Troll Lord Games. Who are they?

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LordSeurek
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Troll Lord Games. Who are they?

Post by LordSeurek »

So arrived back home for the summer in crapville Newfoundland. Went to the one and only gaming store in our province a few hours ago looking to pick up the 4th printing of the PHB.

Not seeing it on the shelve, I asked the 2 lads working there if they had the book. Castles and Crusades? What is that?

I tell them its made by Troll Lord Games. Troll Lord Games. Who are they?

Needless to say I never got the book. But I did impulsively pick up the PHB for Pathfinder. All 4 million pages. Crap the book is HUGE!

Anyways, I started telling the two clowns all about c&c and how its a great alternative to 4e d&d. The guy checks his ordering book and sure enough, TLG are in his big o book of stuff. He tells me: "Very poor seller in Canada" Hence them not having the stuff I spose.

Makes me wonder if the company puts enough effort into selling themselves outside USA???

Good thing is I own a VISA card and Paypal account so can order one pretty quickly and probably cheaper than the store would sell it.

L.S.
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Post by moriarty777 »

Interesting. My thoughts would be what is exactly the information he is using to make this assessment? Did the 'big book' say it didn't sell well?

Or was opinion that it didn't sell well because he hadn't heard of it?

Most stores deal with distributors and not TLG themselves but I've always found C&C at the stores I visiting in Montreal and in Ottawa.

I mean, if I can get my hands on the Upper Works on store shelves here, someone somewhere must be doing something right. Is it enough? Who knows...

M
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Post by serleran »

I think it is a matter of "not WotC, not White Wolf, not Games Workshop. Does not sell." Same crap everywhere because there are only three companies anymore, right? Yeah. Of course companies don't sell well if no one will carry them.
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Post by LordSeurek »

moriarty777 wrote:
Interesting. My thoughts would be what is exactly the information he is using to make this assessment? Did the 'big book' say it didn't sell well?

Or was opinion that it didn't sell well because he hadn't heard of it?

Most stores deal with distributors and not TLG themselves but I've always found C&C at the stores I visiting in Montreal and in Ottawa.

I mean, if I can get my hands on the Upper Works on store shelves here, someone somewhere must be doing something right. Is it enough? Who knows...

M

As a fellow Canadian, you know the difference between Montreal, Ottawa and St.Johns. Canada pretty much ends at Halifax. It doesn't surprise me that c&c is readily available in Ottawa and Montreal. Slimy was telling us about the HUGE gaming store in Calgary with virtually everything.

Its probably a combo of the cheap ass province I live in and not wanting to veer from the 'big' companies that Serl noted.

L.S.
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Post by LordSeurek »

serleran wrote:
I think it is a matter of "not WotC, not White Wolf, not Games Workshop. Does not sell." Same crap everywhere because there are only three companies anymore, right? Yeah. Of course companies don't sell well if no one will carry them.

The store has a fair amount of comics/minis/fantasy cards etc. In terms of gaming stuff, its mostly all WOTC, Warhammer and Pathfinder. There is an odd book here and there like Cortex, Hunter and a bunch of old (3e) stuff that didn't sell that are still on the 1 bookshelf at a reduced price.

L.S.

Am enjoying my Pathfinder rulebook though til I can order the 4th printing
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Post by Egg of Coot »

I'm in Canada as well (northern Ontario at present) and haven't found many shops that are stocking C&C. However, most of the ones I've been in will bring the books in if you want them - the local shop I'm dealing with recently went out of their way to get the GameScience dice I wanted.

Given the decline of the industry on account of shifting interest, economic woes, et al., any game shop that doesn't special order for customers won't be in business very long these days. Any independent shops that say 'no' to money should realize their days are numbered.

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Post by LordSeurek »

They mentioned that unless their supplier was shipping a certain amount at one time, it wasn't worth it to them financially. I guess in order to ship it, they need $x in the order or they don't bother.

This store has ordered stuff before for me in past years, but that was WOTC stuff early 2000 when everything was 3x. Smaller company and its all about the buck. The business side of me doesn't blame them. The gamer side of me wants to tell them to smarten up...

EDIT: Again, I am soooo enjoying readying the core PHB for Pathfinder. I miss feats, skills, etc....
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Post by Lurker »

Quote:
I miss feats, skills, etc....

AAACK (Boy I've just been in a Bloom county mind set lately...)

LS I know your pain on local hobby shops. the 2 in my area (at least last year which was the last time I went in them) only carried WOTC and Warhammer. It made me miss my old favorite store in Tulsa, even years after I went in the AF, I'd walk in and they would say something like "Wow, been a while, you here on leave, where you stationed at now? So what game you looking for and what army you working on (my miniature war games) this time. "
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Post by serleran »

Quote:
EDIT: Again, I am soooo enjoying readying the core PHB for Pathfinder. I miss feats, skills, etc.... Smile

Being Canadian, you have mental health care. Use it.
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Post by LordSeurek »

serleran wrote:
Being Canadian, you have mental health care. Use it.
No. Its called Medical Care Plan or MCP for short in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Actually we are the only G8 nation to nothave a national mental health strategy in Canada.
http://www.disabled-world.com/medical/h ... health.php

Besides Serl, what is your point? It has nothing to do with my point about the lack of c&c in NL, if not, Canada.
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Post by serleran »

It's called levity. There is no point... now.

Oh well. Some times the joke just isn't funny. Sorry.
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Post by Lord Dynel »

Well, my FLGS only knew TLG because of the Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds. They knew of C&C, but very littel. Fortunately, the guy behind the counter is the main product buyer and a good friend, so getting stuff isn't too difficult. I don't think there's any push from distributors, though. I can't tell you how many new products over the past two years I've heard my friend tell me, "Sorry I didn't order that, man, it wasn't on preorder," or "Sorry, man, there was no solicitation for that." I can't tell you if it's 100% the distributors fault or not, though. I'm still having problems getting M&ToA.
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Re: Troll Lord Games. Who are they?

Post by Troll Lord »

LordSeurek wrote:
So arrived back home for the summer in crapville Newfoundland. Went to the one and only gaming store in our province a few hours ago looking to pick up the 4th printing of the PHB.

Not seeing it on the shelve, I asked the 2 lads working there if they had the book. Castles and Crusades? What is that?

I tell them its made by Troll Lord Games. Troll Lord Games. Who are they?

Needless to say I never got the book. But I did impulsively pick up the PHB for Pathfinder. All 4 million pages. Crap the book is HUGE!

Anyways, I started telling the two clowns all about c&c and how its a great alternative to 4e d&d. The guy checks his ordering book and sure enough, TLG are in his big o book of stuff. He tells me: "Very poor seller in Canada" Hence them not having the stuff I spose.

Makes me wonder if the company puts enough effort into selling themselves outside USA???

Good thing is I own a VISA card and Paypal account so can order one pretty quickly and probably cheaper than the store would sell it.

L.S.

I sales in Canada are very good. We deal with the two main distributors up there and a few smaller ones that sale into Canada mostly from the North West of the lower 48. But Lion Rampant is our biggest distributor in Canada. They were reluctant to stock the line after the collapse of d20 but after some cajoling they relaunched the whole thing about 2 years ago and did astoundingly well with it. We and they were very happy. Since then we've seen good sales in Canada.

Now I have no doubt there are many stores who don't carry it up there, much as there are many down here who don't carry it. The recession plays a role in this, as does the general down turn i sales on D&D products. This latter factor means that smaller shops cannot stock full lines of RPGs because they can't count on D&D sales to keep RPG customers coming into the store. There are entirely too many new RPG companies for the small retailer to keep up with so they put their time and money elsewhere. Perfectly understandable and natural.

This is why we've started the Harbinger Variant and a more vigorous direct-to-retail program. Problem is, in Canada, many of the perks for the DtR are simply too expensive for me to implement because shipping is atrocious. So its a catch 22, the less we and distributors are able to reach the retailer, the less he knows, the less he knows, the less he orders, the less we are able to reach them. And the road goes ever on.

We are working with LR though to overcome some of these problems. If you will give me the name of the store and the contact people I'll give them a shout.

Steve
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Post by AGNKim »

Egg of Coot wrote:
I'm in Canada as well (northern Ontario at present)

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Re: Troll Lord Games. Who are they?

Post by LordSeurek »

Troll Lord wrote:
If you will give me the name of the store and the contact people I'll give them a shout.

Steve

Fully understand your points Steve about the cost and all. Was just venting and surprised that they didn't know what c&c was.

Not sure the managers name there, but the store is called Timemasters Inc and the phone number is 1-709-754-3654

Many thanks either way!

I am stopping in there again today to see if the have the Dark Heresy book for sale. I'll check again with them as they were suppose to check with their supplier last week on the chance of getting some TLG products in.

L.S.
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Post by DangerDwarf »

Reading the the thread title I thought we were all going to wax philosophic on TLG.

My bad.

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