Italy and D&D • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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Italy and D&D
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Beyondthebreach
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 4:29 am

Sometimes I like to play a little game of guessing which country the winning bidder of an auction will be from.

Without a doubt, Italy is my biggest purchaser of D&D (not AD&D) items. Gazetteers, modules, Hollow World, rule sets, Mystara . . . In fact, I sell more D&D to Italy than to the United States. The items seem to be making a mass exodus for Italian soil and it has become even more so in the past year. But there is hardly any Italian interest in AD&D . . . why is that?

Planescape usually goes to Germany and I can practically pre-address Warhammer books to the UK & Ireland.

I always find it fascinating to observe the Global interest in items . . .

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killjoy32
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 4:50 am

beyondthebreach wrote:Sometimes I like to play a little game of guessing which country the winning bidder of an auction will be from.

Without a doubt, Italy is my biggest purchaser of D&D (not AD&D) items. Gazetteers, modules, Hollow World, rule sets, Mystara . . . In fact, I sell more D&D to Italy than to the United States. The items seem to be making a mass exodus for Italian soil and it has become even more so in the past year. But there is hardly any Italian interest in AD&D . . . why is that?

Planescape usually goes to Germany and I can practically pre-address Warhammer books to the UK & Ireland.

I always find it fascinating to observe the Global interest in items . . .

its funny that, as i have found things pretty much the same....

bar last week, the few weeks before that, the majority of my stuff was sold out of the UK.....italy was prb the biggest, then france, then the USA....and a few for the UK itself...pretty strange tho aint it?

not that i am complaining at all mind. :wink:

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rosenkav
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 4:50 am

There is an explanation. The fact is that the biggest italian game company - known as Editrice Giochi - has published and translated the D&D boxes in italian, and sold lots of them - so a great deal of people here do know about D&D - rules etc, but have hardly or no interest in the AD&D range (too much effort to adapt them).

Apart from a bunch of die-hard FRPs like myself, that is... :)

Warhammer goes to UK because it's a Games Workshop UK-published game, of course... but I have no clues about Planescape and Germany.

Maybe Ralph Toth could tell us why better than me.

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frankfromgermany
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 5:05 am

Well I would say 2nd Edition is probably big in Germany. They did publish quite a lot of material for it in German including the Planescape Campaign box. More releases were planned (2.5E HCs, more PS, Castle Guide CNG,..) but cancelled later. Then AMIGO a german board game company took over AD&D and published (horribly ugly versions of the) basic AD&D stuff again.

Badmike
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 9:11 am

rosenkav wrote:There is an explanation. The fact is that the biggest italian game company - known as Editrice Giochi - has published and translated the D&D boxes in italian, and sold lots of them - so a great deal of people here do know about D&D - rules etc, but have hardly or no interest in the AD&D range (too much effort to adapt them).

Apart from a bunch of die-hard FRPs like myself, that is...

Warhammer goes to UK because it's a Games Workshop UK-published game, of course... but I have no clues about Planescape and Germany.

Maybe Ralph Toth could tell us why better than me.

I sell quite a bit of AD&D to the UK, but Italy is coming in a fast second on all gaming items. They also enjoy Robert E. Howard books and TSR paperbacks. The Italian buyers (as are 99% of international buyers) are polite and a pleasure to deal with.

Mike B.

killjoy32
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 9:37 am

Badmike wrote:I sell quite a bit of AD&D to the UK, but Italy is coming in a fast second on all gaming items. They also enjoy Robert E. Howard books and TSR paperbacks. The Italian buyers (as are 99% of international buyers) are polite and a pleasure to deal with.

Mike B.

yeah i agree - i have had excellent dealings with them & hope to do more!

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bombadil
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 12:05 pm

Just on the few auctions I've had up, there were a LOT of questions, and a couple of buyers, from Italy.

draco76
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 1:23 pm

ya lots of italy buyers now days

Alexander
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Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 4:06 pm

beyondthebreach wrote:Without a doubt, Italy is my biggest purchaser of D&D (not AD&D) items. Gazetteers, modules, Hollow World, rule sets, Mystara . . . In fact, I sell more D&D to Italy than to the United States. The items seem to be making a mass exodus for Italian soil and it has become even more so in the past year. But there is hardly any Italian interest in AD&D . . . why is that?

I suppose that one reason is D&D being published by a mass market publisher such as Editrice Giochi - you could compare, with due proportions of markets, to the 'old' MB of yours. Then, I must say with a certain pride, having set up a website cataloguing virtually everything produced for Classic D&D surely helped many people (judging from the number of hits) to know how many things were released. Just check http://www.dungeons.it and, despite being you unable to read Italian, have a look :D . Oh, did I mention the fact the DM Magazine reviews regularly old TSR products too? :wink:

Radagast the Brown
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 7:33 am

Hi, I'm an italian buyer (I've bought D&D items from some of you).
What you're saying about the diffusion of D&D and the role of Editrice Giochi is pretty true.

Moreover, consider that there aren't many English-speaking or at least English-reading persons in Italy. I have a number of friends that simply cannot read The Rules Cyclopedia or the Wrath of the Immortals, just as the AD&D books (Italian translation came far more lately ... It was too late). So, many of the original items for D&D and, most of all, for AD&D remained off-limits.
Please, don't let me talk about Italian schoolsystem, particularly about foreign languages ...

And among English-reading people, then, it is generally acknowledge that AD&D is not so good, so nice as the original D&D. Or so I think.

Sorry for my awful English.

killjoy32
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 9:05 am

radagast wrote:Sorry for my awful English.

i think your grasp of english is just fine

in fact, i will say that around where i live, nobody would probably even notice the difference

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Radagast the Brown
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 9:15 am

killjoy32 wrote:i think your grasp of english is just fine

You're very kind.

killjoy32
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 9:16 am

radagast wrote:
killjoy32 wrote:i think your grasp of english is just fine

You're very kind.

you actually find that europeans who are learning english as a language, have a far better grasp of the language, than the people who use it as their native tongue.

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Radagast the Brown
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 9:25 am

Maybe you're right. But I think you're English is far more natural than mine ... I think in Italian, then I translate. It's wrong, I know, but I can't do better.
By the way, thank you very much.
[/quote]

killjoy32
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:00 am

radagast wrote:Maybe you're right. But I think you're English is far more natural than mine ... I think in Italian, then I translate. It's wrong, I know, but I can't do better.
By the way, thank you very much.

[/quote]

hey at least you can speak english. the only thing i know in italian, is pizza

my girlfriend speaks some italian....she wants us to go for a holiday to the tuscany area :roll:

i would rather go to finland, but she says its too cold :?

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Radagast the Brown
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:18 am

She's right. I think Finland is too cold, too.
By the way, I work in Tuscany: now, in this moment, i'm in Siena downtown. It's beautiful day and, even if I prefer Emilia, my home, I can't really say that Tuscany is not wonderful

Reindeergamez
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:27 am

I'm just barely in the D&D and AD&D business, but I find that HUGE amounts of my White Wolf books go out to Sweden, Switzerland, and Finland. And I did 3 planescape sales in the last couple of months to different German buyers.

bombadil
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2005 10:29 am

radagast wrote:She's right. I think Finland is too cold, too.
By the way, I work in Tuscany: now, in this moment, i'm in Siena downtown. It's beautiful day and, even if I prefer Emilia, my home, I can't really say that Tuscany is not wonderful

Welcome, radagast. If I remember correctly, my family is from Tuscany, a small village called Ciaza nova. I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong. It's "New Church", however you spell that in Italian. I've never been there, but have a great longing to see the "home country".

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