As of today, I´m proud owner of at least one copy each of the first printings of german Dungeons & Dragons items, as depicted below. (Not counting "Drache", of which I´m still missing several issues). The copies of Festung im Grenzland and Palast der Silberprinzessin are in good shape, the copy of Blizzard Pass less so. I did not pull out my old B3 copy, which I bought in ca. 1985. Thinking of this, I remembered that when I bought the module, they had copies of each version in the hobby shop back then, so the different printings were sold parallel. I guess they reprinted them when the newer english versions were published, but had enough in stock that they still sold the older ones.

I recently translated an interview with Gary Gygax. As I´m not a professional translator by any means, some translations may be odd or some grammar wrong. So, here you go:


An Interview with Gary Gygax, from „DRACHE" #3, Cover Date October 1984

" People playing D&D learn how to solve problems…."

Gary Gygax, the inventor of D&D, AD&D and author of countless modules and RPG gaming aids, faced the editor of DRACHE for an interview. It turned out to be a long and interesting talk. And we are proud to be able to present it to our readers here:
Q: Mr. Gygax, you have seen the first issue of DRACHE. What do you think of it?
A: Yes, I have seen DRACHE. I think the cover is as excellent as the content. I haven´t read everything, but am very eager to see how this magazine will continue. It is the first non-english magazine being able to come close to the US original DRAGON in the long run. The first issue is a collectors item in any case.
Q: You did not read everything, but a part of it. How fluent are you in german? Please, tell us something about your family.
A: The Gygax family is an old one and lived in a small village close to a lake. My father came to the US as a small boy. I talked swiss-german with my grandmother in my youth. My german vocabulary is still that of a five year old boy. Five year olds also can´t read very well. But I studied german history in depth later on.
Q: What is the cultural background of what we call D&D today, anyway?
A: It started with my father telling me stories by my bedside. My favorite stories always had people with enchanted cloaks, rings, and so on. I read Grimms tales and Andersens stories. I started to read mythological legends as a small boy. Then came the interest in history. I often compared mythological heroes to historical heroes. I was a regular in the Chicago library, where books stood next to each other and all are worth reading.
Q: Mr. Gygax, would you like to live in a D&D world? Does the game perhaps originate from such a wish, from a thought of escaping?
A: mmh, I am used to running cold and hot water and love my daily cup of coffee. I nevertheless feel that many people have a longing for another, more exiting life in a fantasy world.
Q: Mr. Gygax, some people think that D&D is a typical American Hollywood-style RPG.
A: A major part of the D&D game is European, the monsters as well as the scenarios. The ideas behind the modules are often medieval European as well.
Q: Now for a completely different question: How do you develop a module? What is module development 101?
A: There has to be a reason for everything. There has to be a reason for the place being there. Who lives there, and how does he live there. There has to be a reason for the PCs to risk their lives to have an adventure at that place. Keep on the Borderlands, for example, is a place devised detailed and meticulously, at which several creatures fight for their survival.


Q: How long are you supposed to play through an ideal module?
A: Okay, you can play a long long time with a good module. There is a number of activities before the adventure even starts that can keep a player busy quite some time. You go into a village, equipping yourself, buying weapons, armor, food and other important things. Then you leave the village, and find an outpost of the adventure. There you step into the labyrinth. You often have to find important items there. Afterwards, you leave the dungeon again and have a wilderness adventure. The adventure should be as realistic as possible.
Q: A good dungeon should have monsters in every room, every thirty feet you should stumble into an adventure. How do you construct a dungeon?
A: That is not easily answered. No player group is like the other. In one group there are usually people of about the same age and similar interests. They determine what is good in the adventure and what is not. If they want to have a monster in every room, then it is ok. If they open a 20´ x 20´ room and want to find 20 x 20 monsters, okay. For my own purposes I have designed giant cave systems which were without monsters for a big part. They may then contain traps or other, non-obvious things. Only killing monsters all the time is not satisfactorily for me. I also like it if you use tricks while designing a dungeon, like an illusion of a golden dragon over a basilisk, old men who are friendly the first time and deadly the second. These are fun things. If you design a dungeon, you create history, and that is important.
Q: You just have to take care that you remain in history prior to the invention of guns.
A: Yes, I hope that I never meet a D&D party whose characters are armed with guns.
Q: What do you want to achieve with D&D? Is there a message to the world in it?
A: Absolutely not. The original purpose of D&D is for the players to have fun with it. On the other hand, it is surely not bad if you have fun and learn something also. And there is much to learn in D&D. It starts with historical history [sic! In the german text, it is "historische Geschichte". I can only guess that something is lost in translation], and ends with social problems. The players have to learn to relate to each other as players as well as player characters. Playing D&D teaches you to solve problems. If you don´t learn well, you won´t play well. That´s it.
Q: Does D&D has a tendency to build super characters?
A: The D&D game is based on the theory that there is so much to know and to do that nobody can do everything on his own. The team aspect is important. There will always be a better and stronger man, a good DM will see to that. In a D&D game, each player has to use his strengths at the right place. Otherwise, the group won´t be able to survive.
Q: Could you give us an example for this, please?
A: Yes. Let´s just take the magic-user. He becomes incredibly mighty at a certain level. He has clear weaknesses on the other hand. He needs the fighter, the clerics and the thieves, otherwise he would fail even with the mighty spells in the easiest dungeon. A group can only be strong together.
Q: Is D&D generally cruel and brutal?
A: D&D is a fight of good against evil, with the players taking the side of good. It is similar to reality. Each group has their own ideals. D&D gets as cruel and brutal as the players are, that strongly depends on the group. I took part in adventures in which almost no violence took place.
Q: So, D&D is a fight with ideas rather than a fight with lances and axes.
A: Beyond any doubt. If the group is very intelligent, they will automatically experience an intelligent fun. Furthermore, D&D is not a reality. It is like chess. In the end all the pieces get into the box, none are hurt, none are killed.
Q: D&D is a game that spreads very fast throughout Europe. Where does this success come from?
A: The game is a fantasy roleplaying game. And fantasy is very popular nowadays. Every human has the desire to be able to fantasize. There is no game other than D&D and nothing else to sate that desire in this way. Everybody loves stories about wizards and dragons and adventurers. With D&D, you can experience these adventures yourself. I am not surprised that D&D is such a success in Europe. I am looking forward to the first international D&D gathering, where Japanese will play with Spanish, New Zealanders with Austrians and everybody with everybody else.
Q: What are your further plans?
A: I am busy at the moment with the Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment Corporation. We made movies, and we will make more movies.
Q: At last, we would like to ask you to reveal an interesting D&D secret.
A: I am not sure which secret is the best. Perhaps Drache readers will be happy to hear that after the basic and expert set the companion set is now published. Afterwards, there will be to more sets, the master set and the immortal set. We are also hard working at a translation of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Mr. Gygax, thank you for the conversation.
Interviewer: Hans W. Jany
It is stated that Gary Gygax offered Drache readers to answer all questions that they would send in to Drache, and those answers would be published in Drache as well.
Footnote: it states that the companion set is available immediately via book and hobby stores on order from FSV.

Zenopus wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it: Is there a photo of Gygax with the article?

Yes, there is one. I guess I will scan it these days, but as the quality is not too good, I´m not sure how good it will scan. I´ve got another interview in a book about RPGs, but this seems to contain mostly long-known information. I might translate it nevertheless.

Interesting links you posted there, Zenopus. Next year it will be ten years already that Gary Gygax died... Time flies.

So, I´ve scanned the photos from Drache #3 and from "Das Große Buch der Fantasy-Rollenspiele" (1984). As both are printed on coarse, yellow-grayish paper in low resolutions, the quality is not great, but here you are.

@ Zenopus: It says "D&D Turnier Modul" on the cover, which means tournament module. It is a short tournament module for a thief character, apparently.

Zenopus wrote in The history of german D&D/AD&D as I know it:Great! Thanks for sharing those; I haven't seen either before. The first photo is very nice. There's a neat D&D T-shirt in the background which I've never seen before. Do you know what is written beneath the dragon artwork?

It seems to read "Dungeons & Dragons in Deutschland" (in Germany). I´ve never seen one of those anywhere.

The module in Drache #8 was written by Ralf Pichocki, and even contains a few sketches of the locations.
The module in Drache #3 was written by Hans Michael Bensching.
For the module in #2, no author is given.

I just thought about the name Star Frontiers/Sternengarde. Garde meaning guards, as in honor guards or similar. This has nothing to do with the game, as far as I can tell (never played it). Frontiers as a word probably evokes that mental image of the "great unknown" lying beyond, and points to the "cowboys with swords" (or lasers) image mentioned earlier.
Now, frontier and border are both translated as "Grenze" in German, the connotation of frontier does not exist here. Instead, using the word Grenze in (West) Germany in the 80ies would instantly evoke images of that horrible and at times deadly border to the GDR, as the other borders (to France, Austria etc.) would slowly get opened at that time, and started not being regarded as true borders anymore. So, using Sternengrenze as a literal translation would probably not have been a good marketing move. I guess that "garde" was chosen simply because it sounded close to "grenze", without any thoughts about the content of the game.

How's your 3rd edition knowledge? Just curious if the 3rd edition core rulebooks from the boxed sets are the same as those sold separately. Or were they even sold separately? My understanding is that they were sold in boxes in order to circumvent some sort of pricing issue with books... any info on that whole deal would be great! Thanks!

Interesting, thanks for the info! That all seems pretty consistent with what I've seen. All of the 3.0 books appear to be boxed only, no prices, by Amigo. The 3.5 Spielerhandbuch, boxed, by Amigo/F&S. I've not seen boxed versions of the 3.5 Spielleiterhandbuch or Monsterhandbuch and they appear to be F&S only. Thanks again, this helps me know what to look for!