I remember RPGs being ordered on shelves in game stores by their genre. And before that, games were ordered on shelves by their publishers. Maybe some game shops still do it that way? But lately I've been noticing some special spots being made in stores. Gone are the underground RPGs. Don't know if anyone still buys those. So instead, there are spaces for identity RPGs. With laminated safe space reading materials hanging from their shelves. It felt to me like if someone is a normie, they shouldn't be going down that game aisle. Also, I got the feeling that whatever your identity is, that's what the RPG you're designing should be about and have those players for.

Meanwhile, I'm not seeing any Mongoose Traveller in any stores.

Store dictated. Very very very very x100 Store dictated. With possibly a touch of regional and possibly a touch of publisher mandate.

Ive seen stores in the same city have things different from eachother for everything. Not just RPGs.

Lets see.

One had them in their own RPG section.

One had them in the gaming section along with board games and crossword puzzles.

One had them scattered about in the fiction section. Usually the fantasy section. But once found one of the books for Starfleet Battles in the sci-fi section.
 
And one had them in the religion section. No. I  am not making that up. Libraries used to do that too. I thought is was something made up till saw it myself. Twice. Once in a book store. Once in a library.

And indie RPGs I've seen fewer and fewer. A local shop used to carry ALOT of indie material before Games Workshop mandated that they could not carry any gaming material except GW ones. Poof. All gone.

Ya. I've been to stores where is was all Games Workshop. And Barnes & Noble, last I looked, had RPGs in their sci-fi books aisle.

I usually see RPGs in their own section. Rarely see any independent RPGs in book stores, but some FLGS are good about carrying a few small press titles.

My local stores barely even have shelves anymore. You order what you want online and, if you don't pay to have it delivered to your home, you come to the store and they pull it from the back. There is still the corpse of the old Enterprise/Sci-fi City around, but it's a really sad place these days where game books that don't sell get retired to shelves alongside other sun-faded titles.

I agree that it's very much a by-store thing.

My local store used to carry essentially zero RPG stuff other than the most current 5E books, but recently started carrying Starfinder, Call of Cthulhu, a bunch of FATE stuff, and a few random RPG books. Makes me happy to see more selection. They would have ordered anything I wanted, but it's nice to be able to thumb through a book and impulse-buy the thing..  :-)  Their organization is basically to keep similar product lines together. They don't carry enough material to worry about sorting by publisher or theme or whatever.

A great store roughly an hour away (Games Plus, in Mt. Prospect, IL) has the most amazing selection I've ever seen and they divide into types (horror, fantasy, scifi) and then organize products alphabetically. They carry a lot of indie books as well.

There are fewer RPG titles at the game stores I visit (most of them are far more devoted to board games and collectible card games, but sell miniatures which are clearly for RPGs - that is, not intended for a particular miniatures game). What RPGs make it to the shelves are mostly the well known ones - D&D 5e and Pathfinder, mostly. But if I'm looking for unusual ideas for RPGs I usually look online; the variety of free RPGs alone is more than I can process, and for those that cost money I can usually judge the ideas if not the implementation from descriptions and reviews. And if I do buy such a game, ordering an online PDF is usually good enough for me, and brick and mortar stores are going to want to sell non-digital versions of thins.

I can't think of any game store that has separated any RPGs on any basis; there is usually a shelf that's all D&D 5e, and so on, but they are all in contiguous areas.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1097312I remember RPGs being ordered on shelves in game stores by their genre. And before that, games were ordered on shelves by their publishers. Maybe some game shops still do it that way? But lately I've been noticing some special spots being made in stores. Gone are the underground RPGs. Don't know if anyone still buys those. So instead, there are spaces for identity RPGs. With laminated safe space reading materials hanging from their shelves. It felt to me like if someone is a normie, they shouldn't be going down that game aisle. Also, I got the feeling that whatever your identity is, that's what the RPG you're designing should be about and have those players for.

Meanwhile, I'm not seeing any Mongoose Traveller in any stores.

The closest store to where I live isn't big enough to have that many games much less to have them separated in any way. Imagine they have the counter and then space for a very small folding table for playing sessions. And the games are all in a shelf behind the counter and in the small space in the windows they can spare.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1097312I remember RPGs being ordered on shelves in game stores by their genre. And before that, games were ordered on shelves by their publishers. Maybe some game shops still do it that way? But lately I've been noticing some special spots being made in stores. Gone are the underground RPGs. Don't know if anyone still buys those. So instead, there are spaces for identity RPGs. With laminated safe space reading materials hanging from their shelves. It felt to me like if someone is a normie, they shouldn't be going down that game aisle. Also, I got the feeling that whatever your identity is, that's what the RPG you're designing should be about and have those players for.

Meanwhile, I'm not seeing any Mongoose Traveller in any stores.

You have an example of what the hell "spaces for identity RPGs. With laminated safe space reading materials hanging from their shelves." is?

I thought he just meant well known games like D&D, PF, CoC, etc?

Quote from: finarvyn;1097335A great store roughly an hour away (Games Plus, in Mt. Prospect, IL) has the most amazing selection I've ever seen and they divide into types (horror, fantasy, scifi) and then organize products alphabetically. They carry a lot of indie books as well.

Haven't been there in years, but that place was fucking fantastic.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1097361The closest store to where I live isn't big enough to have that many games much less to have them separated in any way. Imagine they have the counter and then space for a very small folding table for playing sessions. And the games are all in a shelf behind the counter and in the small space in the windows they can spare.

I see coffee shop sized interiors set up like that. Room for just one game.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1097396I see coffee shop sized interiors set up like that. Room for just one game.

Yes, just the one game at the time. Now there could be bigger shops in the more posh parts of the city, I wouldn't know since I buy my books online and the dice at that small shop or in another also small shop in downtown.

The shop in my city has games organized by the owners taste. The first game you will see is Vampire the Masquerade . Next up is Dungeons & Dragons followed by Pathfinder and once in a while some new game. This is why I buy online.

It's ugly.

The internet has changed the process. I buy my games online mostly because my LGS carries s***.

I can't support a store with limited shelves.