in.   So instead, I’m going to ask you to set aside some percentage of your fun gift purchasing to do with us.

We’re gonna be closed on Thanksgiving, but open starting 12 on Friday.  Our sales will go on for at least a week, so you don’t need to rush.

I’ll announce what the sales will be like on Friday,  and keep an updated list of goodies that we decide to add every day for the next couple of weeks, but I will give one big hint.  We’re gonna have a return of the mystery loot bags, and we have a really great set of new stuff to put in ’em,  A ton of great games, excellent magic loot bags and some great D&D surprises.

Some of the games to go into Game Mystery Loot Bags

I won’t tell you how much to send in our direction, but know, we will appreciate everything you can and will work like bandits to make sure you get as much fun per dollar as we possibly can.

And meantime….have a good Thanksgiving…whatever else has happened, we all have some real reasons to be thankful this year.

Oh, and I’d like to a propose a new tradition.  In addition to saying what you are thankful for this year, say what you want to be thankful for next year that you can help happen.  It matters more than we might think…

-Ben (Store owner guy)

Poster for Innistrad Crimson Vow Prerelease events at D20 Games

Crimson Vow @ D20 Games

By / Leave a Comment / Events, Main Page

What wears white, wears black, and loves the reds (but does not drink…wine)?

Upcoming Events:

All events are sealed using the prerelease kits (6packs, plus foil mythic or rare randomized promo card).  Make your best decks and win a pack, win a round.   If we have enough to do both, we will also do competitive on Sat am (More chance to win lots of packs if you do very well, but more rounds and the chance to win no prize packs if you don’t. Better for more expert players.)

Seating will still be more limited to keep things covid safe.  Masks and Vax cards are required.  Can’t have the under 12 year old’s  play yet, but we are getting close as they get a chance to get vaxed as well!!  The prerelease and release events are great chances for players who haven’t gotten a chance to play in person to come to a firendly, fun event where everyone is starting from scratch and no one “knows” much more than anyone else yet.  The best event for new players are the two headed giants.  These are two person team events, so as long as one person knows how to play, the other can get as much as they need from them, without feeling any pressure to know the rules right away.

Poster for Innistrad Crimson Vow Prerelease events at D20 Games

Innistrad Crimson Vow is the 2nd in a 3 block set! (been a long time for that).  If the last went to the wolves, this one goes to the vamps, including the (undead) man himself.  The Big Bad is taking a backseat to the Big Vlad.

​Here are the mechanics for the new set.

Return of Drafting @ D20

By / Leave a Comment / D&D, Events, Magic, Main Page, News

Hey folks….

A few event updates of significance..

  • Return of drafts for FNM
  • Two Headed Giant on Sat moves from 3pm to 4pm start time.
  • D&D is coming back…

 

Return of Drafting for FNM:Starting 10/22 we will experimenting with doing drafts again for Friday Night Magic.  We’ll be pulling out the plastic tablecloths (the ones we used for birthdays) so we can sanitize them in between rounds, and we will have everyone sanitize hands before they start drafting (and have a no drinks or anything that will get hands next to a mouth during the drafting process).  If I think this is going well, this is what we will do from now on.

We have also raised the price of the drafts to $20. (The packs have gotten more expensive and we have a much more limited number of players we can have for the events so we really need every dollar we can to start to clime out of the joy and fun of last year).  But I’m going to do this. For all of our old players, if you also were pushed to the limit from last year or just can’t afford the price increase, tell us at the counter and we’ll let you keep doing the old $15 for at least the next few months.

Two Headed Giants moving from 3-4 on Saturdays:

We’re shifting the time for the two headed giants back to the old time of 4pm, so it returns it to being more of a date night, evening fun activity. This really is one of our favorite events and we will be doing it consistantly to get it back up and running.  (Still have to have the 12+ age limit, but as soon as the vaccination for the younger folks comes in, we’ll happily open the doors to let them back).

D&D in person is starting back up:

This Sunday (10/24) is going to be Dan’s return to DMing events in the store.  The time will be 2-7 and will be limited to 7 players.  This event will be a 4 session run and should be good fun. This is for players with some experience playing, not a first time event. $20 pers session (and if you want to come to all 4, probably best to get tix in advance)

“We will be doing a Dungeon  Crawl into an Abandoned Dwarven Keep . Players Should Create a Level 5 Character using Standard array or the pound buy system in the players hand book.  Players will have standard starting equipment as well as any 1 Uncommon Magic item of their choice.  Any Player resources and books printed by Wizards of the Cost will be allowed including unearthed arcana.”

Starting in about a week we will start doing Weds D&D and after that, late night Saturday

Pokémon:

Pokémon continues to be in extremely short supply.  We are continuing to let 12 and younger kids buy 1 pack a day at the old 3.99 price so they don’t get totally overrun by the adults who are snapping everything up. I’m sorry for not having preorders for all the higher end stuff, but we don’t know until the last minute what will come in.  If you want Pokémon gifts for the holidays, I really reeaally recommend getting them now. The supply chain is truly messed up and hits this stuff hard.

Hope to see you this week and as always…seriously thanks for shopping local.

Ben

P.S.  We will be spreading out sales/offerings over November so we don’t have to get people to waste part of their vacation running around shopping.

Innistrad Midnight Hunt Release Weekend Events…

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Hey folks,

People are starting to (slowly) feel more comfortable stretching their in person legs and coming back to the store for in person events.  This weekend we are doing the Release Weekend events for Innistrad Midnight Hunt.  We’ll still be giving out extra promo’s and goodies to those who venture out to see us.  Oh, and we changed the age who could come to 12 and up, since we belatedly figured out that was the age that we can get the vaccine. (Vaccine cards and Masks are still the required way of the world)

We are having events

Innistrad Midnight hunt

More info about the set from Wizards…

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/innistrad-midnight-hunt-prerelease-primer-2021-09-15https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/innistrad-midnight-hunt-mechanics-2021-09-02

 

The in-store in-person dilemma…

By / Leave a Comment / Features, Main Page

(By Ben Calica, store owner guy)

Hey folks,

So we’ve been struggling with a problem. People were so excited about us reopening and doing in person events, that when we finally started doing them, we were a bit dismayed when they were so lightly attended.  We’ve been doing what we could to keep things safe, limiting the number of players, putting air filtration systems on the tables, etc. But we still were missing our people, in a way that was a bit of a head scratcher. First, I asked the other store owners on our Facebook secret handshake club groups how they were doing, I got a polar split.  A bunch of folks were having the same experience I was, and others were having record breaking attendance.  With a quick bit of digging, it turned out that there is an almost direct correlation between vaccine/mask acceptance and how well the store were doing.  Guess it isn’t really a surprise that the parts of the country that don’t take Covid seriously, are the ones who are packing their stores.  Sigh… So then I did some reaching out to our community to ask what was going on in their brains. The results were interesting.

  1.  The $^#$ing Delta variant.  A whole bunch of people are really concerned about the new variant and it changed them from “yay it’s actually over” to “actually, not going out to events with people so much for a while longer”.  It’s not V-Day, more like meerkats popping up their heads to see if it is safe and hearing something rustling in the bushes.
  2. Masks, glorious Masks:  I could understand this one, having just been to the movies for the first time in a year and a half.  We wear our masks dutifully when we are out and about, but the idea of spending our fun time wearing them as well just is too much for a bunch of people.
  3. Too much $$/where oh where did our drafting go? This one is on me and I’m not sure what to do about it? As much as I love magic drafting, the idea of passing a bunch of cards from hand to hand isn’t a particularly safe sounding idea right now.  So I decided that taking all the prerelease kits we couldn’t get to play with over the sheltered days would be a great solution.  Super fun and you get to build your own decks without touching anyone else’s. The truth is that I was going to need to raise the prices of the events anyway since it is gonna take a while for us to recover, and when we have smaller events, we still have to pay the same for workers and roof and stuff.  (My plan had been to set the new prices, but let anyone who couldn’t afford it pay the old prices for a little while.  Sort of a suggested donation thing.)
  4. You have to be this tall (age) to go on this ride…what about the kids?  This one is really killing me. Because the under 12 crowd can’t be vaccinated yet, we (and a whole bunch of other places) can’t have them participate in events.   I started the @#% shop to create a safe place for kids (and others) to be and learn how to treat each other with respect and kindness.  And now I have to say no to letting them into the store to play?  (That is the thing that makes me roiling mad at those who are proudly showing off their willful stupidity. They are creating this perfect training ground for new and more dangerous variants to grow and because of them, people who have been caring for each other and doing the right thing are having to suffer.  Grrrrr-that is the G rated version of what I’ve been feeling.)
  5. People don’t know things are happening again.  This one is also on me.  The rebuilding has been slow as molasses since all the contractors are out contracting, and I haven’t done a great job in spreading the word.   But we did for last month, so that isn’t the whole thing.  Still, don’t be shocked if you see me out front in a giant Pikachu outfit, spinning a sign like and Olympic twirling champion. (ok…that is not gonna happen… I look terrible in yellow.)

So what are we doing about all this?

  1. Keeping things small and safe.  I want y’all alive and well and us not being a vector for anything but good stuff.
  2. Always make it worth showing up.  If you sign up for an event and it doesn’t fire, count on leaving with some promos and/or packs that will make it worth the trip.  If this sounds like bribes to prime the pump, well, yeah…you got that one right on the money.
  3. Take suggestions to share on the most comfy masks. Hey, if we gotta wear ’em, lets find the good ones.
  4. Keep things regular:  Knowing that we are having certain events every week  helps over time.  For example, we are bringing back Magic two headed Giants every sat.  And we are going to bring back D&D. We might do online D&D as well for a while while this all gets figured out.
  5. Be patient with this.  It is gonna be a long, very difficult haul. but we will do what we must to keep making it through..
  6. Listen to you guys.  We need to hear what things work or don’t work for you.  That is the only way we can adapt to this weird world. (again)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hunt for Innistrad-Look what crept back in the night….

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Innistrad is back, so it is time to see what goes bump in the night!

Welcome back to Innistrad, a chilling plane of werewolves, vampires, and other things that go bump in the dark. Wanna read up on all the Innistrads and Outistrads of the plane? You can check out the Planeswalker’s Guide from our first visit right here.

D20 Game Events

Sealed event using the prerelease kits from the latest Magic Release.  Players can get their boxes of 6 packs to open and get to build their decks starting 1 hour before each event.  (we provide the land and stuff, so you don’t need anything more to play.)  We pride ourselves that  no one here will make you feel anything but welcome (we all started from scratch at some point).  

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/innistrad-midnight-hunt-prerelease-primer-2021-09-15

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/innistrad-midnight-hunt-mechanics-2021-09-02

D&D Epic One shot, Modern Horizons 2, and return of THG Fat Pack wars!!

By / Leave a Comment / Events, Main Page, News

Hey folks…

This weekend we have 5 most excellent events that we are gonna hold in as safe a way as possible and with all sorts of bonus goodies for those who attend, including a Special D&D event one shot event on Sunday.:

  • Modern Horizons 2 “Prerelease” (Sealed event using the prerelease kits that we’ve been holding since covid started), $60 in advance, $65 at the door.Friday 8/27 @  6:30
  • Two Headed Giant/Fat Pack Wars returns!!!  Sat 8/28 @ 3pm (We bring out the mystery box, and each team has a player reach in and pick a surprise pack for whatever Fat pack/bundle they get to use to build their decks together.) $30 in advance, $35 at the door
  • D&D Epic One shot, Lair of the Dracolich (up to three parties at different tables come from different places to try and survive to defeat something that will take all of them cooperating.)  $60 in advance, $65 at the door.  Extremely limited seating (only 18 max)

 

13+ and Vax cards required for all(and masks still)
As we’ve bemoaned earlier, a whole mess of people who’ve been talked into proving they have the freedom to lemming off of a cliff, have put us back to needing to be ultra careful.  To attend events here safely, you must bring proof of vaccine (and still wear masks).  I don’t mess with this stuff at all, so we will be very strict about this.  And I hate it means that the 12 and under kids can’t participate yet.  Really hate it. (probably why I’m extra grumpy about this.)

I know for me, going out to an event felt fairly nerve wracking, in delta land.  So we really will be extra careful.  Therefore, we’re gonna treat snacking like smoking….need to step outside if you need to breath outside a mask.

The good part…Goodies (10th anniversary style)

So everyone who attends events this weekend (and for as long as I feel like it), will get a ton of bonus goodies, from special promo magic cards for the magic folks, to mystery dice sets for the D&D participants.

 

Need to put 12 and under (unvaccinated) events on hold. (GRRRR)

By / Leave a Comment / Events, Magic, Main Page

A sucky decision to make:

I’ve been struggling with this for the last week, but a call with my competitor (friend) over at Games of Berkeley finally settled it.  It really bugs the hell out of me, but we have to put doing in person kid events (12 and younger), on hold for a while.  (I mean it really bugs me..it isn’t fair at all. We are still doing the 13+ vax events. )

The big problem is that the kind of events we do are designed to get people face to face for a while.  It is why we are having an extremely strict policy of proof of vaccination to attend the events, and even than, making the events smaller so there is more space between folks.  The numbers are that the breakthrough cases that end up in hospitalization or worse for the vaccinated is less than .004% .  The number of cases for the 12 and younger is way higher, but still small.  The problem is that the Delta variant is both insanely more infectious and delivers way more bad stuff per punch. (Like those scientific terms?)

Not inviting Covid to play.

And then there is the Antibiotic factor.  So remember how your doc says it is super important to take all of your Antibiotics when you have an ear infection or whatever of a thousand things that is good for?  The reason that they say that ain’t for you…at least not today.  It’s because they need to make sure that none of the bad guys are still sticking around, because they reproduce at an enormous rate, and in among those that survive are some that learned to thumb their nose at that antibiotic.  So next time they show up in someone, the meds don’t work anymore.  You don’t wanna give them time and body to reproduce enough to learn.

In this case, the body is the whole country/world. The more people who let covid have a place to grow and transmit, the more chance for mutation occurs, and suddenly something shows up that can get past the vaccination protections.  That is why getting vaccinated if possible isn’t just about the person, but not helping the virus a breeding ground for more, scarier versions.  The delta variant is, unfortunately, a perfect example of that.

Blowed up plan:

I thought that by separating the kids from the adults, and making sure the kids wore masks, that we’d be able to make sure that D20 didn’t do anything to provide a way for the virus to get more hosts to party down and grow in.  But the Delta variant changed all that.  It all but guarantees that if we have a set of unvaccinated kids sitting close enough to play, that it will show up and it will spread.  So we are thrown back, at least for the unvaccinated kids. It is totally unfair and sucks, and is unfair.  I’m gonna cancel and refund all the kid friendly events for now.  But I will do this as what I can do to make up for it.  Any 12 year old or younger who wanted to play in any of the “prerelease” events can buy a kit to take home to play with their buds, and I will add an extra prize pack to the order, as well as a random promo card that they might have won if they were here.

You guys know how I feel about you, and this is making me equally sad and angry to have to do this.  I’ll get you guys back in as soon as we can do so safely…. (grr)

D20 Games 10th Anniversary Events start Aug 6th…

By / Leave a Comment / D&D, Events, Main Page

Ok, somehow, some way, we not only made it to 10 years of me having the store, but we also managed to survive last year!!!  So in August, we are gonna party like it’s… (ok..a little like it was last year, cause we are having to go back to masks indoors).

Big note…we’re gonna keep the events sized nice and small to make sure everyone has plenty of room, so sign up fast, cause these will go quickly once everyone knows they are there. If we have a lot of people who can’t get in, we’ll add more events if we possibly can.

Oh…and one more thing before we move onto the “what are we gonna do for the 10th anniversary month”.  We did finally get the bigger loan (eep).  But that means that we are really in need of some great people to help us do some major improvements for the store.  That includes installing a serious skylight/vent in the place, a great interior design/set design person to help us make the place interesting and gorgeous, and an electrician that can handle a very confusing bit of upgrade on an ancient system.  (If you know of any great electricians that also love magic, I’m willing to do some amazing bits of barter so we can make it happen.)  We also are looking to do some high quality after-school programs, so we are looking for great people who can run D&D adventures for kids, and someone to potentially run a chess program.  These are D20 kids we are talking about, so we are really looking for top notch folks, and we will be doing full livescan/background checks.

So what are we gonna do?
  1. Magic–Every weekend is a prerelease that we missed last year.  (we have more than we can stick into only one month, but this’ll get us started.  We are gonna do 13+ events, Jr. events, and events that are carefully mixed.  Fun, sure…but also keeping safe.  And we are gonna do giveaways for just a ton of promo cards…all winners this month.
    We are gonna bring back one of our all time fav events, Two Headed Giants.  This team version of Magic is perfect for buddies, couples, and parent-kid combos.  It is a great way to get to share something that you (or your potential partner) loves in a very low pressure kinda way. These will be Saturdays, Starting at 3 pm.  These will be with each of the “Prerelease” events till the last of the month when we do the higher cost Modern Horizons 2 events.  For that THG Sat, we are gonna bring back one of our all time most popular events, Fat Pack Wars.  (Each team has a member reach into the mystery box and pull out a pack that matches with a Fatpack from up to 7 years ago.  We make sure the number of packs reaches 10, and they open all of those to make their two decks to play together.  These could be Born of the Gods to Strixhaven…its all up to the fickle fingers of whoever pulls the pack.) (we will be bringing back single sales in the next week or so.  We are also looking to start playing modern, commander, and standard as well, but those will start in a bit.)
    (Oh yes…in terms of FNM…we are gonna hold on drafts until the safety settles down.  In its place will be the sealed events.)
  2. Pokemon…We are just working on getting packs in stock for the kids to buy that aren’t snapped up by the adult collectors.  We will bring back the Pokemon league in a month or two when it is safe.
  3. D&D..we will start doing regular events again after this month, but we will do some special events for the anniversary, including a special all day event on the last Sunday of the month.  This will have 4 tables of adventurers all working to an epic battle together at the end of the event.  We did this once before, but it was back in 2013, so I think we are good to repeat it. 😉  We are also extremely well stocked on dice and D&D goodies that have been sitting there, waiting for people to come back in the store and find them, including full dice made of actual gemstone/semi-precious stone.
  4. Board games... oh my do we have a bunch of games we’ve saved up.  We will have some serious quick sales on games from Cover your Assets to Gloomhaven.  Keep an eye on Facebook and the D20 Twitter feed for our equivalent to Blue light specials.  (if you’re a kid, ask your parents.  If you are a parent and don’t get the reference, don’t tell me so I won’t have to admit my age. 😉  We will also be having a used board game mega sale, as well as a return of the mystery game loot bags.

All kidding aside, we are incredibly grateful for people having helped us make it through all this.  Now we will really need your business on the regular as much as possible so we can truly survive, and pay off the loans etc that let us make it through. And it really is important to try and keep the family/friend game night as much as you can.  For those of us who are fighting the battle of keeping people face to face, not face to screen, it was a tough year.  But there were some cracks in families starting to see each other again, so I’m a big advocate for turning the night you toss the cel phones into a basket and play together into a regular habit.

(If you need to make room at home for more games, consider donating them to the women’s shelter or any number of the hospitals, etc.)

I’ve missed the hell out of seeing you all!
Warmly,
Ben (yer store owner dude)
Here are some of the events coming up this Month…

 

 

 

In person events starting in August with 10th anniversary celebration!

By / Leave a Comment / Events, News

Tenth Anniversary Magic events…We’re gonna do the #$^#ing prereleases that we missed while we where bunkered up last year!  I’m also gonna be cracking out just a ton of promo cards and other giveaways.  The events are gonna be a lot smaller than they used to be, also to keep everyone safe.  Buy Tix here…

Because of the new variant restrictions, we decided to wait till the first week of August  to open up to in person events.     It also means that for the next month we are going to separate the vaccinated (13+), and the can’t be yet (12 and younger).  (And yes..you need to bring the vaccination card for confirmation. I know it is being overly cautious, but D20 will be a safe place, whatever we need to do, and hopefully people will figure out how to do the right thing sooner then later. Also mask mandates are back, so crack ’em out, wash ’em out and take ’em out (to us).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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