The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it
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Post Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:41 pm 
 

The title says it. It might not be fully on-topic here, but I know that there are some folks besides me that collect the german stuff, so some background might be interesting. I am no "insider" by any means, so my tale is not complete or written with full insight. Take the following "cum grano salis".

I encountered D&D the first time in the summer of 1984, when a school friend of mine had the german basic and expert set. He was the DM, and I made two characters, a fighter named Aragorn (hey, I was 14!) and cleric whose name is lost to history. I was hooked instantly, and pestered my parents into getting me the basic set for christmas, which they did.
From then onward, I regularly visited a local hobby shop to see what was in stock. For the most part, it was the two sets, and about four or so modules for each. At some point, the german magazine "Drache" turned up. A overview can be seen here: rollenspiel-info.de At that point in time, it was issue #8, sadly the last one. New items were announced for years. I just dug out an old catalogue from a german retailer, printed in September/October 1986. The AD&D Spielerhandbuch and Monsterhandbuch 1 & 2 were available then, for 35 D-Mark each. The english version did cost nearly twice that! The exchange rate US-$ to D-Mark was very unfavorable at that time. I recall buying an Unearthed Arcana in 1988 for about 50 D-Mark - somewhat cheaper, but still very expensive. A single issue of Dragon was listed at 17 D-Mark.

Back to topic, the company producing german D&D at that time, FSV (Fantasy-Spiele-Verlag) did announce a ton of products, but in the end, did not publish that many. In the case of the Spielleiterhandbuch, the wait was very long, and the translation partially very bad. I don´t know what happened, but it reads like being translated by an early translation software, with sentences that made no sense at all, and translations that did not fit into the context. But then, without FSV, there would have been no D&D in Germany at all. They did publish about 30 D&D/AD&D products in roughly 5 years, after all.

FSV was a department of the game manufacturer ASS (which means in full Altenburg-Stralsunder Spielkartenfabrik - it started out as a playing card company way back, based in what was the GDR after 1945, but the company relocated to Stuttgart. This is a long history in itself, but has no relevance here). FSV had been founded to produce D&D. They saw a huge marketing potential to D&D, an old newspaper article stated that in the (first) year 1984, FSV and Schmidt Spiele (see below) expected sales in the realm of three million D-Mark each in that year. I guess that D&D fell short of these expectations, which might explain the less-than-enthusiastic support given. I guess that they overestimated the market. At that time, there were about 60 million people living in Western Germany, with only a fraction of these being potential customers anyway.

(Side Note: Before FSV, the Schmidt Spiele company was allegedly interested in the licence, but for some reason did not obtain it. Schmidt Spiele saw the potential in RPGs, however, and had the very successful german RPG The Dark Eye (Das Schwarze Auge) commissioned - by the same guys responsible for the translations of D&D and Tunnels and Trolls. The Dark Eye is still the most successful fantasy RPG in Germany by a long shot. If anyone owns the german red box or Palast der Silberprinzessin, Ulrich Kiesow is mentioned as translator. See here: Ulrich Kiesow - Wikipedia RPG in Germany cannot be discussed without a look at DSA, as it is called for short. )

With the 2nd Edition of AD&D, FSV was no longer the publisher. In an old german gaming magazine (Zauberzeit Nr. 9, Feb/Mar 1988), several products for D&D/AD&D were announced to be available later that year. The next line of products was published by TSRs own british department. They started with the AD&D2 Players Handbook in german, which was available within a short time frame after the original, perhaps even in 1989. From then on up until TSR crashed in 1997, german products came from TSR UK. They were quite ambitious at that time, with the rules, several hardcovers, several campaign settings and quite some modules being published. The Basic D&D was also continued, with the Rules Cyclopedia and some more stuff. In 1994, the first german issue of Dragon was published by Uwe Körner, who was also involved in the translations. The magazine was published sporadically, with 17 issues until 2003. See here: rollenspiel-info.de It seems that it was published most regularly around the time 3e was coming.

The TSR crash did bring a new publisher for german products as well: Amigo Spiele. They published AD&D2 (Basic D&D was dead in Germany then for several years) in a series of boxes containing rulebooks and adventures, and several modules as well. The boxes started with a simplified beginners version of the rules, and necessitated buying more boxes to have the complete system. The booklets in the boxes shared the same basic design, and it would be more or less impossible to find a certain book just by looking at a stack of them, most being stapled. These booklets are sold in any combination today, finding a complete box is probably rare these days.
I think that they aimed at the toy and hobby market with that format. But at that time, stores for RPGs were well-established, so it remains unclear to me.
It is interesting in that this edition is the only edition so far to use a design not mimicking the original design, but instead using a design of their own.
What is most puzzling to me is that they decided to translate some really old modules then, like Destiny of Kings, Treasure Hunt, The Gauntlet, The Sentinel and even Tomb of Horrors in 1998/99. 15+ year old stuff, when there was like a ton of newer things available?

Amigo Spiele also established a german RPGA organization, and they remained the publisher well into 3e. The translations of the 3.0 core rules were available quite fast, and now they again used the standard design.  They published the 3.0 standard adventures as well, and some things beyond that. In the middle of publishing 3.5, they handed it over to Feder und Schwert. Feder und Schwert is a well-established RPG publisher, starting in 1989 with some small-press RPG stuff, and hitting a gold mine in securing the german licence for White Wolfs World of Darkness at some time in the early 90ies. They published the much-praised Engel RPG around 2000, and got the D&D licence in 2004 (and kept it until 2009). At the time they took the D&D licence, they were in the middle of publishing the new World of Darkness. Maybe they saw that the nWoD would not be such a huge success, and looked for something new. In 2006, they stopped translating WoD. They produce quite some hardcover books for 3.5, and more. As they had the licence until D&D4 came, they produced translations of the three main rulebooks for that edition as well. After that, the history of german D&D ends for the time being.

The old TSR/XD&D items from the 80íes are hard to get over here, not to mention older items. They did not reach us in big numbers, as they were quite expensive at the time. What´s more, RPGs were introduced to a broader audience in 1984 - and then, the german Das Schwarze Auge (DSA) had a better start (it was even easier to learn and play with the first ruleset, and recieved better support). To this day,  DSA is the leader in Germany for fantasy RPGs by a wide margin. The late 80ies/early 90ies saw the establishment of specialized game stores, and made stuff more widely available. In the late 90ies, the Internet of course changed everything.

The prices for collectors items seem to tend to be higher over here, due to lesser availability. The rarity index on the Acaeum is true for the US only, I´d say. Today still, german RPG items tend to be printed in very small print runs - I seem to recall that the german Pathfinder rulebook reached 10.000 copies recently, and some PF items had print runs in the low three-digit area in german. But then, the german RPG market is very small, and the "industry" has a few dozen people in full-time at most. In fact, I know that some of the PF translations are fan-made, as it would not be possible to do them otherwise.

With the above said, I don´t see a german licence for 5e at the moment. The niche is filled by DSA and Pathfinder (and the german  Midgard to a lesser extent), and the market is really small to start with.

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Post Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 6:44 pm 
 

Awesome information! Thanks for taking the time to write this up.


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Post Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 2:59 pm 
 

I went through my collection of the old german magazine "Zauberzeit" (Which ran from 1986 to 1993, with 38 issues total. It was continued under the name "Nautilus") and dug out some information about publication of german D&D/AD&D stuff, which might be an interesting addition to my prior post. Any information given below refers to german products.

Items not mentioned below, especially the boxed sets and the modules with "lower" module codes, seem to have been available already by fall 1986.

ZZ1, 9/86: according to a big ad on the back, the AD&D Spielerhandbuch was available - not sure if it really was at that point. In the mag were reviews of the Monsterhandbuch 1 and 2, and noted as "new within the last few months before publication" were : B6, B7, E5, E6, AS1,AS2,AS3, Sternengarde SGA3.

ZZ2, 12/86: New: AD&D Spielerhandbuch, L1, AS4

ZZ3, 2/87: Review of the new items in #2

ZZ4, 4/87: Spielleiterhandbuch announced for April or May, same for L2, DL1, Master set. Sternengarde discontinued.

ZZ5, 6/87: Spielleiterhandbuch now announced for mid-June. We are told a new person is in charge since February, when the translation was not complete and not fit to print. L2, DL1 available, DL5, E7, M1 announced.

ZZ6, 8/87: Review of L2, DL1, Master set. Short and absolutely damning review of the Spielleiterhandbuch, which was available hours before the editorial deadline. Given a school grade of "9-", with the german system ranging from 1 (highest) to 6 (lowest).

ZZ7, 10/87: Review of the Spielleiterhandbuch, longer but no less damning. Especially the spectacularly bad translation of the Appendices is pointed out. Review of DL5.

ZZ8, 12/87: One of the translators mentioned in the book gives a statement that these translations were not made by him. An attempt to contact yet another new person in charge at FSV met no success. A second, corrected print of the book is announced in the news section.

ZZ9, 2/88: B8, N1, M2, DL2, B9 announced. Oriental Adventures was planned, but cancelled, as AD&D2 was to be published shortly.
The "korrigierte Seiten" for the Spielleiterhandbuch available, apparently, the corrected reprint of the book itself was available as well at that point.

ZZ11, 7/88: B8, N1 available.

Note: I´m not sure when M2 and DL2 became available, but I´d guess it could not have been much later. It is quite probable that they were not listed in the magazine. In another magazine it was announced that B8, N1 should be out in 5/88, M2, DL2 in 7/88, and B9 (!) in 10/88. The german Oriental Adventures book was officially cancelled by TSR Manager Andre Moulin at the Nuremberg games fair in 1/88. So, I´d guess that M2 and DL2 were the last german products of the FSV era to be published.

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Post Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 9:11 pm 
 

Along with the 17 issues of Dragon, there were also 4 issues of Polyhedron in German

Brette:)


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Post Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 9:30 pm 
 

This is fascinating info. More! More!

Despite the vaguely European setting, D&D always struck me as being profoundly American, basically cowboys with swords +1. Adventurers roll into town, clean up the local trouble, and ride off into the sunset. This is the plot of every western ever filmed. I wonder if this is part of the reason that D&D didn't catch on more. It wasn't speaking to you guys like it was to us.

This would be similar to super hero comics, actually. The comic book market equals super heroes in the United States, while it's anything but throughout the rest of the world.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 1:40 am 
 

beasterbrook wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:Along with the 17 issues of Dragon, there were also 4 issues of Polyhedron in German

Brette:)

Right. They were published in the german RPGA context, which Amigo Spiele had set up.
EDIT: got three of them (2-4), along with #8 for the Europe/Asia Pacific and Africa. Apparently, the german issues were published in 1999 and 2000.

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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 2:20 pm 
 

DonjonMaster wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:This is fascinating info. More! More!

Thanks. I don´t know what to tell you - unless I get some contact to former insiders and can ask them, I think there will be not much more information forthcoming. But I´ll keep my eyes open.
DonjonMaster wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:Despite the vaguely European setting, D&D always struck me as being profoundly American, basically cowboys with swords +1. Adventurers roll into town, clean up the local trouble, and ride off into the sunset. This is the plot of every western ever filmed. I wonder if this is part of the reason that D&D didn't catch on more. It wasn't speaking to you guys like it was to us.

Heh. I like the "cowboys with swords" image. I don´t really know if this is the right place to discuss this at length, but there sure is a difference between the US and the european mindset - perhaps this is indeed one reason D&D did not catch more. But one big reason surely is that the makers of Das Schwarze Auge started regular publications immediately, and at times published one adventure every two months. Another is that the authors were available, and that they started to include the fanbase early on, with some fans becoming regular authors fast. What´s more, the setting was developed soon as well, while there was not much available in this regard for D&D/AD&D. The setting for DSA was probably closer to the typical german idea of late middle ages than the D&D background, it was on a smaller scale as well, and delivered a feeling that made suspense of disbelief easy. We sometimes joked that they defined every village smith in the setting boxes and books, but it was perhaps this level of detail that played into it as well.

With XD&D, you soon ran into the problem that you more or less needed to use english books to continue, which was a problem for many players - I know a few who do not know enough english to use an english RPG book. This is still an issue today, many even young people are loathe to read english at length.

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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 5:02 pm 
 

they defined every village smith in the setting boxes and books


Yeah, we never had the patience for this, unless the smith was actually a veteran adventurer working in secret for the Viscount of Verbobonc or kept a stash of platinum pieces under the scrap pile out back.

  

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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:38 am 
 

One more thing regarding the greater success of DSA over D&D: pricing. While doing my "research" a few days ago, I noticed that while the basic boxes of both games were about the same price back then, the DSA box included a stack of blank character sheets and, due to the very easy starters rules, had more space devoted to adventures, if memory serves right. Furthermore, the DSA adventures did cost around 11 D-Mark initially, later up to 16 , while the D&D modules did cost around 17 initially, with 22 later on. So, with DSA, you basically got more for your money.

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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 2:10 am 
 

The longer you look...
Apparently, the publisher of the german-developed DSA, Schmidt Spiele, already had distribution channels reaching every department store in Germany at that point, for they were one of the biggest family game manufacturers back then. They managed to sell about 100,000 copies of the "Abenteuer Basis Spiel" in the first year alone. That number is astonishing to me.
As I recall, most of the D&D/FSV products were only sold in toy and hobby stores, which at that time also had model railways, assembly kits and kids toys... I guess that FSV/ASS delivered these instead of department stores.

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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 5:12 am 
 

Thanks for sharing. Very nice info.


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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 8:25 am 
 

I just dug out my copies of "Drache". I only got # 2,4,8 and "Das Beste", however.

Most interesting is an ad in #2, July 1984. The b/w ad shows the Basis Set and the modules BS1 Blizzard Pass, B2 Festung im Grenzland and B3 Palast der Silberprinzessin. All three modules are shown with the diagonal marking in the upper left corner, instead of the horizontal red line. Another ad from a games retailer shows exactly these four items as available, while yet another ad claims that the Experten Set is available as well. Four german Endless Quest books are available as well, noted in a short review. A big Sternengarde ad is shown on the back cover.

#4, December 1984 has an ad with eight Endless Quest books. A full page inside the magazine is devoted to pictures from the Companion Set, described as available in english, and announced for March 1985 in german. A full-page color ad shows the four miniatures sets for AD&D and the one for Star Frontiers, the last one as "new". As an aside, three translated adventures for the german Tunnels and Trolls are shortly reviewed. The module E2 Burg Bernstein is reviewed, and its german cover shown, so this is available at that time. A full-page color ad shows the available products, the Sternengarde box with SGA 1 and 2, both modules marked as new; the Basis Set box with five modules, B1 Hügel des Grauens new, and B4 Vergessene Stadt available. The modules now show the horizontal red line. The Experten Set box, with five modules, E1 to E4 and ES2, all but E1 marked new.

#8, January 1986 (somwhat later than planned, according to the editorial.) Inside is an announcement for the german AD&D hardcover books, which lists all eight english hardcovers, and annouces Monsterhandbuch 1 and 2 for February. An ad on the back cover shows the Ausbau Set, module O 1 Edelstein und Zauberstab, and the two Monsterhandbuch 1 and 2 as new.

Das Beste has no new content, consisting of reprinted articles. It shows the undead dragon rider from CM/AS 2 on the cover, but announces the module AS 1. The only other interesting information is an ad for Sternengarde, which shows the box, lists four modules and three boxes of miniatures. The back cover shows the same ad as #8.

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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 3:10 pm 
 

Apparently, there were at least two different print runs of the Basis Set as well. I just found an ebay auction:


** expired/removed eBay auction **

(I saved the fotos for reference)

The back of the box shows a big D&D logo, some fluff text and a product listing.

This listing is interesting: It shows as B1 "Vorstoß ins Ungewisse", which is a translation of "In the search of the unknown", the original B1. But published as B1 later was "Hügel des Grauens", Horror on the Hill, originally B5. So, it seems that it was planned to take the original modules in the original order, but changed for some unknown reason. E1 is not listed, and E3 is written Zanathon, not Xanathon, as it was published. This product listing is exactly the same as on my copy of B3 with the corner code.

I compared that to my own copy of the Basis Box. This shows a different backside for the box, with a smaller logo, some explaining text, pictures of the books and dice inside, and no product listing.

As the product information on the back of the older module and the box are identical, down to wording and layout, they are probably from the same print run, and used the same information, which was updated on later print runs for the modules. I own a copy of BS1 with the red bar, which shows updated product information with a changed layout on the back. Maybe my copy of the Basis Set, which I own since christmas 1984, is a little younger, and the product information on the back was not deemed essential any more, but rather showing what was inside.

A very minor difference is in the address as well: the supposedly older products list it as Fasanenweg 3-5, my copy lists it as Fasanenweg 3. Later, it was given as Fasanenweg 5 (on the Ausbau and Master set, the Experten Set shows Fasanenweg 3).

Perhaps this minor address change is a key to the dating of the print runs, as the earliest seem to show the 3-5, then 3, then 5. I´d guess that the 3-5 was used in 1983/early 1984, the 3 in late 1984 and probably 1985, and the 5 from 1985 or 86 onward.

EDIT: According to a newspaper article, publication may have begun in 1983 already.

EDIT 2: I read today that indeed sales started in November 1983.

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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 2:21 pm 
 

This got me curious, so I went through my issues of Drache to see what else I could turn up.

Drachen #1 Erstausgabe (1st edition), January 1984. No actual D&D product ads. There is a full-page FSV ad talking about what D&D is that has a clip-out coupon to "send me more information about D&D." I would love to know what they sent out!

Drache #1 (note the name change), April 1984. Has the same ads that you mentioned in #2 except nothing about Sternengarde.  Back cover ad is for the Endless Quest books.

Drache #3, October 1984. Has a review of the Experten Set and Sternengarde. Has full-pages ads for the official D&D miniatures and eight Endless Quest books, same as the ones featured in #4.

Drache #5, February 1985. Same ads as #4

Drache #6, April 1985. Full-page ad for Monster Handbuch I and separate full-page ad for Monster Handbbuch II, along with a review. Review of O1 Edelstein und Zauberstab, featuring the German cover. Back cover ad shows O1, Monster Handbuchs and Ausbau Set, all listed as new (same ad as featured in #8.)

Drache #7, August/September 1985. Back cover has the updated Sternengarde ad, same as Das Beste.


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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 2:47 pm 
 

blackdougal wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:Drachen #1 Erstausgabe (1st edition), January 1984. No actual D&D product ads. There is a full-page FSV ad talking about what D&D is that has a clip-out coupon to "send me more information about D&D." I would love to know what they sent out!


Wow, thanks a lot.  I don´t have to pester a friend of mine now to dig out his copies.
I did not even know that the Drachen 1 Erstausgabe (premier issue) did exist. Is the cover different from the regular #1? Does it have a price tag? (And how on earth did you manage to get a hold of these items over in Texas anyway? Apparently, my collection is sorely lacking - why do I think of Wayne´s World now?)

So, the Experten Set and Sternengarde was available in summer or fall ´84, which fits my memory of a friend from school having both D&D sets in the summer of ´84.

EDIT: Could you do me a favor and look at the adress given in the magazines? In my Nr.2, it is Fasanenweg 3, in Nr. 4 and later, it is Fasanenweg 5.

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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:38 pm 
 

I tried to piece a chronology of publications together. It still has many gaps and is partially unclear, but here it is.

1983: In November, sale starts allegedly, with the Basis Set and perhaps modules BS1, B2, B3 with the "corner code" cover design.

1984: Spring or Summer: Experten Set with E1, probably B4, Sternengarde box.
Fall or Winter: B1, E2, E3, E4, ES2; SGA 1 and 2.
? (maybe Fall) 2nd print of Basis Set, BS1, B2, B3, with the regular "red bar" design for the modules. This is very muddled, but from the info I´ve got, this seems most likely.
Also, game material (Hex sheets, Dungeon geomorphs, character sheets, quadrille paper) was probably available early-to-mid 1984. My copy of Hexpapier and Höhlenpläne have an ad on the back, showing the three boxed sets (Basis, Experten, Sternengarde), and B2, B3, B4, BS1, E1, all modules with the bar design. The adress is Fasanenweg 3, pointing to the publication date mentioned.

1985: Ausbau Set (Spring), O1 (?), B5(?). This year does not seem to have seen much action at all, but this may be misleading, as some publications may just not be listed.

1986: February: Monsterhandbuch 1&2, August (?) Spielerhandbuch, 1st half: (?) B6, B7, E5, E6, AS1, AS2, AS3, SGA 3. These were mentioned as being available in the months prior to the first Zauberzeit, cover date September, so editing probably ended by summer. Some might have been available in late 1985, as this seems a lot for half a year. Late 1986: Spielerhandbuch confirmed, L1, AS4.

1987: L2, DL1, Master Set due to be out in Spring. Sternengarde discontinued (to my knowledge, SGA 1,2 and 3 were published, but SGA 4, while announced, was not). DL5, E7, M1 due to be out in Fall. It seems that these publication dates might have been realized. The Spielleiterhandbuch with errors was available in summer.

1988: Early (Winter): "korrigierte Seiten" and revised edition of the Spielleiterhandbuch available. Spring: B8, N1 available. Probably Fall: M2, DL2 available.

So, we´ve got:
Basis Set, Modules B1 to B8, BS1
Experten Set, Modules E1 to E7
Ausbau Set, Modules AS1 to AS 4
Master Set, Modules M1 and M2
game aids (four products)
AD&D, Spielerhandbuch, Spielleiterhandbuch; Monsterhandbuch 1&2, L1, L2, DL1, DL2, DL5, N1
Sternengarde box, Modules SGA 1 to SGA 3.

All in all, five boxes, 31 modules, four hardcovers and four game aids. 44 products, and 10 Drache magazines, in just five years. I´ve got to revise my point of view, this is not as bad as I always thought it was. But by 1988, the RPG market had developed beyond these products, which were for the most part two to four years behind current products. As the mid-to late 80ies were a very volatile RPG market, this was plain too long to be on top of current developments. This and the aforementioned better position of DSA in the german market were probably the main reasons why D&D never took hold over here. The Drache might be taken as a showcase: It is a quaint, almost fanzine-like publication (save the full-color covers), and is no comparison to the english namesake of the time. Just months after the last issue, the Zauberzeit appears, and shows how it is done. D&D was behind the time in Germany in the 80ies, and probably did not meet the taste of the audience as well as DSA did.

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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 11:49 pm 
 

Here's a quick side-by-side of the front and back.

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The erstausgabe is only 16 pages with just three articles. The articles are some of the same ones in the regular #1 but the formatting and illustrations are different. There are no D&D specific ads other than the FSV "About D&D" page.

Some time ago, probably between 10-15 years, I was buying a LOT of German stuff, mostly from Uwe Siebel.  I remember him telling him that these were pretty rare, but there really wasn't a whole lot of info out there back then for me to verify that.  He knew that I was a sucker for this kind of stuff and would pay whatever he asked anyway.  :lol:  I haven't really seen one since, so I'm glad that I grabbed it when I did.

The address in #1 through #3 is Fasanenweg 3, #4 through #8 is Fasanenweg 5.


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Location: Schwerin, Germany

Post Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 3:26 am 
 

Thanks for posting these pictures. Very interesting to me. Yes, the Drache are only rarely offered. The other german products are offered every now and then, but the magazines seem to be fairly rare. I have no idea of print run sizes at all. But I´d guess that most of the magazines got thrown away later.

So, it seems that the address changes are indeed a key to the dating of the products. Only the earliest (my guess is late 1983) have the Fasanenweg 3-5, then probably most of 1984 is Fasanenweg 3, and from Fall/Winter 1984 onward it is Fasanenweg 5. According to my earlier posts, only four items should bear a 3-5 address.

I just had a look at my "Abenteuer ohne Ende" books (got 1-3 and 7). They were printed by a different publisher in 1984, and have an ad in the back. The ad gives the 3-5 adress. It might be the same ad as in the Drachen 1, as it includes a coupon to be sent in for more information and contacting other gamers.

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