A new name for Late 1E

[Valiant]

Has anyone ever coined a name or phrase to destinguish late 1E from Early 1E? The most I've ever heard was Pre-Gygax and Post-Gygax (which I assume covers when Gygax was still around but with little power) anyhow, when your trying to describe to people what the difference was and when it occured it gets complicated, one short name or phrase to describe that shift would be great.
If you have any suggestions I'd like to here them.

The fact that the late TSR 1E crap gets thrown into the general 1E basket sickens me to no end...(esp. when you here posters focusing on this garbage to describe "what 1E was all about" in general).

 

[Dragonhelm]

Just don't call it 1.5. I can't say how much it annoys me when people use 2.5 to reference the black book era of 2e. It was never referred to such in the day, it shouldn't be now. Besides, it isn't a computer game.

That being said, maybe you should think of what the Gygax era is called and simply reference that. Gygaxian seems like a good term to me. It denotes Mr. Gygax's influence, which also denotes good gaming material. Or call it classic 1e. *shrugs*

 

[Psion]

Has anyone ever coined a name or phrase to destinguish late 1E from Early 1E? The most I've ever heard was Pre-Gygax and Post-Gygax (which I assume covers when Gygax was still around but with little power) anyhow, when your trying to describe to people what the difference was and when it occured it gets complicated, one short name or phrase to describe that shift would be great.
If you have any suggestions I'd like to here them.

The fact that the late TSR 1E crap gets thrown into the general 1E basket sickens me to no end...(esp. when you here posters focusing on this garbage to describe "what 1E was all about" in general).

So, you are looking for a rhetorical rallying point, then?

You'll excuse me if I don't think this is an especially worthwhile plea.

If you wish to parse out the eras according to what material came out when, just do that. The most divisive volume I see is Unearthed Arcana. So you could say pre-UA and post-UA. But as I recall, UA has Gary's name on it and is essentially a compilation of Dragon articles by him, so I'm not sure that helps you much if you are looking for a name for "an era that can be disassociated with Gary" any more than Gary has already done himself in saying things like "that wasn't such a good idea..."

 

[WayneLigon]

when your trying to describe to people what the difference was and when it occured it gets complicated, one short name or phrase to describe that shift would be great.

"The same"

There is no mechanical difference between The Era of Stuff Created By Gary and The Era of Stuff Not Created By Gary. In fact, the only 1E volumes not produced by Gary are the Wilderness Survival Guide, the Dungeoneering Survival Guide, and Manual of the PLanes - none of those three could remotely be considered 'core', nor accused of changing the game by introducing a bunch of new rules or anything.

What era of 'seperation' are you even seeing in 1E?

 

[Contrarian]

"First Edition, with all the weird books"

 

[Valiant]

Psion wrote -So you could say pre-UA and post-UA.-

This has my vote. You are correct, Gygax "changed" (for whatever reason) at this point.
If any one event could be pointed to as the main catalist for changing AD&D into the munchkin land it became it has to be UA. And Gygax was a big part of that. So Post UA is definitely better then Post Gygax.

As for the articles being used in UA, my understanding was that the book was published to save the company from financial disaster, and that articles were grabbed and thrown in to fill pages, without much thought (or time) to consider how they might effect the overall game in general (for instance weapons specialization and its effects on character balance). Its interesting to speculate what might have happened if UA hadn't ever been published.

Wayne, I'm not only talking about books but modules and other supplements as well. For instance compare the modules from 78-81 or so vs. those 83-85 (dragonlance being the first big departure as I remember it).

 

[Psion]

Oooh... good point. Pre and post Dragonlance is another one that is somewhat divisive, as that's the point when the game was becoming more a slave to the idea of a fiction franchise, and it showed in the adventures.

I'll own up that while in hindsight I could see how munchkin UA was, at the time I was all over it. (Hey, I was in high school... what do you expect?)

But the Dragonlance adventures I pretty much hated from the get-go.

 

[Crothian]

I don't think it needs a name. Sure the Drtagonlance stuff had issues but that's Dragonlance more then 1e. It wasn't like everything early on was pure gold. It's all 1e, the good and the bad.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I just call it "late 1E," rather than trying to draw a precise line.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What's wrong with the terms 'early 1e' and 'late 1e'?