What do we know about Lion Rampant's printing(s) of Whimsy Cards? There's some nice game summary/contents summary info at Project Redcap @
Whimsy Cards - Project: Redcap but not much in the way of concrete printing history.*
Per NobleKnight's listing @
Whimsy Cards the LR edition of Whimsy Cards had 47 cards in the set. I don't have the title card shown by NK @
NOBLE KNIGHT GAMES - Where the Out-of-Print is Available Again however, so I figured for many years that was the one that I was missing. (I'd had a complete set of 47 at one point, but the nice old man who laminated them for me in Lawrence lost one of the cards while doing so).
However, I supported the Storypath cards KS @
alert icon and as part of that KS they offered the text of the original set of Whimsies for free @
Whimsy Cards (PNP) - Nocturnal | Whimsy Cards | DriveThruRPG.com . I have all of the cards listed there (including 2 "blank" cards among my 46). But after reviewing the PDF page spreads, if LR was printing an even # of cards per page, 47 cards doesn't work out---it would make much more sense if there were 48 cards in the set. But NK says 47, and I have 46 sans title card (and box, if they came in a box).
RPGgeek says 48 is the proper count @
Whimsy Cards | RPG Item | RPGGeek However, it says "The Whimsey [sic] Deck contains 48 cards. One is the title card and three are blanks. Each of the other 44 cards has a title and a short description to guide you, as well as an illustration." I have 44 cards, including the "Draw a Blank" card, which is different from the two "blank" cards at the end of the deck that say "Make your own". But if those two count as blanks + the Draw a Blank card as a blank also, then I'm still missing a card beyond the title. This naturally then made me begin to wonder whether the Whimsy Cards had printing differences over time, perhaps....
Heroic Worlds notes two printings of Whimsies, and both with 48 cards in the set:
Heroic Worlds wrote:- 48 cards, 4-gp rules pamphlet. Lion Rampant 1987 (1st edition, shrink wrapped, flimsy cards).
- 48 cards, 4-gp rules pamphlet. Lion Rampant 1987 (2nd edition, packed in bag, stiff cards).
I can't tell which edition I have, since mine are laminated (they look great, at least
); based on my hazy memory, I'd think that they were 1st edition since I wanted to get them laminated in the first place, but who knows now....
So, my questions for the LR and Ars Magica experts among us are:
1) How many cards are really in a complete Whimsy Cards set; and, for that matter, what are the full components of the set: presumably a box (HW doesn't mention one, so perhaps they were just shrinked together sans box??) + instructions (also shown on RPGgeek.com) + title card + the Whimsy Cards themselves?
2) How many "Draw a Blank" cards are in a complete set?
3) How many "Make your own" cards are in a complete set?
4) Were more than two printings of the Whimsy Cards made, and were there differences between the later printings (I'm assuming that the 2 printings were all, since LR merged with WW c. 1990)? I'm only interested in the LR Whimsies here---not the later WW Storypath Cards nor the reprinted/expanded Three Guys Gaming Storypath cards from 1996 (and sold in a VCR tape case!).
Thanks!
Allan.
* For the historically-minded, Stewart Wieck waxes nostalgic about the importance of Whimsies and Lion Rampant in general in the first update to the KS @
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