A little more on TSR's strange strategy

[TerraDave]

It is worth noting, as Henry pointed out above, a lot of TSR material is available as PDF, and has been for a while. I used some for my 3.5 game this weekend (and in PDF you can cut and paste and manipulate it all the more easily).

When WotC bought TSR, a lot of outstanding legal issues remained with Gygax and Arneson. WotC resolved those, and the first pdfs of older material started to be scaned and sold, or give away, shortly thereafter.

Of course there a difference between having a back catalog available on pdf, and putting newly printed books of a "defunct" edition on sale side by side with the current edition.

 

[TerraDave]

I just pulled out The Complete Ranger's Handbook and on p. 6 there's a discussion of the 1e ranger and talk about using the book in 1e games.

And the appendix is written for 1e rangers.

The apendix of the Complete Bards Handbook was the 1st edition Bard...

in terms of Oriental Adventures and Manual of the Planes, they where both supposed to be "grandfathered" into 2nd edition. But I don't think they where printed again.

 

[orsal]

It seems to me that TSR would be filling the demand for 1e books. Though, I am more surprised that there was any demand at all for 1e PHBs and DMGs. It occurs to me that everyone who loved 1e more then 2e* would already have the basic material.

What about people introduced to the hobby by their friends running a 1/e game? You join their game, you like it, you want your own copy of the PHB, and it needs to be the version they're playing with.

 

[diaglo]

It is worth noting, as Henry pointed out above, a lot of TSR material is available as PDF, and has been for a while. I used some for my 3.5 game this weekend (and in PDF you can cut and paste and manipulate it all the more easily).

When WotC bought TSR, a lot of outstanding legal issues remained with Gygax and Arneson. WotC resolved those, and the first pdfs of older material started to be scaned and sold, or give away, shortly thereafter.

Of course there a difference between having a back catalog available on pdf, and putting newly printed books of a "defunct" edition on sale side by side with the current edition.

i told Jim Butler and those helping him... they could have my old modules and books when they pried them from my cold dead fingers.

the copy you sent got... destroyed. they sent you a CD in return... bah... they destroyed old D&D products...

blasphemers...

 

[TerraDave]

i told Jim Butler and those helping him... they could have my old modules and books when they pried them from my cold dead fingers.

the copy you sent got... destroyed. they sent you a CD in return... bah... they destroyed old D&D products...

blasphemers...

Sacrificed for the greater good, still to think that monochrome cover T1 I I got the scan of was lost is sad.

Ya, I would never send anything in to something like that. But I am glad somebody did.