The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it
Post new topic Reply to topic Page 9 of 12123 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 101112
Author


Collector

Posts: 1
Joined: Apr 21, 2020
Last Visit: Apr 21, 2020

Post Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2020 5:59 am 
 

Great Thread and I have to say with full respect, that the stuff I can evaluate, is top accurate.

I grew up as a kid in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany and got the chance in the 80ies to playtest the first German Dungeons & Dragons rules, since my father was a close friend to a few people at the Fantasy Spiele Verlags GmbH. That was for me on on hand a truly unique experience and I could start with the first German Set and a handful of friends, the first D&D Group here in Germany (and got in many trouble from our School Dekan and catholic groups, who viewed that game as highly satanic at that time).

Thanks for refreshing all those memories, since 40 years is a very long time. If I can help, filling any gaps, please let me know.

  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2020 3:35 pm 
 

Relborn, if you have anything to add, feel free! I´ve yet to come into contact with anyone from truly inside FSV (admittedly, there were probably very few people there, and 40 years later, chances of finding anyone are slim indeed). Do you have any memories who was involved with FSV, or indeed, how many people worked there at all?

And I have to admit that this is the first time I hear someone had some trouble with the church due to the satanic panic of the 80ies in Germany. Most people I remember could make neither head not tails of it, but did not judge the game in any way. Care to tell more about that?

 WWW  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 3:53 pm 
 

In 5e news, Mordenkainens Foliant der Feinde is now available.

Something more about german independent publishers:

One of the longest-living fan publishers is Drachenland-Verlag, founded in 1986 by two young gaming enthusiasts, and still publishing new stuff every now and then. Their homepage has not seen an update for over two years, it seems. Most of the adventures they published are still available, even the ones from 30 years back. It seems that some entries get reprinted (nowadays, with print on demand, not that difficult anymore).

They have two major lines: Their own Drachenland line, and the Traumreisen (dream journeys) line. The former is all written by those two, the latter by other authors. A sideline was the publication of adventures that came into being via an adventure-writing competition held several times in the 90ies locally, with four entries and five publications. The Drachenland line has 15 publications, 13 adventures, a sourcebook about a part of their own game world and a d20 spell collection, the latter limited to 100 copies. The Traumreisen line has 13 publications, all adventures. Besides, they publish or published a periodical concerned mainly with the german RPG "Das Schwarze Auge" (Aventuria or The Dark Eye in english, I think), and some of their stuff made it into canon of that game.

The publications themselves started as staple-bound brochures with yellow cardboard covers and monochrome artwork, but the later entries are full-color soft covers and perfect bound (if I get that term right - glued pages and a softcover). Some entries are quite voluminous. The very first volume has "only" 64 pages (still quite something for a fan-made and self-published adventure), but later entries sometimes reach 250+ pages. Some of the later entries are stated to include stats for D&D4, so their publishing date seems to be sometime around 2010, I´d think. The adventures don´t bear a publishing date as far as I have seen. Prices are relatively low, ranging from 10 to 25 Euros. These are still fan-made products, with b/w interior art and relatively simple layouts, the oldest entries typewritten.

 WWW  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Sun Jun 14, 2020 11:06 am 
 

Another collector had the idea to digitalize old german D&D material. This will be just for private use for the foreseeable future, as a "professional" scanning for reselling via drivethru won´t happen. The market for that material is minimal, as the content is generally available in english, and the rights for re-publishing would be needed to be cleared somehow. FSV as first publisher no longer exists, and my efforts to find anyone who might have "inherited" the rights turned up nothing. I have no idea how this would be with TSR UK, but I guess the rights would rest with Wizards these days. Then we have Amigo Spiele and Feder & Schwert - they still exist, but I don´t think that they want to be bothered with this nowadays. Furthermore, the translators, who were generally freelancers, would have to be asked as well. At least one of them has died many years ago. So, this is quite a mess, and probably not worth the effort.

 WWW  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:58 am 
 

Just now, an ebay auction ended, offering a complete set of all four german BECMI ruleboxes and B2 and BS1, all in VF/NM condition, I´d say. Seems that they have been unused. The whole lot went for 304 Euro. Judging from the condition, this seems a fair, if a bit high, price.

 WWW  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2020 2:01 pm 
 

In 5e news, "Geschichten aus dem klaffenden Portal" (Tales from the Yawning Portal) is now available in German.

I finally managed to acquire "Drache #7" (along with a number of surplus issues I will try to sell again), but the description of "generally good condition" was somewhat misleading. Especially this copy was in bad shape and full of notes and has some water damage. Oh the joys of collecting...

 WWW  


Collector

Posts: 2
Joined: Jun 29, 2020
Last Visit: Aug 26, 2020

Post Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 8:51 am 
 

Hi there! I accidentally stumbled on this thread when I decided to check whether there were any traces of my involvement with FSV on the web. It was quite a surprise to find this rather long discussion of these old story, and since there seems to be some interest I might just try to activate a few of my memories.

I brought back D&D from the States in 1981 and had a small group of players by 1984. Like Stebehil, I was just about 14 at the time. While I was on another trip to the US in spring of 1984, my players found out where FSV was located and just dropped in to see who was publishing D&D in German. When I came back to Stuttgart, they told me that Ulrich Kaiser was eager to meet me since he didn't really know any group that was running an actual campaign.

FSV was housed in a very provisional looking ground floor only annex to the ASS factory building at Leinfelden. I went there several times by streetcar. Usually, it was rather empty and I  would just walk into Uli's office. Occasionally I met Christy Grieff of TSR and Rainer Muller, but Uli was definitely my main contact.

The first thing I found out was their problem with the translation. It seems they never quite recovered from the disaster that the original translators of D&D were now their main competitors. It didn't help that they really lacked any experience with RPGs or with professional translations. In hindsight, Uli was really not up to any of it at only 21. For me, it was quite an opportunity. At first, I did some proof reading of translations. I remember checking Castle Amber (Burg Bernstein) and Horror on the Hill (Hugel des Grauens).

I was involved with FSV from 1984 to early 1985. There were quite a few strange things going on behind the scenes and the whole thing ended in a bit of a silly legal dispute after Ulrich Kaiser had left. The comment on the botched AD&D translation is interesting, because my biggest activity with FSV was the translation of the Companion Set. Obviously they were so desperate for translators that they gave a major translation to a 15 year old high school student to do in his spare time. I did put in quite some effort though, and we had a rough and ready version after about two months.

I just realize that it might take quite a while to tell the whole story. I hope I am not just boring everyone with my reminiscence. Anyways, I might come back some other time if there is interest in more. I do remember the first official Drachenfest at Burg Lichtenberg, and I also wrote an article for an issue of the Drache. It is an awfully long time ago, though, and a lot has happened in between. I don't even know where my things are since I moved around a lot in the mean time and am not currently in Germany anymore. Probably I should have a look in the attic of my parents house in Stuttgart once I have a chance to get back.

Thanks again for the really interesting report on the history of D&D in Germany. It is really nice to have a bit of an overview.

  

User avatar

Sage Collector
Valuation Board

Posts: 2478
Joined: Nov 16, 2002
Last Visit: Mar 27, 2024
Location: Ohio, The land without sun

Post Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 9:40 am 
 

Hello historix,

Welcome to The Acaeum!

Please feel free to provide more input.  That's one of the things about this site, we want to know the history of D&D, no matter how minuscule the detail.

  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Fri Aug 14, 2020 8:36 am 
 

historix wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:
I just realize that it might take quite a while to tell the whole story. I hope I am not just boring everyone with my reminiscence. Anyways, I might come back some other time if there is interest in more. I do remember the first official Drachenfest at Burg Lichtenberg, and I also wrote an article for an issue of the Drache. It is an awfully long time ago, though, and a lot has happened in between. I don't even know where my things are since I moved around a lot in the mean time and am not currently in Germany anymore. Probably I should have a look in the attic of my parents house in Stuttgart once I have a chance to get back.


Please, if you find any time at all for writing more, do so by all means! I am very interested in reading from people with first-hand experience of D&D in Germany. (And if you find any interesting old stuff if you crawl through that attic, please let us know).

 WWW  


Collector

Posts: 2
Joined: Jun 29, 2020
Last Visit: Aug 26, 2020

Post Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2020 8:17 am 
 

Thanks for the encouragement to add a bit to my previous post.

It is interesting to compare the different perspectives on the history of D&D in Germany. When I first met with Uli Kaiser at FSV, I heard a rather dark version of the DSA story that made it look as if ASS and FSV had been in control from the start and had only been betrayed by the translators of the Basis set. Seen in the proper context, it is now much more obvious why DSA had a head start over D&D in Germany. Effectively, they were the ones that were already in touch with an actual gamer community, while FSV was trying to build one from scratch.

Probably the first official Drachenfest at Burg Lichtenberg was intended to build a bit of a community, but it probably fell a bit short. I vaguely remember running the Gem and the Staff as a tournament and later joining in the "Rittermahl (Knight's meal)" which did feature a whole piglet roasted on a spit. We stayed overnight - I think I burrowed a sleeping bag from friends - and the next morning during the cleanup one of the staff members of FSV vented his frustration over the whole mismanagement of the event. Unfortunately, I don't remember the details, but much of it had to do with the announcement that Gary Gygax would show up in all of the advertising for the event, which obviously never happened and which had been quite unlikely to start with. I guess these kinds of stunts really discouraged quite a lot of the core staff members and made it more difficult to connect with actual D&D players such as myself.

At FSV, much of the energy was directed at translating as much material as possible, which is why I got so many proof reading jobs. I actually learned a bit about the professional publishing business from the instructions I received to do the proof reading. I guess the translators they had in the beginning were quite good, but I assume the translations cost them a lot of money. Hiring me to do the Companion Set translation was probably a cost saving measure.

Probably the best ideas at FSV went into the "Drache" magazine. I might have started the idea of introducing new character classes, and I did contribute my own article in issue 4. I guess Uli Kaiser had the most fun with this part of his work, too. It is nice to see that the issues have become collector items, too.

Finally, I should mention a bit about the trouble with the translation of the Companion Set. It was a huge project for me at only 15, especially since I was supposed to hand in the complete translation as typed pages in a time when most of the typing was still done page by page on typewriters! Fortunately my brother had actually programmed a simple word processor for our TI 99/4A computer and we used it to type and print the translation on a dot matrix printer with continuous form paper. I am really starting to feel old now ...

I think I handed over the translation in pieces, but we kept backup copies of the computer files on floppy discs. When all was finished, FSV also requested the floppy discs. It was a bit strange to hand over files for a program that was only available from my brother, but it might be that it saved the typesetters some time. I had received half the pay in advance and should have received the second half after the translation was finished. However, Uli Kaiser had just left FSV at that time and I found it difficult to find out who would be in charge. Eventually, I was told that the translation had not been good enough, so they did not intend to pay. At first I did not know what to do about it, but fortunately a friend of my father was a lawyer. After taking a look at the contract, he agreed to send a fairly standard request for payment from his law firm. That worked immediately, so it was obvious that there had been absolutely no legal basis for the attempt to withhold payment. In hindsight FSV was already in deep financial trouble at that time, and the attempts to cut costs in all the wrong places just worsened their troubles. It seems that the cost of translation had not been figured into the plans to bring D&D to Germany, especially since translations cannot replace the creative work that needs to be done locally to establish a community. TSR UK is an impressive example of the latter and I was a really big fan of the modules produced there.

On a positive note, my role playing activities continued all the way to my graduation in 1988, with a rather large group of players, two of whom had first contacted me through FSV. My circle of friends changed a lot when I entered University and I have not had much chance to revisit my role playing days since then.

As I mentioned, I am living outside of Germany and will not be able to visit anytime soon because of the present situation. I left a lot of stuff with my parents when I moved to the country I now live in, including any records about my contacts with FSV that I still had. It is a pity that I cannot cross check any of my memories of the time. I hope I didn't misrepresent any of the events. Of course many of these memories are based on interpretations of my own incomplete and very personal experiences. Still, it just might add an interesting piece of the puzzle here and there.

  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2020 2:02 pm 
 

Gotta rant a bit about sellers trying to rip off collectors. Currently, a new seller appeared on ebay germany, offering stuff ridiculously overpriced. A german "Horror on the Hill" in Good grade for 65 Euro. A german "Castle Caldwell" for 140. An Immortals set for 450. Now, of course I don´t need to buy anything (and won´t), but setting these prices may let people think that these items are worth that much, and consequently spoil the market. It seems that prices are on the rise anyway, probably because of the popularity of 5e. Still, that is really bothering me. I´m willing to pay reasonable prices, but this is way beyond reasonable.

 WWW  

User avatar

Grandstanding Collector
Acaeum Donor

Posts: 6993
Joined: Jan 03, 2005
Last Visit: Mar 28, 2024
Location: UK

Post Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 4:41 am 
 

The way I see things, sellers are allowed to value what they have at whatever value they please.
If no-one buys then they pay for holding onto their value system out of their own pockets in listing fees.
If they come across someone else who values their money less than what is being offered for sale, that demonstrates that they were right in holding onto their values and they get a sale.

Having been on that side of the buy/sell equation for many years, selling at what buyers think is a reasonable price just places the seller in the position of being a meat grinder for churning over product. You give buyers what they want, and you pay a lot of fees to eBay and PayPal, but you make nothing to justify your own time and effort.

So the seller probably falls into one of two categories.  Its a newbie who hasn't got a clue, and prices at the highest price they can find on Google, or its a seller who has done a little more research, knows what he's selling, understands the rarity of the German language market relative to the English language market, and is pricing accordingly, albeit without taking into consideration the smaller pool of buyers willing to buy German collectable D&D.

Time will tell. Either the price will come down and you'll buy at a price you're happy with. The price will stay the same and the items will be withdrawn from the market, or they will sell to someone willing to pay.

Have you thought about PMing the person and offering a set price for multiple items and seeing if he'll go for a bulk deal of 3 or 4 items?


This week I've been mostly eating . . . The white ones with the little red flecks in them.

 WWW  


Prolific Collector

Posts: 127
Joined: Oct 08, 2017
Last Visit: Mar 23, 2024

Post Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 12:42 am 
 

It is worth what someone will pay for it. There is no inherent value to which some people are privy and others are not.

  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Sat Oct 24, 2020 4:22 am 
 

mbassoc2003 wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:Have you thought about PMing the person and offering a set price for multiple items and seeing if he'll go for a bulk deal of 3 or 4 items?


I don´t think he would be interested. A used companion set is offered for 115 Euro - I bought a shrinkwrapped copy last year for 40. Most of the prices are way beyond reasonable in my eyes, so I won´t bother asking. I just wanted to rant a bit about that.  :D (and if you know where to find them, you can still find some of the items in NM or even sw condition for very reasonable prices)

 WWW  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 3:17 pm 
 

A copy of "Gruft des Grauens" was sold today on ebay, for 83.50 Euro (sadly, not to me). It is #311/1000 and contains a short dedication to a "Markus". (I saved the pictures)

I recently listened to a "webinar" concerning the history and the rivalry between D&D and DSA ("The Dark Eye") in Germany. One speaker was Oliver Hoffmann, former (co-)owner of Feder & Schwert, publisher of D&D3.5 and 4 in Germany from 2004 to 2008. He stated that they took up the D&D licence as a way to make money. The World of Darkness, their former flagship RPG line, was failing in that regard, and was stopped altogether in 2006. (They started publishing Warhammer in 2005 as well) The licence for D&D 4e was not renewed, he stated, as the ideas about how much it was worth, and how much revenue could be generated from that, differed widely between WotC and F&S. He went on to state that D&D was not his kind of game - small wonder, seeing that they published WoD and their well-recieved Engel RPG.

Other than that, the talk did not reveal new information. Werner Fuchs, who I wrote about earlier, repeated his story of how D&D came to Germany.

 WWW  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2020 2:09 pm 
 

I acquired an issue of the german magazine "Fantasywelt" from early 1989. The news bits, right after the Nuremberg Games Fair, was wondering why FSV wasn´t there. A person from that company or its mother was quoted that they had "forgotten" their stock.... So, to the public FSV was not dead then.

 WWW  

User avatar

Prolific Collector

Posts: 174
Joined: Jun 18, 2016
Last Visit: Mar 19, 2024
Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2020 6:40 am 
 

Another "Gruft des Grauens" is currently live on ebay, #227. The cover is somewhere in the GD or VG range, the content seems to be in better shape. Currently, it stands at 91 Euro, which is lower than the minimal price set by the seller. Well, that is more now than I´m willing to pay for it...

EDIT: it ended up at 201 Euro....

 WWW  

User avatar

Sage Collector
Valuation Board

Posts: 2478
Joined: Nov 16, 2002
Last Visit: Mar 27, 2024
Location: Ohio, The land without sun

Post Posted: Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:57 am 
 

I would expect these to sell for much more eventually, once people realize their rarity.  There aren't many foreign products that were limited to 1000 copies, especially with Gary Gygax's signature.  This product is also uniquely different than its counterparts in other countries.

  
PreviousNext
Post new topic Reply to topic Page 9 of 12123 ... 6, 7, 8, 9, 101112