The Half-Price Test, Part 2

There was a surprising amount of feedback over my earlier post that there isn’t a lot of 4E at the Half-Price bookstore nearest Wizards of the Coast's offices down in Renton. A lot of people have reported in similar behavior at their local Half-Prices, but some have reported that 3 and 3.5 stuff were rare as well.

So I went back this past weekend to check out the amount of 3 and 3.5. I found it there in sufficient numbers but also more picked over than previously. The stocks were depleted but not emptied, but I found 3 and 3.5 material, including core books, at the store.

I also talked to one woman who was buying 3.5 core books, and had pulled a number off the shelves just before I got there. She was buying the books for her son, who wanted to play the game because her husband played it in the 80s. I told her about the existence of 3E and 3.5 and 4E, but she decided to go with 3.5, I think in part because it was there and because it had a lot that was closer to the game her husband played (I had the suddenly image of trying to explain 4E to someone who had broken in on the original hardbacks). The young woman ended up buying the three core books and a copy of the FR Campaign Setting.

So, as far as the Half-Price books nearest the WotC corporate offices, there were no 4E books, a diminishing number of 3.5 and 3.0 books, and a good selection of older editions, going back to original Fiend Folios and Monster Manuals. But all of the D&D material combined was still outweighed by another group of books.

White Wolf's World of Darkness. I’ll let others cogitate on why there are so many of those.

More later,