Covers for the AD&D 1E Reprints

[lordxaviar]

My brain broke trying to understand what you're saying.

then im surprized your intelligent enough to play the game... oopppss sorry im doing what your doing...

here will spell it out for you

since hasbro... actually it started with WotC. They spent more time with useless art high lights on every page of the rule books. also put some information that would be better in the DMG in the players guide. The art work got flashy and less believable looking on the monsters, they followed the trend from the comic books. If you compare old monster manuals with the newest ones.. they have less and less information about the creature and more just basic stats... leaning toward the hack slash style of play and away from Gary's game... a Role playing war game set in a medieval style world. Now its all about getting you to buy more and more items. but instead of adding to the game like 3 did to 2 ed. they went in another direction. Well guess what, its not selling like they want. So they are doing it again I wonder what version we will have in 20 years... D & D Xp? or do you not get this joke?''

anyway let me apoligize for my rant and the little spark i posted at the begining. your post was a comment on me not the topic... nuff said.
x

 

[Piratecat]

Quit with the personal attacks, folks. LordXavier, if you think someone is being rude please report the post using the little triangular "!" button at the bottom left. Insulting someone in turn is not a behavior we want to see.

 

[Echohawk]

If you compare old monster manuals with the newest ones.. they have less and less information about the creature and more just basic stats...

Let's actually do the comparison you are suggesting.

We'll compare the original Monster Manual entry for the Peryton with the entry for the Peryton in Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. I picked the Peryton because it seems to be the only monster those two books have in common.

• Original Monster Manual version: 187 words of description (the peryton shares a page with three other monsters).
• New Monster Vault version: 735 words of description (the peryton gets a full two page spread to itself).

The winner (by a landslide) is Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, with four times more description than the Monster Manual.

People have a tendency to remember the original monster books fondly, which is fine. They also have a tendency to make up facts to support these fond memories, which is not fine. In reality, the early monster books had very little description in each monster entry.

I think I'd order the average amount of description for creatures per edition roughly like this:
1. 2nd Edition (those Monstrous Compendiums sheets were sometimes painfully detailed, just to fill up the space on the page)
2. Late 4th Edition (e.g. Monster Vault titles).
3. 3rd Edition.
4. Early 4th Edition.
5. 1st Edition.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

That dragon looks weird

It's from the original 1e Monster Manual.

I always preferred the revised covers of the 1st Edition books. (Not so much the PHB, but the DMG was improved IMO, and the MM was much better.)

Hoo boy, I sure didn't prefer them. The revised covers for the 1e books seemed very static and boring to me. Even the cover of the original Monster Manual, as garish as it was, held a lot of charm. It seemed fun. The Easley covers just never seemed fun to me.

I find the "by gary Gygax" line reassuring. His writing is part of the charm of 1e, was a bit worried cook and mearls would do a re-write.

I think they were pretty clear that these were reprints, not revisions. As in, printing the original books exactly as they were, with new covers. It never crossed my mind that they'd divert resources away from D&D Next to revise 1e books.

 

[Beastman]

So what printing (version) is reprinted and is the latest errate/update incorporated ?

 

[Warunsun]

News on the Premium Reprints

Greetings folks.
Here is some news on the premium reprints. Very good news for overseas folks it seems. If you check Wizards of the Coast product descriptions for the premium books they have removed the text about the US Hobby Retail Only.

And on Amazon.com today I found:

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/1st-Edition-Premium-Players-Handbook/dp/0786962437/"]D&D 1st Edition Premium Player's Handbook[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Edition-Premium-Dungeon-Masters-Guide/dp/0786962410/"]D&D 1st Edition Premium Dungeon Master's Guide[/ame]

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/1st-Edition-Premium-Monster-Manual/dp/0786962429/"]D&D 1st Edition Premium Monster Manual[/ame]


Looks very much like WotC has expanded the release of these reprints. Enjoy.

PS: Amazon UK also has [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Edition-Premium-Dungeon-Masters-Guide/dp/0786962410/]the books listed[/ame].