Location: Greater Cincinnati area & surroubding suburbs.

FLGS :  Yottaquest in Mt. Healthy, Nord's Games in Northgate Mall, Up Up & Away comics in Western Hills,  Hobbytown in Tri-county area.... We got at least 4 game stores and 2 or 3 Comics stores that also sell games. I work at one of the above stores. I'm obviously biased - we're a friendly bunch.

Availability: PLENTY of folks that game locally or want to ...they just have trouble networking or scheduling things at times.  We had almost NO game stores for a couple of years, then in 2003 we had 3 or 4 game stores start up and that perked up  the whole local gaming community.  Games and Game systems played locally : D&D /D20, Warhammer fantasy roleplay, GURPS, HERO system, World of Darkness (all variations), STAR WARS roleplaying /BOTH D6 and D20 versions,  SAVAGE WORLDS,   Palladium/RIFTS players (good looking ones too!) original AD&D, EXALTED - we got a pretty good variety of groups locally.

Compatibility: I've showed a few people some of the gaming forums. My store manager HATES the Big Purple & Pink - tells me I should quit the thing. He writes and design games and was never impressed with rpg.net   Some of our store's customers have been lurking and reading my posts on the Orange & Fluffy. (especially the "Tales from a Game store ..." thread)  Other folks honestly just say they are too busy actually gaming  and having fun to bother with internet talk about RPGs. More power to them! -  I say.

 Local Scene : about an 8 out of 10 ...better score  if we had a local gaming con...or more networking of players going on.

- E.W.C.

Location El Cajon CA (part of San Diego County)

FLGS: In El Cajon, all you really have are chain bookstores (Borders/Barnes&Noble). However Within San Diego county there are two long time hobby retailers, Game Towne (in Old Town) and Game Empire (in La Mesa).

Game Towne has been around for a long time, it isn't super busy and has a quiet game room in the back. They have a friendly knowledgable staff and carry all kinds of games (including Old School and harder to find items). The players are mostly old-school, mostly long time groups. As a youngster (at 24 years old), I can't really get into their groups (which play mostly Conan and Star Trek, or Good Alignment only D&D). But they're happy to share their playspace with others.

Game Empire is almost the opposite. They only carry the most popular games (Mostly Warhammer 40k), they have an very active gameroom (which is clean,  open after store hours and smells like sweaty fat nerd that's been there for 3 days straight). The real neat part of the place is their used game rack, which has some cool buys on it usually (I just bught glow-in-the-dark paperback Wraith there). The players play mostly card and strategy games, Only occasionally will you catch someone actually playing an RPG there.
I've heard of a couple long-time running Vampire LARPS as well.

Availability: Most RPG players have set groups. Not really a whole lot of mingling. You play with your friends as far as I've seen..

Compatibility:  All the people I play with are pretty cool. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm sure there are a lot of D&D games that get played on weekends at peoples houses. I'm not really connected with the "Gamer Crowd" anymore. I play with friends.

So, I would say 7.5/10

Location:  Colorado Springs, CO

FLGS:  There are several game stores here in town, but with friendly and knowledgeable staff, a wide selection of products (including stuff like Burning Wheel and In Dark Alleys), in-store gaming space, and a central location, Compleat Games & Hobbies takes the cake. Then throw in their official online forums, the owner's actual participation in the hobby, and store-sponsored roleplaying campaigns. No other game stor in town can touch it (or even come close, really).

Availability:  This is a bit iffier. I don't know of any truly regular game groups here. I ran a C&C game during the summer, but three of my five players were high school or university students, meaning that once school started again, the game effectively died. I think that it works like this for several of the guys who run games down at the store (for example, the Thursday D&D 3.5 campaign has been running for about three years I gather, but the actual play group gets changed out every few weeks or so).

Compatibility:  Not a lot of the gamers here are active in online RPG discussion, most play D&D, few are are up on trying new and different games (though such folks do exist, it's not all that easy to hunt them down). This is probably where the local gaming scene takes the biggest hit, really. D&D is the game here and it's tough to find a whole group of people willing to try different things (though rounding up at least one always seems to be  fairly easy). That said, one of the Compleat employees is running a once monthly BW game that I'm playing in, so for the time being, I'm happy

Overall, I's rate the gaming scene here about a five out of ten. I think the best that I ever saw it was in Topeka, KS during the late 1990s (where I'd say it was at least an eight out of ten in terms of your criteria).

Location: NYC

FLGS: The Compleat Strategist. Good availability for mainstream stuff, not so good for recent small press stuff. Though their backfile of old games is truly staggering. There's mountains of obscura in there.

Availability: More games going on than I could play if I played every day of the week.

Compatibility: Games of all shapes and sizes. I never have any trouble getting players and frequently have to turn folks away or shunt them into other games.

Location : South Essex / East London, UK
FLGS : One, which started as a combined bookshop & game store, but has turned into almost exclusively military history books. Staff are pretty apathetic about games and their customers. I've been the only customer in the store and the owner just sits at a table in the back reading a book without so much as a nod of acknoledgement. A couple of bookshops do game books and some comic book stores that do Magic the Geekeing cards but aren't interested in games.
Good gaming stores exist in central London, 45 minutes to an hours train journey away
Availability : Low. There are some gamers, but after our group lost two to real life issues, we went three months before managing to recruit a replacement.
Compatibility : Insufficient data. We had one guy join our group playing GURPS fantasy, but he said he preferred Sci-Fi games and didnt stick around.
Overall : 1/10

Location : Malaysia

FLGS: Back in the day, most of us used to get our gaming stuff from comic speciality stores. They were a few of them around. These days there are a couple of shops that sell miniature war gaming stuff and some RPGS. A lot of folks buy stuff through Amazon, or online retailers. There is a weekly wargaming/card gaming column in one of the national newpapers under it's youth section. At one time, a poster who used to post on tBP used to write RPG reviews for the same newspaper.

Availability : I've never had a problem finding folks who are interested in the kind of games I like to play. But I think a lot of folks play D&D. I'm totally clueless about the local gaming scene, but I do know of a few Malaysians who post on tBP. A couple of months ago, one of them linked me to a local D&D site. Here it is : http://dndkl.com/index.php

I reckon' that if you are into D&D there would no problem finding players. In the stores I mentioned earlier there are always games being run...and not only D&D, but also WFRP, Delta Green etc.

Compatibility: I never had a problem finding folks to game with.

Overall : 7/10*

* If there are any Malaysians lurking here and who know what the local scene is like, please feel free to correct any mistakes in this post.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: lukeLocation: NYC

Luke, have you heard of Neutral Ground? Is it still open?