Sad but true...  

Do y'all know about the softcover PHB... were they part of a boxed set?  When were they available?

davidc wrote:Do y'all know about the softcover PHB... were they part of a boxed set?  When were they available?

The Player's Kit from a few years back, which included a large box & introductory material. Stratochamp, are you thinking of the 1970's 1e book?

FormCritic wrote:This is the first I've heard of a pefect bound 3.5 Player's Handbook.

I have seen the 3.5 Ed Players handbook softcover posted on this forum before.
I have NO Search Fu in me... so someone else would need to find it if they wish.

I have a copy on my 3.5 Ed shelf upstairs.
Have no idea where/when it originated.
IIRC: I got it from e-Bay for a handful of dollars and I have occasionally seen them on e-Bay after that too.

Copyright page:

Original Hardcover Edition; First Printing; July 2003
First Paperback Printing; June 2006

Just curious.  Does the ISBN or product code match the Player's Kit boxed set?  And is the book itself exactly the same as the hardcover (except softcover) or is it a lite version?

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I guess this is the Player's kit?

As introductory sets go, the 2006 Players Kit seems to have been produced by one of those odd marketing decisions which make sense on the drawing board, but not so much in real life.

If you are the average D&D player, you need the whole PHB, you need dice & a sturdy box to keep papers & your mini in, you need some introduction to the game before plunging in, etc. From this point of view, the Players Kit is the ideal consumer purchase, everything required until you get sick of it. At which point the paperback binding is calculated to begin coming loose & the DM's odious personal habits are becoming more apparent with each session & the dwarf player's girlfriend keeps showing up to argue with him & the lot of them haven't pitched in for the last two pizzas.

Problem is, real-life players are more aspirational as consumers. We all have shelf-loads of RPG material for campaigns that would take us many lifetimes to organize & play out, including whole rules systems for which we are destined never to roll die one. We want thousands of pages devoted to every ecological niche of every corner of the imagination, in hardbacks to pass down to our grandchildren.

The 2006 Basic Game suffers from the same design flaw. It's actually quite good at what it does, taking 2-5 participants who've never seen the game on an easy ride through a dungeon which is pretty entertainingly written, for the 3.2 hours before its pubescent target audience puts it away forever except for the dragon which stays on your shelf until you attach a firecracker to it. But that's all it does, there's nothing to teach these now fully satisfied customers anything about character generation or how to keep the game going.

ExTSR wrote:Recently found... in a box, unmarked. :/

Thanks, Frank. I've been trying to get more info on these.

Looks like that DM screen is in pretty good shape!  They are usually at least a little beat because they got used for their intended purpose.