Though it sits on a busy stretch of NE Sandy Boulevard, Dark Future can be tricky to find. But I duck through the door of all-ages vegan punk/metal venue Black Water and hook a left into its adjacent record store by the same name—more specifically, the dedicated shop-within-a-shop that takes up about a third of the record store’s floor space. As doom metal grinds overhead, I dig into boxes titled “New and Newish Arrivals” before briefly skimming the vintage shelves, packed with releases from the ’90s, ’80s, and even ’70s. I’m not hunting for music: Instead, I flip through booklets from a plastic box stuffed with zines and pamphlets. I settle on 30 Days of Mörk Borg Vol. 2: On the Island of Dying Gods, an adventure “chapbook” for the Swedish black metal–inspired roleplaying game, Mörk Borg.
Dark Future may feel like your new favorite hyper-niche record store, but instead it’s the coolest place to buy (and trade in) tabletop roleplaying games I’ve ever visited in my more than 20 years in the hobby.
Buoyed by popular media like Stranger Things and the rise of platforms like Twitch—where celebrities play games of Dungeons & Dragons to audiences of thousands—RPGs have started to resemble something mainstream. For those not in the know, the format is generally four to eight people at a table using dice and rulebooks to tell stories of adventure. Usually, one is designated the “game master,” who guides the story and arbitrates rules. Goofy voices, rules arguments, and puerile humor run rampant. A single game can be finished over the course of a few hours (colloquially, a one-shot) or in weekly sessions over the course of months or even years.
Portland boasts a bevy of gaming stores, like Red Castle Games, Portland Game Shop, Board Bard Games, and Guardian Games—the latter rocks a bar, gaming tables, and a unionized staff. While any of these shops can outfit an adventuring party with all the dice, books, and miniatures they need, Dark Future offers an experience akin to record diving…