Name your favorite piece of gaming memorabilia - what's most personally valuable to you?
Me:
1.) The Glossography (Greyhawk). Found it for stupid cheap (used) at a game store.
2.) Keep on the Borderlands. Again, found used at a game store for cheap. Got it signed by Gygax at GenCon '07.
3.) Dungeon #70. It's missing its cover, but dammit, I still love it for one adventure: Kingdom of the Ghouls.
4.) My first set of polyhedral dice.
Whatchoo got?
My old miniatures boxes. When I show up at a 'con with boxes from 1976 and '77, people go "Woah! Old-school!".
I'm particularly fond of my Paladin's Handbook for 2nd Ed. Twas the first splatbook I ever bought.
1) Original Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.
2) Original Temple of Elemental Evil. Well-loved, lots of highliter marks. All mine. Definitely my favorite.
3) Dungeon 149, complete with Lilith on the front.
4) 2nd ed. character sheet for my oldest character, Darley.
5) PH, MM, MM2, and Manual of the Planes from 1st edition. Not 1st runs, though, for the PH and MM.
6) Basic D&D set (the red box).
7) The book that preceded the red box. Found in a mom&pop video store of all places about 6 years ago for about $10.
ToEE was one of the first things I bought, as was the original Grey box for the Realms (another fave!). Lots of memories there . . . I'm sorting out the chaff from the wheat these days, now that 4E is coming, and this thread just reminded me of what I have to go through yet . . . .
Yeah, I liked "Complete Ninja" myself...
For me it was Complete Wizard, maybe Complete Bard, plus Complete Ninja (of course!). Not sure what my fave splatbook would really be, though. Complete Arcane might be it.
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1983 "Ravenloft" -- The greatest ever. No debate.
1980 "Dark Tower" by Judges Guild.
When I was really little and just "running" NPCs and rolling the dice for my BigBrother DM, modules meant nothing to me, just spending time with the big kids (I wasn't in school, yet -- learning the alphabet). But then, the 3rd time I ever actually ran my very own PC, my brother ran some kind of variation of "Dark Tower."
I don't remember anything, really, from the adventure. Except terror. For some reason, that adventure terrified me -- even looking at the cover gave me the creeps. I used to have bad dreams and probably wet the bed once or twice as a result of that adventure. You can't buy memories like that. And I'm such a jaded and experienced gamer now, no adventure will ever be able to have such a dramatic effect for me.
Years later as an adult I got a copy from Hit Pointe and was surprised to see it wasn't even a horror adventure. I guess my brudder homebrewed to my fear. I loved that adventure for some reason; I was genuinely terrified, to the point of crying, but I loved it and always wanted to play it anyway.
-W. E. Ray
1st edition modules:
Lost Caverns of Tsjocanth
Ghost Tower of Inverness
White Plume Mountain
Tomb of Horrors
Dragon Magazine collection #32-current, plus many older issues going back to single digits.
More recent: Dungeon Magazine 4 poster map of Greyhawk
My first Dms guide, luckily purchased right as 3.5 came out, with the back pages falling out and everything
My lucky dice that can channel my rage in "salt mode"
My minis box made of duct tape
My chainmail dice bag
The reminders on my character sheets detailing the obscene amounts of damage I've done on critical hits
My collassal red dragon
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1. My Rules Cyclopedia. Stuffed full of goodness, I love just reading through it time and time again.
2.AD&D 2nd Edition DM Screen (the one that came with Terrible Trouble at Tragidore). It is nothing fancy but for some reason that screen just screams D&D to me and makes me all nostalgic.
3. My first AD&D 2nd Edition PHB. It has a paper sack book cover and duct tape keeping it together. Its ugly but a testament to the many,many, many hours of gaming it gave us. The book cover and duct tape were put on in it in the early 90's to try and keep it in circulation with our group. Probably one of the best groups I've ever had and that ratty ol' PHB reminds me of that time.
4. 3 blue d6's I originally got in a Battletech set (one extra die was included by mistake I guess). They quickly became my stat rolling dice for D&D and still function as such to this day.
My instruction manuals from Warcraft II and expansion.
My original Starcraft box (Hydralisk cover version!)
My original Baldur's Gate I and II, with thick spiral-bound manuals and weird paper CD case for BGI.
My "Complete Scoundrel", signed by Mr. McArtor and Mr. Schneider is prized.
My very first issue of Dragon (#282) and 3.0 PHB.
I have no dice I'm attached to, because they're all fickle traitors.
An old notebook with a two-page detailed outline on how to repeatedly kill a player character until he couldnt' be raised anymore.
My original Deities and Demigods with the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythoi included.
An copy of a work from a prominent game designer autographed with "Thanks for all your hard work".
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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AD&D Ravenloft Campaign Setting. Amazing stuff. I still use it for adventure ideas.
Ravenloft's Tarokka Deck. 'nuff said!
AD&D first edition Dungeon Master's Guide - My grandparents bought it for me when I was in 6th grade and I read that sucker cover to cover when I got it.
My favorites are:
The original Dark Tower module
The original maps for the Wilderlands of High Fantasy
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
Tomb of Horror
White Plume Mountain
Best of Dragon Vol. 2, 3, and 4
The original Deities and Demigods with the Cthulhu and Melnibonean stuff.
After we broke up, my ex-girlfriend gave me back the set of dice I gave her when she first started playing D&D. I now use those dice exclusively for BBEGs.
Ruins of the undermountain 2nd ed. boxed set
Blood war 2nd ed. boxed set
chessex logo quadruple sized leather dice bag.
Got them brand new for my 14th, 19th, and my 22nd B-days.
hated the rules for 2nd ed. Loved the fluff, and undermountain was fluff-extraordinaire!
Where to begin ?
- My near complete collection of AD&D first and second editions (books and supplements, i don't buy modules)
- My first set of dice (nobody touches my dice)
- My Deck of Many Things (from Dragon)
- The salvaged character sheet of my first character, in OD&D (still alive)
Alas, all these precious artefacts are in a cave, back in my country, accross the ocean.
All i took with me here in US is my bag of dice, as i knew i would start playing D&D 3rd edition anyway.
I'll bet there are very few people who have the same favorite book.
1) The Stronghold Builder's Guide.
First book I ever bought and it turned me into a huge fortification and siege freak. Still lovingly used every campaign, treasured in its own special box because its almost falling apart.
2) My healing (3)D8's.
Nobody touches these dice without permission. Nor are they ever used for anything else if I'm playing a character that can heal. Pink, blue, red. My other D8's are free game.
Name your favorite piece of gaming memorabilia - what's most personally valuable to you?
If you'll indulge me a lengthy and self-congratulatory story, I'll tell you of my favorite gaming memorabilia: my 1E DMG with the electrical tape on the spine, my 2E first-run PHB with a cover-to-cover hole-punch, my faded 1E Monster Manual and GM screen, and my wife's football-sized velvet bag of dice. Here's the story.
It's late 1997, TSR has been gobbled by Wizards, and Wizards' chief legal counsel calls me into his office. This is not always a positive event, as you might guess. But today, Brian has the FBI on his mind. Agent Mulder and Agent Scully need our help. Specifically, my help.
The X-Files is shooting an episode called "Unusual Suspects," in which Mulder meets the Lone Gunmen in 1989. In addition to featuring the biggest cell phone ever, the episode depicts Dean Haglund's character Richard Langly playing Dungeons & Dragons. But, Brian says, the script is all wrong. They need some new dialogue that would actually reflect what a D&D player in 1989 would say. Would I write part of an X-Files episode?
Uh, yeah, I would. Somehow, the line "C'mon, natural 20! Daddy needs a new sword of wounding!" comes out of my keyboard, and after a few more tweaks, Brian and I send my rewritten version of the scene up to Vancouver. But now they have another request. They need props from a 1989 D&D game. Do I have those?
What month in 1989, I say? It mattered, because that's when second edition came out. Late spring/early summer, they say. OK, so at this point, Langly is playing with his brand new 2E Players Handbook and a really beat up 1E DMG and Monster Manual. I have all of those, and the Players Handbook is so new that it actually is a preproduction copy sent to contributors and reviewers two months before the June release. It has a hole drilled all the way through the book so that it can't be sold. I figured Langly could work the channels at TSR to get one of these before June. So I gave all of that, and my wife's massive dice bag, to Ten Thirteen, with a stipulation that I wanted them back.
They came back a couple months later, along with a copy of the episode in pre-production (which I don't seem to have anymore), some X-Files books and T-shirts, and a letter of thanks from the crew. The scene is exactly as I rewrote it, and is funny as hell. Dean Haglund and I became late-night-drinking-buddies years later, after my friend Ed Stark introduced us with, "Dean, you have to meet this guy. He made you say the 'sword of wounding' line." Dean says he is asked to sign that line more than any other.
And so I still have my D&D books that were used in The X-Files. Dean and I have talked about auctioning them for charity at some point. I'll happily do that, but part of me will be sad to see them go. Because for one moment, I was part of the truth being out there.
Thanks for reading this far. Fight the future.
Mike
My collection of Dragon magazines. Yes, I have them all.
Why? Because they taught me how to DM, because they got me through sooooo many tough times in-game and out, because they're an encapsulated snapshot of my childhood, because (unlike family members, old girlfriends, employers, employees, and everyone other than my wife) they've always been there for me, and because they've got far more information than I'll ever use.
By the way, I deliberately do NOT have a copy of any issue past #359.
I'm only 24 so these mean a little more than I think they would otherwise.
My first printing of the "Grey Box" signed by Mr Greenwood.
And my original d20 that retired due to its resemblance to a marble.
I also have Keep on the Borderlands signed by Christopher Walken. He thought it was funny.
I've kept pretty much everything I ever owned for D&D since the early 80's, but I have a couple of things that I really like. My issue of Dungeon #17 which my DM gave me after running my favorite theif character, Pick, through the House of Cards adventure. The other is my copy of Deities and Demigods that has Elric in it. I was a huge fan of the books years ago and picked this copy up at Dundra Con one year.
I've still got all my original 1e books that I bought hot off the presses in 1977-78. I also have an original printing Deities & Demigods with the Melnibonean and Lovecraft sections (I bought it before they got yanked).
I also like my Old Grey (Forgotten Realms) box, my ancient copies of the old-school 1e modules (Tomb of Horrors, Tsojcanth, Vault of the Drow, Ravenloft, etc.)... my Volo's Guides... my D&D/Forgotten Realms comics from 20 years ago... and my old staplebound Original D&D booklets from 1974-76 (which I never played but bought later).
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Great post Lilith!
Reading everybody else's favorites really reminded me of my own. Wow, it's hard to narrow them down...
1. Basic D&D Red Box (later on, I found another copy, which I've left in its shrink wrap)
2. my original Keep on the Borderlands, with the cover almost in 2 pieces, and including my notes about the Cave of the Unknown (made when I was about 12)
3. my 1st edition Deities & Demigods, with Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythoi (don't remember where I got it, but I think I scored it cheap from someone selling all his gaming stuff)
4. the Forgotten Realms grey box, my first campaign setting (though I think the box itself is long since destroyed)
5. my Chessex black dice with red ink, always used for the bad guys, with a d20 that rolls a surprising number of natural 20s
6. Avalon Hill's Lords of Creation RPG, and the 2 boxed modules they produced for it (out of a planned 6, I think - anyone else ever heard of or played this?)
2.AD&D 2nd Edition DM Screen (the one that came with Terrible Trouble at Tragidore). It is nothing fancy but for some reason that screen just screams D&D to me and makes me all nostalgic.
I know exactly what you mean. I still can't understand why none of my other screens look like that one!
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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D&DG with Elric is a good choice. That's one of my precious pieces too. I'm actually really happy to have the silver anniversary collector's set, with facsimiles of old game stuff in it.
http://delversdungeon.dragonsfoot.org/Reviews/tsr_silver_anniversary_collec tor.htm
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My initial impulse is to say 1E Deities and Demigods with the Mythos entries. But the stuff closest to my heart are my colored copy of the Dungeons and Dragons Coloring Album and the first fifteen books of Endless Quest series. My copy of the first book in the series, _Dungeons of Dread_ (and boy, did that book teach me to hate pre-3E water weirds...) is covered in D&D Presto Magics of the critters from the first _Monster Manual_.
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1) I have ahield-like thing that used to hang in one of the Wizards of the Coast game stores that says "Slay the dragon, defeat the imperial fleet, smuggle plans across the border. All you need is your imagination. Do you have the heart of a hero?" It hangs in our game room.
2) The cover plate to the Dungeons & Dragons Tower of Doom arcade game.
3) My Braveheart and Warduke action figures.
4) And for D&D books, the 1st edition DM's guide, the first D&D book I ever got.
Here's my first attempt at adding a link. You can see the shield mentioned above to the right.
-DM Jeff
The Free City of Haven, parts 1 and 2.
I actually have 2 copies of part 1. One is a boxed set I found years later. The other is the original version, which came as hole-punched loose-leaf paper in a big ziploc-style bag.
It still upsets me that they never got around to completing the city by publishing part 3.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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But the stuff closest to my heart are my colored copy of the Dungeons and Dragons Coloring Album
Heehee. I have that! The minigame in it was actually kind of fun. And some of the best art of iconic D&D critters around. The good old days, back when men in armor still looked like men in armor.
the Dungeons and Dragons Coloring Album
Bingo.
The Dungeons and Dragons Coloring Album appeared in my Easter basket(!) on Easter in 1980 and served as my introduction to D&D. I was 7. I still have it.
In later years I learned that my Grandmother picked it out for me. I'm not sure that at the time she knew what it was, or what she was getting me in to :)
~RD
The one and only D20 I roll.
BIG BLUE the CHARACTER KILLER.
Hes one of those solid dark blue D 20s from the mid 80s.
He has has several incarnations but the big blue curse is allways the same.
About 20 % of what he rolls are 20s and 20 % are ones.
Making for an INSANE GAME when you use huge Crit and Fumble charts.
Big Blue the Frist was taken outside by the players while I was in the john and smashed with a hammer.
It went PING and went flying.
So I got another one and he had the same curse...
Years later I was In Australia and he was thrown out the window by me because he was just ruining the game.
He hit a tree and bounced back in.
So I gave him to my apprentice.
Big blue III is current ruining my game.
Has anyone experienced the sold blue D 20s rollng alot of 1s or 20s?
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2.AD&D 2nd Edition DM Screen (the one that came with Terrible Trouble at Tragidore). It is nothing fancy but for some reason that screen just screams D&D to me and makes me all nostalgic.I know exactly what you mean. I still can't understand why none of my other screens look like that one!
Yeah, and I think mine might be undead or immortal or something. Those screens were printed in 1989 and mine has seen a huge amount of use and abuse since then, but it still looks almost new, just a few dice pings on the front from teeth gnashing players.
Maybe it is possessed, sold it's soul for eternal youth or whatever.
My DnD Monster Cards, all 4 sets - remember those?
My red box basic set
My memory of my first character, a halfling named Lightfoot getting killed by a ghoul in Basic my first summer of gaming over 2 dozen years ago.
I could be happy forever with those 3 things
The X-Files is shooting an episode called "Unusual Suspects," in which Mulder meets the Lone Gunmen in 1989. In addition to featuring the biggest cell phone ever, the episode depicts Dean Haglund's character Richard Langly playing Dungeons & Dragons. But, Brian says, the script is all wrong. They need some new dialogue that would actually reflect what a D&D player in 1989 would say. Would I write part of an X-Files episode?
Lol, that was your stuff!
My character sheet for my 2e PO Swashbuckler, Orroz the Quick (Zorro backwards). Not my first character, but the first character to outlive the "3 date rule" (my characters die even when I do things right!).
My Square and Hex Chessex Battle Mats (the 3x5 ones).
Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms poster maps (Thanks Paizo!).
My character writeup for Tarren Tarnruth. In a nutshell, a D&D character with identity theft from Tearyn Tarnrooth. He spelled his name every time he introduced himself : )
1e DMG and PH in mint condition.
Hero System Fiver.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hmm,
My Steve Miller signed Ravenloft Hardcover
My Dragonalnce Hardcover with it's slowly growing collection of signatures.
My black dice (I call them Bard Savers).
And my prized possession, my Reaper Battletech Keychain, Federated Suns.
The Rules Cytclopedia, simply the best single D&D book, ever.
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Well, not much, but here goes...
My set of 8 Dice(Chessex Precision Edge set of 7 plus Precision Edge d3)
My self-painted miniatures
3.5 Core Rulebooks
My Bag of Holding(Paizo, you need to sell this)
That's all I feel I have to have at a game.
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Definitely my yellow TSR dice bag, from a 2E basic D&D game. Also, the d4 from that same basic game, because it still gives me great rolls, even now. Third, the random dungeon generator from that basic game.
Unfortunately I don't have a lot of old modules, excepting the Tomb of Horrors. Interesting to see, though, that my three biggest things all came from the same product.