Call it Gamer’s Row.An unassuming stretch of Brunswick St. between Newark Ave. and Christopher Columbus Drive has lately been transformed by meeples, sprites, and twelve-sided dice. Victory Point (112 Brunswick St.) deals in cardboard adventures, catering to the serious boardgamer and the Pokemón fan alike. Right around the corner, the Pixel Lab (381 1st St.) packs in the vintage cartridges and classic arcade games. No Forks Given (115 Brunswick St.) makes the game night sandwiches, Iris Records (109 Brunswick St.) provides the soundtrack, and funky Into the Void (117 Brunswick St.) handles the comfortable gaming chairs. A block like that must have achieved maximum fun saturation, right?Guess again. Dungeon Books (115 Brunswick St.), a smart, stylish store that opened in early October, is a tabletop strategist’s vivid dream: a spot devoted to pen and paper role playing games in their purest form. If you are, or ever were, a role-playing gamer, you know exactly what that means. At the store, you’ll find original Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks alongside newer games inspired by ‘80s D&D, sword and sorcery paperbacks, posters, tumbling polyhedral dice, and plenty of miniatures to paint. In short, it’s everything you need to get involved in one of the most engrossing hobbies ever invented by humans — an immersive pastime that appeals to storytellers, dramatists, dreamers, and devotees of Stranger Things. “It was very serendipitous,” says Dungeon Books co-founder Carrie Vu of the sudden concentration of gamer’s shops on Brunswick. “Earlier this year, we were wondering why there was no boardgame cafe in town. And just like that, Victory Point opened.” Co-founder Panat Taranat concurs. “We didn’t plan it at all. I think during the pandemic, a lot of these hobbies moved online, and more people were introduced to boardgaming and tabletop role-playing games. I’ve talked to the people at Victory Point a lot, and they agreed that after the pandemic, there was a big demand for this — finding, and making, places where people could interact again.” Vu, Taranat and their friends have taken advantage of the space. No more are they traveling across the Hudson River to play Dungeons & Dragons. They’ve been playing in the store weekly, and opening up Dungeon Books to other game-runners and their campaigns. That includes independently released RPGs created by local designers with experimental versions of the role-playing experience. Commitment to innovation makes Dungeon Books unique: it’s part laboratory, part art gallery, part performance space, and part playground of the imagination.“A lot of the artists we’ve hosted are very well connected in online social circles,” says Taranat. “They’ll share each other’s work, critique each other’s work, and comment on them. It’s great that we’ve gotten to integrate ourselves in these communities.”“Role-playing is natural,” says Taranat, “because in life, we’re constantly role-playing, even without knowing it.”Dungeon Books is riding a retro wave. Though mainstream Dungeons and Dragons has attempted to modernize the rules by incorporating ideas from modern video games, many hardcore players have turned back to the dungeon-crawling purity of ‘70s and ‘80s RPGs. As new scenarios, modules, and small print-run adventures that chase the spirit of early role-playing have proliferated, Dungeon Books has made room on their shelves for booklets and folios arcane, cryptic, homespun, and beautiful. Many of these games and modules are as skillfully designed and constructed as anything at the Jersey Art Book Fair. “A lot of the RPGs we stock in the store are part of the movement called the OSR — the old-school revival,” says Taranat. “Gamers and designers are trying to recapture the essence of the old D&D. The rules back then might have been more simple, but it allowed for more freedom and creativity. The focus was more on the skill of the player rather than how you build your character.”The books on the shelves are throwbacks too. Vu and Taranat don’t merely stock classic pulp paperbacks published a half-century before they were born: they make them unmissable. The shop owners want to make sure you take in the vintage fantasy design aesthetic and cover illustrations that often feel more like hallucinations. Even in the age on online consumerism, some of the titles at Dungeon Books are tricky to find. One bookcase displayed early editions of Fritz Leiber’s swashbuckling tales of the adventurers Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser — stories that were an enormous influence on the development of Dungeons and Dragons. “People don’t always realize how much [D&D creators] Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were inspired by reading,” says Vu. “In the D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, there’s an entire appendix filled with recommended books.” Vu worked as a bookseller in Manhattan before opening the store. She and Taranat began by selling books at the Handmade Market, pushing a cart full of sci-fi and fantasy gold from their home in Hamilton Part to the Grove Street PATH Station.“We didn’t know what the reception would be,” says Vu. “But people were so enthusiastic, we were amazed. We thought — wait a minute, maybe we’re on to something.”“When I worked as a bookseller, I’d ask myself: if I had a bookstore, what would it be like? We decided that since there was nothing devoted to fantasy and sci-fi around here, we should make it happen.’The emphasis on classis art and literature makes Dungeon Books feel very different from their neighbors across Brunswick Street. Victory Point is a great-looking store, too, but the emphasis on new games gives the place a glossy finish. Dungeon Books is the matte version: hard-drawn, approachable, confident in the role-playing gamer’s knowledge that a piece of paper with some typing on it can contain an entire world.   “We want to have a symbiotic relationship with Victory Point and Pixel Lab.,” says Vu. “Maybe we could have a street festival. Maybe we can petition the street to be named Gygax Alley.”The post Dungeon Books is the Latest Addition to a Gaming Neighborhood Downtown appeared first on Jersey City Times.