A D&D Tournament Dungeon designed for Apricon III

Posts: 128 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:09 pm

I have this tournament dungeon and it is from a convention in New York called Apricon III back in the early to mid '80s.

I a copy of what looks like computer printed paper. The old green and white striped type.

There is a copy of a hand drawn map with some character information on it.

There is also some computer printed character sheets and a computer printed Magic User Spell List and Clerical Spell List.

It's all contained in one of those clear red plastic folders.

Does anybody collect this type of item?

Posts: 2339 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:15 pm

There are a few people that collect this type of stuff (myself included). The main trouble with these items is that most look like homebrew type material and would be difficult to authenticate if it is genuine or not. They typically don't sell for very much because of the ease in which they can be forged but also they are tough to search for and basically go unnoticed.

I think they are probably more of a curiosity for most people rather than a hardcore collectible.

I picked up a similar format tournament module for about $5 a few weeks ago.

Posts: 2616 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:27 pm

The God of War speaks true here ... these are fun items, but too difficult to classify with any accuracy. The sheer number of conventions and tournaments back in that era makes it almost impossible.

I'm sure there are exceptions (well-known or "infamous" tournaments, famous DMs, copies signed by TSR folks, etc.), but I'm guessing that most of them are just fun reading material.

Posts: 7612 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 4:34 pm

agreed

i like to collect stuff like this too. but unless its a major item (ie from gencon or some other well recognised event/person), then the values are nominal.

that said, if you wanna offload it, i will gladly take it off your hands for a sensible value.

Al

Posts: 128 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 5:37 pm

Yes, I am going to off load it. Give me a chance to scan it and provide a link. I'll ship it anywhere with in reason at cost.

My memories of this tournament are of the jerk on a DM the we had. We all died in the first few minutes at the hands on a few zombies

Now understand the party consisted of 5 members, a 9th level Dwarf Fighter, 10th Level Human Cleric, 10th level Human Magic User, 11th Level Elfin Female Magic User and an 11th level Paladin (me).

You see this jerk of a DM decided that all of the monster in this dungeon (note I'm not saying tournament, just this one dungeon in the tournament that HE was running) attributes would be reversed. IE zombies where resistant to heat!. This Jerk was rather proud that he kill us all off in a matter of minutes.

Posts: 1077 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:09 pm

Mars wrote:

There are a few people that collect this type of stuff (myself included). The main trouble with these items is that most look like homebrew type material and would be difficult to authenticate if it is genuine or not. They typically don't sell for very much because of the ease in which they can be forged but also they are tough to search for and basically go unnoticed.

This module is on greenbar. Does any business still use greenbar paper? All the greenbar paper that I ever saw was for tractor-feed printers and either dot-matrix or band printers. If the technology is gone now, then forging such an item becomes more difficult.

Posts: 7612 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:12 pm

well cmon merc how much do you want for it.

we are all sat here waiting man.

Al

Posts: 128 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:28 pm

Let me finish the scans and post them so any interested party can take a look.

Posts: 1007 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 6:54 pm

killjoy32 wrote:

well cmon merc how much do you want for it.

we are all sat here waiting man.

Al

Nah no intest in this at all Al.. I have offered him a copy of Beholder issue #1 as a trade though...

Brette:)

Posts: 128 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:30 pm

I made some scans and took some photographs of this item.

http://mysite.verizon.net/ptcaezza/Tournament-Dungeon.htm

Take a look and if you can let me know whats it is worth.

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:32 pm

Mercenary_Roadie wrote:

Yes, I am going to off load it. Give me a chance to scan it and provide a link. I'll ship it anywhere with in reason at cost.

My memories of this tournament are of the jerk on a DM the we had. We all died in the first few minutes at the hands on a few zombies

Now understand the party consisted of 5 members, a 9th level Dwarf Fighter, 10th Level Human Cleric, 10th level Human Magic User, 11th Level Elfin Female Magic User and an 11th level Paladin (me).

You see this jerk of a DM decided that all of the monster in this dungeon (note I'm not saying tournament, just this one dungeon in the tournament that HE was running) attributes would be reversed. IE zombies where resistant to heat!. This Jerk was rather proud that he kill us all off in a matter of minutes.

Honestly, I'm not necessarily a violent man, although I am a Texan. Shocked

But if some turd tried to pull that bunk on me, right after the game when he was having a smoke in the alley, congratulating himself on the job he did of wasting my party, he would get a ass kicking that he'd be right proud of...

Al, are you and your shrew minions getting all this?????? Wink

Mike B.

Posts: 74 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:32 pm

Merc :

Your situation sounds very familiar to me. I found one a few months ago that was very similar. On the one I found though, I could actually find references to it online on a website regarding copyrights. I pretty much had the module (the title and the authors name) and the members here helped me get all kinds of information regarding it. So if anyone can track down more information, its the members here. Good luck with it

JohnGaunt wrote:

This module is on greenbar. Does any business still use greenbar paper? All the greenbar paper that I ever saw was for tractor-feed printers and either dot-matrix or band printers. If the technology is gone now, then forging such an item becomes more difficult.

Quick google search (green bar fanfold paper) yields quite a few results for the paper....and at a reasonable price too...I haven't looked into the actual printers mainly because its been so long, I can't remember a model number off the top of my head. I remember IBM had models that printed to them because we used a few with an RS6000 I was administrating back in the mid 80's. I want to say there's a model called a Microline or Microdata something like that. I'm not saying this a fake or something, just reporting that it is possible to still print on paper like this.

Posts: 1200 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 10:41 pm

Epson still makes a wide carriage printer.
I have not used one since about 1997 when a hotel chain I was working for needed one for AccPac reports.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?E dpNo=1072876&CatId=241

Posts: 2938 · Posted: Sun Jun 29, 2008 11:06 pm

Looks interesting-ish: I'd agree with Mars, it's a $5-20 item, and only $20 if you get a few of us in a bidding scuffle for it Very Happy

Posts: 7612 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 3:09 am

beasterbrook wrote:

Nah no intest in this at all Al.. I have offered him a copy of Beholder issue #1 as a trade though...

Brette:)

you know brette if you did that, i really would get on a plane and come over there and slap you around the head. but as youre an aussie, i will let you off, because i like it there.

Al

Posts: 128 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:42 pm

I was able to contact David Hecht, one of the original designers of this dungeon and he was able to provide me with some background and information about it.

Here are some facts he provided;

Here are some quotes from his emails

Quote:

The theme was in keeping with the Big News of the time, the Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979-1980). The gist of the dungeon was that the hostage crisis had gone on more or less indefinitely into the far future: the execution was basically riffing on that theme.

Quote:

Shep did all of the typing. It was done in EMACS on the then state-of-the-art PDP-11 system, on one of the distributed terminals: I believe it was an Apollo terminal. We (the design/development team) talked through the whole dungeon and made notes, and then Shep typed it all up. His spelling was crap and there weren't such things as spell checkers in those days, so there's plenty of mistakes. I remember noticing one time (can't remember if it was EE or the previous year's tournament dungeon) that Shep had spelled "paladin" with two D's (paladdin) and I asked him to correct it: he put in some commands I didn't know which turned out to be global search and replace, the first time I'd seen it used. Later we found a place in the text where "Aladdin" was now spelt with one D (Aladin)...oh well! Smile

Quote:

There were some really funny moments, like the one where one party realized they had used up their passwall spell and one of them came up with the idea of using stone-to-flesh and then chopping their way through...classic DnD puzzle-solving of the most imaginative kind.

Posts: 7612 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:48 pm

so how much do you want for it? Smile

Posts: 1440 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 2:53 pm

Badmike wrote:

Honestly, I'm not necessarily a violent man, although I am a Texan. Shocked

Mike B.

You are part of the Texas Mafia though......... Cool

Posts: 2339 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 3:14 pm

If you are in contact with an author you could ask if it is okay to PDF it or photocopy it.

The one thing I find with these types of items is that there is probably a number of people who would like a copy to read but aren't willing to pay much for it. Chances are you won't make much money on it but if you want to spread the joy, you could see about making copies.

Posts: 4716 · Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 3:26 pm

It seems a typical, even substandard homebrew for the time period. Spelling and grammar are poor, setup is unimaginative, etc.
Unless David is somehow related to Anne Hecht (and even then, who cares), this is a typical homebrew. I would find out from him if Apricon was held in a gaming hall or a basement. I've seen several homebrews over the years that were labeled as "cons", when in fact the number of people involved was in the single digits.