AD&D Reprints First Impressions

The reprints for the AD&D 1st edition rulebooks arrived at my house on Friday from Noble Knight Games.

If my memory serves, this is not actually the first time the original AD&D books have been reprinted - I seem to recall an Italian publisher got permission to reprint the books in an extremely tiny format back in the late 90s - I remember seeing them at Cambridge's Pandemonium Books & Games. They were more a curiosity, with each page being condensed to something around the size of a playing card. I didn't pick them up and to be honest it's not something I regret not getting.

These newest reprints are designed to be more useful, being back to the original size. I've read on Wizards of the Coast's website that a lot of work went into the reprints - there were no digital files beyond basic scans so apparently each page had to be redone. The effort seems to have been successful - comparing them with my original AD&D books you really can't see any difference in the way each page looks.

Regretfully the paper seems to have changed. The original AD&D books were products of amazing durability. My original books, despite being used for years of gaming, moves to college and back, soda spills, moves to apartments and houses, are still in reasonably good shape - better shape than books I bought twenty years later. (I'm feeling old now - though truth be told I actually didn't get the books when they first came out but rather a few years before they were redone with new covers.) These new books are printed on what I would characterize as a semi-glossy paper - not super shiny, but definitely of a glossy type. The white background looks very white - obviously I don't have new copies of my original AD&D books to compare it to but I'm pretty sure they were never that white. So I'd definitely have to give a preference to the original formats.

That said, Wizards of the Coast has done a first-rate job with the reprints. They clearly took a lot of work to do, visually they look fantastic, and they appear to be well bound. Probably not as well bound as the originals but I'm pretty sure those books could survive a zombie apocalypse.

I'll probably get around to reviewing the AD&D core books at some point so right now I'm only giving first thoughts. The Dungeon Masters Guide has a ton of information in it though looking at it now it seems like could have done with a little better organizing. Though intended to be a complete game I have a hard time imagining what it would be like picking up the Players Handbook without some familiarity with D&D. In my own circles, the older players tended to start with the original D&D while the younger ones like me tended to start with the D&D Basic and Expert rules and then graduate to AD&D. I'm not certain what to make of the "Gygaxian Prose" - it certainly is part of the charm of the game while at the same time it makes the author sound a bit full of himself from time to time. "Again, a word of warning. Many products might purport to be satisfactory for use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, but only those noted as OFFICIAL or Authorized AD&D items should be accepted. Do not settle for substitutes or second-rate material in your campaign; ask only for approved AD&D products only!" I've missed prose such as that. At the very least, Mr. Gygax expanded my middle school vocabulary amazingly well.

Overall, I'm overjoyed to see the original AD&D books reprinted (and that at least some of the funds are going to a memorial for Gary Gygax) and pleased to see a first-rate job was done. In the fall Wizards of the Coast will be reprinting the core 3.5 books. I think this is a good move on their parts - they are again making available what were probably the two most popular versions of D&D. I hope at some point they will make these books available in some digital form - I'm primarily a digital consumer now, with my eBooks, Audible audiobooks, streaming video and audio, etc.

I do find myself wanting to get some dice out and do a 1st edition AD&D game...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jules Verne Translations That Don't Stink

Image
Shortly after I graduated from college R. Talsorian published their fantasy steampunk RPG,  Castle Falkenstein. Having missed out on Space: 1889  when it first came out this was my first steampunk RPG, though I had been exposed to the genre by Gibson and Sterling's novel The Difference Engine (a novel which, though I though I found the setting compelling, I did not particularly care for - must reread some day). Jules Verne was one of the authors in the inspirational reading section of Castle Falkenstein.  Heck, the game also made him into France's scientific advisor, having him responsible for their massive Verne Cannons  which formed a sort of nuclear deterrent.  With that in mind, one Sunday afternoon I was at a Barnes & Noble bookstore my new girlfriend (now my wife of nearly 16 years!).  On a whim I decided to pick up a Jules Verne novel. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . That night I started reading it, never having read any of his works before but having vagu
Keep reading

Stepping Away and a New Beginning

Image
After maintaining this blog for nearly seven years (an eternity in internet time), I've decided to step away from it. When I first began I wasn't 100% certain what it would be about. For a while I thought it would be a blog related to OSR type RPGs but I found my own tastes not firmly rooted there. Looking at the history of the blog, I see a lot of Call of Cthulhu which is hardly surprising. However, some lack of consistency definitely made it tough for me find a defined niche and over the past few months I've been giving some thought to starting a new, more narrowly focused blog. The imminent end of Google+ played a part in these thoughts, with much of my traffic coming from that site. I write because I enjoy writing, but I do enjoy growing an audience. My plan to start a narrowly-focused blog took a turn when I had the opportunity to join the  Rolling Boxcars  blog. Talking with the contributors (one of whom I game with on Discord already) and going through thei
Keep reading

Developing Boston for 1920s Call of Cthulhu

Image
While Chaosium has produced sourcebooks for many locations in Lovecraft Country (Kingsport, Arkham, and Innsmouth) as well as non-fictional cities of the 1920s (such as New York City and New Orleans), the nearby city of Boston, while being featured in many adventures, has never received its own full sourcebook. The most common era for my Call of Cthulhu  games has been in the 1920s - some campaigns have been in New York City while others have been in Lovecraft country. For those in Lovecraft Country, many adventures have been in nearby Boston. Over the years I've slowly been building up some expertise in the area and I thought it might be of interest to others gaming in the same setting - whether with Mythos horrors or a purely mundane game. First, let us investigate those official sources. While Boston has found its way into many adventures, I can think of two sources where it has been given a fair amount of detail. First, The Unspeakable Oath  double issue 16/17 has a ref
Keep reading

Using the Force in D6 Star Wars

Image
Defending yourself with just 1D in Sense is not easy, as Luke discovers when training with a remote. My previous post discussed the proto-D6 System as found in the Ghostbusters RPG. For those unfamiliar with the D6 System and the way it does the Force (or for a brief review) the essentials are: You roll a bunch of six sided dice against a target number, typically ranging from 5-ish (easy) to 20 or even higher. Your rating is listed as something like 2D+2 which means roll 2d6+2. By default, most normal/non-heroic people have 2D in most stats.  Starting heroes will might have their best skill be at 5D or a touch higher. You can take as many actions as you want in a round. However, taking two actions in a round reduces all dice codes by 1D, taking three reduces all by 2D, etc. Starting with Force skills will lower a characters starting attributes. Unlike most skills they start off at 1D. There are three Force skills - control, sense, and alter. Control lets you control t
Keep reading

Balancing Classes in Swords and Wizardry

Image
DM: "The box is the size of a small trunk; it is latched but not locked."  Dougal: "I'm looking for traps on the box."  DM (rolling for Dougal's "find traps" ability. The roll indicates that Dougal has failed to find the poisoned needle in the latch.) "You don't find a trap."  Morgan (the group's leader): "Black Dougal will open the box."  DM: "Black Dougal, you find out that you missed a tiny discolored needle in the latch. Roll a saving throw vs. Poison, please!"  Dougal (rolling): "Missed it!"  DM: "Black Dougal gasps 'Poison!' and falls to the floor. He looks dead."  Fredrik: "I'm grabbing his pack to carry treasure in." Game balance. It's a tricky concept in RPGs. D&D 3rd and 4th editions made a very strong effort to balance the character classes with one another as well as to balance encounters. For my purposes, they went too far. A
Keep reading