Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons

 

the Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons, which came out last summer, is a woefully overlooked book that came out this pas summer. It contains reprints of the original D&D booklets, copies of correspondence between Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and notes by Arneson on his original Blackmoor campaign. 

Castle Zagyg

Troll Lord Games put out several RPG books written by Gary Gygax in the early 2000s. After he did , his estate pulled the rights to his work from Troll Lord Games so the publisher cleared out what they had in stock and returned the proofs of unpublished work to the estate. After almost 20 years the parties have come to an agreement and will now bring the unpublished works into print but now compatible with the Castles and Crusades RPG system, rahter than Dungeons and Dragons. However, Castles and Crusades is close enough to 3.0/3.5 D&D that the new books ccould be used with the other system with some conversion. More never published Gygax books will get released over the next couple of years as Gygax was pretty prolific and had quite a bit of material ready when he passed away.
 

Gary Gygax Material

 Gary Gygax materials coming back into print via Troll Lord Games

We are very happy to announce that Troll Lord Games, in conjunction with the estate of E. Gary Gygax, and Luke Gygax, is at long last able to bring the works of the Father of Role Playing back to the gaming table!

This has been something we have desired for 15 years and something we are beyond ecstatic to make happen! For everyone here at Troll Lord Games, and for all of you out there, and for the legacy of E. Gary Gygax, this is a wonderful day.

A glorious day!

We need to show the Estate Managers the real value of this material and to do that we have already announced and launched the Pre-order for the Classic Yggsburgh Fantasy Campaign Setting. Written by Gary Gygax and first published in 2005, this classic work is full to the brim with gaming content.

This will be the original version of this work as written by Gary and published by TLG. It includes two maps, one by our Lady of Gaming, Darlene! We aren't changing anything but the Stock Code on the spine!

Gary Gygax Day

 

Gary Gygax Day is July 27th. To celebrate, we will put some of our Dave "Tramp" Trampier Wormy artwork on display. Most of the time this art is kept in storage so this is a rare opportunity to see the art of one of the early TSR artists. We will also display early issues of Dragon Magazine, give out one free RPG item per customer (2 to those with the Preferred Customer Card) and take 10% off all new and Used D&D books and supplementary materials ( including 3rd party books).  You can get one more free RPG item for 3 stamps you earn on your Castle Card on the 27th.

Brian Blume Passes Away

Once of the co-founders of TSR, Brian Blume, passed away last Friday at age 70 from dementia and Parkinson's Disease. Blume met Gary Gygax at one of the early GenCon gaming conventions and together they, along with Donald Kaye, founded TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) with funding from Blume's father.

Blume wrote or contributed to several of TSR's early products including Eldrich Wizardry and Boot Hill. He was also responsible for introducing D&D to Europe when he sent a copy of D&D to Games Workshop, which decided the game was far better than anything produced in Europe at the time and became D&D's European distributor.

Blume was also instrumental in the power struggle within TSR that eventually led to Gary Gygax selling his shares and leaving the company. Blume also left the company about the same time. Most of his subsequent game work involved cartography, most notably with White Wolf

Empire of Imagination

My column on ICV2 this week looking at Michael Witwer's biography of Gary Gygax:  Empire of Imagination:  Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons

How Gary Gygax Lost Control of TSR

Very interesting article by Jon Peterson on the early years of TSR, how the company grew and how E. Gary Gygax eventually lost control of the company he helped found.

TSR Games

ICV2 has some more information on the relaunch of TSR Games.  It appears the company recruited two of Gary Gygax's sons as principals in the company so they could use the Gygax name in conjunction with the relaunch of the company as the name E. Gary Gygax remains the property of the Gygax Estate, under control of his second wife Gail. 

Trademark law only allows you to use a name controlled by someone else as a business trademark if it is your own original name.  Ergo, it would be very difficult to name a restaurant McDonalds and have it hold up in court legally, unless your name was McDonalds to begin with.  You are always allowed you to use your given name as a business name without fear of trade or service mark infringement.  Once you call it something else though, you open yourself to legal repercussions, such as the years of lawsuits between Apple Computer and the Beatles' Apple Studios.

TSR Games Relaunches

Just found out that a new company is launching under the TSR Games imprint. According to this post on EnWorld, the TSR trademark was abandoned about 2003 and purchased last December by a group including old line TSR staffers and members of the Gygax family.  First release is Gygax Magazine, with the first issue targeted for release next month.

1st Edition Reprints

WOTC's reprints of the 1st edition AD&D Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual arrived this week.  Except for the new leatherette covers and non-browned paper, the books look just as they did thirty year's ago.  We had a couple of customers complaining that they would have liked to see errata or updates or introductory essays. That misses the point of the books.  WOTC brought them out just as E Gary Gygax wrote them three decades ago as a tribute to them and to help support the Gygax Memorial Fund, which plans to erect a statue in Gygaz's memory in Lake Geneva.

On a related note, and I'm not sure if this relates to the buzz around the limited edition reprints, but this is the first time in quite awhile we have been out of the original First Edition Player's Handbook. Plenty of Dungeon Master's Guides  and Monster Manuals in stock, but not a Player's Handbook on the shelves.

Inner City Games, the Gaming Company You've Never Heard Of

As I walked around the store this evening, I happened to notice the number of games we carry from the largest game company you’ve probably never heard of,  Inner CityGames Design . At last count, we carry Fuzzy Heroes, Lejendary Journeys (now out of print from ICGD) and a number of their bagged minigames including Gigantic, When Good Villagers Go Bad, My First LARP and Crouching Hamster Hidden Translation, as well as their promotional game, Penny Wars.  We have more of ICG’s games in stock than a lot of better known game companies.

Inner City Games is one of the oldest game companies still operating and certainly one of the few still  operating under its original owner, Chris Clark.  The company launched with the Inner City RPG, in which the player characters were gang members or other city stereotypes, then followed up with Puppy Pounders, combat rules with stuffed animals.  This proved successful enough (by selling out the print run very quickly) that a year later, a more commercial version, Fuzzy Heroes, came out, followed by several supplements.

About ’97, ICG released War PIGs (Plastic Infantry Guys), combat rules for the plastic army figures found in your toybox.  It set off a demand from its customers for more plastic bagged microgames from the company, 28 in total over the years.  During this time the company started working with Gary Gygax (yes, THAT Gary Gygax) and released two of his RPG adventures.  The collaboration proved so successful that Clark and Gygax formed a new company, Hekaforge Publications, to take Gygax’s Lejendary Adventures RPG to market (Hekaforge went defunct about 2006).

More recently, ICGD released 2^nd editions of War PIGs and Fuzzy Heroes (almost a decade after the announcement of a second edition of FH). A new hard science RPG, Lance is also under development as well as two new micro games:  a gladiatorial combat game called Lutus and another title Underground Empires dealing with underground empires, I guess.  Clark would like to develop more but  he is currently a principal in Eldritch Enterprises, a new gaming company comprised of himself and RPG industry icons Jim Ward, Frank Mentzer and Tim Kask, so, as Clark says “Most of my time, happily, spent on ICGD is in sending out orders and mailing out quarterly tax forms” Not bad for a thirty year old company which no one has ever heard of.