DoD books in Danish. An overview/retrospective

[runequester]

I thought some of the collectors and supernerds might find this of interest. In Denmark, we received a small number of DoD books translated and occasionally adapted slightly.
DoD was moderately successful and helped cement BRP as a sort of default for Danish gamers for a while. Both of the main magazines at the time, Saga and Fønix would use a BRP-style format for some of their scenarios.

For the basic game we received:

The 1987 box set.
This was unchanged except for a snippet about buying Sinkadus magazine being removed. Included the same adventures (Adventure pack 1), paper cutouts etc.

Adventure pack 2.
This was released without any changes that I can tell.

Dödens väg
Released without any changes.

Härskarserien
Released without any changes.

To my knowledge, this was the full series of releases for the basic rules. Not the best selection you could get but in total, 4 short and 4 long adventures was not bad.

For Expert, we received:

The Expert box set.
This is where things get interesting as a number of changes were made.
Several pieces of art are removed from the book. It seems like they removed some of the rougher drawings. F.x. the drawing of the wolfman skiing down a slope is gone.

The new professions from Gigant (but not the new skills) are included in the book.

The new armor types from Gigant are included.

Hit locations use the D20 based tables from Monsterboken 2 (and includes all of the tables).

When you become a hero, your KAR goes up by +6, instead of being set to 19.

All in all, I find this a superior version of Expert, but that may be nostalgia speaking

Torshem
This had no changes in the internal text, but the front cover is changed. Instead it uses a drawing of a fully armored man with a battle axe, standing next to a sabertooth tiger. Its kinda cool, but it looks super out of place given the book. I am not sure where it comes from either, as I dont think I have seen it on another DoD product.

Kandra
No internal changes but cover art changed to use the cover from Enhjörningshornet instead. This is a better piece than the original Kandra cover, but I dont know if it fits especially well.

As seen, while we got two very high quality books, Expert support was rather thin on the ground. To my knowledge, this was the extent of what was translated. I am not sure why the Expert books changed the covers when the basic stuff did not.

Finally, we received the Monster Book. (Just the one)
This is an interesting one. It includes the hit location tables from book 2.
The monster selection is a mixture of creatures from both monster books. To make room, creatures from the rulebook are not included except in cases where there is an expanded version (trolls, dragons).

The cover art is also changed to use the cover art from the Sagan om Ringen box art for Södra Mörkmården (which is a really good piece for a monster book, I must say).

Overall, a pretty solid entry for a monster book and I can't say we really missed the creatures that were left out, though it'd have been nice to have all the creatures of course.

 

[Dimfrost]

Intressant genomgång, tack! En gång var jag nära att bjuda på Monsterbogen på Tradera men lät bli när jag insåg att det hade tvingat mig att skaffa resten av den danska produktlinjen också, och det kan nog vänta tills jag skaffat de sista sakerna samlingen saknar på svenska.

 

[JohanL]

Monsterbogen

Monsterbogen är bra för grytor och långkok.

 

[runequester]

Intressant genomgång, tack! En gång var jag nära att bjuda på Monsterbogen på Tradera men lät bli när jag insåg att det hade tvingat mig att skaffa resten av den danska produktlinjen också, och det kan nog vänta tills jag skaffat de sista sakerna samlingen saknar på svenska.

Alphaspel randomly has a bunch of them. I've noticed the collector prices for old DoD stuff have shot up like crazy in the past few years.

 

[Leon]

Tack för genomgången! Er Expert låter objektivt, och inte bara nostalgiskt, bättre. Samma med Monsterbogen/boken.

Bilden med mannen och sabeltigern användes också för något ex av Sinkadus och antagligen för någon av de skönlitterära böckerna.

 

[runequester]

Tack för genomgången! Er Expert låter objektivt, och inte bara nostalgiskt, bättre. Samma med Monsterbogen/boken.

Bilden med mannen och sabeltigern användes också för något ex av Sinkadus och antagligen för någon av de skönlitterära böckerna.

That makes sense. I had this feeling I had seen it before but a quick look didn't discover it.

 

[EvilSpook]

Er Expert låter objektivt, och inte bara nostalgiskt, bättre.

Va?! Utan den skidande Vargmannen? Hur kan det vara bättre?

//EvilSpook

 

[runequester]

Va?! Utan den skidande Vargmannen? Hur kan det vara bättre?

//EvilSpook

We all make sacrifices and he got volunteered.

 

[Mekanurg]

I was involved in the production of the Danish and Norwegian DoD product lines, though nowadays, i.e., 35 years later, I have only fragmentary memories of the development processes. I don't recall why the Danish products turned out the way they did. However, I remember some terminology discussions by phone with our Danish partners. I was the only chap at the Stockholm office with some experience of Danish, with relatives in Helsingör and having watched Danish TV while studying in Lund in 1982-85.

 

[runequester]

I was involved in the production of the Danish and Norwegian DoD product lines, though nowadays, i.e., 35 years later, I have only fragmentary memories of the development processes. I don't recall why the Danish products turned out the way they did. However, I remember some terminology discussions by phone with our Danish partners. I was the only chap at the Stockholm office with some experience of Danish, with relatives in Helsingör and having watched Danish TV while studying in Lund in 1982-85.

Interesting, thanks for sharing!