D&D 40th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge Day 12

This post is part of a series of posts in the D&D 40^th Anniversary Blog Hop Challenge.  The information in many of these posts is related to events that occurred primarily in the1980’s. Since it is now 2014, I can not guarantee complete accuracy with such a large passage of time but I will present the events and information as best as I can recall.

Day 12: First store where you bought your gaming supplies.  Does it still exist?

The very first store where I purchased my gaming supplies was Tulsa’s Original Game Shop in the Farm Shopping Center. My first trip there was – again, thanks to Uncle David – in the summer of 1980. It was a small hole-in-the-wall operation but there was a ton of gaming products on the shelves.  My first visit there was when it clicked that D&D was not the only game in town.  I bought many products there ranging from old Steve Jackson mini-games like Car Wars or Ogre then also Palladium Fantasy, DC Heroes, Talislanta, FASERIP Marvel, and a bunch of others.  The staff encouraged customers to try other games than D&D so it was nice not hearing all of the “you’re doing it wrong” if you play that game nonsense that is common in some shops.

Unfortunately this shop is closed now.  Sometime around 2005 the Original Game Shop moved from the Farm Shopping Center to a strip mall approximately a mile away.  There was more room for product but something was not quite right.  Ben, the owner, was having some health issues and it was apparent that it was affecting his routine; he was forgetting to special order items, stock certain items and he just was not the same.  The store carried on for a while and then I pulled up one day and it was out of business.  Fortunately, there are at least three relatively close game stores that I can visit now.