beyondthebreach wrote:As for the   Quality of Materials used to make a product - the worst appears to be the 2nd edition "Black" Hardcover books.  The surface layer seems to "split" with the slightest stress leaving "open wounds" on the edges/corners and especially the binding.

How about the first printing of the Unearthed Arcana, didn't pages 6-32 fall out of virtually every book?

All my gaming pals bought Unearthed Arcana when it first came out at Gencon coincidently, enought. Mine was the only to hold its pages. Still does to this day. Of course, I haven't opened the thing in probably 10 years, but who's counting.

beyondthebreach wrote:As for the   Quality of Materials used to make a product - the worst appears to be the 2nd edition "Black" Hardcover books.  The surface layer seems to "split" with the slightest stress leaving "open wounds" on the edges/corners and especially the binding.

I have had unused copies that appear perfect and upon carefully opening the book, the surface splits along the spine (usually at the top/bottom).

Speaking of, wasn't the original Players Handbook/Monster Manual/DMG the BEST quality items ever?  I still have my originals from the late 70's, and they are usuable. Almost every copy I run into, no matter how much use and love it's been given, could still be used today...I've never seen pages fall out of these, ever.  You could drop a fricken CASTLE on these and I think you could still dust them off an use them.
     Ahhhh, nostalgia.
    Besides the Unearthed Arcana, the first print of Oriental Adventures suffered the same loose pages syndrome.

Mike B.

bbarsh wrote:That is a solid point.

I used my Player's Handbook from 1979 through the late 80's constantly. My Monster Manual and DMG got much the same use. There was a period of time that lasted about five years when we played almost daily. And if it wasn't play, it was adventure creation time. All of those books are still quite usable today. The PHB shows the most wear, but crap, it went more than 10 years of solid use.

I doubt later books would hold up as well. That stuff generated in the early 90s seems to be the worst. Even modules and the like are lacking in quality production.

I had an honest to god That 70's Show flashback after your post....gaming almost daily....man, do I remember those days, the summer of '79 when we first discovered D&D that May.  My parents, and the parents of my two best friends, were starting to look at us really squirrelly towards August or so..."Don't you boys want to play outside?  You've been sitting at the gameroom table for 10 hours now!  Is that the Devil on the cover of that book? We notice you boys never seem to talk to...well...girls.  What's a Tomb of Horrors?"  So we learned to switch off days at each other's houses to allay suspicions we were in an evil cult, all the while I was working feverishly until two in the morning adding more levels to The Moathouse in T1....
   That spring/summer we started with B1 In Search of the Unknown, which led to T1 Village of Hommlet, then some Judge's Guild modules,  to the Giants series, and finished those up when school started that fall.  I don't think we went two days in a row without playing, and I'm pretty sure we managed around 40-50 hours a week, at least.  I was actually playing in one group and DMing another the entire time!  Whatever the orignal rulebooks cost, we got our money's worth for sure.

Mike B.

Deadlord36 wrote:Sad to say, my mother would pick us and some friends up Friday afternoon (parents were divorced), and we would literally game until Sunday afternoon, falling asleep on the huge sectional couch. She'd bring us food, drinks, etc. Never questioned it. She was just happy to have us there.
You know, the one thing that can be said about D&D is that it is probably the only game ever invented that has such potential to become an obsession for so many. Personally I think it is because it is open-ended, and the game theoretically could never end. And, it is whatever you want it to be. No strict rules.
Besides, everyone at some point in life fantasizes about being a huge warrior or ultra-powerful mage, etc.

We had weekends like that, I think our record was 33 hours uninterrupted.  Amazing how sleep deprivation can affect the quality of your role playing in interesting ways.  At one point the DM had to pull a "it was all a dream" Dallas move in order to restore the campaign.

Mind you this was a very vibrant high-level campaign that I joined late, having never played AD&D before.  I had a human 15th level fighter, and it began something like this...

Me: So, where are we going?
Other player: Through that gate.  My anti-paladin psionisist has had it with Iuz, we're going to take him out for good.
DM: Ok, speak in character, guys.
Me: *ahem* What's an Iuz?
DM: They've all gone through, you can't talk to them anymore.  Do you go through the gate?  It's closing soon.
Me: Sure, I go through too.

bbarsh wrote:We were the same way. I think we played at least 5 days a week in the Summer, but usually in the a.m. or p.m. We, played alot of baseball back then...

I think the gaming obsession can be attributed to other games, also. We used to play Star Fleet Battles every Sunday for about two and half years. We used Federation and Empire to fight the entire General War, then fought each battle using SFB. Now that was true gaming geekdom, but awesome. (Sorry, if you never played SFB)

Still, gaming kept us out of trouble, in general. So I don't think any of our parents were that concerned...

Maybe we should start a new thread called "Glory Days".  When was Starfleet Battles originally released?  I remember some other friends playing that and looking down on us for playing D&D, like being uber-Trekkies was so much cooler than being D&D junkies... Then there was the Squad Leader guys. We had this big, fat, genius guy (known affectionately as "Papa Squad Leader") who sat with us in the cafeteria and brought his box every day so he and some other wargamers could run short scenarios.  When myself and my buddies stopped paying attention and turned to D&D, he would give us looks like a disapproving parent and tell us we were losing a chance to miss out on learning history because of a "Make believe game"....like he and his friends were really fighting WWII every lunch break.  
  But like you said, I think most of our parents were just happy we weren't smoking dope, drinking booze and impregnating girls when we were 15-17 to worry about a game whose worst effect seemed to be we stayed in the gameroom or dining room all day rolling dice.

Mik e B.

The Wilderness Survival Guide and in an unsurprising tie, the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.

Coming up second, everything ever created after 1st edition AD&D.

+ 500 experience points to Beyondthebreach for successful resurrection of a dead (but loved) thread!

I did not like that compendium for a few reasons, and one not mentioned would be the use of white. Yes, you read that correctly. With the white binder cover and white pages it started to look dirty after one gaming session. I don't mind the used look (You should see my DM's guide), but dirty? Yuck!

As for the oft hated DL series.... I never played those mods like I was supposed to. I'm the DM, my world, my game. Savvy? I used the maps for various other adventures. The floating tomb is so damn kick ass! I used the concept of "outer realm" dragon men invaders for one campaign, and the players loved it.

Am I the only geek who checks this site like 10 times a day?

Zippanthropus wrote:Am I the only geek who checks this site like 10 times a day?

no.