TSR 1992 Fall-Winter Catalog

Hello Greyhawk and D&D enthusiasts! Today I was digging around in my collection and found this gem, the TSR 1992 Fall/Winter Catalog! In light of D&D's much hyped products and story events, I'd like to tell you millennial gamers that 1992 was a very good era for the D&D. It was the height of 2nd Edition and there was new stuff coming out every month. I remember anxiously going to the nearest game shop (for me sometimes half an hour away) to see what would be on the shelves next (especially Greyhawk). Let's have a look and see what TSR had in store for us 25 years ago!

Dragon Quest. Never owned it, however I did have Hero Quest which I suppose was a knock off of one or vice versa. No idea. This set gets you a free t-shirt though! Take note WotC.

Hollow World and regular D&D products. I did like the Known World and the BECMI sets. After that I didn't collect them anymore. I do wish I had got The Poor Wizard's Almanac though, that looks cool.

This was a good year for Darksun. Seven products including a computer game for you IBM users. I never got into Darksun, probably because I was too busy collecting the next page...

Yes, the 90's was good for Ravenloft setting fans as well. I didn't read the novels, but the source books like Forbidden Lore were my favorite. Ravenloft was always fun to break out on a dark rainy day and I like those books so much I keep them on my shelf rather than stored away. I also admired Al-Qadim. This was a time before it got shoe-horned into Faerun. While I never ran the rules, those books were great inspiration for my own Greyhawk adventures set in the Baklunish West.

TSR Collector Cards. Good idea, poor execution. They were printed on terrible cardstock, had no custom art (it was all pulled from cropped images out of other D&D books) and in lots of cases had useless information. Sometimes you could find a diamond in the rough, but for canon lore, the cards aren't reliable. 

Now, the Complete Book of Elves (Elvis) is the best of that 2E series. It's the book that gave us Bladesingers. Enough said! Lankhmar always made an appearance once in a while. Love the novels, not interested in the setting.

Here we are finally, the Forgotten Realms section. Yes, the 90's was also the ascendancy of FR one needs look no further than The Legacy by Salvatore, Menzoberranzan boxed set and Volo's Guide to Waterdeep. Not to be outdone, FR also had three video games that season (for IBM and Amiga, take that Darksun fans). Enough of that...

Silly me, Forgotten Realms' novels spill over into the next page belonging to Dragonlance. FR had so many novels that I gave up. I don't know how R.A. Salvatore does it, he writes as much as Stephen King! Meanwhile, Dragonlance still had D&D adventures surprisingly. If any world had MORE novels than FR it was DL.

Spelljammer had a good Fall. Source books (Greyspace, woo), a novel AND a computer game. A computer game folks! Below that lineup we then have two sorrowful products for Greyhawk. Just two. No video games for Oerth. What gives? From the Ashes was a nice boxed set, I always liked Carl Sargent's post-war timeline. Rary the Traitor however was garbage. I didn't like the premise of his treachery or the follow up. The book had errors which were later fixed online, it had a terrible cover which was probably intended for something else and just got slapped on Rary last minute, and it had below-average interior art. Rary's only saving grace was that the lore inside on Sulm and the Bright Desert was new to us fans. Later writers would polish this turd to a shine and make Rary's land more interesting.

Lastly we have the oddities. TSR's Marvel Super Heroes was the best. Anyone who knows what FASERIP is had fun times in the 90's gaming. I never owned many MSH books, but I always got excited when new heroes were statted out in Dragon Magazine. Back in the 90's we DREAMED of Marvel movies. Nowadays every C-list hero is getting a movie or show. Back then we had to create our own epic stories.

Never got into Buck Rogers as an RPG, but us 80's kids remember the TV show. Then lastly we have Gamma World. This is another game I fondly remember. All we ever had was the base boxed set, none of these supplements, but we enjoyed it alot. It was so weird a setting and the post-apocalyptic genre was fresh in our mind with movies like Road Warrior or toons like Thundarr the Barbarian. Plus, given that we lived during the Cold War, GW seemed like a very possible future to us at the time. Sadly I never bought into the later reincarnations of Gamma World. I guess it's better left in 1992 for me. Thanks for reading.

More Greyhawk Trading Cards

A while back in November, I mused on some of the old TSR trading cards that were put out back during 2nd Edition. Well it's a slow winter night so I thought I'd break out a few more of these quirky licensed Greyhawk products to thrust back on the community conscience. Enjoy!

Brogan Steele is a character that needs to be in one of my campaigns. Among one of the reasons being the fact he has a personality that I know if role-played right would drive my players crazy since their characters also tend to be vain. But check him out, this warrior carries a silver mace (probably polished to a sheen) and a magic shield (that I'm sure has a mirror on the inside).

 

 



Here's a Greyhawkian monster that made a brief appearance in my current Suss Forest campaign. For the benefit of my players this is a picture of the (modestly dressed) Needleman whom I can only assume is the genius combination of plant and zombie.

 

 

 

Lastly there is this delightful NPC named Otter. The background is perfect for a druid (makes you wonder if this isn't more common) and Otter could have an otter animal companion for twice the ottermania. Silly as this looks, I could definitely see one of my friends play Otter. I already game with one that plays a kitsune in Pathfinder and another has a hengeyokai monkey in my Greyhawk campaign.

 

 

Fun stuff. More next time!

Random Greyhawk Trading Cards

Today I'm sharing and discussing some hidden gems of Greyhawk lore. Back in the heyday of 2nd Edition AD&D, TSR put out sets of trading cards based on the many settings supported back then. The cards were probably ahead of their time since you rarely hear about them anymore, much less see their info used in general D&D setting canon. I think there is a lot of good stuff here to be mined for any avid Greyhawk fan. Here's a few random bits to grab your interest:

First up is Jallarzi Sallavarian. Nothing new here except this is a sweet illustration of her that I hadn't seen till recently. She kind of has that big 80's hair-smugness about her. Well, she is nobility after all. Now compared to her illustration in From the Ashes, I think I prefer the sleek, curly-coifed Jallarzi with the arm length gloves. Tastes may vary I guess.





For completeness, here is the back of Jallarzi's card. This card as you can see was part of a set showing all the Circle of Eight as of the timeline events in Rary the Traitor.

 

Next up is a curious Magic Medallion that is evidently from the Greyhawk setting. The back of the card is much more intriguing...

 

Who is this wizard named Pax? My guess is he was erased from existence for being audaciously arrogant enough to mess with the perfection of Mordenkainen's magic. Either that or he was kicked to the curb when Mordy found a comelier student in Rautheene from the Wizards Three articles.

 

Lastly there is Willara the gnome. The trading card sets are replete with unique setting specific NPCs. This one is kinda neat though typical for NPC gnomes...

 

A Neutral Evil gnome? Shock! Willara also sports Gauntlets of Ogre Power! Not bad. Apparently she got them from this devious Thartis fellow who works for Ivid the Undying (who sits the Malachite Throne). Overall a fun entry; my favorite part being the end, where Willara hopes to be a name to remember. Fail.

That's it for now. Plenty more cards to muse over another time.