I was hoping there was some sort of gamers presence there, specifically a friendly neighborhood game store. Alas, there wasn't. Lake Geneva is a tourist town of cute businesses catering to summer visitors: lots of gift shops, candy stores, restaurants, and the like.
The town is pretty small; theres a few cross-streets filled with shops, then it a few blocks of residences and churches, a grocery store, a couple of gas stations and office buildings on the edges of town, and that's it. Over the course of a few days, I walked throughout most of it. I stayed in Bigfoot Beach State Park on the shore of Geneva Lake, just south of town.
There's one small bookstore in town, the Breadloaf (I mistook the name as "Bookleaf"
), and I asked the owner if she had any roleplaying game books. She said no, but that she has "the first book by Gary Gygax". She said that back in the 1980s she carried D&D books, but not now. She said she tried to keep something by Gygax in stock. I asked to see the Gygax book, and she led me to the sci-fi section, and she looked for it but couldn't find it. I asked if was "Gord the Rogue". and she said something like "I don't know, I don't keep up with that".I went to the library and looked for any D&D or Gygax books there, but no luck there either.
I decided to go see the actual building where Mystara was born, so I stopped by the Chamber of Commerce, and asked where the old TSR offices were. The woman at the counter said that she used to work for TSR, doing magazine subscriptions. I asked: "Dragon magazine?". She said "yes, and another one." I asked: "Dungeon magazine?", and she smiled and said "Yes, Dungeons and Dragons." She said: "They even sent me to a convention once. It was quite a sight...chainmail." She pulled out a free map and marked where TSR used to be, on Sheridan Springs Road, on the northern edge of town. I asked the woman if there's any D&D subculture still in town, and she said no, and that even back in the heyday, that the gamers "kept to themselves". She asked if I was "one of them". Strangely, I felt afraid, but I managed to say with a smile: "I claim to be." She said with a grimace: "The thing I didn't understand was the stories. I liked Nancy Drew." I said: "If only they'd made a Nancy Drew Roleplaying Game...Maybe next century." She said: "But I'll be dead by then!"
Oh, both the Chamber of Commerce worker and the bookstore person, brought up how Gary Gygax had just recently died.
I walked out to Sheridan Springs Road, and wasn't sure exactly which building it was (the woman had only marked its general location). The road was lined by warehouse-office-type buildings, and being that it was a Saturday, they were mostly deserted. Looking out over an empty asphalt parkling lot, at the brown 1980s-style lamp-posts in a blue sky, and green brush edging in the perimeter, for a moment I felt the sublime feeling of being a kid again, when I first opened my Elmore red box, and later poured over the blue Expert Set during a family camping trip. I figured I was near. There was a huge brown warehouse building on the left (on the north side of the street), and I thought that might be it. There were a few cars parked in the lot, so I went to try a door, but it was locked. I kept walking to the next complex, an office building with a kidney treatment center. I went in and there were a couple of middle-aged women in the waiting room. I asked if they knew where the old TSR offices were, and they thought it was in the building where Yunker is now (here's a link to the Yunker website). I walked back to that big warehouse and noted that it did say Yunker on it. I also noticed that there was a shiny mirrored-glass office building with a Yunker sign across the street (to the south). I thought this might be the TSR offices, while the other building might be the TSR warehouse. Again there were some cars, but the door was locked. I saw another door that said "Members Entrance", and I figured that I was a kind of "Member of Mystara"
, so I tried the door, and it was open. I was hoping there was some kind of receptionist with whom I could verify that this was the right place, but no one was there. The door opened into a large room with overlooking balconies, that looked like a cafeteria. I stood in the doorway for a moment, and I stepped back out (not wanting to be a snoop) and left. I sat down on some grass on the edge of the road, under some trees, and ate my lunch along what I figured was formerly TSR grounds. Then I walked back to town.I did enjoy myself in Lake Geneva -- I went to a recovery meeting, swam in the itsy-bitty Bigfoot Beach, enjoyed the quiet of the state park, and ate many of my meals on benches looking out onto the lake, or lounging on the grass near the library. The people were mostly friendly, especially the rangers at the state park, and a fellow who gave me directions to the grocery store. And I got to see the place where so much of my imagination-life was cultivated.
Travis
Cheers,
Cam
You should have got in touch with us, Travis. Margaret Weis Productions proudly continues the tradition of being a game publisher located in Lake Geneva, and we know a heck of a lot of local gamer icons and locations.
Cheers,
Cam
Thanks for the friendliness. I forgot to mention that the bookstore worker did say something like: "Though TSR is gone, there are still authors that live here, like Douglas Niles and Margaret Weis".
Travis
P.S. Apologies to anyone who read my post before I finished it. The library where I was typing was turning off the computer, so I did an emergency save. I just now went back and finished the post (specifically the part about visiting the Yunker offices).
Doesn't Bruce Heard live there as well? I know he once stated that one of the reasons he didn't join WotC was that he didn't want to move to Seattle...
Havard
-There's something fishy going on in a sleepy little town...
That's pretty cool, Travis. I have had to travel 4 times in the last two years to my companies' home office on the shores of the original Lake Geneva (Lac LeMans in Geneva, Switzerland). As cool as that sounds, I couldn't find a single place there that sold D&D material in any language of any kind.
How's the Swiss currency doing against the US dollar right now? Pretty good? If things are anything close to what they are over here (Norway) I have found that it is much cheaper to order things from amazon.com or other US based internet book stores rather than buying it locally, assuming you are looking for English language books.
Havard
IMHO Germany and Switzerland are not very good hunting grounds for old D&D stuff anymore. You find a few old modules here or there, probably too expensive, but nothing special. The good old days have passed...Back on topic:
http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/rants/tsr.html
The site above has an interesting account of a programmer's visit to TSR along with many photos.