stebehil wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:To be honest, I don´t think that the current situation with the core rulebooks, with "Deutsche Ausgabe" (german edition) being printed in a smaller type below the original english title on the cover is a good idea, either. This is easily overlooked. (example: https://www.f-shop.de/rollenspiele/dung ... ch?c=24005)

I'm not a big fan of this either but that's the style they've chosen for ALL of their translated editions. It takes away too much of the distinctiveness, in my opinion. That said, I'm going to buy them anyway, of course.

[rant]
I just have to vent my frustration with the german ebay sellers at the moment, sorry if this bothers anyone. I don´t link the auctions here, lest the sellers take offense with that if they find out.

Looking at todays new offers, I came across a few offers so ridiculous I closed all windows in disgust. A number of well-used AD&D2 "complete" handbooks in their german edition ("Alles über..."), for prices from 30 up to 60 Euros each? seriously? Module B10 in admittedly very good condition (unpunched), starting price 225 Euros (250$)? What? A very battered german Expert rulebook, along with german X1, X2 and X4, all battered as well, for 49 Euros as a bundle? WTF?? But the best was an english Red Box, without dice, the box smashed, the books looking ok but used, described as "good condition" - starting price 90 Euros? ARE YOU F...ING KIDDING ME??? This would be ~100+ US-$ for a copy worth perhaps 15-20, if that. Along with that were used copies of the other english box sets (expert to master) for similar prices, the Master Set for close to 200 US-$, worth maybe 50. Hell, a 2nd Ed german DMG, well-used and looking the part, for 15 Euro starting price is too much for that.

I´m so done with guys trying to turn their trash into cash. I´m willing to pay good money for good items (and surely overpaid some throughout the years), but not for some ridiculously overpriced crap. That is what I hate the german market for - even the most common items are thought by some to be worth boatloads of money, no matter what the condition. And it seems to get worse every year. That way, collecting is decidedly un-fun.

Sorry for bothering you, but I had to get that out of my system.

[/rant]

dbartman wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:I don't want to dampen your frustration but prices are climbing on everything.  Just look at the trends in the U.S. market for older D&D items.  Demand is increasing, and supply dwindling, especially on the rarer items.  I don't expect that will change for a while.

You are right, of course. Rising prices are the result of increasing demand and dwindling supply, and in a more general sense, of inflation and everything. But there is a difference between the inevitable price increase to be expected from these market mechanisms and the attempt to rip people off, as I see these "offers". And I´ve seen asking prices way beyond the original prices for items from 3e as well, even for very common items like Players Handbooks. Oh well - I guess I will just buy less stuff in the future, which is not an altogether bad thing anyway.

stebehil wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:The 80ies stuff seems to be generally somewhat lower priced, strangely enough (with exceptions, of course).

This has been my experience with a LOT of non-US materials. Typically, the BECMI/2nd edition items are harder to find but command lower prices than 3E and even 4E books. I'm not sure if that has to do with lower print runs, popularity, a combination of both or other factors.

stebehil wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:I just found an ad in an old german gaming magazine (Fantasywelt #27, Spring 1990). The Games-In store in Munich advertises that they took over the complete production line from FSV, and are selling the FSV stuff. Apparently, they took the whole stock still at FSV when the company went crashing down. The storefront is closed these days, but the owner still sells old stock via ebay and his own store homepage. Games-In is one of the oldest game stores/publisher in germany.

Wow!  When i worked in Munich it was my favourite place to visit!
There were colums of TSR book/ modules still in shrink... Sadly the owner was a particular gentleman: you couldnt look at these piles of stuff because they were not checked by him (and he had no time to do that)... However it was a store plenty of goodies and i got from the owner (despite the fact he didnt speak english) that he had a warehouse in Dachau with many more goodies...  Sadly that store is closed now...
Ciaoo

Ps if you want some more details or stories i am happy to reply to any question!

I just had a lenghty phone talk with the owner of Games-In. According to his account, he opened up his first shop in 1977, and imported TSR stuff early on, even before TSR expanded. He was somehow involved with FSV, and he said that the people working there had no clue what they were doing at all, and that there were only very few people working there at all for FSV. He helped them along in an not quite clear capacity. When the company went down the drain, he bought all their RPG inventory and stored it in a warehouse he expressly rented for that purpose. According to his tale, they sent him several truckloads worth of material, the german BECM boxes and modules by the thousands. He said that this was about 25+ tons of materials - given the weight of an individual module, this would have been quite an inventory. (and costing him a six-figure number).

Apparently, he sold most of the boxes to another retailer relatively fast afterwards, and regrets not having kept a few hundred. Apparently, he also acquired stuff (the archive?) from TSR UK, and on at least one occasion, went to the US to talk to Lorraine Williams. He is quite an energetic man, despite being of somewhat advanced age (I´m not sure how old exactly, but I´d guess in his seventies), and having had a bad accident a few years back. (He also visited Avalon Hill way back when, and apparently somebody there had german ancestors and spoke at least some german). He is a hands-on guy, on several occasions he bought games, paid in cash and loaded them into his car trailer. From talking to him, I can imagine him being a energetic, even jumpy type with his hands in many pies.

His bavarian accent and his habit of changing topics rapidly made it a bit hard to follow, but the man is a font of lore on RPGs in germany, especially the people involved and the development of the scene. Furthermore, he still has considerable stock of old german (and probably international) RPG products, he told me he has boxes in his storehouse not opened for decades and no clue what´s inside...

"Power, Plüsch & Plunder", a rpg in which you play an animated stuffed animal, whose mortal enemies are Ken and Barbie...)"




I have got to get that!

I don´t quite recall where I read it, but I seem to recall that Gary Gygax stated that they could have done a german translation of D&D earlier than 1983, but a friend of his from Switzerland declined the offer to do a translation. Today, I had a look at Strategic Review and found that a guy called Walter Luc Haas from Basel is given as european retailer besides Games Workshop. I guess this would have been the guy. Apparently, this guy was a huge wargame fan, and published some sort of wargaming magazine (in english) back in the 70ies, focusing on Diplomacy. I found one newsletter digitalized here: Europa 6-8 : Walter Luc Haas : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive D&D is mentioned extensively. I did not look into that any closer, but there might be some new information in there. He had to have contacts early on, as this magazine is from 1975, and mentions that "D&D is getting more and more popular". Now, if he did a translations early on, there might have been a different history to the game. Walter Luc Haas died in 2001.

EDIT: Well, the passage I thought of is from an interview I summarized earlier in this thread. Gygax stated that they could have had a german translation five years earlier (speaking from 1984), if said swiss friend would have made the translation.

blackdougal wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:.

Some time ago, probably between 10-15 years, I was buying a LOT of German stuff, mostly from Uwe Siebel.  

Just today, I got an E-Mail from Uwe Siebel. Apparently, he wants to sell his collection, and sets up a webshop for this purpose. He thinks that this will take months of even years to complete. He sent out an E-Mail to all folks he had contact with in the past (he writes "in the 90ies", but I think it might have been later). So, I guess this will be an expensive time to come...