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The History of MIDGARDThe design of MIDGARD began back in 1978 as the idea of roleplaying gradually became known among German gamers and fantasy readers. After some years of development and playtesting, the first rule book appeared in summer 1981 published by the newly founded Verlag für Fantasy- und SF-Spiele: "MIDGARD - Das Fantasy-Rollenspiel" (MIDGARD - The Fantasy Roleplaying Game).  MIDGARD was the first German roleplaying game
as well as the first roleplaying game in German language, and,
considering the limited audience at that time, was extremely
successful. Two years later, the first German edition of D&D appeared on the market, and in spring 1984, the second German roleplaying game "Das Schwarze Auge" was published by one of the then largest German games manufacturers (Schmidt-Spiele). The major marketing efforts showed their effect, and MIDGARD also profited from the much larger number of people and of shops interested in roleplaying games. Due to the increasing number of customers, we transfered production and distribution of the game to one of the traditional German games manufacturers Klee-Spiele in 1989. Klee-Spiele succeeded in expanding the market for MIDGARD and, in spite of the numerous competition in the first half of the nineties, in securing its position as one of the three most popular roleplaying games in Germany. However we still published a few adventures and sourcebooks on our own, containing reprints or some more experimental material.  To the end of 1996 we decided to concentrate on the design and
development of MIDGARD alone. The new licencee, managing production and
distribution completely, became Pegasus Spiele in Friedberg. After we
handled already the publication of the PERRY RHODAN-Rollenspiel by
ourselves, to the end of 2005 the responsibilities for the production
of MIDGARD titles was reorganized. From now on, we are again producing
MIDGARD, whereas our partner Pegasus Spiele is responsible for distributing our publications.AwardsIn 1985 MIDGARD was elected "Best Roleplaying Game" by the magazine Simufant and in 1987 "Most popular Roleplaying Game" by the magazine Zauberzeit. 1992 the new beginners' box got the first place as "Most popular new Roleplaying Game" in one category of the Deutsche-Abenteuer-Spiele Preis (German adventure games award, by the leading German adventure games magazines). In 2000, the Arkanum containing the magic rules and background material for the 4th edition got the "Deutsche Rollenspielpreis" (German roleplaying game award).ProductsTill now we produced four different editons of the rules for MIDGARD, three editons of beginners' boxes, eleven detailed sourcebooks describing special areas and cultures of the world Midgard (containing maps and expositions of the land, the people, the lore, the beasts (natural and supernatural) and the specific talents and sorceries with some additional culture specific rules), two general sourcebooks (additional material and rules for magic-users and fighters) and more than 50 adventures.Gildenbrief, the MIDGARD magazine, appears irregularly 3-4 times a year. It contains rules discussions, source material and short adventures, mainly contributed by experienced MIDGARD players. 59 issues have been published. MIDGARD - Adventure 1880
MIDGARD has made the first step towards a multi-genre game in 1994 -
praised by the critics, but, due to the "Magic"-induced low on the
roleplaying market, with only mixed success. The box "MIDGARD -
Abenteuer 1880" (MIDGARD - Adventure 1880) provides rules including
some short scenarios for adventuring in the second half of the 19th
century, the time of great adventures in fiction and in reality. This
new roleplaying game uses similar rules as "MIDGARD - Das
Fantasy-Rollenspiel", but it is a complete game in its own right. Two
adventure booklets and a sourcebook on the period with a focus on
Europe have appeared. More material can be found on: www.midgard-1880.de. PERRY RHODAN - Roleplaying GameIn 2004, MIDGARD ventured further into the future, and we published a Science Fiction role playing game based on the well established MIDGARD rules, based on the universe of Perry Rhodan. PERRY RHODAN is the world’s largest SF saga, being published every week since 1961 by Pabel-Moewig Verlag. There are now more than 2200 novels in the original series, hundreds of paperbacks and several spin off series. Part of the saga has been published in foreign languages from the US to Japan. The "PERRY RHODAN-Rollenspiel" (PERRY RHODAN Roleplaying Game) offers classic space opera, focus on exploration, character development and adventure in the far future (roughly 3000 years from now). Currently, the core rulebook, a sourcebook on a famous space station including some short adventures and several adventure books are available. More material can be found on: www.dorifer.com.- Elsa Franke - ^ Seitenanfang | | |||
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