Pair A Dice Games

I’m not a huge gamer but my girlfriend and I both grew up in families that enjoyed playing board games on rainy days and such so we enjoy to do so when we are hanging out at our apartment. Unfortunately just being the two of us in there limits our options for games. One day we strolled into this shop to see what they had available and after browsing for a while we’re approached by the owner who gave us some awesome suggestions that were affordable and turned out to be so much fun!

Really nice store. Great gaming area. Friendly and helpful staff. Good used game section. The prices rival online, which is really impressive! I’m glad I happened upon this place!

Really disappointed with this store. It is a nice store, but be aware they won’t take returns. I bought an expensive board game, It didnt have enough pieces to start a game for 3 players. So I went two days later and they didn’t take it back, just told me to send an email for more pieces to the creators of the game. I guess I learned my lesson to never buy in small stores anymore, why would you if buying online or in any of the big stores you get to only keep the product if you are satisfied with it.

Really great selection of games, excellent customer service and spacious gaming room. They also have games you can check out and play in-​store and a rentable private room for a small group of friends. My husband and I are avid board and card gamers and this is the best game store we’ve come across so far. The cherry on top was the hand-​written thank you card I received in the mail a few days after my purchase, it truly made my day and showed the level of customer service they provide. Very impressed ^.^

neat little store in the same parking lot as In N Out Burgers… which is what brought us in. my son a game nerd had to check it out so we did :) great customer service, clean and lots of games to choose from. no matter what kind you’re into, I bet you can find it here! I know I’ll be back for Christmas for my nerds :)

Yo, how are they selling CAH for $ 44. The original box. No expansion. What is this nonsense? Service there is bad.

Went to the SD fair and thoroughly enjoyed their display in the expo hall. It was there that their employee kinda introduced myself, my kids, my wife, and best friend to Snake Oil. Rather than just point to a game on a shelf and tell us what it was, he actually SAT DOWN and played it with us. My friend bought the game that day and my son picked up a burning desire to do the same.
Months passed of trying to find time to go and just last weekend we finally made it. I had worried off and on that going into the store would yield an entirely different experience. That every employee can’t be as good as the one who sat down and joined us for a card game. I worried that my 11 year old son would walk up to the counter and have some know-​it-​all hipster roll his eyes and answer him like it was a chore from his own mother.
My kids and I walked in and were greeted by an older man (who I assumed was the owner). We walked the aisles and I saw all the usual game shop staples: Warhammer, paints, dice, various card games, RPG manuals, etc. We finally meandered over to the board games and my kids started ogling all of them. My 11 year old (who we made the trip for) found Snake Oil and was intrigued by a Dr Who game he found. At any other store, I would have no expectation for the workers to know about 1 single game on a shelf, so I had the same expectation.
My son asked me about the game and I told him, why don’t you ask someone who works here (hoping someone might!) Low and behold, the first guy he found behind the counter rattled off (with detail) how the game worked in it’s entirety! This guy was not the owner, he was just some 20-​something working his job! I was quite impressed.
While waiting for him to pick out his final purchases, the older man walked over and asked if there was anything specific we were looking for and how we liked the store. It was very clean and organized. It didn’t feel pretentious. Workers were kind and knowledgable. The game room looked expansive. And best of all, I asked if anyone ever came in to play Blood Bowl. They responded they have a Blood Bowl league! So great, not buying a game from anywhere else.
Adding on this: I signed up for their rewards club. Today I received a HANDWRITTEN Thank You note for choosing to shop at Pair a Dice Games. HAND — FRICKEN — WRITTEN!!!

I have not visited yet, but I did call to see if they had what I needed, which they did. The person answering the phone was very helpful. I’ll stop by today to get what I need.

Had a really great experience here a couple of weeks ago. I’m not an avid game player but was looking for something portable to play with my wife on a vacation with lots of plane flights and layovers. I wasn’t made to feel like a dork for walking into a game store, and I wasn’t made to feel unimportant since I wasn’t a game geek. Got some good advice from an employee on which games would work best for me and paid a fair price. Even better: got a hand-​written (!) thank you card and coupon in the mail the next week. Will definitely return to use it.

THE BEST GAME STORE IN ALL OF SD COUNTY.
It has everything you could want, and the nicest, most knowledgeable staff ever. The Owner is a wonderful man. Some find his prices to be a bit higher than on-​line, I happily support a family run business any day, knowing that such an awesome man is behind such a wonderful establishment.
He also offers a safe and fun place for kids to come and play the games in the stores «game-​room’. Call the store if you want to know more about that. The room seemed pretty busy on a Sunday.

Love this place! My husband and I got into Magic after getting free starter decks at Comic Con this year and to feed our addiction we go here. They always have what we’re looking for, it’s fun, and the coupons are great! (…if enabling.) :)

Love this game shop. They have a huge selection and an incredible staff. If you’re a game fan and in the area you owe it to yourself to stop in.

Nerd alert! I’m nerd and I’m proud. For all you comic book, gaming, cape wearing, staff wielding studs and studdettes out there, you have a friend in Pair A Dice Games. Got some cool collectibles and latest and greatest games and more. Perfect place to drop the awkward teens on a Sunday. It’s great to have a local business and good service.

Dice’s new location is tops. With an expanded game room and sales floor, you’ll always be able to find the latest game and find a place to play it right away. The only reason I have to go anywhere else in the county is the rare time when they’re sold out of something brand new.
Oh, and there are mad parking spots nearby now so you won’t have to walk across that dangerous Vista, CA parking lot. Combined with the close proximity to greasy nerd food, you can just set up and dork out all day.
Tournaments are still good. More and more game communities are flourishing — Warmachine, L5R, Ascension etc. — and that’s never a bad thing. Go spend your money, fools.

A game haven! Discovered Pair-​A-​Dice on my bike one day when I was bored, now I go and game with different groups a few nights a week! Awesome people and staff! Great prices and they even have a reward program and coupons they give out.
I really like the used book section — they’ve had clean copies of everything I’ve ever searched for. Hundreds of different board, card and dice games — I’ve been going to the shop now for months and they always have exciting new stuff.
Couldn’t recommend it more.

I’m a 40k player who just moved to the area and I’m so glad I found this place!
Clean store, nice gaming tables and an excellent rewards program for your purchases. Not to mention that the staff members are very helpful and educated in their product. Every recommendation I’ve been given so far has been great. They know their games!

This place has been on my radar since I got to San Diego, but I found the drive daunting, so I was waiting until I had a reason to head up to check it out. Fortunately, they were hosting Free RPG Day this year, which I wouldn’t miss for the world.
Location aside, this store is absolutely amazing. I walked in and just knew right away that I was in the right place. It might have something to do with the 1^st Edition AD&D books high above the checkout counter, or maybe it was the fact that the staff actually seemed interested in talking to people and providing customer service. Most game stores treat their customers the way heroin dealers treat customers they don’t particularly like, so being greeted with a smile is strange enough – but to be greeted with a smile while being given free stuff? Madness!
(Okay, so I don’t actually know any heroin dealers. At least that I know of. Maybe they’re very nice people. You get my point.)
I had to ask if the 1^st Ed books were trophies or sale items, and they are apparently the owner’s private collection, which he just likes to show off. But they have huge shelves full of used game books, which you almost never see anymore. Those shelves included several 1^st Ed books, lots of 2e including Skills & Powers if you can believe that, old V: tM and M: tA, even 1^st & 2^nd Ed Shadowrun – including, but not limited to, a sealed copy of Downtown Militarized Zone. I mean … zounds!
Additionally, the store has a loyalty club, which provides gift certificates at reasonable spending/​promotional intervals. This is cool in and of itself, but most notably because I’ve never even heard of such a thing at a game store. I love the idea.
Finally, there’s a decently sized play space, and from some of the conversations I had with my fellow FRPGD attendees, it’s commonly used by a group of gamers known as the «Fantatical Gamers Society,» which despite their name are reportedly a fairly laidback sort, big on community and having fun.
This place is awesome. I won’t claim that I’ll be taking the 45-​minute trek from downtown SD on a regular basis, but I’ll certainly use any jaunt to the north as an excuse to stop in. Highly recommended.

I was scraping to find a hobby shop in the Carlsbad area and was stoked when I found PAD. They carry all of the best hobby supplies as well as a full range of Minis, RPG Books, MTG and more.
This is one of those stores that the voice in your head screams ‘danger’ when you walk in. As a huge geek and professional game designer I love both the quantity and quality of products.
PAD is now my SOCAL staple, support your FLGS =)

I went there expecting a Games and Comics store… After all, the sign out front says exactly that.
This is really a GAMES (&comics) shop. Fantastic selection of games. Probably 5 times as many as you would expect to see in a typical hobby shop. Everything from the common to the obscure, board games, miniatures, ccgs, that weird expansion pack that was only released in Yugoslavia, you name it. They have it here. I’ve been in dozens of hobby shops around the country and Pair A Dice is in the top 3 for games selection I have ever seen.
If, however, you were expecting comics? Yeah, not so much. In fact, they should probably take the «Comics» off their sign outside because it leads people to believe that there would be comics inside. They have some graphic novels in bookshelves, but this is not a comic shop.
Based on my own expectations of the place, I would rate it a 2, as I was expecting a shop with comics. But the games selection is so ridiculously good, and the customer service from the staff is so good, it’s absolutely a 5 as a games shop (heck, it might be a 6). So I’m averaging that to a 4.
But really, you guys should change your sign.

We have been to Pair a Dice several times and purchased a bunch of figures and dice for D&D there. The prices and selection are great.
The staff is very knowledgeable about all the games there, not just RPG. It was refreshing to find such helpful people. Forget big box stores like Sears or Toys R Us where nobody knows anything and stock shelves and run a register.