Black Friday/Small Biz Satureday. Thanksgiving Sales: Relax…go play…we’ll be here- ;-) (Again)

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Main Page, Sale & Deals

Enough…Thanksgiving is for being with people, not shopping….

We are doing sales for the whole week through Dec 1st, so take your time.. Come in for Small Business Saturday, or another day this week. We are having extra hours this week and next, open at 10 am every weekday through the 1st. (Except Thanksgiving …closed for that cause I gotta make my Peking duck turkey, people).

However, We do need as much business as you can through our way because we have huge news….over the next 3 months we are going to be moving down the street to a new location that is 3x our current size. That means that we are gonna be able to offer multiple D&D rooms, much more play space, and not just one or two kid things after school, but full afterschool and summer program D&D (and, fingers crossed, Chess, Lego Robotics, and Real robotics). So I’m departing from my usual focus on minimizing sales in exchange for helping others, to use this time to put together some great deals to put $ into the make the new D20 special build out fund. (We will be doing a kickstarter coming up very soon…keep eyes out for that.) That means we have both good deals as well as the return of the famed Loot bags in updated forms. So far we have Magic Event at Home bags from Silver ($49.99), Gold ($99.99) Platinum ($199.99), and the one off Ultimate ($599.99). (Each one has amusingly more value then those prices). We also have a D&D bundle, as well as a full set of Dice Goblin Loot bags for those of us who realize that “enough dice” is clearly an statement made by the uninitiated.

We are Closed for Thanksgiving…Open at 10am Friday the 24th. Next week we will be open extra hours, Monday-Friday at 10am.

Black Friday =Family Friday—if you wanna come into pick something up and go home and play, great. But don’t stress about it.

Go play!!! Sure, I’m the board game guy, so that’s my auto suggestion, but go for a walk, hike, de-dust the football (and stretch first..those of us who’s memories of being 12 are a few times older then being 12.) But go goof with each other, and have some (gasp) fun! Relax, go back to the leftovers a bunch of times when no one is looking. Or just chill out.

I’m not saying we don’t want and need yer business. We absolutely do. Competing with the near cost prices of Amazon means that every sale from customers who appreciate that we are creating a home for community more then anything else is absolutely key for us. (So save some of your gift money to spend with us). But it does mean that I’m not going to make my sales last 45 minutes so you have no choice but to leave the house in order to get them. We’ll be doing sales all week , but we’ll base them on how many we need to sell at that price so, you can come in this weekend, or next week, etc.

Our big thing is to make sure that we listen and can point you to things that will actually be fun to play and make people happy. (And no fake reviews either. Ok…that was a little shot at Amazon…couldn’t help myself.)

Coming…list to a page of our recommended gifts for this year, as well as any other special stuff. But for right now, just think about special stuffing. (Ok…if you come into the store today, you can get some great games to play over the holiday.)

D20 Holiday Sales -Thanks-GIVING sale and Loot bags are back and…

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Main Page, Sale & Deals

This holiday we are doing three things.

The return of our Giving Sale (buy and we donate games to the Midway Woman’s Shelter*.
Mystery Loot Bags are back, and full of better stuff than ever. We got a bunch of great games from some of the stores that weren’t able to hang on by their fingers through covid that will go into making some truly great game loot bags, either at $60 or $100 each. Magic and D&D loot bags as well…check this space for more
Special prices on selected great board games In Store…

Gloomhaven $89.99 down from $139.99
Stuffed Fables -$49.00 (down from $69.99)
Lord of the Rings: Journeys into Middle Earth-$79.99 (Down from $99.99)

All deals are limited in number, not so much on time…they will be good through Dec 17th

Holiday Games

(*Many women need to leave in the middle of the night, often grabbing what they can. We find games that will be good for giving some mental respite and mabye a bit of fun for families in a frequently intensely tough situation. )

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

By Ben Calica / 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)

Thanksgiving-D20 Needs Help (biz) to make it to next T-Day

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Main Page, Sale & Deals

Yep…shockingly enough, this has been a tough year. We’ve been working super hard to keep afloat till things get to something vaguely resembling normal. In the meantime, this year, we need as much of your holiday business as you can spare.

Part of that is a good thing both ways. Instead of focusing on gifts to open basically at the end of x-mas, think about gettting some game to play with the family/friends during the time you are together (or needing something good to keep from missing what the holidays normally look like.) To that end, we’ve hand picked a number of games that we know will do the trick. These can be ordered online and curbside pick up is Tues-Sunday, 4-6 (0r more when we are around…you can always call the store to check.)

The big thing we will be offering/need to survive next year is monthly business. To that end we’re creating a number of D20 Clubs, for D&D, Magic and Family(friend) Game nights to join on a monthly basis.

Holiday Games (to play)

At home Halloween Creepventure Recomendations

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Main Page, Sale & Deals

Ok, we’ve had over a half a year of skeleton holidays and rain-checked birthdays and celebrations. And now we have to give up Halloween? Not on my watch, at least not having it be another disappointing memory. I’ve picked out a number of appropriately creepy, but more importantly interesting and engaging games, so we can give a good shot at transforming this from being another in the disappointment memory collection to being a night (or weekend) full of actual, face to face fun.

A bunch of these games are coop games to play with each other against the game, and a few are big, epic adventures that will be the game equivalent of page turners.

Oh, and one more thing. I know trick or treating is canceled, but every bag that is sold this weekend will come with a heaping (and well sanitized,) handful of Halloween candy.

(Besides…it will be good to have a break from the constant checking of the election polls.)

Email us at [email protected] to arrange pick up or drop off of your stuff, and I’ll be around from 12-5 Thursday, Friday and Saturday for pick up (probably more, but at least that.)

Preoder Ikoria Online…really…

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Featured Products, Magic, Sale & Deals

[NOTE–All Ikoria product is preorder to be delivered on or after May 15th.]

Oh man, do I hope this works… I’ve been working all week to get the webstore online so we could do sales for Ikoria in the middle of the duck and cover in place time.*
So here’s the deal. We are doing a combo of Curbside and Delivery when the stuff comes out on Friday mostly because we don’t really know what the rules are gonna be on a day to day basis. A couple of things:

Safety First…REALLY. We are doing curbside and delivery only…Don’t show up at the store to buy stuff. I love you guys dearly and do NOT want people hanging out in anything like a line at the store. The online store is hear so we can either drop the stuff off or come to the curb to the car and bring it to you.
We aren’t even pretending that we know what we are doing or will be able to pull this off without some sort of major “whoops”. Please be super patient with us, and if you are not sure if something come through or have a question, email at [email protected] and we’ll get back when we dig ourselves out.
We are doing Ikoria Loot bags, which are combos of stuff. These are based on the Magic loot bags we have already been doing, but upgraded for Ikoria only. The Silver is two Prerelease kits at $60, the Platinum is a booster box and two Prerelease kits and bonus older buy a box promos. We aren’t doing much in the way of discounts, cause frankly, we need every $$ we can get right now. Instead, I’m tossing in bonus goodies like promo cards and packs. When we get to some of the more significant loot bags, we are gonna say thanks for supporting us by upping the extra goodies levels appropriately. We appreciate every bid of business you throw our way, but for those with the means to give the store above and beyond thanks, including some very limited items. Any Diamond level or above bag (and the first 25 orders over $400) will get the exclusive full art foil Godzilla card. The Utimate Diamond Black Ultimate loot bag, for which there is and will only ever be one, includes, among many other things, the only one of the giant Garruk’s Axe (Nerf) and the 2017 SCDC Promo set with he Nicol Bolos print on a full uncut magic sheet.

Regardless of what you get, I do have a suggestion to make up for the fact that we don’t get to come play together for the prerelease. Take your prerelease kits and turn them into an at home sealed league. Then each day, give each person a new pack to open to add to their card pool. Each of those packs is gonna end up way more fun that way and you will be able to squeeze a lot more fun per pack. I want your business, but I also want to be able to give you guys something with some joy in it to do with each other during all this.

You can do the sealed with buddies over zoom to, but it requires one thing…the honor system for real. It’s way to easy to cheat without anyone looking at what your are doing so it is a great time to remember that the playing is way more important then the winning and loosing, and that being honorable is not just adding serious power to yer insides, but makes you someone other people like playing with.

Pick up your (loot) Baggage (bags) at the Curb. Our unofficial curbside service. And update of new stuff.

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Main Page, Sale & Deals

Here is the official unofficial way we* are doing things at D20 (for the moment) that is designed to keep everybody safe, give people a way to keep from going nuts that doesn’t involve screens, and trying to keep in business.
*(not we, ok there is really nobody here but me and the pooch.)

What: Mystery Loot bags and specific game requests, We have Game Loot Bags, Magic Loot Bags, and D&D Loot bags.

Where: delivered to your car or at a distance outside the door

When: Pretty much whenever I’m here, which is a fair amount. Just call and check (510-522-2109).

I’m not going to do regular hours because I don’t want to have any “time” I open up that might get more then one person hanging around at a time. Call first and I’ll get things ready for when you get here.

We are doing cash and credit cards and I’m rounding up the amounts so we don’t exchange any cash. To keep thing safe for everyone, no customers are coming in the store, so that means no singles, either buying or selling. Normally we spend a lot of time trying to help figure out what games are good for each person. I’ll do that on the phone if I can, but the real way we are dealing with that are the Mystery Loot Bags. Having said that , we are making some that are for younger kids vs adults and over, and if you let me know if there are a bunch of you or just two, I’ll see what I can do to help.

Magic Mystery Loot bags

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Games, Magic, Sale & Deals

Magic Loot bags for sealed fun!

- Silver Chaos Loot Bags: $50 (12 random packs—good for 2 person 6 pack sealed, or 3 people 4 pack mini sealed.) Plus mystery bonus $50-80 value
- Gold Chaos Loot bag: $100 (A pair of random prerelease kits and a mystery bundle. Plus a mystery extra magic goody.) $120-160 in value.
- Platinum Chaos Loot bag: $200 ( A booster box, fat pack, two prerelease kits, and an extra surprise worth at least $50)$230-270 in value.
- Diamond Chaos Loot bag: $500 ( A booster box, one of the Analogy sets, Archenemy, 4 prerelease kits, 4 brawl decks and a Conspiracy booster box, and whatever else I decide to toss in.) $550-800 value

As usual, call first to make sure I’m around . We (I) will get ready to bring it for curbside when you get here. Hours are whenever I’m here, so just call.

D&D Loot Bags

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / D&D, Sale & Deals

New Mystery Loot Bags—D&D this time.

Mini Paint bag ($50)		Nolzur’s Mavelous Adventurers Paint set (10 paints), Extra brush kit, Bonus Figures (6-8)
Big Mini Paint Bag ($100)		Everything above, but with a 36 paints set and extra bonus mini’s to paint. Limited Quantity .
D&D Everything You Need ($200)		Everything you need to play D&D. All three of the big box, plus the Essentials Kit with an adventure, DM screen, dice and more. Plus an extra surprise or two.
D&D themed game loot bags ($75)		Any of these games plus more (at lest $100 in retail value) for this D&D themed Mystery game Loot Bag.

As usual, call first to make sure I’m around and we will get ready to bring it for curbside when you get here.

Post Apocalyptic D20 Update-Week 2 Mystery Loot Bags (and more)

By Ben Calica / Leave a Comment / Sale & Deals, Updates

Hey folks,

Trying to keep things (me) from drifting off into the timeless aether. I can’t tell you how much I miss seeing people in person.

First off…as a fellow owner of a game store, I need to say something about Gamestop’s decision to stay open with the argument that we were “essential” businesses. NO!…No, no, no, no, stop complaining you utter irresponsible whiners, NO! Ok, look, I understand the panic of wondering if your business can survive this kind of thing. I get those feelings too. But if someone came up to me today and said that my folks were sick and the only way to keep them alive was to close the store for a month or two, I wouldn’t even think about it. So if we need to get bored out of our skin in order to keep this from spreading to even one unnecessary grandma or grandpa, then we’re doing it, even if it puts the business at risk.

Having said that, we are gonna try and do some things to both help folks from getting too stir crazy and to see if we can find some rent money under the cushions. We are doing “knock up” business…basically knock on the door if the light are on or call before you come and we can come out to the curb. Since we can’t have people do browsing, what we can do is bring stuff to the door. So that means Specific games if we have them in stock or the next batch of our mystery loot bags. The bags are $60-tax included, and have between $80-120 retail worth of games.

Just to be very clear about the nature of these bags. They are currently the vast majority of our business, and even that like a 10th of our normal business. We really appreciate the concern for our survival and will need the help, IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT. For those customers who are struggling too, reach out to us. The other purpose of the loot bags are to give us a chance to keep from going stir crazy without the mental bad side effects that can creep in with too much screen/phone time. If you are in $$ trouble too, reach out to me. I’m going to put together some bags for our customers who are hurting too, and for those, pay what you can, and if that is nothing, talk to me. Normally we’d all be helping each other out, but in this instance, I’m the one with unopened, uncontaminated stuff. The one cavet in that if you can’t afford $$, just pay it back in kindness. And this isn’t true for most of my customers but I gotta say this anyway, I’ll only have a limited number of the kindness bags, so make sure they are there for folks who need ’em. We need to count on each other right now, so small does of do the right thing go a long way.

I’m also working on variations to the loot bags. These will include:

Magic Loot bags for sealed fun.-
- Silver Chaos Loot Bags: $50 (12 random packs—good for 2 person 6 pack sealed, or 3 people 4 pack mini sealed.) Plus mystery bonus $50-80 value
- Gold Chaos Loot bag: $100 (A pair of random prerelease kits and a mystery bundle. Plus a mystery extra magic goody.) $120-160 in value.
- Platinum Chaos Loot bag: $200 ( A booster box, fat pack, two prerelease kits, and an extra surprise worth at least $50)$230-270 in value.
- Diamond Chaos Loot bag: $500 ( A booster box, one of the Analogy sets, Archenemy, 4 prerelease kits, 4 brawl decks and a Conspiracy booster box, and whatever else I decide to toss in.) $550-800 value

And for D&D folks, we got all the basic books back in stock, have the new book in now. and are putting together a set of painting loot bags. These will be $60 and include mini figs to practice on and dedicated D&D paint sets.

Give us a call before you come over to see if we (I’m) around. I’ll be in during the day on Saturday and Sunday with the exception of when I go take the pooch to the dog park. Other then that, I’ll be in the store a lot doing various long ignored jobs. It feels super weird to not be having regular store hours…I worked very hard to take those hours as a promise from me to you guys, but we live in strange times at the moments.

BTW…here is a story that I wrote about that first shelter in place week.

View at Medium.com