D&D 5E Player's Handbook Binding

[Mercurius]

I've got the 5E books pre-ordered on Amazon but I couldn't resist checking out the Player's Handbook so went down to the fairly local game store to check it out. Aside from the obvious wow-factor of the book, I was a bit irked by the binding. There were two copies left and the end papers on both were crinkled - on one it was the front end paper, on the other it was the back end paper; the latter one also had a slightly cocked binding.

Now neither of them were that bad and barely noticeable. But for a $50 book, I'd like it to be damn near well perfect. I would have bought it right there as the game store sells D&D books for 20% off, so it was only $40, but I hesitated, hoping my pre-ordered copy is immaculate.

Anyone else noticing minor issues with the binding?

 

[Rhenny]

I've got the 5E books pre-ordered on Amazon but I couldn't resist checking out the Player's Handbook so went down to the fairly local game store to check it out. Aside from the obvious wow-factor of the book, I was a bit irked by the binding. There were two copies left and the end papers on both were crinkled - on one it was the front end paper, on the other it was the back end paper; the latter one also had a slightly cocked binding.

Now neither of them were that bad and barely noticeable. But for a $50 book, I'd like it to be damn near well perfect. I would have bought it right there as the game store sells D&D books for 20% off, so it was only $40, but I hesitated, hoping my pre-ordered copy is immaculate.

Anyone else noticing minor issues with the binding?

Interestingly, when I went in on Friday morning to buy my copy from my local store, the guy at the store told me that when they got their shipment earlier that week, all of the books they ordered were damaged. The owner personally drove them back to the distributor and got new ones before selling them.

I bet some boxes have been dropped on their edges, which will bang up the spines.

Hopefully, it won't be a huge issue.

I have to say, I'm happy with my copy!

 

[Pentegarn]

I've got the 5E books pre-ordered on Amazon but I couldn't resist checking out the Player's Handbook so went down to the fairly local game store to check it out. Aside from the obvious wow-factor of the book, I was a bit irked by the binding. There were two copies left and the end papers on both were crinkled - on one it was the front end paper, on the other it was the back end paper; the latter one also had a slightly cocked binding.

Now neither of them were that bad and barely noticeable. But for a $50 book, I'd like it to be damn near well perfect. I would have bought it right there as the game store sells D&D books for 20% off, so it was only $40, but I hesitated, hoping my pre-ordered copy is immaculate.

Anyone else noticing minor issues with the binding?

A buddy of mine and I stopped by our local hobby store today and I glanced at the new 5e Player's Handbook while I was there. Flipping through the spells section of one of the books, I noticed several pages that looked as though the printer was almost out of ink. The lettering, though I could still make out what it said, was faded and streaked severely. On several copies of the 5e PHB, the shiny gloss cover was scratched, and on a couple, the black matte finish on the back cover was scratched off in places. Now, obviously, the latter two issues were the fault of bad handling somewhere along the way between the print shop's shipping department, to the book's placement on the shelf. But there is no excuse for the faded ink. And the decision to use the shiny, high gloss, and the black matte finishing on the covers, that are so easily damaged, are the product of faulty decisions. Neither is excusable, in my opinion, on a book with a price tag of $50 and some change after taxes.

I may not have cared much for 4e, but it seems to me the quality of the book covers and their bindings (not necessarily the art on the cover, mind you) was of much better quality.

 

[Jester David]

Flipping through the spells section of one of the books, I noticed several pages that looked as though the printer was almost out of ink.
...
But there is no excuse for the faded ink.

I have some faded ink in my copy as well. I imagine that has to do with getting 100,000 copies out in under two months. Less time to change toner.

I may not have cared much for 4e, but it seems to me the quality of the book covers and their bindings (not necessarily the art on the cover, mind you) was of much better quality.

You probably don't remember the 4e core books goof, with the ink that reacted poorly to the oil in some people's hands and smeared when touched.

 

[Pentegarn]

You probably don't remember the 4e core books goof, with the ink that reacted poorly to the oil in some people's hands and smeared when touched.

Nah, didn't know anything about that. My turning to 4e was a desperation move to get away from the rule bloated 3e/Pathfinder system after my 2e/AD&D books had been destroyed by water damage. So I didn't try 4e til 2010-2011 (somewhere 'round there).

 

[Jester David]

Nah, didn't know anything about that. My turning to 4e was a desperation move to get away from the rule bloated 3e/Pathfinder system after my 2e/AD&D books had been destroyed by water damage. So I didn't try 4e til 2010-2011 (somewhere 'round there).

Yeah, it was a really sore point for a lot of people. Imagine touching a page and the text just smears under your fingers, like tones that wasn't sealed. They quickly changed the ink though, and it only affected certain people.

It's hard not to have some duds when you're making thousands of copies of something. I saw some copies of 3e books with errors, including a Monster Manual with a flipped interiour (upside down compared to the cover). And since most gamers are tech savvy, and likely to get angry when an expected book is damaged/ imperfect, we're likely to hear more horror stories than other products.

There's always the risk of little errors. For example, my copy has a little extra glue from the binding that was atop the pages, but I spotted it before it could rip the pages.
They can't have someone checking every page of every copy. So bad copies will get out. But, most of the time, those will be easy enough to replace.

 

[Pentegarn]

Yeah, it was a really sore point for a lot of people. Imagine touching a page and the text just smears under your fingers, like tones that wasn't sealed. They quickly changed the ink though, and it only affected certain people.

It's hard not to have some duds when you're making thousands of copies of something. I saw some copies of 3e books with errors, including a Monster Manual with a flipped interiour (upside down compared to the cover). And since most gamers are tech savvy, and likely to get angry when an expected book is damaged/ imperfect, we're likely to hear more horror stories than other products.

There's always the risk of little errors. For example, my copy has a little extra glue from the binding that was atop the pages, but I spotted it before it could rip the pages.
They can't have someone checking every page of every copy. So bad copies will get out. But, most of the time, those will be easy enough to replace.

Of course there's going to be mistakes. But all these defects I spotted was just by glancing. I didn't even open the other copies. The other were all damaged on the exterior. The one I picked up was the only one with a decent exterior. And I only flipped through it to guage the art and presentation. The faded ink wasn't restricted to the spells section. It's just that the spells section was more quickly noticed because it was multiple pages.

Granted, I never really planned on purchasing the book, but other books I purchased that were $50+, had quality covers, binding, art and presentation, and were generally 400(ish) pages. I'm sure there were flawed version of those to make it to the shelves as well, but I've never witnessed so many, and with such glaring flaws.

I've never minded giving that price for a book I wanted, and I always try to support hobby and book stores as I have had many fond memories visiting them throughout my youth, but my advice for anyone buying a 5e PHB (at least during this 1st printing) is buy it from Amazon. The odds of you getting a quality copy doesn't look as though it's worth risking $50. That or give the book a thorough inspection at your local retailer before dropping the money on it.

 

[JoeyQueerAF]

Binding on mine seems solid, just got them today, they open nicely and well bound.

 

[LabyrinthLord718]

I agree; a retailer should be responsible for ensuring that the copies that hit their shelves are free from defects.
It's really not fair to expect someone to plunk down $50 (especially in this economy) for a book with a dinged, dented, or damaged cover.
I hope you brought the issues to the attention of the store staff.
It's one thing to be unaware of an issue, but quite another to allow them plausible deniability.

 

[Joe Liker]

I agree; a retailer should be responsible for ensuring that the copies that hit their shelves are free from defects.
It's really not fair to expect someone to plunk down $50 (especially in this economy) for a book with a dinged, dented, or damaged cover.
I hope you brought the issues to the attention of the store staff.
It's one thing to be unaware of an issue, but quite another to allow them plausible deniability.

^ This.

My FLGS owner is extremely fastidious, and my book is pristine and solid.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Both my books (PHB and HotDQ) have scratches on the cover. My fingernails don't scratch it, so what the heck happened? It looks like there were pieces of sand between the books as they were jostling around in the truck.

 

[shamsael]

A buddy of mine and I stopped by our local hobby store today and I glanced at the new 5e Player's Handbook while I was there. Flipping through the spells section of one of the books, I noticed several pages that looked as though the printer was almost out of ink. The lettering, though I could still make out what it said, was faded and streaked severely. On several copies of the 5e PHB, the shiny gloss cover was scratched, and on a couple, the black matte finish on the back cover was scratched off in places. Now, obviously, the latter two issues were the fault of bad handling somewhere along the way between the print shop's shipping department, to the book's placement on the shelf. But there is no excuse for the faded ink. And the decision to use the shiny, high gloss, and the black matte finishing on the covers, that are so easily damaged, are the product of faulty decisions. Neither is excusable, in my opinion, on a book with a price tag of $50 and some change after taxes.

I may not have cared much for 4e, but it seems to me the quality of the book covers and their bindings (not necessarily the art on the cover, mind you) was of much better quality.

I have the same issue going on in the Classes chapter. It's all still readable. I also saw the same thing in the 4e player's handbook.

 

[Storminator]

For example, my copy has a little extra glue from the binding that was atop the pages, but I spotted it before it could rip the pages.
They can't have someone checking every page of every copy. So bad copies will get out. But, most of the time, those will be easy enough to replace.

My copy also had some extra glue on the top of the back page. No harm done to the book in fixing it.

PS

 

[Jester David]

My copy also had some extra glue on the top of the back page. No harm done to the book in fixing it.

Yeah, it's no big deal.
I'm more than willing to come down on WotC for mistakes and flaws. But 100% perfect products is impossible. There's always some errors.

When you make ten thousand copies of something there will be bum copies. Even a 1% error rate means a hundred bad copies. We don't know the size of the print run, but it could be in the 25-100k range. That might mean 200-1000 inferior copies.

 

[silver95404]

Huge issues with binding, can't find good copy

Anyone else noticing minor issues with the binding?

YES.

I made an account just to post here. I just googled '5E player's handbook binding glue' and found this thread. All of the books I've seen (4 different shipments total in 2 gaming stores as well as the one I reluctantly bought from Amazon) have issues. The front and back pages having excess glue is the least of our problems. If you look through every single page, like my crazy self, enjoying the fantastic art etc., you will run into pages that are stuck together just a little bit near the crease. If you pull gently, or try to separate the pages in any way, the art will be ruined. It pulls apart white, which is just glaring. I had this issue no fewer than 6 times on only art pages, a handful of times on spells pages, but since those are beige, I'm not too concerned.

I also noticed the faded text that others mentioned.

Not happy .

 

[Stormonu]

My 5e PHB arrived from Amazon in pristine shape, so it's certainly not an issue with every copy.

In comparison, my 4E "gift box" set had a DMG with two purple line running down about 30 pages, and the smearing ink problem. I ended up using PDFs and the physical books just sat on the shelf. (need to get rid of them to make room for my 5E books...)

 

[Agamon]

My book's fine and none of my player's have complained.

I am amused whenever I read, "...for a $50 book, it should be..." Yes, gilded with gold, I know. Just like the shelf full of $50+ books on my RPG shelf beside me.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

My copy also had some extra glue on the top of the back page. No harm done to the book in fixing it.

PS

The first two and last two pages on my PHB were stuck together for around the top third. They came apart very easily though without any damage.

Other than the bottom right hand corner of the book getting slightly bent due to poor padding from Amazon, my PHB seems to be in very good condition.

 

[Sailor Moon]

There are also lots of reports of pages falling out and the binding coming loose.

Thankfully mine is in good shape, but it seems the bad quality is gaining a bit of momentum.

 

[Grainger]

I agree; a retailer should be responsible for ensuring that the copies that hit their shelves are free from defects.
It's really not fair to expect someone to plunk down $50 (especially in this economy) for a book with a dinged, dented, or damaged cover.
I hope you brought the issues to the attention of the store staff.
It's one thing to be unaware of an issue, but quite another to allow them plausible deniability.

I called my local store to reserve a copy (it turned out they had plenty on the shelves so it didn't matter). When I got there, the chap tried to sell me a copy that was dented all along the bottom edge of the cover! He justified this (and actually drew attention to it) by saying "don't worry, it came in like that; that happens sometimes" as if damage in transit didn't count! I bought one of the pristine copies from the shelf, instead of the one he had reserved for me.