Player's Handbook: Core Rulebook 1 by Jonathan Tweet

Player's Handbook: Core Rulebook 1 Reviews

• 
  Matt

  I should probably clarify at this point that I don't actually play RPGs, I just read rulebooks - I'm a systems designer, and I like studying systems :)
  
  Third edition D&D is a bit of a mess. It suffers from not really having a clear idea where to go from second edition, and making up for this by adding bells and whistles at every turn. If I had to sum it up in two words, they'd be "pointlessly simulationist".
  
  The poster child for this is the "bull rush" rules: the rulebook states clearly that dealing with one character trying to run into another character in order to push them back is a rare occurrence that people will rarely run into in their games. Then it devotes an entire, rules-dense A4 page to how to resolve this situation.
  
  Why?
  
  If it's a rare situation, and (as implied by the rules) unlikely to have a major effect on the outcome of a fight, why make the players look up a long rule that's going to take people unfamiliar with it a minute or two to understand and resolve? Why not just do something really simple instead? The only explanation I can come up with is that the designers decided they want to have an incredibly realistic, high-fidelity combat system that's immensely powerful and handles every possible situation in as precise a manner as possible. Except that it's apparently intended to be used to run fun, relatively easy-going roleplaying sessions, not hardcore medieval combat simulations. Also, it's still a dice-based game and it has really weak rules for anything that's not combat.
  
  As a system it's very powerful, it's very flexible and extensible, you could even argue that it's structurally elegant given its scope, but it's also hugely over-engineered and seems largely unfit for purpose. I'd file it right alongside using 2nd Ed 40k for large-scale battles in this respect (which is in no way a compliment).
  
  (I'm pretty unimpressed with 3rd edition. 3.5 sits on about the same level as an independent system, but gets additional minus points for trying to fix an overly complex system just by fiddling with the details.)
• 
  Billy

  My very first handbook on understanding roleplaying games. Brings up memories :-)
• 
  Mike (the Paladin)

  I bought these when they decided that they'd made all the money they could from 2nd edition...oops, no I'm sorry I mean....uhh, when they bought the D&D game and decided it needed to be updated, yes that's it up dated.
  
  Right.
  
  This version of D&D lasted maybe a year and a half, before they decided that D&D 3.5 was needed, all new hard back books and they were all a lot more expensive than 3. Though most of us suckers...errr, uhh, gamers, I mean, ya that's it, gamers...most of us had already bought at least the Players Handbook, specialty hero book, maybe the Monster Manual...you get the picture.
  
  They changed the system here, formalized the Sorcerer character class, allowed other races than Human to be Paladins (which a lot of us DMs had been doing already anyway). they changed the armor system so that armor class numbers got better going up instead of down (no more -10AC). The means of character development changed radically with a system of feats added and weapons proficiency changed.
  
  The play was simplified (read dumbed down) it simplified even more in later editions (read dumbed down even more). I started in a game as a player in this edition and then set out to move the group I was DMing to this edition also. I played a Ranger in the game where I was a player. To me the biggest flaw was that a player could be so powerful in a fairly short time that he could be almost unstoppable (a talented DM was needed. :)
  
  I later bought the 4th edition books...they have convinced me that I will in my own game groups go back to and play 2nd edition. i still have most of my helps and 4 Player's Handbooks (and I plan to buy up any more I find.
  
  I went with one star, if this were the only version out there I'd play it. But I date back to first edition and played 2nd a long time also. I think the changes after 2nd largely failed to improve the game it just changed it and came up with a lot more books and material to buy.
  
  
• 
  Jim

  It's a manual that told me things about playing D&D. So, yep, pretty good.
• 
  Nicola

  3rd ed D&D will always be my favourite of the systems (and I've played from 2nd ed forward). A fun D20 gaming system from Wizards of the Coast with plenty of scope for different styles of play. Brings back warm nostalgic memories! It is funny watching Game of Thrones at the moment and seeing the D&D type party adventuring out into the snow in search of the frozen undead!
  
  Non fiction: Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, roleplaying, D20, rule book, setting, RPG, gaming, fantasy, adventure, Wizards of the Coast
• 
  Love of Hopeless Causes

  The trifecta of fail. Fake jewelry cover flop, doesn't look like an archaic tome, a D&D book, or a Steampunk Manifesto. Has a crap layout, even by D&D standards. I've never seen three column lined, with the art panels creating ragged edges: barf-a-matic.
  
  Interior equipment art is good, but the rest is pitiable. Complex rules that are no better than Second, and still not as good as First, or BECMI, or 3.5. Shame on you, Wizards of the Hasbro.
• 
  Hippocleides

  This was the first RPG I properly learned and played with, and I played it (and version 3.5) for years through high school and part-way through college before realizing that other RPGs existed. It truly is the archetypal tabletop RPG, and while I think it does what it does rather well, it has a unique culture and roleplaying approach which I find to be somewhat contemptible.
  
  D&D is at its core quite a "gamist" RPG. Emphasis is placed on optimizing one's class, attributes, and equipment for the best possible combat ability. The mentality of the system is that the DM is an opponent of the players, whether it be through the alleged "brutality" that is lauded in its history, or the "challenge rating" of monsters in the Monsters' Manual. Feats and classes are all designed around one's role in a combat situation. Consider that no one can really play a peasant hero, a merchant, or a conniving bureaucrat without delving into the decidedly second-class NPC classes. I find class-based systems such as these very limiting compared to skill-based ones, and it's to the innate detriment of an immersive roleplaying experience.
  
  I'm also rather tired of the tropes of high fantasy. If generic high fantasy is your bag, D&D is a perfectly legitimate system, but I'm exhausted by the various iterations of demihumans casting spells at evil monsters in a high medieval setting. The genre is so stagnant that the idea of pointy-eared slender humanoids living in the desert instead of the forest is considered revolutionary.
  
  Obviously a good DM can run a story-rich campaign despite these quibbles, but I insist that that DM is fighting against the natural inclinations of the game, as well as the entrenched culture of D&D when doing so. It's not a wholly gamist system--if it was, 4th edition would have perhaps had a better reception--and I should make clear that RPGs with social and story mechanics are not "better." But it's a style of RPG that more tabletop players should be expanding beyond.
  
• 
  Dan Ray

  Have had lots of fun with this game, the Player's handbook is laid out pretty well but could certainly benefit from a better done index and more comprehensive list of summary tables.
  The spells are laid out well, alphabetically instead of by level. The art is OK.
• 
  Mark Austin

  I grew up playing board games against myself. My sister wasn't much into them and whatever friends I managed to scrap together for a year or two before we moved again were either disinterested from the get-go or quickly became disinterested as I beat them mercilessly at whatever we played.
  
  I also grew up in a world of imagination which almost universally drifted to war. I'm not sure why, but my games, movies, books, shows, and idle imaginings only seem to have real staying power if they are somehow associated with combat. One of my earliest memories is drawing viking ships battling on the ocean... and so it went from there.
  
  When I encountered my eventual group of best friends in 7th grade (many of whom I still talk to regularly), they were clustered on a table in the cafeteria playing something with sheets of paper, pencils, dice, and a set of weirdly-sized books. I drifted over, watched for a few minutes, and became instantly hooked.
  
  I only got to play my elven druid with his scimitar and panther a few times before their existing game master moved and the game ended, but endless class periods passed remembering every item of gear, every chunk of quantified capability that the numbers on my crumpled character sheet represented.
  
  Despite being new to the group, within months I was the new game master, spinning worlds, races, gods, ages, and cultures out of nothingness. We played straight up through high school graduation gathering in my friend's garage attic after school every night and sometimes 12-16 hour long weekend sessions. How I did it without burning out I don't know, but I do know it for the first time let others into the private universes I'd constructed, gave me something to look forward to, a group to be myself with, and a place of refuge both physically and mentally.
  
  Middle school was miserable. The trailers we bounced between were places of endless chore lists, terrible food, random hours-long barely-coherent suicidal rambles from an older brother out of his mind on who knows what. Our mom, when she was there, we hoped would take off on one of her regular days-long absences since when she was there it was either panicked, shouted orders to fix the latest crisis or the house filling with drunken bar dregs that'd be invited over to keep partying when the bar closed Friday night and that would sometimes linger until Monday came and swept the last of them away.
  
  D&D was an escape hatch to an alternate reality where such concerns were irrelevant and, for a time, I could forget the misery and uncertainty of my home life, to practice being someone more powerful, resourceful, and strong than I felt.
  
  The actual rules had some issues, especially compared to more modern rule systems, but that's like saying the pioneers' covered wagons were inefficient compared to modern moving trucks - it's true, but without the former to explore the terrain and settle the unknown the latter would likely not come into existence.
  
  Roleplaying games remain an important part of my life even if my playing time has vastly dwindled. The problem solving and social skills, the lessons on story structure, flow, pacing, and engagement, the friendships that remain to this day, all products of that time spent around a table or sprawled across an attic or living room.
• 
  Utsquishy

  I read this after I had been playing for a few months. It was interesting how much the game actually started to make sense to me. For a while this was the only way that I understood Role Playing Games.
  
  
  At the time I thought you could do ANYTHING using this set of rules. Then I tried to create some of my own stuff and started to understand the things that make D&D, D&D also happen to be things that make this not work particularly well for everything.
  
  I still really liked it, and would still be willing to play a game to this day—though my current game of choice is Savage Worlds.
• 
  Bradley

  I bought this book to play with a local group from my work. It was a waste of time because they were a hack and slash group without even an ounce of roleplaying fun. It was disappointing. Decent system but too expensive.
• 
  Ricky Nuriadi

  A must for Dungeon and Dragons fans...
  A worthy insights for RPG lovers...
  An invaluable concept and systematics for game developers...
  A game worth of playing for gamers...
  Some nice illustrations for fantasy illustrators alike...
• 
  Nika

  I think this is the one I have...hm gotta check my self to make sure.
• 
  Patrick

  Nerdlingers Unite!
• 
  Danyell

  It's not first ed, wich is sad, but then again it's not second ed which is great!
• 
  David Chmelik

  It is poor compared to the first seven versions of regular and advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Unrealistic things such as feats were added, and important things such as most skills were removed.
• 
  Dustin

  My RPG gateway drug. This was the first edition I ever played of any RPG. It definitely is outclassed by later d20 and non-d20 fantasy games, but it was the first.
• 
  David

  They certainly did iron out some of the oddities found in 2nd edition But I guess it wasn't enough. I didn't really delve into 3rd edition though, until 3.5 came along.
• 
  Nancy Laney

  Third Edition D&D
• 
  R J Royer

  I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
  
  http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13158799