I don't have any evidence to suggest if it was printed or not.  It is listed on the back of Peddler's Ferry as "RIVALS: The City of North Landing" and on the back of World of Silverdawn as "The City of North Landing", also on loose order form sheet for Search for the Lost City, Society of Sorcery, and Plateau Capital of Evil as "Rivals!".

It seems to be promoted enough to me that it was probably produced.  Printing up copies as they went was also a philosophy of the company so it may exist under all 3 titles if it was in development.

Badmike wrote:Eric Nelson Shook has a bunch of Pied Piper stuff (including Bottle City and The Living Room) up on Ebay right now:

** eBay auction listing blocked.  Please enable cookies in your browser for this site and for eBay! **

Mike B.

Bid with confidence! (but don't choose Media Mail, evidently):

enshook wrote:
The Living Room, by Robert Kuntz (Out of Print) published by Pied Piper Publishing SIGNED: 113/300.

If you choose media mail, I am not responsible for the condition of the item upon delivery.

I guess he doesn't bother packing securely if you choose the cheaper shipping method   .

Probably. Too bad.

A Metro Detroit Gamers tournament module:




** expired/removed eBay auction **




...this is the first time i see a copy on ebay! Ref to the BIN, the price is highly subjective... my guess is that this item will find a new home soon...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fantasy-Board-G ... 415d634d39



Boardgame lot:



Perry Mason
First Quest
Wizard's Quest
Dragon Pass



Under $20 at the moment.

Exactly.  They did everything except what they should have...freakin' AD&D.

Hasbro is a completely different sort of company with an entirely different clientele. They probably don't even know what their employees at WOTC are doing.  They are a very bad paradigm for evaluating what happened to TSR.

TSR killed themselves with all of the side projects.  They ruined their company by scattering their efforts into questionable or even downright silly side projects that cost them customers and wasted their cash reserves.  

They even screwed up Dungeons and Dragons, splitting their game into two games, then three games and fiddling with new editions and new ways to dissipate their efforts.

It was the colossal and damn near unexplainable failure to understand their core market that killed TSR.

WOTC is doing the same thing to themselves right now.  They struck it rich in the card game phenomenon, then struck it rich a second time, but their decisions since have been mystifying in the extreme.

WOTC scored a home run with Magic, The Gathering.

Then, against the better judgement of some of the company's highest ranking people, they took on the Pokemon franchise and ended up printing and selling cards in the billions.

They struck it rich two times.

It was Magic and Pokemon, along with the licensing properties associated with D&D, that interested Hasbro and subsequently made everyone in the company a millionaire.  I doubt the people at Hasbro know anything about D&D other than its name value.

Huge influxes of money are great for a company, but they can be dangerous as well.  Money is finite, as are gold rush windfalls.  They can lead to arrogance and bad decisions that end up sinking everything.  

WOTC, for instance, opened a chain of mall stores across the country that had small chance of paying for themselves.  When Hasbro bought the company, they first used these stores as a way to dump crappy merchandise from their warehouses and them closed them down.

Hasbro also closed down WOTC's world headquarters building, which was like a funhouse for gamers in the Seattle University District.  (Although, I have to say that this money-loser was cool as hell, and it was exactly what I'd do if I had $500 million in my game company pocket.)

That is what happened at TSR in a somewhat different pattern.

TSR branched out into books, boardgames, science fiction RPG's, superhero RPG's, post-apocalyptic RPG's, multiple versions of Dungeons and Dragons, cartoons, movies, dice games, the Saga system RPG and dozens of other ill-advised ventures.  

This was part of a trend that also included behind the scenes mistakes like hiring way too many staff and paying for company cars, a new corporate building and all of the other trappings of big business that drain resources.

Sadly, their decline also included poor quality game materials for 2nd Edition Dungeons and Dragons.

Unlike some others, I am not a WOTC hater.  I just think that WOTC is showing signs of senility.  This is most clear in their creation and handling of 4th Edition D&D, which has alienated a huge proportion of their core customers.  

The efforts of WOTC to build a cool, online empire were ludicrous (Gleemax!) and at least 10 years behind the technology online gamers have come to expect....so they fired their computer people, which was a good move, but should have been done two years earlier.

I hope WOTC recovers, puts out a stripped-down D&D 5th Edition and returns to the path of wisdom.  We'll see.

Oh shit Mark I had all but forgotten "Gleemax".  I was at Gencon the year it debuted.  The general reaction was "WTF?" to the 100th power. Thanks for dredging up that painful image.

Mike B.