JeffB
Legend
Having owned every edition's version/s of GH, I still find the original folio the best representation of the setting yet- and it was not the first "set" I owned. I owned the 83 box first, and was not impressed- it sat on my gaming shelf for years, untouched after the initial read-through. I'm a big fan of Gary, but I thought this product, was terribly disjointed and difficult to get through. It was "bad chaos", unlike the "brilliant chaos" of the DMG.
As I got back into GH again in the mid late 90s, I picked up EVERYTHING, from the late 1E era, the FTA era, the Roger Moore era, and grabbed another copy of the boxed set books, as well as the folio (and eventually the GH gaz for 3E). I sold everything off in time but the folio. In a nutshell having them both to compare, I find(found) the 83 box added alot of not terribly useful (to me) word count, and very little usable meat. The boxed set was typical of "83 & beyond" TSR products where the belief was "more word count=better", and "we need to provide all the story details".
The folio for my tastes gives a far better representation of the greater world hinted at in all the classic modules, and is more true to the setting's initial aim: to provide a playground for the DM to do his own thing.
As I got back into GH again in the mid late 90s, I picked up EVERYTHING, from the late 1E era, the FTA era, the Roger Moore era, and grabbed another copy of the boxed set books, as well as the folio (and eventually the GH gaz for 3E). I sold everything off in time but the folio. In a nutshell having them both to compare, I find(found) the 83 box added alot of not terribly useful (to me) word count, and very little usable meat. The boxed set was typical of "83 & beyond" TSR products where the belief was "more word count=better", and "we need to provide all the story details".
The folio for my tastes gives a far better representation of the greater world hinted at in all the classic modules, and is more true to the setting's initial aim: to provide a playground for the DM to do his own thing.