Speaker 1: Every table has rules, but the best stories usually begin
when someone ignores them. A risky move, a broken alliance,
a perfect role at the worst possible moment, and suddenly
it's not just a game anymore. It's the victory nobody expected,
the argument everyone remembers, and the story your friends will
still be telling years from now. I'm Scott Ralph and
this is table tales, where board games, card games, and
role playing adventures become stories worth retelling. So pull up
a chair. The next tale is already on the table.
Speaker 2: In this week's episode, it's my pleasure to introduce Chris
otherwise known to me as Mills, co founder and director
of the Comic Shop, which is a my friendly local
game store in Crawley. And when I say that, I
genuinely mean it. I've never been anywhere like this with
such a gorgeously friendly atmosphere for all of the hobbies
I have here.
Speaker 3: It's an amazing and we do genuinely love it. It's
instantly become a family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's all basically thanks to Chris h and
the team here that make it such an absolute diamond
in the rough of Crawley Town Center.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, it's pretty much the only place i'd
come for now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: It's an amazing environment and everything that we love on
the show, D and D Board Games, Magic, the gathering,
all of your general nerdage needs.
Speaker 4: You can find the comic.
Speaker 2: Shop in Crawley, and together the three of us are
going to be talking shop all the awesome stuff that
they do here. So, like I said, D and D,
board Games, Magic, the gathering, coffee and of course some comics.
After running and dming at the shop for pretty much
like a six month straight period and helping out with
the Adventurers League, I was part of the very first
D and D session actually, and it was love at
first sight when I saw you.
Speaker 5: It was it's a Broman.
Speaker 4: It's a romance that has been burgeoning and blossoming.
Speaker 3: It's the same guys. They're even out here with matching
hats on. It's adorable.
Speaker 4: I'm sure.
Speaker 5: I'm sure there's pictures being taken, so I'm sure you'll
see it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the matching hats is adorable. That wasn't even
planned this time.
Speaker 5: It's quite funny that you mentioned you're starting here because
for me, you guys have already been doing like my
own little mini podcast because being stuck behind the count
and making coffee sometimes I'm not actually doing anything and
I get to listen to all the D and D adventures, which,
like I can't tell you how funny, hilarious and and
just generally call it is. To sort of just sit
a listening on the adventures.
Speaker 4: That's yah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you obviously you hear all the characters' voices,
everyone making a real effort, and when everyone makes that
real effort, it really does make some great listening. So yeah,
I feel like I'm already I've already had my own
mini podcasts, just unfortunately I can't share them.
Speaker 2: I love how open you guys have been to the community,
and your energy and enthusiasm for everything that you do
here is absolutely infectious. We've come a long way since
that fir ever D and D session at the shop.
How's the journey been from that very first session? It's
been pretty crackers.
Speaker 5: I mean, you think we opened up the shop and
we didn't expect the amount of support that we got,
and we had people from all walks of life one
and all different kinds of things. I mean, the magic
is obviously enormous for the shop. They they came in
their drives and they've been here ever since, and we've
done a lot with them, and yeah, we're sort of
just getting bigger and better with that. So shortly after
D and D followed and then yeah, all board gaming
and groups sort of cutting appearing. It sort of became
we lit the beacon. We joked about saying we lit
the beacon, but we literally did, and everyone came from
far and wide.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that thing is blazing.
Speaker 3: Man. There is not a day I can come in
here and there isn't a magic game happening.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then the table, I mean, people waiting for a
table to play D and.
Speaker 2: D is just it's insane to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I'm coming from a time when D
and D wasn't cool. Well for me, it was always cool,
but I'm talking like, man, you us to get beating
up at school.
Speaker 4: Now it's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I've got a history of hobbies where it's always
the weird, outcast, nerdy thing. D and D wrestling.
Speaker 5: You know, I think I think it's I think that's
spread to the rest of the world. Do you not think,
like I think it's bigger than it's ever been. It's
it's and it's suddenly not just okay for people to do,
but suddenly it's become cool. Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 4: Your celebrity is doing it.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Yeah, and I think that stigmas sort of started
to leave. And I mean, how many how many generations
do you have to go before it's normal? And ye,
people are joking like they used to burn, which is
like they used to they used to call them nerds
and geeks and yeah, school.
Speaker 2: How far We're in the middle of a lockdown here
in the UK and it's obviously hitting local business is
fairly hard. So how you guys hoping during this situation?
Speaker 5: Well, I suppose this is a good way to sort
of let everyone know. But I've been here doing all
the building work for the shop because I did all
the original building work. When before we opened, I did
ten weeks I think it was ten weeks something stupid
like ten weeks solid with one day off. And I
think that one day was because I was literally bedbound
because I couldn't get out of bed.
Speaker 4: I was that ill, Jesus.
Speaker 5: But yeah, so we we've kind of apart from a
little short period, we've been open every single day since
since we opened, So I haven't really had a lot
of chances to finish off the bits and pieces. So
this has given me some sort of a little opportunity
to to upgrade the shop as such. Plus I would
have gone absolutely well, excuse the reference.
Speaker 4: But batshit.
Speaker 2: It's probably the most Let's segue a little bit and
talk about that, because without being in the shop you
don't realize what an absolute geek stream.
Speaker 4: This place is.
Speaker 2: Not.
Speaker 5: At the moment, it looks like we've been burgled a.
Speaker 3: Little bit, but there's a bit more wood on the
floor than we normally expect. But the Hulk is still.
Speaker 4: Reading a giant How big is that? Eight feet?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Eight nine feet model on his base. He's like, well,
actually he's not on his base because if he's on
his base, he would have gone through the ceiling, which
good god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, guys, if you've not seen it, there's a modified
ceiling tile above the Hulk's head.
Speaker 4: Otherwise it just doesn't fit in.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't go amazing, surrounded by merch, all of the
stuff that we love, board games, d nd.
Speaker 3: Year, the new stand in homage I always assumed to
stan Lee is glorious and with the fresh liquor paint
and Captain's Cafe at the back in the army truck man.
I love that thing.
Speaker 2: What are the sorts of changes you guys are making
to the shop prior to us coming out of this lockdown.
Speaker 5: Period, So probably the biggest change is, well it hasn't
happened yet, but it's being planned, is the table space.
So I'd quite like to reconfigure the how the tables
are because at the moment, well prior to this, we
were pretty much building the tables around the hulk. Because
he was in the way, there was not really many
places he could go. He kind of dictated where all
the tables went. Unfortunately we could only put them in
certain spaces. But now he's gone, it's sort of giving
me a blank canvas for the for the floor space,
so I can actually just put the tables in the
right places and maximize the table space. So hopefully those
few people that occasionally do come in and have to
wait or or don't get to sit down, and we
can get everyone get a butt on a seat, and
there'll be nice new tables sort of modified to be
perfect for the gamers. So there's enough space to put
table mats down and have a bit of space for
your bits and pieces around it. So yeah, it's all
been well thought out and planned and thanks to the
guys that come here. I've been collecting infile on what's
best size is how far I mean the table we're
sat at now. Everybody loves for D and D, but
it's not so practical for magic because you're so far away.
It's like it's like a sort of a sixteenth century
dining table.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The first few are kind of collected from what
was available, which is a natural, organic thing. But now
you're at the point where you're developing a specific criteria
and going, well, yeah, you've got your community, you know
what the need now is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's weird, like we're almost semi professional.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost a bit like our podcast, like we
know what we're doing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the thing I've like, well, yeah, I like
I hide it. Well, well maybe not, but we are
literally just two idiots with a.
Speaker 4: Dream and a shop.
Speaker 2: You've turned it into something that is an absolute sort
of center of sort of geek culture in Crawley. It's
really sort of drawn everyone to this location.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's lovely. That's like, that's kind of what
we wanted to achieve from the get go. So to
have that and have it in such a such a
gigantic format is amazing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, talk to us more about some of the
big plans that you've got for the future of the
comic Shop when you can eventually reopen.
Speaker 5: So yeah, whilst I'm doing all the little bits and pieces,
I'm still planning away for turning our games room into
a dual purpose. So ultimately I would love that. I
don't want it to change. We've got a great little
games room. It's got a little Mario theme. I need
to finish that, but we kind of want to turn
it into a dungeon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a little segue for the game's room. It's
every sort of old school console you could imagine put
into that room with a bunch of games for each
of them.
Speaker 5: Pretty much everything you can you can get in there,
we've got we've got in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's awesome. So and this room potentially turning
it into a dungeon for D and D.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, we we do double it up as
a sort of like a spillover room when we've got
campaigns and we've got a lot of people in generally
on Saturdays and Sundays, we get the D and D
crowding and sort of sometimes we do have too many
groups that want to come in. So if the games
I'm free, I'll always sort of essentially pimp it out
to the to the d n ds get sometimes to
be honest that even the magic players have gone in there.
Sometimes when there's no room we whip up the table.
It's got tables and chairs in there as.
Speaker 3: Well, and magic nerds.
Speaker 5: The biggest change is going to be that I'm going
to turn that into a little dungeon. So I'm going
to even try and get it so that you feel
more closed off because at the moment it's kind of
linked to the kitchen. And again this is great for
me because I get to listen to some hilarious campaigns
and some all sorts going on, and it's, like I said,
it's having my own mini podcast. And yeah, I'm going
to really close it off so you can go in
there and feel like you are in a dungeon and
the DM can. I'm going to try and give them
tools that they can have access to power so they
can have crime cast on a little TV in there. Yeah,
we're going to get a sound speaker system so that
you can have special effects and stuff running there. Feed
some absolutely because that is so much more fun for
the campaign. Got the ideas for a big opening party, Yeah,
I'd love to. I mean, I mean I did joke
about putting a big sign up in the window saying
don't open dead inside, and then I was like, I
think that's a little bit that's a little bit too
close on the nose, isn't it Like it was meant
to be a walking down great because we were so
good for the people that know that's hilarious. Yeah, yeah,
so but with that, yeah, it's just funny. But it's difficult.
I think the hardest part for us is like not
knowing when we're going to open, Yeah, because we could
plan so much for them. Even if they said, oh,
you're going to you're going to be opening at the
end of June. I mean, that's got to be worst
case with the the government's three month further, I mean
that's obviously initially what they thought for ship. We better
do something that's that's the worst of it. I mean,
so we don't even know. I mean, we could be
the whole of May and opening June. We could be
the full three month, which was sort of like end
of June. We just don't know, but as soon as
we do, we'll be planning the hell out of it
and making sure that we've got parties left, right and center.
Speaker 2: D n D is one of the big topics here
at board Stupid. You've played d n DA a few times,
even in the midst of the awesome chaos of activities
on busy nights and busy days here. What's your opinions
on playing it as a beginner, being a beginner to
the game, and do you have any advice for new
players who might want to come to the shop to
try it out.
Speaker 5: Me and h both jumped in a campaign that Aaron did,
So that was I can't even remember when that was.
I think that was for our second we had like
a second mini opening.
Speaker 3: It was either that or a birthday. There was an
anniversary game as well, I think.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'm pretty sure that was when I jumped
in on you did one for us. Yeah, so I
jumped in. That was my That was only my second campaign, Okay,
but obviously that was quite That was quite big because
I listened to your campaigns and I always like quite
admired like the campaigns, and I was like, so when
you offered to do one for us, I was like, yes,
definitely the horror one. That was the horror one. Yeah, scary, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, but the first one, going back to the
first one we've we sort of weren't really I mean
we're so busy. I mean it's rare that we would
get a chance to jump in like that, so I
didn't really get a chance to properly prep. And I
think that is a great one to start with prep. Yeah,
because we're quite lucky with the groups that we've got
down here that if you're new and you want to
get into it and you're a little bit apprehensive and
you don't know where to start, the first thing you
can do is just posting the group and say, listen,
I'm new, I want to do this. So therefore it's
great because someone will step in and go, I'm here
to help, come down, meet me down there. We can
do a better character sheet building, and that's the best
way to start, and then you are starting to get prepped.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love the character building almost as much as
playing it, So I'm always there if I can be.
If I'm not working training or otherwise. Jethrow, We've got
Tom Wayne obviously always available either online.
Speaker 4: If nothing else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, definitely, And that's that's something that's grown. But as
always been helpful is having people there to support us,
because we we appreciate that more than anyone would ever understand,
because without you guys, and without without the DMS, and
without the campaigns in general, we wouldn't be here. And
that goes that's right throughout our whole sort of existence.
We wouldn't be here without all of the people that
come to the shop. So yeah, we're eternally grateful for that.
But the DMS being there like almost on beck and
call on the on the Facebook group is just amazing.
So yeah, it's a it's a great little string to
our buy.
Speaker 2: So if people want to do if people do want
to find out where to do and how to do
D and D at the.
Speaker 4: Comic shop, what's the Facebook page?
Speaker 5: Facebook page is the if you just type in the
comic shop poorly and there's a little page section in
it's D n D at the comic shop or some
nice and easy, nice and easy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, quite right.
Speaker 2: I've been a member of that group for a while
and yeah, if you are interested in playing, like Mills said,
just stick a post on there.
Speaker 4: If you've never played before.
Speaker 2: It's a super friendly community, plenty of people willing to
help you out from everything from character creation to starting
your first game.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, i'd even say, like, if this goes for anything,
if you're a little bit reppentive about posting in the group,
then feel free to message us. But ultimately you're going
to have to take that leap of confidence when you
jump in the game. So it's such a good start
to say, Actually, if you are a little bit a
little bit weary, a little bit scared, just posting the group,
because it's going to break that ice for you to
get your confidence to join a group, because you're going
to be talking in that group when you get down here,
You're going to be on an invention with these people.
You're going to hear people doing voices, You're gonna you're
going to want to.
Speaker 4: Either laugh or cry.
Speaker 5: But because it's great and it's so it's so good
to be involved in. So there's a there's an element
where you've got to sort of like go out of
your comfort zone I think for some people. So post
on that group just just put yourself out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that very much picks up a point we made
in our last podcast about being brave and joining in
and just going for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you have to let loose at some point.
Speaker 3: You will not guarantee you will not get a single
negative feedback from anyone in the DND at the Comic
Shop Facebook page, because it's largely regulated by those of
us that are here regularly.
Speaker 4: I want to see it grow and we do it
for the love it.
Speaker 5: And we've been so lucky with the groups that have
come to the Comic Shop. We don't get horrible people.
We've just collected all the lovely people. It's so nice.
And that's the thing. It sort of just keeps spiraling.
To you say, you know that you get a downard spiral.
It's like a complete opposite. It just keeps going up
and up because people come in and they're like take
people under their wing, or they're nice to people, or
they're supportive, and then that person in turn then grows,
becomes a completely different person, gets their confidence, and then
they'll help someone else that they recognize in the same
position they were, and it's just sort of just snowballs really.
Speaker 3: Well, like count myself as one of those people. I
essentially started with Wayne and then very closely after that
here in the comic shop. I have played with them,
made great close friends with a whole bunch of people. Ever,
even you existed before this place opened, so we have
you to thank for that as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, you were very well.
Speaker 5: You're both very welcome because we love Avenue here, we
love having everybody here. It's it's a feeling I can't
sort of put into words because when we decided to
do this place, we had a dream and a vision.
But like I said, we've been knocked off our feet
in terms of what we've we've got out of this
and what we've created and the people that we've met.
So I feel just as fortunate as you guys do.
So going back to the initial D and D campaign,
I'm like, I'm like your guys dream will I will
believe anything. Yeah, man, I like it, like if I'm
watching a film, like I mean, as long as it's
reasonably like believable, Like if you're being chased by a
t rex I totally believe that if that's part of
the film. But if you slowly chased by t rextion,
you fall over and get up and he still hasn't
caught you. Then I'm out. I'm gone. Like but I'm
quite fickle like that. But in terms of gullibleness, I
suppose and willing to.
Speaker 3: You yourself in the game, which is yeah for sure.
Speaker 5: So like when you're talking and I couldn't believe after
hearing like hundreds of campaigns all around me. I never
questioned it or doubted it, but I never quite understood
how captivated you could be. But someone just literally sat
there behind the screen talking.
Speaker 4: Out of the book.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was like that is I was. I was
hanging off of Aaron's and yours every single word. I
was in it, Like you were telling me about a mansion.
I was there, mate, Yeah, seeing it in front of you. Yeah,
it's phenomenal. I mean, I suppose that's the power of
the imagination.
Speaker 2: So board games is the other massive one that we
love here on the podcast. Do you have much experience
playing modern board games. There's a bit of a boom
or a bit of a boom. It's probably the second
golden age of board games over the last sort of
six seven, eight years with Kickstarter and some of the
new stuff that's out there is their plans to do
more board gaming at the shop. I mean there's already
a weekly games night here.
Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, there is. We had some great people that
helped us out and we wouldn't sort of have anything
at all at the moment without them, so yeah, Pound
Hill Board Games Club and Crawley Gaming Club, So we
have them both here and they've been outstanding for us
to help us get to where we.
Speaker 4: Want to get. But we will we will be looking.
Speaker 5: To broaden out on that. So it's a good subject
to sort of talk about it because we want to
be quite prominent in that area where we have board
games here. We have board games for sale.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got a great range of games available for
sale here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I mean it's only going to get bigger
and better because currently talking to the supplier about getting
a whole shard load of games in