The release of the PHB seems to me to mark a profound jump in the slickness and quality of the physical product from TSR. I would love to know more of the details in how that came about. I wonder if Alex knows? This is one of his copies, formerly owned by Kevin Blume!
Let's turn the calendar to the year 1978 on our TSR/D&D tour. Up today is a big one. This was my first ever D&D purchase. I did not by my copy (an 8th printing) until 1982. Depicted is a lovely 1st print, my 8th, and Kevin Blume's personal copy (look to the upper left).
link
The D&D historian has a bit that I think is relevant now and will probably forever be.
What a Difference an Edition Makes: The Controversy. There's a lot of disagreement over whether AD&D is a minor revision of OD&D — gathering together all of its supplements and articles — or whether it's something bigger. This controversy started in Dragon #26 (June 1979) when Gygax rather shockingly said, "there is no similarity (perhaps even less) between D&D and AD&D than there is between D&D and its various imitators produced by competing publishers." In other words, he was claiming that OD&D was more like Tunnels & Trolls (1975) and RuneQuest (1978) than AD&D! He was very clear in saying this: " It is neither an expansion nor a revision of the old game, it is a new game."
Some folks disagreed, most notably Richard Berg who reviewed the Players Handbook in Strategy & Tactics magazine and said that it was a rewrite of the OD&D game. Gygax took extreme umbrage of this claim in Dragon #22 (February 1979), stating:
"Under the circumstances, one can only wonder why Mr. Berg took the time to write on a subject of which he obviously knew so little. Perhaps it is personal or professional jealousy, as the success of D&D and now AD&D has certainly set the rest of the gaming hobby industry on its collective ear, but that is speculation."
The fans had the ultimate word: when you examine the RPG magazines of the late '70s and early '80s that most of them didn't differentiate much between OD&D, AD&D, and BD&D. Instead, magazine articles were usually written for "Dungeons & Dragons" generally. In the present day, most people would probably still agree that Berg was more correct than Gygax … but it all depends on what you're measuring.
Players Handbook (1e) - The 1st Edition Player's Handbook is back! No more searching through stacks of books and magazines to find out what you
www.dmsguild.com
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Players Handbook (1e) - The 1st Edition Player's Handbook is back! No more searching through stacks of books and magazines to find out what you
www.dmsguild.com
