TSR Why I still love the Real TSR

[GuyBoy]

Thanks @Snarf Zagyg for this post. Much-needed after the poison of LaNasa and his cabal.
TSR meant magic to me as a teen, and still carries so much positive nostalgia. It is important to celebrate this and I really hope WOTC will take the opportunity of the 50th Anniversary to do so.
All of us who remember the battle in Nosnra's Steading, looking down from the cave mouth onto the vine-choked Forbidden City and foiling the plans of Lareth say thank you for this thread.

 

[David Howery]

Tim Kask made a clear point a couple days ago: "There will never be another TSR. Most of them are dead. It was lightning in a bottle that will never be repeated."

sadly, yes. For me, D&D was a 10 year thing, roughly 1980 (when I discovered it in college) to 1990 (when my job at the time started moving me around from town to town and I fell out of my last gaming group), spanning a big chunk of the 1E years and a couple of 2E. It was a wild and fun ride and all so new and creative. But it's not going to be recreated....

 

[ilgatto]

Those 1e AD&D books just have a certain smell to them, too.

Hear! Hear! I still open the PHB every once in a while just to smell its pages and let the memories of those early days come flooding back in. I've read somewhere that our sense of smell can somehow do that.

 

[Delazar]

full nostalgia trip...

16yo me (30 years ago...), I remember a friend of mine had the Planescape boxed set, but it was so precious to him that he wouldn't borrow it to me, so I had to go to his home and read it there. I was also taking notes with a pen and a piece of paper (!). While I was reading and taking notes, my friend would listen to the album Ten from Pearl Jam.

The combination of that wonderful music, the art of DiTerlizzi, and the mind-blowing creativity of the setting was something that affected me profoundly.

Today still, every time I hear Even Flow, I'm back in that room and endless doors opening in front of me.

thoughts arrive like butterflies...

 

[ilgatto]

The carbuncle is misunderstood.

[pedant]And has suffered quite a bit from its inclusion in the FF.

[/pedant]

 

[Blue Orange]

The carbuncle was an actual (well, pre-D&D) mythical creature from northern Chile.

Carbuncle (legendary creature) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Dioltach]

BECMI (Aleena!) and the boxed sets with the various settings. The joy each time I discovered a new one: Spelljammer, Darksun, Ruins of Undermountain.

 

[Zardnaar]

I came in the dying days 1993/94.

Got some good deals 1997 or so. Didn't realize they were probably dumping old stock on that rube from a small town in love with D&D.

In effect TSR didn't really die for me until 2000 or so as they used the TSR name on new products and we were mostly buying old product anyway.

And no internet as such. Well I didn't have it anyway.

He'll my first games were old stuff raided from the closets of various friends older brothers etc. I think one guy had the Rules Cyclopedia.

 

[the Jester]

....there's always one person, always one.

So, what's this monster?

It's an armadillo.

Okay, an armadillo. Um and?

Oh, you don't understand. It's an armadillo ... WITH A GIANT GEM IN ITS HEAD.

Awesome? So, you're going to call it a ... gemadillo?

No. A carbuncle!

Oh, um, like that boil that Grandma keeps complaining about?

No! What's that? I mean the same definition that you, I, and Gygax use. You know, a bright red gem! Everyone knows that one, right?

For your edification, my C monsters, including the aforementioned gemadillo, er, carbuncle.

 

[Voadam]

The carbuncle was an actual (well, pre-D&D) mythical creature from northern Chile.

Carbuncle (legendary creature) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

How cool, and they are in Borges' Book of Imaginary Beings!

I just thought they were a weird FF monster.