Why do people dog the non core stuff so badly?

I really liked Unearthed Arcana, the Barbarian and Cavalier were great classes, the Drow, a big list of Pole Arms.  Lots of good stuff in there.

Fiend Folio and MM2 are worthy adds.  The FF has more of the dumb monsters, but also has some gems.  The MM2 has a lot of solid content.  

Deities and Demigods is worth having if you don't want to create your own planes/cosmic structure.

UA is for cherry-picking.

I don't use much of anything else.  OA is an interesting oddity that isn't interesting enough to run full time, and doesn't play well in mixed groups.

Back in the day, I soaked up almost all of the original books (there are one or two I think I never got).

These days my feelings would be:

Unearthed Arcana - might have some bits and bobs to take, I never liked the character classes. The weapon specialization is an interesting idea, but in retrospect, I'm not sure it's really a good idea.

Fiend Folio and Monster Manual II - more monsters are always worth having laying around even if you use but one or two of them.

Beyond that, I don't see much I would use.

Frank

As noted, MM2 and FF are OK volumes.  MM2 and FF collate the new monsters introduced in various modules over the years.  The TSR and TSR-UK office created monsters are alright.  Most of the "Fiend Factory" creations from White Dwarf are terrible, and there's too many of those in the Fiend Folio.  MM2 and FF also expand the random encounter tables to include their creatures respectively...

Deities and Demigods is a handy guide for "what if the character in question gets stats beyond 18" (or 19 for STR) or if you want to introduce more esoteric campaign worlds.  It's quite good, in fact.

Unearthed Arcana has some OK spells, and a rather more complete chart of XP available for magic items (for example, the ubiquitous +1 dagger isn't given an XP value in the Dungeon Masters Guide - but by looking at UA we know it is a mere 75 points).  I dislike the barbarian class and the cavalier (simply because it is one too fiddly and two puts the Paladin as a subclass of it) and other bits.

Oriental Adventures is an odd book, because of its creation history.  But as noted above it is hard to shoehorn into a game that is not specifically "Asian" in milieu.

Manual of the Planes, the Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeoneers Survival Guide are...not good, IMO.  

Greyhawk Adventures is a 2e book (says so on the cover).

For me it wasn't the books, but the magazines. White Dwarf and Dragon had some of the absolute best material for AD&D 1e gaming.

I guess one way I could relate to the AD&D 1E, and early 2E era; is that cell phones did not exist at all in my world.  I didn't see the huge portable phones until around 1993 or so, and they were business related phones.  They were very unappealing to me.  I didn't start carrying a cell phone until mid 1998, and it was really just a work related flip phone then.  The world has changed....

Quotewhat was Great in AD&D 1E?

The Darlene Greyhawk maps.  Best maps ever.

Battlesystem 1E and The World of Greyhawk.

I liked all of it, honestly. I mean, in retrospect those two stupid ass Dungeoneer and Wilderness books are nearly worthless, but overall I think every hardcover has some valuable concepts for the game. The three main books are really all you need to do a Greyhawk-D&D game; adding other books sort of changes that flavor, and by the time Oriental Adventures rolled around the game sort of morphed into a much more diverse and all-encompassing fantasy system. That's not a bad thing, but it certainly changes the complexion of the game.

I say all that as someone who didn't even start playing AD&D until around 1990, so by that time 2nd edition was already out. I stuck with mostly BEMCI until around 1992, then bought all the hardcovers I could for cheap. Even though I had the entire collection of hardcovers well after they were published and didn't see the game grow organically myself, it's pretty easy to see the transformation by just reading the material.

I could not remember if Oriental Adventures was 1e or 2e but I thought that was a great book as well.

I loved the different Martial Art styles.

Greetings!

Yeah, I bought the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, the Wilderness Survival Guide, and Oriental Adventures, besides the other books as well. I thought these three were all useful and inspiring.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I liked the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide - I thought it had some good setting ideas for the Underdark, plus advice on mapping and such. That and Unearthed Arcana are the two hardbound books that I would keep.

I didn't think the Wilderness Survival Guide worked as well, as it seemed less grounded in real play. I found Oriental Adventures awful - the material wasn't compelling, and didn't fit well with actual East Asian fantasy. It came across more as a thought experiment than something that people would really play in. Deities & Demigods was fun to read, but was close to useless in play - since it defined gods by how tough they were to fight than what it was like to worship them.

Sets like World of Greyhawk, Battlesystem, some classic modules, and Dungeon magazine all had good material too.

My take:

Essential/must-have 1e rulebooks:

• Players Handbook
• Dungeon Masters Guide
• Monster Manual

Worth Having:

• Monster Manual II - monster books are almost always worthwhile
• Fiend Folio - some goofy stuff, sure, but some excellent stuff, too.
• Unearthed Arcana - This is a mixed bag, but it's worth cherry picking. New spells and magic items are always welcome (and can be cherry picked). Aside from those, the best of the new rules are in the DM section, rather than the Players section.
• Deities & Demigods - not essential, but can be useful.

You'll Never Miss It:

• Dungeoneer Survival Guide - the best thing about this book is the "Deepearth" campaign setting example. Other than that, it's not worthwhile.
• Wilderness Survival Guide - Useless to detrimental rules bloat.
• Manual of the Planes - a rather dry and unexciting treatment of something that should be fantastic and inspiring
• Oriental Adventures - I put this here because I never use it. I run a Western based D&D game, so this isn't useful to me. If you were running AD&D in the Far East I suppose it would be quite useful.
• Greyhawk Adventures - Okay, now this one I put here because I reject it, even though it fits the campaign setting I usually use with AD&D. This is a useless filler book. Just use the original Greyhawk setting folio or the original boxed set (with the awesome Darlene maps).
• Dragonlance Adventures - This one is here because I never use it and it doesn't apply to me. Might be useful to someone running DL. I don't know.

Other stuff that's great about 1e

• World of Greyhawk - as mentioned, above, the original folio or the boxed set with the great Darlene maps
• Dragon magazine in the early 1e years
• Lankhmar: City of Adventure
• C1, C2
• D1*, D2*, D3*
• EX1, EX2
• G1*, G2*, G3*
• I1*
• L1
• S1*, S2, S3, S4*
• T1
• U1
• WG4*, WG5*

(Modules marked with * are standouts, IMO.)

Quote from: jhkim;1077111I liked the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide - I thought it had some good setting ideas for the Underdark, plus advice on mapping and such. That and Unearthed Arcana are the two hardbound books that I would keep.

I didn't think the Wilderness Survival Guide worked as well, as it seemed less grounded in real play.

Yeah, I like the DSG but not the WSG. The DSG Lands of Deepearth sample setting is very interesting and I'm sure had a lot of influence subsequently.

I like Deities & Demigods and it saw a lot of use as an ultra-level Monster Manual in my OTT late-80s 1e gaming, with PCs fighting Wotan, Druaga, Hel et al. The version with Moorcock & Cthulu mythoi is extra cool.

I think my favourite 1e product was Lankhmar: City of Adventure. Some great gaming there.