1st Edition AD&D Books Re-Release; 1e Playstyle Support Coming

Wizards of the Coast will reprint limited premium versions of the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks by Gary Gygax to help support the Gygax Memorial Fund. The new editions will be released in limited quantities exclusively for the hobby channel on April 17, 2012. They’ll include the original art and content with new cover designs commemorating the re-release.

The three core books being released are:

1st Edition Premium Dungeon Master’s Guide, a 240-page hardcover at $44.95

1st Edition Premium Player’s Handbook, a 112-page hardcover at $34.95

1st Edition Premium Monster Manual, a 128-page hardcover at $34.95

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This could be a good move, yet part of me wonders if they are doing this as a means to shut down OSR games such as OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord.

I saw those. Even though I own the originals, I may have to get these. The temptations to run a 1E game are now stronger.

Sounds like a winning move. Most people will want to jump on it just for the collectible nature of them, but some of us older gamers wouldn't mind new prints of our tattered old books. Nostalgia in hard cover.

As for the defeat of OSRIC, I doubt that will happen. OSRIC games tend to run modified versions, each with their own support and source books. People who play them will doubtfully 'give up' on those games for something extremely similar. Also, some of their OSRIC rpgs are just BETTER, with important modifications and updates to the system.

And I thought I wouldn't be purchasing another Wizards book..

I'm hoping for classic orange bindings. This is really cool.

Meh. While this is cool from the nostalgia side of things, 1st edition AD&D was a seriously flawed system. Even when it was new and shiny and I had zero experience with other games, I knew that. If I had money to burn, I might pick these up out of nostalgia, but there's no way they'd see play.

I would get it. Just seeing the cover has me excited. This and the red box is what I teethed my gaming hobby on.

Is this what they're calling 1st Edition these days?

I sold my copies of those to a local gaming shop two years ago. No way in the Nine I'd go back to playing that system. Nostalgia is overrated.

Not really much point for me buying them since I still have the ones I bought in the 80s.

These are the times when I hate being a working student and barely have spare money to buy candy.

My suspicions got me a very disappointed reply from Monte Cook on FB. I do hope that 1e style play integrated into 5e is a good thing, but I've been on the interwebs since 1995 and I remember when WoTC was issuing Cease and Desist orders to fan sites. If SOPA passed, you can bet the Old School Revival movement would be shut down right quick, ensuring Hasbro had little or no competition.