Wizards of the Coast has announced that they’ll be reprinting the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons core rulebooks, with the original art and new covers. A portion of the proceeds will go directly to the Gary Gygax Memorial. Sounds great, but…
The cover prices are $44.95 for the Dungeon Masters Guide, and $34.95 for the Players Handbook and Monster Manual. Fine, that’s in line with what hardcover roleplaying books cost these days, even coming in at the low end compared to what Pathfinder books cost. I should be excited, but I’m not feeling it. Here’s why.
First, you can get the original books on Amazon or eBay for around $10-$15 each. If there’s some value-add, like revision or additional material, then maybe the new books are worth it. Yet, if there’s new material, they’re not really the old edition, are they? I’m not seeing the attraction.
Second, for $115 I could donate $50 to the Gygax Memorial directly, then spend $50 on Old School Revolution stuff. The memorial would get more out of it, I would get more stuff, and I’d be supporting the fan/pro efforts that have tried to faithfully carry the torch all along. Hasbro (parent company of Wizard of the Coast), doesn’t need my money.
It’s a neat idea, to be sure, but I’m not swayed over. It looks like an olive branch to appease the fractured fan base, but it feels like a scramble by the current Dungeons & Dragons development team to show Hasbro that there are ways to monetize the game and get some cash out of old product. Maybe I’m being unduly cynical, but I’m not sensing a love of the game here so much as a concern about the corporate bottom line. It leaves me cold. If you want to win me back, bring back PDF releases of both new material and the back catalog so everyone can play whatever version of your products they want, and tell me that 5th Edition will have a robust Open Game License so 3rd parties and fan can add their creative voices as well.
You forgot “And get the hell off my lawn”
Let the hate mail begin!
Gamer: “We want older material! WotC is a big jerk for withholding it!”
WotC: “Gamers seem to want the older material. Let’s release the core AD&D books and see how the market is. In fact, lets release them with what’s ‘in line with what hardcover roleplaying books cost these days’ only we’ll give a small portion of the money away.”
Gamer: “This is not exactly what I asked for! Lame! And not for me!”
WotC: “Apparently there is no market for older material. We won’t release any more of them.”
Gamer: “We want older material! WotC is a big jerk for withholding it!”
I won’t be buying the books simply because my copies are in very good condition. Of course, I am not the target audience. The target audience is nostalgic gamers and those newer gamers who are interested in “old school gaming” but don’t know where to start. I’d rather have those gamers support their local game store and get easy access to 1E books rather than stumble around eBay looking for the right books (which are likely in worse condition than a shiny new book).
Yes, these releases are not for me or for you, but I fully support and even recommend people go out and buy them. Even if that means they end up giving their money to the evil empire of Hasbro.
5th edition?! Who cares about 5th anymore; we don’t have to settle for that swill.
Likewise with PDFs. These are actual physical copies. I wont pay for PDFs.
I think people are exaggerating how easy it is to get these books on amazon. I just took a peek at the PHB prices and if you wanted condition “new” it’s $60 at least, and “used – very good” is $25 – $30 at least.
But at least when you buy an original, you know you are buying a vintage book that is going to appreciate. I can guarantee you that WotC is going to fill every order they get, even if they get millions of orders. They are not going to turn away all that money just so a few people who get their orders filled can say they have a “rare limited edition”. If they had fixed the number of copies that will be printed from the start and numbered each of them so you could verify if they were cheating, then that would be different but nowhere have I seen anything that refers to the number of copies of each book that will be printed. Also, have you checked ebay for these books? I have seen them in what would be referred to in other collectibles circles as Very Fine through Excellent condition for under $15 for each of the hardcovers. Modules in better than average condition can be had for less than that. You sometimes have to wait a bit to get the bargains, but they are out there.
Well, it’s going to be a limited release, which may be a test market, but they’re already predicting it will sell out as if they’re intentionally planning a print run below anticipated demand. So I think this is aimed more at a collector’s market than an actual players market. Which will generate revenue for Hasbro and prove interest, but isn’t going to do much to enhance the hobby.
Honestly, I do hope it does well and leads to some more re-releases, but I’m neither into the collectors market or completism.
The interesting thing is that it is limited to North America.
Any guesses as to how much international distribution would add to the price? If you think $45 for a DMG is a lot, try paying 70 Pounds or Euros, because that’s what it would be with the shipping over there. Are you willing to pay it?
try 90 pounds and that is the equivalent of $45 anyways, so its no big deal!
Woops, I mean $45 is equal to 28 pounds sterling, so that plus shipping! Even cheaper to them than it is to us!
I can find first edition stuff at HPB any given trip (and lots of it). for about 5-10 bucks a book. The last trip there was fiend folio 1&2, DMG, PHB, wilderness survival guide and more.
What would endear me more is free (as in no obligation) PDF releases of old Dragon Magazines. Of course this would only raise my endearment to about the “oh look, it’s trying to talk. Isn’t that cute?” level.
Once again, RPG bloggers, if you want to make the ol’ hit counter spin, post something that count be perceived as disparaging of D&D!
Excellent points. I hate to admit it, but if its a really groovy cover I might just be a filthy consumer whore for the DMG.
But, or the rest? Amazon. Used. Done.
You are not being cynical. OK, maybe you are, but you are not the only one.
My first thought was “this is a test to see how much money is in the old school player base so that WotC can see how much 5E needs to appease them.
This is a limited release book. Gaming companies don’t make a huge amount amount on new books at the normal price, and they are donating to a charity. I don’t think it’s a cash grab for them. My thought is that they are breaking even or even losing a little money. I don’t doubt that they are testing the market, but they are also reaching out to try and get goodwill.
Then again, the OSR market is never going to be a profitable niche in gaming. 1) they are spread out over a variety of editions and retroclones. 2) most of them still have their old editions. 3) most retroclones are cheap or free 4) a subset of the OSR will never support WotC in any way for ideological reasons 5) it seems that there are always a few people in every discussion that expect WotC to provide every book, module, supplement, map, boxed set, magazine issue and christmas card in PDF for absolutely free. (My thought is that if WotC did that, then they would complain that WotC didn’t send over somebody to install it on their computer with a new 3TB drive. And if they did that, they’d complain that they did not provide a laser printer with enough toner and paper to rint all of it out.)
I think they should provide the back catalog in PDF for a reasonable charge. Up to $5 for modules, $10 for books or box sets. Of course, I expect OCR’d and bookmarked PDFs if I’m buying them.
How “limited” is limited in this case? I haven’t seen any numbers quoted anywhere. I guarantee if WotC gets a million pre-orders for these books, a million copies will be printed and sent out. How much is your investment in this “limited edition” going to be worth, then?
I supsect they will take the number of pre-orders they have and round that up to the next multiple of what the printer offers. Once they sell those out, they won’t reprint them unless they have enough hard support to justify another reprinting.
Even if that’s true, there’s probably still going to be more of these “limited edition” reprints printed up than there are original 1st Edition books left for sale so the value is still going to be in buying the originals and making a separate donation to the memorial fund rather than buying the reprints.
The used bookstores in my town could build a replica of Stonehenge with all their old D&D stock. If I were in charge of Wizards I’d send out a fleet of buyers in U-Hauls to grab all these cheap used copies, then sell them for $19.95 each marketed as “New! All the original content and art with distressed vintage-style covers!” They’d make at least 100% profit, the grognards would be happy, and they’d save some trees. The books would even have bonus features where someone wrote improved house rules in the margins or their older brother pencilled bigger boobs on all the pictures of female elves.
Someone at Wizards woke up one morning with dollar signs instead of eyes and the ka-ching sound it made drowned out all objections. This is supply without demand; the only explanation is an irrational urge to resell an existing product to people who already bought it once. Sure it’s crazy and stupid, but think of how much money we’ll make if it isn’t! It works for George Lucas!”
You’re an optimist, huh?
I think the trend shows that 5e won’t appease anyone and will alienate 4e fans.
I’m also wondering if the reprint has something to do with copyright. If they change or add very little, they can slap a new 2012 date on it and extend the clock even further.
Nah, they’ve got a long time left on their copyrights. See below.
Works created in or after 1978 are extended copyright protection for a term defined in 17 U.S.C. § 302. With the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, these works are granted copyright protection for a term ending 70 years after the death of the author. If the work was a work for hire (e.g., those created by a corporation) then copyright persists for 120 years after creation or 95 years after publication, whichever is shorter.
Either way they have a long time left before this becomes a worry. Not to mention that there will be an extension of copyright passed before 2023. The past four times that “Steamboat Willie” approached the end of copyright, they extended copyright. After all, they can’t let Mickey Mouse enter the public domain…
I won’t buy it, because I didn’t think it was a very good roleplaying game when it came out and my friend ran it. Your mileage may vary.
It makes me so glad that I went out and sourced most of the first edition books for a good price while Gary was still living. Prices started a slow rise after he passed and all the 3.0/3.5 players decided they wanted to see what 1st edition was like and started buying up all the original books they could find. I’m only missing a few of the 1st edition books and none of the ones I don’t have are considered essential because they are later extensions of the 1st edition ruleset and can still be had for reasonable prices. I shudder to think about collecting all the 2nd edition material, though. TSR went freakin nuts with all the supplements and optional rules that you’d have to be rich to own them all even if you could get them at good prices for each individual book.
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I still have my core books from the 1st edition, but for the last fifteen years or more really haven’t had the time, combined with matching schedules of other players/friends to make it happen…though I suppose if a person really wanted to prioritize it I could have found some time. Spouse, house, children, career combined as they do for many of us to put gaming further down the list.
My son now wants to try gaming, so I have dug out my old books. I shopped around looking at the newer editions, looking at Pathfinder, looking at a couple other systems, but decided we would go with good ol’ 1st Edition AD&D because I still remember the basics of play and won’t have to spend a ton of money on it. I found a few more 1st edition books (Unearthed Arcana, Fiend Folio, etc) locally in that $10 range people were mentioning, went to the local gaming store and bought my son a nice shiny set of his own dice, and we are set for now. If he likes gaming, then I’m sure we will be spending some money in the coming years on some new material, regardless of the system. For those who can’t easily obtain used books, this release may be just what they need – nobody is forcing anyone to buy them. Each to their own, peace to all.