GenCon Tournament Module
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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:02 am 
 

This tournament module has a few things going for it, including the Gen Con  AD&D Open connection and a Greyhawk tie-in.  The downside, or potential upside, to any tourney module is that nobody knows how many are out there.  In the late 90's, I traded my Magic collection to a guy in Texas for a heap of convention modules he had from early 80's Texas cons and Origins (no Gen Con strangely).  Since he ran and/or organized these tourneys he had duplicates and even triplicates and a quadruple or two of some of them.  I even got the original artwork from a couple of them that had artwork as well.  That said, I've never seen anyone sell them on eBay or frp.marketplace except the ones I did so it seems there are very few out there.  He told me the Origins D&D/AD&D tournament modules would only number 50 in the early 80's to be distributed among winners and staff if they were interested, and many people evidently couldn't be bothered to take them, hence his "extras."   8O

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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:12 am 
 

Would it not make sense that owners submit (anonymously or with their names on it), the titles and additional details (authors, convention played at, two-sentence summary of the content, maybe even pictures) to Scott and he presents this in a tournament module section of the Acaeum?

Of course, the term "tournament module" would have to be defined for submission process.

It seems the "usual suspects" have some knowledge on them. Why not share? OK, it need not be with pictures. Just an information, so that the rest of us knows, these items exist.

Or do tournament modules not fit in the Acaeum scheme?

:?:


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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 9:55 am 
 

I never put much stock in tourneys from a $$ standpoint. Let's face it, there is very little stopping someone from writing their own module, beating it up a bit, and claiming it was a tourney.


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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:09 am 
 

:lol:

Yes, I've thought the same thing recently that Deadlord said about someone submitting their own work as an old tourney.  How could any of this really be verified?  Someone could even claim the tourney was a Gen Con D&D event and how would we know?  Does anyone have all the Gen Con programs to verify at least the title?  And if someone had the program then they could simply create an adventure surrounding that title and it's doubtful any of us would be any the wiser.  

Don't get me wrong, I think tourney modules are really cool, but I'd tread carefully about throwing so many big bucks at them.  Tamoachan and Inverness get the big money for a reason, they're limited editions that have a verfiable authenticity.  The paper stock on the cover is peculiar which should do a good job of preventing forgeries.  Ditto for the Vampire Queen's folder.  The R prepubs have the distinct folder and Mentzer's signature.  Tsojconth is a bit more problematic in this regard without numbered editions and without a distinctive print sheet, folder or other characteristic, hence it goes for less money.  

On the other hand, buying old tourney modules is the last way to get "new" 1st Edition AD&D modules so maybe it's all worth it after all.   :D

  

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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:45 pm 
 

Ralf Toth wrote:Would it not make sense that owners submit (anonymously or with their names on it), the titles and additional details (authors, convention played at, two-sentence summary of the content, maybe even pictures) to Scott and he presents this in a tournament module section of the Acaeum?

Of course, the term "tournament module" would have to be defined for submission process.

It seems the "usual suspects" have some knowledge on them. Why not share? OK, it need not be with pictures. Just an information, so that the rest of us knows, these items exist.

Or do tournament modules not fit in the Acaeum scheme?

:?:


My guess would be that they don't fit into the Acaeum scheme, which is really rooted in early TSR related, commercially produced, products and their "ancestors".  It would be an interesting site to create though!  Might help grodog find that elusive "Treasures of the Dragon Queen" tourney :D

  


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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:00 pm 
 

Ralf Toth wrote:It seems the "usual suspects" have some knowledge on them. Why not share? OK, it need not be with pictures. Just an information, so that the rest of us knows, these items exist.


That's certainly my intent with trying to make tourney info available on my site, Ralf. And I've certainly hit up folks on the boards to get more info and details about any and all early D&D/AD&D tourneys, as well as GH-specific ones; that doesn't mean that I haven't missed key folks, though: so, if anyone's out there who I should ping but haven't contacted before, feel free to email me and I'll happily follow up to pick your brain dry of tourney lore! :D

I'd certainly be willing to host a list of tourney titles with details on my site:  I've been working up a new set of pages that segregate the general D&D tourneys from the GH-specific tourneys, for ease of use, and both pages certainly going to be more sparse in stand-alone mode ;)

Or do tournament modules not fit in the Acaeum scheme?


Sounds like a good Distributed Acaeum project to me.


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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 2:04 pm 
 

dathon wrote:Yes, I've thought the same thing recently that Deadlord said about someone submitting their own work as an old tourney. How could any of this really be verified? Someone could even claim the tourney was a Gen Con D&D event and how would we know? Does anyone have all the Gen Con programs to verify at least the title?


While I don't have all of them, I do have a lot of programs as .pdf's, provided by Randy Porter (mentioned above; he provided them to help my tourney research, in exchange for scans of all of my GenCon badges from over the years). I'm sure other folks have more complete GenCon program collections, though, but I'd be happy to try to help someone authenticate a tourney if they had questions.


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Post Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 3:12 pm 
 

grodog wrote:While I don't have all of them, I do have a lot of programs as .pdf's, provided by Randy Porter (mentioned above; he provided them to help my tourney research, in exchange for scans of all of my GenCon badges from over the years). I'm sure other folks have more complete GenCon program collections, though, but I'd be happy to try to help someone authenticate a tourney if they had questions.


People collection GenCon programs??  8O

Randy's way cool, actually HE recognized me at GC '04 because of my Enworld Buddy Christ Avatar badge.  :lol:

(People really collect GC programs??  :o )


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:09 am 
 

Of course they do Shane :D


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 8:06 am 
 

grodog wrote:Of course they do Shane :D


D&D I can understand but...ah well, to each their own.

(Quickly bagging and sealing leftover GC program books)

;)


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 2:04 pm 
 

All good thoughts on this

Some common themes that stand out for me are  :arrow:

1.  It's important that these tourney mods have good provenance, to ensure authenticity.

2.  Value depends on many factors, such as:  relevance/tie-ins to other adventures, realms, publications, authors, number of times the mod was run, how good it is, etc.

3.  Surviving copies of these are very low

Based on these themes, and the price paid for these at ~$125 per module, does anyone have any others that meet the three points above that they would part with at $125?

  


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:41 pm 
 

a2jeff wrote:Based on these themes, and the price paid for these at ~$125 per module, does anyone have any others that meet the three points above that they would part with at $125?


With better tie-in to other adventures, I suspect quite a few people might go above the ~$140 each, as paid.

Not wishing to bid above $140 each ain't the same as saying you'd part with one you've for $140, but would be interested to know should anyone wish to do so!

Anyhow; if you resold them individually you'd probably turn a decent profit. ;)

  

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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:41 pm 
 

We think tourney adventures are very rare and hold considerable value for these reasons:

1.Very few were printed.

2.Even less survived after being played at the cons.

3.Some of these adventures were turned into published modules(we have I10 in tourney form).

4.Its another item in your collection that probably no one else owns.  :)

We can't speak for others but most of the tourneys we have were auctioned at GenCon by Frank Mentzer or bought from RPGA members who actually played the tourney. Also if you can find Convention Programs they sometimes have a list of the tourneys that were played. Anyway who couldn't use another cool adventure to play?

BTW: The Sutherland GenCon lot we just sold had a list of all the tourneys Dave ran and that was from 1983.

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Devon

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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 5:26 pm 
 

There's no question they are extremely rare, it's just a matter of them being easily faked.


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 5:34 pm 
 

Or do tournament modules not fit in the Acaeum scheme?


grodog wrote:Sounds like a good Distributed Acaeum project to me.


My thoughts exactly.  :)

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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:06 pm 
 

I've been waiting for input on the JG portion of the Distributed project. I can scan and do writeups, someone else would have to do the layout.


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:48 pm 
 

for what it`s worth here are the six tournament modules i own (in addition to prepub r1-r3) 1)gypsy by frank mentzer gencon19 rpga tourney 2)spring fever by frank mentzer gencon 18 rpga masters 3)it`ll be the death of you yet by allen hammack 1983 gencon south 4)night of the black swords by allen hammack 1988 coastcon (cool lawful evil characters !) 5)of skulls and scrapfaggot green by bob blake gencon 10  6)and the rarest of the lot, the "master" copy of the gencon 13 ad&d open. i think it would be great if a "tournament registry" was put together and i`d be happy to help.

  
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