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Honestly, there's almost nothing in it that I think improves the 1e game, or that seems particularly helpful to me. Is that an unpopular view?

I used most of the spells, and a modified weapon mastery. That's it, I think.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1127581Honestly, there's almost nothing in it that I think improves the 1e game, or that seems particularly helpful to me. Is that an unpopular view?

I've read it, but I don't care for it. Nobody else I know cared for it either, old or young.

If I'm going to run AD&D 1E, I'll just use the three core books and maybe also add Deities & Demigods or Oriental Adventures depending on the campaign.

Well, some of the new spells are good and some are not.  There's cantrips, they're fun.  Especially if you want to do an apprentice wizard hijinks game.  But the new classes are broken, the weapons of questionable utility, the new method of character generation is pure power gaming.

I liked the barbarian and weapon specialization alot at the time, but that crazy xp table made zero sense.

It gets dumped on now, but back in the day were were all excited by its release and used many of its option. Weapons mastery was appreciated. I wouldn't use it now as it unbalanced things to much in the PC's favor.

Yeah, it was great.  You had Drow, Cavaliers, Weapon Specialisation and Cantrips.

And who could forget a million and one Pole Arms!

The new classes and spells were fun.
But then I was about 16 at the time. The cool looking cover was enough in itself to sell it to me.  :D

Greetings!

Yeah, I remember at the time the book was released, most people were crazy about it. The weapon specialization, the Drow, the classes--everyone loved the book.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK;1127595Greetings!
 The weapon specialization,
SHARK

Oh yeah I remember being all excited about that. I went all Mini-maxing over it  lol...

Well, bear in mind, much of it wasn't exactly new. The new classes were in Dragon (and also suck) as were a lot of the spells (also from S4).  The gods of the demihumans/orcs was just filler from Dragon as well.
 
The new magic items though are useful, and the weapon specialization rules made the fighter (and ranger) much more on par with the magic-user and cleric.

And the new level limits and class combos were interesting.

I don't use any of its races.

The class stuff is mostly OK; the cavalier is broken and it breaks the paladin to make it a subclass of the cavalier.  I don't have a problem with the barbarian (and Gygax has said that the restrictions on associating with spellcasters wasn't to prevent them from adventuring together, just that the barbarian wouldn't take spell-help from them or be buddy-buddy with them).  The thief-acrobat should've just been new powers for the standard thief.  

Most of the spells and items are OK; granted, cantrips are goofy and so are a few of the items.  It has a lot of filler.  But I use some of it.  Specialization is OK if limited to fighters, melee weapons, single-specialization only, and not before 4th level.  it's when you put it in the hands of 1st level characters it really makes an impact since it gives 1st level characters the initiative advantage of extra attack routines that didn't come until 7th level before.  Attacking first in every odd round was far more impactful than +1 to hit and +2 damage.

I like weapon spec for games where PCs are badass cinematic/literary heroes at 1st level, like my 1359 DR Forgotten Realms campaign. Works for a particular sort of game.

I like UA cantrips as a freebie, they give MUs and Clerics something to do.

Not a fan of the UA Barbarian or Cavalier. Thief Acrobat not great either.

Some spells are fine, some break important balance elements in the game, eg Teleport Without Error or Stoneskin (which 2e made totally broken).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1127581Honestly, there's almost nothing in it that I think improves the 1e game, or that seems particularly helpful to me. Is that an unpopular view?

On its release the gamers I knew immediately dubbed it Unearthed Excrementa.

Unearthed Arcana was the first RPG book that I bought myself (as opposed to having been gifted to me or bought by parents) so it holds a special place for me. It was also the first RPG book that started to fall apart and shedding pages after only a couple of years of use, so it holds that special place for me too.

Like alot of AD&D, it is in part a collection of Dragon Magazine submissions and ideas from staff, retooled and better presented. For that alone its great as you dodnt have to backtrack issues to get some of this stuff.

But as with anything some is going to be useful to one and useless to another and that same thing might be overpowered or underpowered to yet another. The usual YMMV.

So personally some stuff I found useful and some alot less so. Here are a few

Comeliness: This was something a few players kept begging for and the rest didnt think was needed. It was used just short of none at all in anything else. It works. And for some its even useful.
Dark elves: seems ok-ish.
Cavalier: I think the number of players irked that Paladins were a subclass of Cavalier irked more people than the class itself. Though personally it and the barbarian feel kinda superfluous since you can get the same results by just role-playing a fighter.
Acrobat & Barbarian: Same issue as Cavalier.
New spells: Some of these would go on to become well known like Evard's Black Tentacles and Cantrips. Others fell by the wayside.
New Star rolling system: Not many seemed interested in using this one.
New equipment: This stuff seemed popular. New types of gear and new stuff got mounts even.
Social class rules: interesting but seemed to fall into obscurity. Same for the birth tables.
New treasures: Quite a number of these would become common D&D treasures. Others seem to have been forgotten. Lots of interesting new stuff.
New unarmed combat system: Not sure on this one. Never had a chance to use it.
New gods: Vastly expanded on the non human pantheons. Also some insight into why orcs are so destructive.
Polearms! I loved this section as it gave visual reference to all those titles.

It was known in our gaming circles as exhumed excretia - which I think tells you what we thought of it! Some of the spells and magic were ok, but nothing stood out.

In my gaming circles we enjoyed it and though did not use it too much. We were mostly happy with using the 1E core. As we began gaming at the end of 1E run and switched over to 2E.

Nor did we call it the imaginary names other posters are trying to say they did at the time of release. I like many of the posters at the time was between 12 and 14 and was not a pretentious edgelord at that age. Or trying to pretend they were. Like everyone else they called it by the proper name. Everything else is bullshit.

Of the things we used from it, most of them we had used from Dragon magazine, and had already made up our minds about pro or con before the book was released.  Our games were so disjointed and biased against the players at the time that some of the options didn't appreciably hurt anything. Higher stats meant the players might routinely make it to 3rd level instead of usually getting killed sooner, for example.  Then they'd likely die in the next adventure.  Honestly, the best thing about the book from my perspective was that I didn't need to thumb through all those magazines to look up the options we were going to use next.  Shortly after, we had one my two major breaks in gaming (late high school is not a fun time) and it became academic until college.  There, we were playing so many different games that whether or not a D&D game used UA didn't matter a whole lot.  Each GM decided on their own for their short campaign and all the players happily went with whatever the GM said.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1127611Unearthed Arcana was the first RPG book that I bought myself (as opposed to having been gifted to me or bought by parents) so it holds a special place for me. It was also the first RPG book that started to fall apart and shedding pages after only a couple of years of use, so it holds that special place for me too.

Yeah, came in to post this. When I finally graduated from BECMI to AD&D the book had already been out for many years and I didn't know any better so just bought it immediately and started using everything. In retrospect, some of the stuff was broken, but the binding...fell apart in about a month. I had purchased an old PHB from someone that was almost as old as I was that STILL has an excellent binding. UA, however, was pure garbage.

Quote from: Shasarak;1127592Yeah, it was great.  You had Drow, Cavaliers, Weapon Specialisation and Cantrips.

And who could forget a million and one Pole Arms!

QFT!

Quote from: sureshot;1127619Nor did we call it the imaginary names other posters are trying to say they did at the time of release. I like many of the posters at the time was between 12 and 14 and was not a pretentious edgelord at that age. Or trying to pretend they were. Like everyone else they called it by the proper name. Everything else is bullshit.

Up yours, you arrogant knob. It was releaased in 1985. I was 21 and in my second year at university. It may have been undergrad humour but it's true: Unearthed Excrementa.  [My gut feeling is that we may have got that from a fanzine (remember those) review and so it might be the sort of thing John Peterson could have in his archives.]

BTW, here's a snippet from Wikipedia - seen when I checked for the date:

"The original Unearthed Arcana contains errors in its text, which readers discovered and reported to Dragon magazine.[6] Even some positive reviews of the book pointed out the considerable number of mistakes.[7] Dragon editor Kim Mohan, with ideas from Gygax, Frank Mentzer, and Jeff Grubb, addressed the many errors found in the book. In the November 1985 issue of Dragon magazine, Mohan printed four pages of rules corrections as well as new supplementary material intended to be inserted into the book, and some explanations and justifications for items which were not actually errors,[6] and compiled a two-page list of type corrections meant to be pasted into further revisions of Unearthed Arcana.[8] Dragon also devoted the entirety of its "Sage Advice" column in the January 1987 issue to answering readers' questions about Unearthed Arcana, as a follow-up to Mohan's prior column.[9] However, the errata were not incorporated into later printings of the manual.[10]

You were just too puerile to recognise the tome of turds that it was.

To be fair to UA, if it had cantrips thne it did have the start of something that has become important for the shape of modern D&D.

Quote from: Anselyn;1127631You were just too puerile to recognise the tome of turds that it was.

What's your point?

I do like how they had two fucking pages of errata immediately and had to devote that much space to answer rules questions. That's ludicrous. And never update the book. I've always heard UA was nothing more than a halfassed cash grab, so if that quote is accurate the theory is confirmed.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1127581Honestly, there's almost nothing in it that I think improves the 1e game, or that seems particularly helpful to me. Is that an unpopular view?

I don't personally use much from UA. The stuff I do use is mostly from the new spells, new equipment/items, and rules from the DM's section and appendices, rather than the rules in the Player's section. I do think that you could use that player section material from UA for certain campaigns. But things like the cavalier or the thief-acrobat or drow PCs aren't a very good fit for the kind of D&D campaign I run.

With that said, I know some AD&D DMs that have a greater appreciation of UA. I'll quote T. Foster's UA apologia (originally posted on the knights-n-knaves forums):

Quote from: T. FosterThis probably will start an argument, because I'm pretty much the only regular poster here who doesn't consider the entire book to be an abomination that Ruined The Game.

First, a bit of background. UA is a collection of Gary Gygax's AD&D rules additions from, roughly, 1981-84. Most of its content had previously been published in modules (spells and magic items) and/or Dragon magazine (new classes, weapons, more spells, etc.). As early as 1982 Gary was talking in Dragon magazine about all of these additions as previews of an "AD&D Expansion" rulebook he was working on. Due to the chaotic and dysfunctional environment at TSR during that period, the book ended up being delayed for several years, and then when it was released it was a rush-product: Gary was busy trying to keep the company afloat so he basically designated a couple of staffers at TSR to go through the magazines to collect all his articles and turn them into a book (because TSR needed a "major" new release quickly in order to generate sales-volume). Because of that, the book is disjointed and incomplete (there were some more new classes and other additions that Gary mentioned but hadn't gotten around to writing yet) and some of the stuff is also under-playtested and has balance issues (in both directions - some things are overpowered, others are underpowered).

So, UA shouldn't be looked at as a "core" rulebook, but as a supplement - a bunch of additions and expansions to the baseline game that you can use if you find them interesting or leave aside if you don't. If you're just starting out with 1E you should probably use little if any of it at the start of your game: most of the additions will work better with experienced players who are feeling bored with the baseline material and looking for more options to refresh the experience.

That said, there is some stuff that's sort of "AD&D Errata" - things that were unintentionally left out of the core books - that there's no reason not to use. Stuff like the details on barding (horse armor) - it's included in the price list in the PH but without any explanation of what it does - and the rules for the effects of darkness, and the rules for how much a spell book weighs and how many spells it can hold, and especially the unarmed combat systems (which are much easier to use than the totally unwieldy rules in the DMG).

Beyond those, a lot of things can be added gradually or piecemeal - new classes, new weapons, new spells, new magic items, etc. It's probably worth looking over the various threads here to see what people's opinions are of what of that stuff is over- or underpowered and how we've resolved those issues. I have my own solutions, but you might decide you prefer someone else's, or will come up with your own (more reason to wait to add this stuff - until you're sufficiently experienced to recognize what's over- or underpowered and know how to fix it).

Lastly, and by far the most controversially, there are a few things that are changes/additions to the baseline rules that serve as "power-ups" to characters:

*Expanded options for demi-humans (allowing all demi-humans to become clerics (with high level limits) and elves to become rangers and druids; allowing formerly NPC-only sub-races (gray dwarfs, gray, wild, and dark elves, deep gnomes) as PCs)
*Allowing magic-users to use slings and thieves to use short bows
*Weapons specialization for fighters and rangers
*Allowing thieves to wear heavier armor (studded leather & elfin chain) w/ skill penalties
*"Method V" stat generation for human characters
*Minimum hp for 1st level characters
*Allowing spell-casting directly out of spell books

When people talk about hating UA and call it "AD&D 1.5," this is usually what they're talking about (along with the overpowered new spells and magic items).

I think there are a couple of reasons why these changes were made. One is that the average size of player-groups had decreased over the years since the original AD&D books were written - from an assumed group size of 5 or 6 PCs + numerous henchmen and hirelings so that many dungeon-parties numbered a dozen or more individuals down to perhaps 2 or 3 PCs with few, if any, allied NPCs. In order to maintain balance with stuff like the "number appearing" listings in the Monster Manuals and wandering monster tables, and published adventures, it was probably felt to be appropriate to boost the power of individual characters to make up the difference - so that a party of 4 or 5 "new" characters could pack as much punch as 8 or 9 "old" characters.

The other thing is that by the time Gary was writing all of this stuff he'd been playing the game (including OD&D) for ~10 years, and his in-house players were also all experienced vets who'd been playing almost as long, and he was less interested in low-level, low-powered stuff, and presumably felt it made sense to give PCs a boost to help get them to the "more interesting" parts of the game more quickly. The idea that a newly-generated 1st level character might be as effective as a 3rd level character generated using just the PH was not just acceptable, it was desirable.

So, just like how in the DMG Gary recommends if you're starting a new player in your campaign who's a "true novice" that it's best to start them with a 1st level character and set up special side-adventures for them away from the higher-level characters of the other players so that they get the full first-timer experience, but that if you're adding a new player who already has experience, or a new character for an experienced player, it's okay to give them a few levels and let them tag along with the main group until they're up to speed, whether or not to use the various character power-ups in UA probably depends on you and your player group: if you want the full low-level "newbie" experience with fragile characters and lots of men-at-arms and all that, don't use this stuff. But if you've already been there and done that and want to get to the "heroic tier" of the game more quickly, then these additions will help with that.

And now everybody else can tell you why I'm wrong and UA's only appropriate use is as kindling...

...As other folks have mentioned, if you're running "traditional" dungeon-crawls and wilderness hex-crawls a cavalier or acrobat isn't really going to fit (though a barbarian will). But if you've been doing that stuff for awhile and the focus is naturally shifting towards more "in-town" activity then those classes (and some of Gary's other proposed-but-not-detailed classes: mountebanks and jesters) begin to make more sense. It's an expansion of the scope of the game that was muddled in UA because the material was presented incomplete and out of context. If publication of UA had been followed a few months later by Wasp's Nest: The City of Stoink, as was originally planned, it would have been a lot more obvious how to use those classes in play, and how stuff like the social class table is actually game-relevant.

Quote from: estar;1127589It gets dumped on now, but back in the day were were all excited by its release and used many of its option. Weapons mastery was appreciated. I wouldn't use it now as it unbalanced things to much in the PC's favor.

This.

I loved it back in the day. But I'd never use it now. It serves as a reminder of those early evolution-era of D&D trying to grow out of the chaos of Dragon Magazine and 1e PHB slamming together. It was a catalyst, and nothing more. And for that, as a GM back then and now I can appreciate it. It made me start looking deeply under the hood of the rules and thinking of new possibilities. Oriental Adventures further pushed this envelope.

I bought it when it first came out, but I don't remember ever actually using it. Occasionally I'd see a magic item from it, but that was about it.

UA is inconsistent with 1e. It was just a cash grab to stem the financial bleeding of T$R. Neutral clerics, social class, comeliness, over-powered classes, weapon specialization, useless spells, etc.

Whereas the original game was very much a group effort (Gygax plus other DMs and players, including a nation-wide network of gaming groups), the rules in UA came primarily from one person which were first published as articles in DRAGON. Reader-submitted material was consistently superior, but they weren't staff and weren't members of the corporate elite at the company.

Inspiration for the game had long since dried up. TSR morphed into T$R around 1981 or so when there was a big turnover in the staff and the company became more greed oriented. Gygax became a corporate executive, went to Hollywood and got distracted by hookers and blow, came back and got bamboozled by a half-wit business woman.

Quote from: Anselyn;1127631Up yours, you arrogant knob.

Right back at you dickless non-edgelord.

Quote from: Anselyn;1127631BTW, here's a snippet from Wikipedia - seen when I checked for the date:

"The original Unearthed Arcana contains errors in its text, which readers discovered and reported to Dragon magazine.[6] Even some positive reviews of the book pointed out the considerable number of mistakes.[7] Dragon editor Kim Mohan, with ideas from Gygax, Frank Mentzer, and Jeff Grubb, addressed the many errors found in the book. In the November 1985 issue of Dragon magazine, Mohan printed four pages of rules corrections as well as new supplementary material intended to be inserted into the book, and some explanations and justifications for items which were not actually errors,[6] and compiled a two-page list of type corrections meant to be pasted into further revisions of Unearthed Arcana.[8] Dragon also devoted the entirety of its "Sage Advice" column in the January 1987 issue to answering readers' questions about Unearthed Arcana, as a follow-up to Mohan's prior column.[9] However, the errata were not incorporated into later printings of the manual.[10]

I never said it was perfect just that I enjoyed it at the time and found it a useful edition to the 1E line.

Quote from: Anselyn;1127631You were just too puerile to recognise the tome of turds that it was.

I was and am being honest you think when I started the hobby at age 12-15 that I was paying attention to errata or mistakes or bothering to check the print run of my rpgs. Hell no I was just enjoying having a new book for 1E. I was just excited with the new content. My 12-15 year old mindset had better things to do then over-analyze every damn word on the page.  Then again you strike me as the guy no matter the age was perfect at anything and everything. I can say that too from the safety of the keyboard. It is only in the last ten years I have become more critical of what I read. I would still enjoy to run or play in a 1E campaign. The core 1E were poorly organized even for that time and quite frankly much of Gygax advice on how to run the game was just too adversarial and reeked of being a micromanaging control freak imo. Who writes in the introduction on the book to run the game to punish a player for having access to the book. After all it's not like one needs the DMG to run the game or anything.

Quote from: Anselyn;1127631To be fair to UA, if it had cantrips thne it did have the start of something that has become important for the shape of modern D&D.

That we are in complete agreement.

Quote from: JeremyR;1127602Well, bear in mind, much of it wasn't exactly new. The new classes were in Dragon (and also suck) as were a lot of the spells (also from S4).  The gods of the demihumans/orcs was just filler from Dragon as well.
 
The new magic items though are useful, and the weapon specialization rules made the fighter (and ranger) much more on par with the magic-user and cleric.

And the new level limits and class combos were interesting.

Yeah, UA seemed to be primarily a collection of optional stuff from Dragon Magazine. Nice to have, but not necessary.

Quote from: sureshot;1127648Then again you strike me as the guy no matter the age was perfect at anything and everything.

Oh, that it were so ...

By 85 I has played AD&D, Gamma World then Traveller - in my hometown. At university, D&D was the club you joined but we had moved to Call of Cthulhu as someone had bought it.  Later we played DragonQuest in a long campaign.

To be honest, if you asked the 21 year-old me then I'm sure I'd have said that I'd moved on from D&D to more sophisticated new-generation games. But - I bought Monster Manual 2 and Unearthed Arcana when they came out as you never really want to lose your first love. I think that epithet was also the disappointment speaking that UA hadn't pulled me back to D&D.

Whilst the Fiend Folio was and is awesome, I remembered MMII as being a pointless waste of money: devils, dinosaurs and modrons. Having just looked at it again I see that some of its content has become core( derro, yuan-ti). But the MMII tarrasque will never have the same resonance for me as the purple worm - as that was the most dangerous thing in Holmes Basic (GW printing for us).

When UA came out, I did buy it and use it in my game. I skipped the character classes, the Cavalier just seemed wrong, Barbarian I had a version from White Dwarf and instead of the Thief Acrobat I used a Tumbler class from a UK fanzine my friend brought home at the end of the summer of '79. At the time, I liked Weapon Specialization and I thought the cantrips were neat, and we probably made some use of the new spells. We may have made some use of the alternate demi-humans and some of the other bits.

I agree that the MMII didn't provide all that much, though in my various monster adaptations I definitely have stuff from it, even a few things I ported to BX when I was setting up a BX based Yoon Suin campaign. These days I actually don't find the Fiend Folio all that useful either. When I set up my Yoon Suin monster list I tried to fill in gaps in the BX monsters or replace "basic" monsters than seemed to European with something that seemed to fit the Asian bent of Yoon Suin better. Back in the day I also ported some BECM monsters to my AD&D campaign.

Without going into the quality of the material, the notion that UA is a collection of optional miscellany culled from Dragon magazine is mostly not-true. Two of the appendices (the demi-human gods and the pole arms essay) are just that, and were admitted by Frank Mentzer (one of the developers of the book) as having been included as page-filler. However, for the rest of the book, it was intended as a rulebook first and the stuff that was published in Dragon magazine was supposed to serve as a preview of that book:

Gary Gygax in Dragon #58 (Feb 1982):

QuoteI am working on new monsters, magic, classes, and information for two new volumes of the system -- a supplement for players and DMs alike, and a second book of the Monster Manual -- projected for release in three to four years. Much of the supplementary material has been or will be printed in various modules or in DRAGON Magazine. For instance, many new spells are included in the upcoming modules Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and Temple of Elemental Evil. (Yes, fans, it is again being worked on!)

Further expanded upon the next month in Dragon #59 (March 1982):

QuoteI am attempting to plug away at two new volumes for AD&D gaming. The next book of monsters will be the one to be released last (1984 possibly).With plenty of labor and even more luck there will be an ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS expansion volume next year. It will be for both players and DMs, with several new character classes, new weapons, scores of new spells, new magic items, etc. What will follow here in the next few issues is a sampling of the material slated for inclusion in the expansion.

Over the next 15 issues new rules material appeared as part of Gary's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column in every issue, most of it prefaced as being a preview of material from the forthcoming "AD&D Rules Expansion," as it was called at the time:

#59: Cantrips, part 1
#60: Cantrips, part 2
#61: Illusionist cantrips
#62: All about spell books
#63: The barbarian class
#64: New weapons
#65: Miscellany (the grand druid, barbarian additions, notes on more planned new classes - mystic, cavalier, savant, acrobat, mountebank, jester)
#66: New illusionist spells, weapon specialization
#67: New magic-user spells, part 1, comeliness stat, more barbarian additions
#68: New magic-user spells, part 2
#69: The thief-acrobat class
#70: Social class and birth order tables
#71: New druid spells
#72: The cavalier class
#73: All about the inner planes*
#74: All about barding (horse armor)

*For whatever reason this material wasn't included in UA (though most of it was included in the later, post-Gygax Manual of the Planes)

This was followed by an 18-month gap (while Gary was in Hollywood), but upon his return to Lake Geneva the rules articles resumed in early 1985:

#93: Hierophant druids
#94: Expanded rules for rangers
#95: Increased level limits for demi-humans
#96: Expanded classes for demi-humans

The column in issue #95 (March 1985) also announced the release of UA:

QuoteThe new material published within these pages --- character classes, information on demi-humans, spells, and so on --- should be contained in one handy volume. And that is precisely what will happen this summer, when a new hardbound AD&D game rule volume, entitled Unearthed Arcana, will appear in the stores.

What happened was this: I got so tired of trying to keep track of photocopies, notes, magazines, and whatnot, that I suggested to the Kindly Planners at TSR, Inc., that perhaps an interim volume to expand the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook would be appreciated by everyone who has suffered the same problems. Seeing as how the work on the full-scale expansion and revision of the system won''t even begin for at least another year, everyone agreed.

Material to be contained in the new book includes updated and revised versions of virtually all of the articles written by Yours Truly and published in DRAGON Magazine over the last three years or so - the Cavalier, Barbarian, and Thief-Acrobat classes, the expansions and revisions of the Druid and Ranger classes, new weapons, new spells, and the information on demi-human level maximums in this very issue, to name a few. Also in the work will be a substantial amount of previously unpublished material, including a group of no less than 150 new magic items, and some selected offerings by other Esteemed Authors whose efforts have graced these pages. Watch for more information about the contents and the release date in these pages in the months to come.

Taken together, those Gygax-authored Dragon articles make up almost the entire content of UA, everything except the magic items (which I suspect Garyt intentionally held back from magazine publication, both because they were considered "DM only" content, but also so as to leave a reason even for those who had all of the magazine content to still buy the book) and a couple other minor bits (the expanded armor table for thieves, the rules for field and full plate armor absorbing damage, and the revised unarmed combat rules) that were presumably late additions.

Looking at the material in this order, one thing that stands out is that most of the least-liked material in the book is also the later additions. The material that people are generally okay with - the new spells, weapons, and magic items - appears to be material that Gygax had already written c. 1981-82, while the stuff that people tend to really hate - the expansions for demi-humans, comeliness, weapon specialization, damage-absorbing armor - all came later (comeliness and weapon specialization as they appeared in the magazine are both framed as sort of "hey, here's something else I thought of" afterthoughts alongside other, earlier-written, material). I have a feeling that if the "AD&D Rules Expansion" had actually been published in 1983 as Gary originally planned, and didn't include that later stuff, that it wouldn't have been nearly as divisive and would be remembered more fondly. [The one exception here is the barbarian class, which was one of the early additions but is also one of the most hated things in UA, however this class was definitely a long-term passion project for Gary (as evidence by the vehemence of his response to critiques of it in Dragon #67). He was an obsessive Conan superfan and in an earlier Dragon issue (#36, from April 1980) he had produced AD&D stats for Conan that included all kinds of bespoke special abilities that broke the AD&D rules, so it's no coincidence that when the "barbarian class" appeared 2 years later that almost all of those bespoke rules-exceptions from the Conan article were coded in as class-abilities for the barbarian class (faster move rate, extra hp and AC, saving throw bonuses, climbing and leaping, faster natural healing, abilities to detect ambushes and magic, etc.); it's also telling that he kept tweaking the class after its initial publication - adding more material for them in #65 (the ability to harm creatures only affected by magic weapons) and #67 (a whole rant-essay in defense of the class), and even more changes in UA (adding the XP for destroying magic items rule, the barbarian horde, and the table for easing the prohibitions on magic as they level up) in an attempt to hit the right balance, whereas most of the other material in UA is word-for-word the same as the Dragon magazine versions.]  

Yes, UA is Gary's attempt to exert more personal control over the content and voice of AD&D, which rubs some people the wrong way (both at the time and now). And yes, a lot of the material in it could've used more playtesting and development than it got (or perhaps BETTER playtesting and development, as some of the late additions and changes IMO made things worse instead of better). And yes it was a transparent money-grab by cash-strapped TSR and felt rushed and cheap (very little art, most of it recycled; cheap, flimsy binding) and not up to the standard of the earlier books. And yes, it seems like a random grab-bag of reprinted Dragon articles needlessly favoring Gygax over everybody else. But the last one, at least, isn't really true - the idea of a Gygax rule expansion book came first, the magazine versions were supposed to be previews of that book, until its completion and production got delayed (for 2 full years).

Quote from: Brad;1127632I do like how they had two fucking pages of errata immediately and had to devote that much space to answer rules questions. That's ludicrous. And never update the book. I've always heard UA was nothing more than a halfassed cash grab, so if that quote is accurate the theory is confirmed.

And thank Gawd no RPG book needed errata ever again.

A point about the errata never being incorporated into UA is that within a year of its publication 3/4 of the people who had worked on it (Gary Gygax, Frank Mentzer, and Kim Mohan) had left TSR under acrimonious circumstances, and the one who was still there (Jeff Grubb) had a lot of other priorities - writing the Manual of the Planes, co-writing the Forgotten Realms boxed set, writing the AD&D comic book line, etc. In addition to which, there seems to have been a general consensus at TSR (and we can speculate how much anti-Gygax sentiment from the new management may have been a factor in it) to pretty much sweep UA under the rug and forget about it. It remained in print (presumably because it was still selling), but modules in 1987-88 all stopped referring to it - comeliness scores stopped being included in character statblocks, no UA classes, spells, or items appeared, etc. UA was the passion/ego project of the old regime, so under the new regime there was at least a de-facto (if not mandated) agreement not to think about it anymore.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1127581Honestly, there's almost nothing in it that I think improves the 1e game, or that seems particularly helpful to me. Is that an unpopular view?

I liked it for the spells, the Barbarian class, the Cavalier class was OK (just not used a lot), and the modified weapon mastery made regular fighters better.

The problem for me was that all of the stuff in Unearthed Arcana was first published in Dragon magazine and I had those issues, so I felt like I was paying for the same stuff twice even when it was convenient to have it all in one book.

Quote from: Shasarak;1127660And thank Gawd no RPG book needed errata ever again.

According to TLG, this is indeed the case. 5th printing? Why not reproduce spelling errors from 1st printing?

Quote from: T. Foster;1127663A point about the errata never being incorporated into UA is that within a year of its publication 3/4 of the people who had worked on it (Gary Gygax, Frank Mentzer, and Kim Mohan) had left TSR under acrimonious circumstances, and the one who was still there (Jeff Grubb) had a lot of other priorities - writing the Manual of the Planes, co-writing the Forgotten Realms boxed set, writing the AD&D comic book line, etc. In addition to which, there seems to have been a general consensus at TSR (and we can speculate how much anti-Gygax sentiment from the new management may have been a factor in it) to pretty much sweep UA under the rug and forget about it. It remained in print (presumably because it was still selling), but modules in 1987-88 all stopped referring to it - comeliness scores stopped being included in character statblocks, no UA classes, spells, or items appeared, etc. UA was the passion/ego project of the old regime, so under the new regime there was at least a de-facto (if not mandated) agreement not to think about it anymore.

So again, cash grab. Make money off the Gygax name, but treat the product with contempt. Sounds like late 80s TSR to me.

UA was the Second Coming when it came out...and then it hit the table and we learned what a never-playtested-supplement looked like.

Fortunately, Oriental Adventures came out the same year (1985) and that dominated our play. The classes were so much better balanced in OA. The UA classes were like the nutbag classes in Dragon magazine which were also bizarrely overpowered with no sign of being playtested.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1127585If I'm going to run AD&D 1E, I'll just use the three core books and maybe also add Deities & Demigods or Oriental Adventures depending on the campaign.

OA is a truly great all-in-one game book. Easily my favorite 1e release.

Quote from: Anselyn;1127656Oh, that it were so ...

By 85 I has played AD&D, Gamma World then Traveller - in my hometown. At university, D&D was the club you joined but we had moved to Call of Cthulhu as someone had bought it.  Later we played DragonQuest in a long campaign.

To be honest, if you asked the 21 year-old me then I'm sure I'd have said that I'd moved on from D&D to more sophisticated new-generation games. But - I bought Monster Manual 2 and Unearthed Arcana when they came out as you never really want to lose your first love. I think that epithet was also the disappointment speaking that UA hadn't pulled me back to D&D.

Whilst the Fiend Folio was and is awesome, I remembered MMII as being a pointless waste of money: devils, dinosaurs and modrons. Having just looked at it again I see that some of its content has become core( derro, yuan-ti). But the MMII tarrasque will never have the same resonance for me as the purple worm - as that was the most dangerous thing in Holmes Basic (GW printing for us).

For me MMII was worth buying for the Demon and Devil lords alone as in later editions seeing them in print was harder then pulling a healthy tooth with pliers.

Fun in my neck of the woods COC never took off in the 1980s only later.

I realized I was an ass in my op so no hard feelings.

I liked it, especially weapon specialization and additional spells.

I was already done with D&D and RPG's when it arrived. It was actually a whim purchase I made while shopping for a gift at Toys R Us. I picked it up along with Adventures in Blackmoor. (Seeing Gary & Dave's names were the enticement). I glanced through them, put them on a shelf  I was then out of the hobby until about 1994.

So later when I got back into gaming- I never got back into playing much 1E. I ended up selling my original. I've since bought a used copy I found at a bookstore.  But if I did use it I'd pretty much just use some spells, items and Fighter Weapon specialization (I personally feel Fighters get the shaft in most editions of D&D, so I don't have a prob with it).

Quote from: sureshot;1127750I realized I was an ass in my op so no hard feelings.

Ditto

When it came out, my group treated it like getting five flavors of sauce for the ice cream. None of the DMs blanket accepted all of it, but most accepted 'blocks' of it. I think most accepted the Barbarian class but everyone felt it was overpowered.

The cavalier was a fun class, if the DM knew how to manage them.  I liked the way its ability scores could progress.  Given that Greyhawk supplement ruined everything changed ability scores into something far more important than the were originally, it was nice to see a system that would allow characters to raise those scores, even if it was for just one class.

The book itself was a cash grab, since TSR was in dire financial straits.  It could have been titled "The Best of the Dragon*, Selections from Tsojcanth, and some stuff about pole-arms".  The Original books had school textbook binding, IIRC a comment Gygax made in one of his threads ( Dragonsfoot?) but the Blumes cheaped out on the binding for UA, and well, pretty much everyone's copy fell apart quickly.  Mine certainly did.

It was convenient to have the material in one place.

*previews or no, the material, large amounts of it, appeared in Dragon magazine before it saw print in the UA.  Whatever TSR intended, the book was in the main, a collection of Dragon Magazine articles.

I happen to have my copy in the bookshelf right next to my chair, so I dusted it off and took a look.  New classes, gear, spells, magic items ... what's not to like?  I suppose you could say the table of contents was pretty weird.  A lot of this stuff ended up in 2E and later games, so it couldn't have been that bad.  And the binding on mine is fine 35 years later, after lots of use.  I recall I did think that the cavalier was a bit overpowered after my brother used it in play for a long time, but he enjoyed it and it didn't break the game, so so what?

I have a strange urge to go through UA, extract some of the rules, and generalize them by reading way too much into them.

For instance, method V? It's 3d6 in order, except you get +1d to +6d (or +0d to +5d, depending on how you elide comeliness) to each stat depending on your class selection. So start by rolling 3d6 in order. That's your natural talent, before you started training for your class. Then roll the extra dice, say +6d for your fighter's Strength, and swap out any better rolls. The new score show how much stronger you got, from all that harsh physical training you endured.

And if you look at it as extra dice, like the +6d above for a fighter, then multiclassing is trivial. Halve for two classes, third for three classes, and add up the bonuses from all your different classes together. Round down, or multiclass characters will get more dice than single class characters. Handle the comeliness problem by human supremacy -- the default is +5d to +0d, but humans get +1d to every ability on top of that. Optionally, give demihumans +1d to specific abilities. Instead of linking it to stats where demihumans get a bonus already, link it to stats where they have a high minimum (then ignore the minimum rules).

That kind of thing. Mostly useless, but entertaining as a thought experiment.

Quote from: Shasarak;1127660And thank Gawd no RPG book needed errata ever again.

Most RPGs don't need errata because they'll never be run as games! They're just very pretty reading material.

Quote from: Brad;1127668According to TLG, this is indeed the case. 5th printing? Why not reproduce spelling errors from 1st printing?

Those are VINTAGE spelling errors now!

At this point, Troll Lords should identify the spelling errors that have made it through 5 printings and make sure they stay in every printing forever as a bizarre homage.

Quote from: Pat;1127909I have a strange urge to go through UA, extract some of the rules, and generalize them by reading way too much into them.

Do it! That would be a fun thread.

Quote from: Franky;1127901The book itself was a cash grab, since TSR was in dire financial straits.  It could have been titled "The Best of the Dragon*, Selections from Tsojcanth, and some stuff about pole-arms".

Not really. I think previewing the stuff in dragon allowed them to get some feedback/open playtesting before going to print. Much like how 5e UA works. I'd have to backtrack and compare. Nut I am pretty sure stuff changed from Dragon to UA. So it is not just a "collection" either.

As for the book itself. Alot of people had issues with the binding. Mine is still in great condition despite the amount of use I've put it through. My only complaint was "it smelled odd" and smelled odd for a darn long time. Probably still does! I suspect what happened is there was a bad print run. Much like the notorious 5e PBH first printing some got that literally fell apart as you opened it.

Quote from: Omega;1127923I'd have to backtrack and compare...ut I am pretty sure stuff changed from Dragon to UA.

Yeah, there were some changes. I don't recall exactly what the differences were, offhand (I'd have to go back and compare, too).

QuoteAs for the book itself. Alot of people had issues with the binding...I suspect what happened is there was a bad print run.

Based on my experience only, I'd guess that it was more of the opposite: that there was a good print run (or a few good print runs), and a greater number of bad printings (or larger print runs) with binding issues. The majority of the copies of UA I've seen have the binding issues, but there are a handful I've seen that remain intact even after years of use.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1127932Based on my experience only, I'd guess that it was more of the opposite: that there was a good print run (or a few good print runs), and a greater number of bad printings (or larger print runs) with binding issues. The majority of the copies of UA I've seen have the binding issues, but there are a handful I've seen that remain intact even after years of use.

Matches my experience as well. Mine's still intact, despite a fair bit of use, and I never had any problems with the binding. And I got it immediately after UA came out. Based on the Acaeum, it's a 1st printing.

What I've seen thrown around by various TSR alumni over the years was that the first couple of 1985-86 UA prints were the ones where TSR management cheaped out, but that if you got a later 80s - early 90s UA it had the same quality binding as the 1986-87 WSG, DSG, etc. (And those books aren't known for falling apart).

Quote from: EOTB;1127952What I've seen thrown around by various TSR alumni over the years was that the first couple of 1985-86 UA prints were the ones where TSR management cheaped out, but that if you got a later 80s - early 90s UA it had the same quality binding as the 1986-87 WSG, DSG, etc. (And those books aren't known for falling apart).

My UA fell apart but DSG and WSG are ok, so sounds plausible. Mind you WSG rarely ever opened!

My Oriental Adventures book saw years of gameplay and I never had any issue with the binding, but the paper quality was pretty rough. I sold my UA decades ago so I can't comment on that one.

When UA came out I was running a "Dragonlance" campaign. I bought it when some of the contents made it into DL - so let's say that my approach to the contents was already integrated in what I was running. I didn't ruminate about them. Then I run a second DL campaign, switched to AD&D 2E, found it to be dire, moved to GURPS and I didn't look back until 3.5E (of which I'm a fan - sue me).

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1127932Based on my experience only, I'd guess that it was more of the opposite: that there was a good print run (or a few good print runs), and a greater number of bad printings (or larger print runs) with binding issues. The majority of the copies of UA I've seen have the binding issues, but there are a handful I've seen that remain intact even after years of use.

I suspect you may be right. But we will likely never know as the people with problems are going to speak up and those without problem are less likely to. But there was something off about that book no matter. But binding issues are notoriously hard to spot during QC. Assuming there was QC.

OA? Fine. Dungeoneer, Wilderness & Planes? Fine. Arcana? No so fine.

A little checking shows UA and OA came out in 85. DSG & WSG in 86. And MotP in 87. Why was UA such a mess and OA not?

Quote from: Omega;1128025A little checking shows UA and OA came out in 85. DSG & WSG in 86. And MotP in 87. Why was UA such a mess and OA not?

The late seventies started a time of transition in the printing trade.  I don't know the exact window, or how long it took to go through the industry, or details.  I'm fairly certain it was still being felt through much of the eighties. However, my limited understanding is that due to a host of factors, including rapidly rising production costs, change in paper composition, changes in glue and binding (to work around cost and paper or something else?), corresponding with problems with moving products--there was a lot of experimentation. Just the rolling problems dealing with the acid content once the hemp paper stopped being used was huge. This meant not only were the raw materials likely to be inferior, we didn't yet have the expertise to work around those problems.  Or even front-line printer experience noticing tell-tale problems in time to stop a bad print run.  Which meant printing a book was a crap shoot, especially for relatively limited print runs.

It's not as if, say, the fantasy paperbacks of that time have a better track record.  I've got copies of old paperbacks from the 60's and early 70's that went through many hands before mine, some of them sitting in a used bookstore for ages before I got them.  They are in good shape.  I had a copy of the LotR trilogy from the mid seventies that fell apart after careful (albeit multiple) readings by two people.  Other books from that time have covers that disintegrated, pages falling out in chunks, etc.  Sometimes, I'll have an 80's era trilogy where the middle book is shot, but the first and last one are fine.

Screwups with was it 3 or 4e books where the ink was smearing off from touch?
Early print runs of 5e falling apart.

I doubt theres ever been a perfect print run. (Aside from the core three AD&D books) Even Palladium with its outstanding book binding had problems with cover lamination peeling off or warping.

Another anecdotal comment: my copy of the WSG is barely used (it's a shelf queen), but its binding is broken loose a bit. That's how the complete binding failure of my copy of UA started. I suspect that if my WSG saw any significant use it would soon be in the same shape as my copy of UA (which has a broken binding and multiple pages/sections completely loose). Interesting that this seems to be an anomaly. Most people don't seem to have binding issues with the WSG.

Yeah my copy of UA fell to bits after a while.  It was a real mess and I looked after my books too.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1128048Most people don't seem to have binding issues with the WSG.

Also anecdotal- Back in my collecting days, I picked up a copy of WSG and DSG in a lot of other items I wanted- Binding/both covers looked like the pics I see of UA 's that are a complete mess. Busted all to hell. Greyhawk Adventures was also in the lot and bindings were pristine though book obviously fairly well used.  :shrug:

I do know that TSR overproduced DSG and WSG as they were practically giving them away with RPGA subscriptions. How I ended up with second sets of both.

There are things in UA we used. Mainly spells and magic items. But oriental adventures we played the living hell out of and will again. Is it balanced? Hell no. And we will play it again. We loved building custom martial styles and the proficiencies for the special maneuvers. The classes were fun with their ki abilities. Still love the honor system.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1128092Yeah my copy of UA fell to bits after a while.  It was a real mess and I looked after my books too.

It's very notable that 1e UA was badly printed and prone to falling apart, just like the 1e DMG is famously sturdy.

Quote from: sureshot;1127619In my gaming circles we enjoyed it and though did not use it too much. We were mostly happy with using the 1E core. As we began gaming at the end of 1E run and switched over to 2E.

Nor did we call it the imaginary names other posters are trying to say they did at the time of release. I like many of the posters at the time was between 12 and 14 and was not a pretentious edgelord at that age. Or trying to pretend they were. Like everyone else they called it by the proper name. Everything else is bullshit.

Rock on, man!

For me it was like any of the other D&D books: Some parts I liked and used in my games, other parts I didn't like and didn't use. And a few seemed worth trying, but turned out to be unsuitable.