The recent questions raised on the Jade Hare cover have my brain puzzling all day. When there is a bit of a mystery, I try to don my best Sherlock Holmes hat. . . or to remember Mr. Spock's "When you eliminate the impossilbe whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth"
So, with that in mind - the facts about the Jade Hare cover are:
- It is a Dragonmaster adventure
- It was made in 1992
- The cover is very "sparse" and there is almost no information on the back - which means absolutely NO PRODUCT SUMMARY - To my knowledge this has never been done by TSR on a module since the early days - but at least they filled those with "advertising" for their other products.
- The price is only $3.95? $3.95!!!! Nothing TSR ever made cost as little as $3.95!!!!
- Almost no "covered" Jade Hare are around. Apparently, they were originally shrinked.
- The Jade Hare's sent out for free had no covers.
- It is a tiny eight page module - TSR hadn't printed an 8-page module since the early days.
-CGOULD mentioned earlier that the 3 covered ones were all from around Seattle - I
PM'ed Maxwell who I noticed is in Tacoma, Washington. Guess what - he got it from a friend who worked at
WOTC - the managers were giving away free stuff to employees and just leaving it on the table for whoever wanted to pick it up.
I see only one likely scenario.
Someone at TSR gets the bright idea to make The Jade Hare - a Dragonmaster module. As the Acaeum mentions, this was apparently done to establish the Dragonmaster copyright - but presumably, there was some idea that "Dragonmaster" would actually be a product line TSR would make. Perhaps, Dragonmaster would be a series of short quick adventures that were inexpensive and easy to use - that would put them in the D&D category (as opposed to the AD&D) and the $3.95 price and 8 page booklet would fall in line. Whatever the intent, Jade Hare is published and initial copies are reviewed. It is determined that they are "substandard" or perhaps the whole Dragonmaster concept is substandard or is put on the back burner indefinitely. The module covers are pre-production - which is why they have no back cover synopsis. The lack of any description really seems odd - no one produces a product with absolutely no information about what it is. TSR may have had problems, but they always described some basics about the item. I went to the current auction which has several pics - and noticed something very odd - there is no UPC code. I just grabbed about 40 TSR items from my shelves from all different eras - every single one contains a UPC code. TSR would not issue a product without a UPC code as that is how many retail stores would sell it. I simply can't believe this was anything but a pre-production cover.
Printing costs aside - TSR made dozens of items - cost may not have been a factor. Let's assume that the printing company in use did most (if not all) of TSR's modules/books/accessories. I am sure there were deals in place - you don't rip off your main client. In any case. . .
Dragonmaster is shelved, the product is a waste and even at $3.95 it probably wouldn't sell. Further, there is no product line to support it.
Now, either TSR went ahead and had already printed the booklets and had them lying around or they figured "what the heck" let's run off some copies of this module that hasn't been released. In either case, it was viewed as a little "tidbit" to give away as a freebie. Good cutomers were rewarded with an 8 page previously unprinted module and something was salvaged from the entire enterprise.
That's my best working theory.
"Gleemonex makes it feel like it's seventy-two degrees in your head... all... the... time! "