Tabletop Warriors last day

Posts: 4545 · Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:57 am

Note: Thanks to Serelan, Mbassoc, NetRodent, LucyJoyce and Adder for their winning bids. The TTW will go out as soon as payment is received, thanks for your bids and helping to research for how much we should charge for the items!

Note: Today is the last day to put in a bid for one of these five. The bulk of the TTW will start to go on sale sometime next month, but possibly later, as we may auction a signed and numbered copy before offering the "regular" copies. The winners of these copies will have these immediately shipped and if nothing else will have a copy before any others are available. Thanks for the interest!

Mike B.

Great news for collectors of old-school non TSR D&D items....Tabletop Warriors are back!!!!

Virtually unreleased, these old style gaming booklets were printed up in limited qualities back in 1984 by Lane Renfro. The booklets contain a setting and scenarios based on Lane’s OD&D campaign of the late 70’s (’76-’79). Within the pages of “Tabletop Warriors: City and Adventures” lay the basis of a beginning generic FRP campaign for levels 1-4 in the land of R’Lane. Included are two pull out maps of the land of R’Lane and the city of Claybank Greystone; descriptions of the city and inhabitants, with background of the city’s history and politics; eight old school dungeon adventures; and “Lore of the Land”, which includes new classes, random tables, rules variations, and other items of interest. The 100+ page booklet is very reminiscent of the original D&D or Arduin Grimoire supplements. A collector will find the information very old school in presentation and tone, and the dungeons can easily be converted to any BFRP system.

A high point is the excellent artwork of a then-unknown Darla Hallmark; Darla is now a well-known fantasy and fetish artist and created some striking images for this self-published gaming supplement. It is probably one of the most professionally illustrated small print publications of the era! (If interested please check out her website at www.unseengallery.com)

The original print run of this supplement was 500 copies; only 50 or so were ever actually distributed. Today less than 200 exist, the rest being lost or destroyed through the last 25 years. The remaining copies are going to be available exclusively through Badmike3Books, through an arrangement with the original creator and author Lane Renfro.

At some point, copies will be available through ebay auctions; these copies will be signed by the author Lane Renfro (and hopefully by Darla). Later, copies may be available either through the Acaeum classifieds or in my Ebay store for a set amount, to be determined later. At a later date, multiple copy purchases for overseas buyers will be considered. Right now, the only copies available will be slightly imperfect copies (see below).

This supplement will not be reprinted; when the remaining copies are sold, that’s it! This pretty much qualifies as a once in a lifetime opportunity, as few items like this, original examples of old school D&D gaming from the “golden age” of the late 70s-early 80s, still exist to be discovered.

First Items for Sale:

Lane has a few of these with small flaws (they have been sitting in boxes for 25 years, and stuff happens). The flaws are virtually insignificant, but prevent the items from being Near Mint or better. Mostly this translates to a small ink smear on the cover or some slight spine wear or roll. I have a very limited number of these, and no idea how many are slightly worn in this way (from what I’ve seen so far about one in five are in this condition). I am willing to take offers on these…one offer per person, please, and you can only win ONE (Please let other collectors have a shot). I am going to take the best offers for these I get by October 31st (Halloween) and then ship them out. Right now, I only have FIVE in this condition. Below are the items with the flaws; best bid gets first choice, and so on.

In a way, this may determine the asking price for the remaining copies. First come, first served, and just to let you know, I have NO idea what NM unmarked copies will sell for in the future…you may get a deal here, you may get it in the shorts, but you will get a copy, perhaps at a bargain if these end up being collectible. You can take a chance and just wait for nicer copies to come up…but these WILL be the first copies sold and shipped, I’ll get these five out immediately after payment, and honestly, their "wear" is virtually negligible.

As a bonus, I have a "ceiling" in mind. If you hit the ceiling, the copy is yours immediately. I hope I haven't made this to be too complicated...but the main purpose is to get these out to Acaeum folk FIRST, the ones most interested anyway, and determine a sale price for the nicer copies.

At this point I am not taking orders for multiples copies….this may change in the future, particularly for international customers. Right now we are just testing the waters so to speak….a lot depends on the interest in this item, if there is any at all! Thanks everyone.

Mike B.

Copy #1:Sight ink stain in upper spine corner

Copy #2: Ditto, with slight top edge wear

Copy #3 Small ink mark at bottom of cover

Copy #4 Very, very tiny spine tear

Copy #5: Larger than normal amount of spine roll; could probably be flattenered out with time and patience