Dungeons & Dragons Colorforms! 1983 was truly a year of miracles and wonders.

Colorforms, if you don’t know, are pieces of vinyl that “stick like magic” to a cardboard scene in the box, so you can arrange the characters and weapons into cool scenes, or move them around to play out action or whatever. They’ve been around since the 50s, but I feel like they hit their peak as a novelty toy with the licenses of the 80s (around the same time, the company that owned Colorforms was also producing Shrinky Dinks, if you can believe it).

Anyway, D&D Colorforms! All the various novelty merchandise that spun out of the LJN line of toys is kind of an object lesson in cheap cash grabs. I have this, the Role Playing Dioramas and a wood-burning kit, all of which use the same basic set of art for these characters. Say what you will about that Color & Build cardboard castle, at least it had original art.

Anyway, these things are still great to see. It is a wonder that there are any sets left all these years later. Surprising no-one, though, the Colorforms no longer stick. All magic fades, it seems.