From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd


Is this newsgroup dead? Hell no! It ain't dead 'til the last NNTP
server goes belly up (and even then it will live in the archives!).

Now, I know I'm no kyonshi but I think I can inject a _little_
vitality into the old girl. How 'bout this bit of news?

EnWorld recently posted an article asking, "How much D&D Stuff Is
There Anyway?"*. Even sticking just to the official material, it turns
out there's alot: over 1000 books, measuring in at over 120,000 pages
that would have -had you purchased them new at time of release- cost
you more than $20K USD (see the webpage for details on how they got
these numbers).

The sad thing is, over the years I owned a significant chunk of those.
Mostly BECMI, 1E and 2E, but that's almost half the total right there.
(I didn't own ALL the books from those editions, but a lot of them? Oh
yeah, you bet I did).

No, the _really_ sad thing is that over the years I had to discard
most of those books as I moved around from place to place.

No, wait, the really _really_ sad bit is that I then went back and
repurchased a lot of those discard books in PDF format ;-)


So, what's your percentage?





* read it here https://www.enworld.org/threads/how-much-d-d-stuff-is-there-anyway.715374/

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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On 9/21/2025 7:30 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Is this newsgroup dead? Hell no! It ain't dead 'til the last NNTP
server goes belly up (and even then it will live in the archives!).

Now, I know I'm no kyonshi but I think I can inject a _little_
vitality into the old girl. How 'bout this bit of news?

EnWorld recently posted an article asking, "How much D&D Stuff Is
There Anyway?"*. Even sticking just to the official material, it turns
out there's alot: over 1000 books, measuring in at over 120,000 pages
that would have -had you purchased them new at time of release- cost
you more than $20K USD (see the webpage for details on how they got
these numbers).

The sad thing is, over the years I owned a significant chunk of those.
Mostly BECMI, 1E and 2E, but that's almost half the total right there.
(I didn't own ALL the books from those editions, but a lot of them? Oh
yeah, you bet I did).

No, the _really_ sad thing is that over the years I had to discard
most of those books as I moved around from place to place.

No, wait, the really _really_ sad bit is that I then went back and repurchased a lot of those discard books in PDF format ;-)

So, what's your percentage?

I've got a good chunk. I had to really cut down last move, and sold or
dumped in the trash anything that I couldn't, most of my 3e-4e stuff. I couldn't bear to get rid of all the stuff I had previous to that, but
have considered getting rid of my Dragon Magazines as they take up a
couple shelves and I have the archive which was on CD or DVD or whatever
it was.

I didn't buy much for 5e, pretty much just the base 3 books.
--
-Justisaur

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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On 9/22/2025 5:46 PM, Justisaur wrote:

I've got a good chunk.-a I had to really cut down last move, and sold or dumped in the trash anything that I couldn't, most of my 3e-4e stuff. I couldn't bear to get rid of all the stuff I had previous to that, but
have considered getting rid of my Dragon Magazines as they take up a
couple shelves and I have the archive which was on CD or DVD or whatever
it was.

I didn't buy much for 5e, pretty much just the base 3 books.

my percentage of actual print stuff isn't actually all that high. I've
got a smattering of stuff, both official (A)DnD and DnD stuff and osr retroclone things. I've long since given up trying to actually collect
things, I have neither time nor money for that.

I didn't even buy the 5e books, I wasn't really interested and they
always were just a bit too expensive. The only actual 5e branded things
I bought were minis and Army Painter paints with the logo on.
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 23:14:03 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/22/2025 5:46 PM, Justisaur wrote:

I've got a good chunk.a I had to really cut down last move, and sold or
dumped in the trash anything that I couldn't, most of my 3e-4e stuff. I
couldn't bear to get rid of all the stuff I had previous to that, but
have considered getting rid of my Dragon Magazines as they take up a
couple shelves and I have the archive which was on CD or DVD or whatever
it was.

I didn't buy much for 5e, pretty much just the base 3 books.

my percentage of actual print stuff isn't actually all that high. I've
got a smattering of stuff, both official (A)DnD and DnD stuff and osr >retroclone things. I've long since given up trying to actually collect >things, I have neither time nor money for that.

I didn't even buy the 5e books, I wasn't really interested and they
always were just a bit too expensive. The only actual 5e branded things
I bought were minis and Army Painter paints with the logo on.

I still buy the core D&D books in print, usually (DMG, MM, PHB) just
because... well, it doesn't feel like a proper gaming session if I
don't have those books next to me when I play. But most of the other
stuff is PDF now, largely because I just don't have the room to store everything (at least not physically. Hard-drives are cheap though so
digital collections can get quite large ;-)

But I so rarely played 4E/5E (and even 3E) that I never really cared
about getting all the books. (Honestly, with 4E I'm not even sure what
_counts_ as the core books, since WOTC made such a hash of it). Even
with 1E/2E, a lot of the material was more 'reference' and
'inspirational' than actually used in gameplay. But it was fun to read
the latest adventures and run my fingers over the big poster maps, so
I don't regret the purchases for those editions.

Well, except maybe those pointless 'trading cards' TSR shat out in the
early 90s. What the fuck was the point of those?



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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On 9/23/2025 7:30 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Mon, 22 Sep 2025 23:14:03 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/22/2025 5:46 PM, Justisaur wrote:

I've got a good chunk.-a I had to really cut down last move, and sold or >>> dumped in the trash anything that I couldn't, most of my 3e-4e stuff. I
couldn't bear to get rid of all the stuff I had previous to that, but
have considered getting rid of my Dragon Magazines as they take up a
couple shelves and I have the archive which was on CD or DVD or whatever >>> it was.

I didn't buy much for 5e, pretty much just the base 3 books.

my percentage of actual print stuff isn't actually all that high. I've
got a smattering of stuff, both official (A)DnD and DnD stuff and osr
retroclone things. I've long since given up trying to actually collect
things, I have neither time nor money for that.

I didn't even buy the 5e books, I wasn't really interested and they
always were just a bit too expensive. The only actual 5e branded things
I bought were minis and Army Painter paints with the logo on.

I've played more 5e than 4e at this point (nowhere near previous to
those two.) I still find it slow and annoying, don't like a lot of the changes that were made, but it's barely tolerable most of the time. D&D Beyond works well for tracking everything if the DM's paid for the
books. Of course it sucks for any homebrew.

I still buy the core D&D books in print, usually (DMG, MM, PHB) just because... well, it doesn't feel like a proper gaming session if I
don't have those books next to me when I play. But most of the other
stuff is PDF now, largely because I just don't have the room to store everything (at least not physically. Hard-drives are cheap though so
digital collections can get quite large ;-)

Yeah, I've got hundreds of books, modules, splats, magazines in PDF.

But I so rarely played 4E/5E (and even 3E) that I never really cared
about getting all the books. (Honestly, with 4E I'm not even sure what _counts_ as the core books, since WOTC made such a hash of it). Even
with 1E/2E, a lot of the material was more 'reference' and
'inspirational' than actually used in gameplay. But it was fun to read
the latest adventures and run my fingers over the big poster maps, so
I don't regret the purchases for those editions.

The books for 4e were great, it all sounded good on paper (except I
didn't like what they did with wizards.) In actual play it was slow
technical garbage past maybe 3rd level. I loved the traps and hazards
and still reference those, and the fantastic mounts they had in the DMG.
Their 5 room dungeon collections called Delves were great. The skill challenges sounded good, I managed to get them to work, but I had to
read a lot of internet people giving ideas of how to do it. Way more
effort than it's worth in all respects. I also collected a lot of the
figures as the common ones were really cheap, I bought a bunch of the
star wars commons (one of each) in a big lot of like 70 for I think it
was $12. I'd buy a few packs so I had one of each of the commons to
begin with. Those I still have. Yes they're low quality with muddy
paints and not a lot of detail, but they're enough for monsters and
enemies. I repainted a couple duplicates I had and they came out quite
nice. I probably have pictures of the ones I repainted somewhere, but
can't seem to find them right now.

Core for 4e was the same as always. Though they made a somewhat new
core with "essentials" which was somewhat better, but didn't fix the
problem of playing slow as molasses with tons of conditional minor bonuses.

Other than the starting adventure which I thought was good, what little
I played and tried as a DM that were published were horrible too. One
of those was that 6 hour combat against 1 monster... At least I can't
say it was forgettable, but only because of the length and how bad it was.

Well, except maybe those pointless 'trading cards' TSR shat out in the
early 90s. What the fuck was the point of those?

I had some of the monster card packs, I'm assuming those were different.
I think I bought them cheap at a meet or yard sale though. And yes, I
never used them, or at most used them once. While they were in color the
art was very poor and I liked what was in the MM better.
--
-Justisaur

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\\
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Tue, 23 Sep 2025 10:30:02 -0400,
Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

[Note: Kynonshi hit 'reply by email' to my post in error. But I'm
responding in the newsgroup instead.]

Well, except maybe those pointless 'trading cards' TSR shat out in the
early 90s. What the fuck was the point of those?

Do you mean the Spellfire TCG they made after Magic got big? (the ones that >reused art from their books and a few times just photographs of TSR >employees?)

Nope. These were actual trading cards, although they also reused art
from previous TSR products. You could buy them in foil packs or buy
them in a box that included (nearly) all of the cards released in that
year (about 700 per year). On the back of the card was some
abbreviated information and stats about the character, monster, item
or location shown on the front.

Some links:
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/56578/1991-trading-cards
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/56579/1992-trading-cards
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/56580/1993-trading-cards


I bought the first box (TSR #1067) and struggled to find any use from
them. They weren't really good as a reference, since they weren't
organized in any way that would be useful. A card for Elminster might
be next to the card for a giant rat next to a card for a healing
potion next to a summary about the land of Taladas. The monster cards
didn't include the full description, which meant you'd STILL have to
go back to the monster manual. The characters were mostly from TSR
novels, so very specific to a setting.

And they weren't really any good as trading cards, since they released
in the early 90s when the market was just FLOODED with "collect this
shit because they might one day become really valuable like Superman
#1 is now!" crap that devalued the entire trading hobby.

Although lots of RPG publishers made the mistake of trying to get some of that TCG cash.
I think barely any ever really were successful.

I am 100% this was the case with these trading cards. "Magic: The
Gathering" was just starting to pick up steam, and I think TSR was
desperately trying to release something that would be relevant. They
later released "Spellfire" (and even later "Dragon Dice", although
obviously that used dice and not cards; same principle, though)) in
hopes of getting into that market. The Trading Cards were intended as
just a stop-gap product, I think, until they could create a proper
competitor.

But they were expensive and pointless and I think burned a lot of good
will amongst D&D fans because they just highlighted how directionless
TSR was and how they no longer had any intent on creating quality
products. So by the time TSR's 'real' collectible game came out, a lot
of people just avoided them on principle entirely because they
remembered wasting money on these stupid Trading Cards.

I know that's what I did.


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