Probably cash grab but it does say that it helps towards the Gygax memorial. Those 1st edition rulebooks are limited and I wouldn't mind getting a copy.
Old-school D&D Reprints
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Jun 26, 2012
0
#4
But that's my dilemma would i ever use new books? Probably not because it would be like breaking with tradition or casting away old friends. If I get them they will be, as you suggested, coffee table books to read sparingly.
Did you ever buy Unearthed Arcana? And if you did what was it like? I'm thinking of bidding for a copy off ebay but I was wondering if I'd be wasting my money.
Jun 26, 2012
0
#5
I never had a copy. Just reading about it in Wikipedia though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unearthed_Arcana
Reception to "Unearthed Errata" seems mixed at best.. but I always enjoy reading that stuff anyway. I didn't realize that's where the Cavalier and Acrobat came from...
Earlier this year, Wizards re-released the original AD&D ("1st edition") core rulebooks, featuring original content bound by new cover art:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/02410000
I didn't interpret this as an attempt to breath new life into a decades-old platform. Why compete against yourself when your current edition is already starting to lose ground to the competition?
But I did think it was a neat nod to nostalgia - or to be more jaded, a cash-grab based on selling coffee-table books to people who did most of their RPGing in the 80s.
But now they are rereleasing the books for 3.5 - and maybe other stuff from that edition as well!:
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4news/20120625
Now I don't know what to think. This, of course, was the edition that Pathfinder used as a point of departure... So is this meant to staunch the heavy flow of gamers from D&D to PFRPG?
Is Wizards embracing the idea that they can hold ground by supporting semi-discrete gamer-communities on three (?) generations of the platform, just by keeping the core materials in circulation?
Or... cash grab? :)