...I'm in process of writing a book about Original D&D Collecting (perhaps somebody has seen the thread in the main Acaeum forums) to be published in November and it would be very intersting to have a chapter devoted to the Judges Guild products and history. Is there any collector willing to write such a chapter? If so, please PM me. Thanks  8)

Would depend on how much is needed and do I have that time to write it.

ShaneG.

Well, the book is about Original Dungeons & Dragons and JG had a license from TSR, so its books are official and worhy of inclusion  8)

faro wrote:Sounds fair enough. :)

Likewise for the others officially licensed/co-opted by TSR during the timeframe in question?

At the best of my knowledge there were no companies getting license for D&D gaming products (the licensing from the cartoon series is another matter...) besides the Thieves World Chaosium boxed set, but I'm a bit wary of inserting it...  :?

[OT/aside]

mbassoc2003 wrote:I'm no historical authority, but I always took it that the GW products were legit.

*g* Well, EGG did try to set up a merger with GW, but that wasn't going anywhere. The "exclusive deal" period still was rather free and easy, even if the Basic Book used their Mickey Mouse (sorry, Games Thinking Dog) logo rather than the earlier co-opted Lizardman;



==

Managed to arm-twist Shane yet? :)
*ducks*

mbassoc2003 wrote:What about this....
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpage ... icfor.html
And the other D&D publications put out by GW at the time?
Are you including the products published by Wee Warriors?
How do you definde companies licensed to publish D&D products?

Well, my personal line is: a company needed a formal license and the product had to use the Dungeons & Dragons logo: being distributed by TSR is not enough. Magazine articles are not 'products' (so I'll insert no entries for White Dwarf, Dragon magazine, etc.).
About GW products, yes, they are included  8)  till they had a license: the blue book, the small paperback book, the Holmes Basic Set boxes boxes and the accessories.

@Faro: an author has been 99% found  8)

So the main JG product lines only. No periodicals as articles are not products whether the institution holds a license or not?
What about Dungeon and Dragon Magazines? What about Imagene Magazine? They all contained D&D articles and had license to do so, but also covered other games systems, and presumably are not classed as licensed TSR D&D products by that definition? That's really cutting out a whole chunk of what most people consider to be TSR licensed D&D stuff. It ceratinly cust down on the scope of work though. Quicker to press, easier to proofread, easier to fact check, cheaper to print. Probably a wise move to remove licensed periodicals from the book.

I suppose the best people to tell you who TSR gave formal printed licenses to vs. verbal license to use the TSR and D&D names, are all dead now? I'd be willing to bet JG was not the only small press organisation to have permision to publish for D&D and use the TSR logo.

Are you including Wee Warriors in there?

mbassoc2003 wrote:So the main JG product lines only. No periodicals as articles are not products whether the institution holds a license or not?
What about Dungeon and Dragon Magazines? What about Imagene Magazine? They all contained D&D articles and had license to do so, but also covered other games systems, and presumably are not classed as licensed TSR D&D products by that definition? That's really cutting out a whole chunk of what most people consider to be TSR licensed D&D stuff. It ceratinly cust down on the scope of work though. Quicker to press, easier to proofread, easier to fact check, cheaper to print. Probably a wise move to remove licensed periodicals from the book.

Again, I state that I will not insert any magazines in the guide. Magazines were not D&D products, they were periodicals covering the RPG hobby and D&D too. They are in an entirely different category. And, again, I'll NOT insert any products not bearing the D&D logo. So, GW's character sheets are fine because they used a logo and (of course) GW had a license, Daystar West Rahasia is not because they have no logo and no license. I'm still mullijg about the Wee Warriors modules because they were distributed by TSR and mention Dungeons & Dragons on their covers, but so far I made no choices.

About foreign translations, it's not really feasible listing all the translations of all the D&D products in the guide and publishing their covers. The book, already quite big, would get really huge. I chose to put a 'foreign editions' part in the entries listing the number of foreign editions of products X and choosing a 'foreign' cover to accompany the original, US one.

Here is an example (please note this is not a definitive version):

FIFTH EDITION
Publication date: 1991
Designers: Aaron Allston (Rules Cyclopedia)
Contents:
Basic Set: rulebook, DMs Screen, 51 cardboard "Dragon cards" (a quite clumsy attempt to learn ‘easily' how to play Dungeons & Dragons), 48 cardboard counters, large full colour map sheet of ‘Zanzer's Dungeon', poster of the cover art, six dice
Rules Cyclopedia: hardbound, 304 pages book.
Rarity: Uncommon, but the Rules Cyclopedia commands high prices, especially in Europe.
Notes: this is a major revision of Dungeons & Dragons. Besides this boxed set, aimed to beginners, TSR decided to publish a Rules Cyclopedia collecting, organizing and refining the BECMI boxed sets plus some rules and infos from the Gazetteer series. The Rules Cyclopedia is still popular to this day among gamers and collectors.
Trivia: this edition of Dungeons & Dragons was designed and produced to ride the amazing success of the HeroQuest boardgame (a fantasy game with many RPG elements…) both in the US and Europe. Of course TSR had not the big money of MB/Hasbro and so used somewhat cheaper components, for example cardboard ‘counters' instead of plastic miniatures and no three dimensional components for building the dungeon.  Despite the scorn heaped on it by many gamers and fans, it was quite successful in the mass market that was, after all, its main target.
Foreign editions: the fifth edition of the game was translated into Italian, German, Spanish (by a mass market games publisher) and Portuguese (by a big Brazilian mass market game publisher) and perhaps in Hebrew due to the existence of an Israeli edition of the Rules Cyclopedia.

PS: I'm grateful for the feedback here people and not annoyed at all, just to dispel any bad feelings  8)[/b]