By Nelson Schneider - 10/20/24 at 02:51 PM CT
Well, Hasbro Wizards of the Coast recently released the 5.Woke Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, which they are calling “2024 Edition” apparently. While it allegedly maintains compatibility with the 2014 release of 5th Edition, there are already enough minor changes being reported that it will drive Dungeon Masters and experienced players insane trying to keep track of them.
That got me thinking: I have D&D books on my shelf that date all the way back to 1st Edition and were originally released in the early 1980s… and I still refer to these books all the time when looking for a way to spice-up the increasingly-bland and “for everyone, a.k.a., modern audiences, a.k.a., the most sensitive wieners in the world who should be sitting under their security blankets in their safe spaces instead of playing D&D” version of the game we have today. So let’s take a quick look at the 5 most-consulted books of ancient and arcane dungeonometry in my library!
1. Encyclopedia Magica Vols. 1-4
“Encyclopedia Magica” is THE definitive collection of magic items. Period. Hailing from the latter days of AD&D 2nd Edition, “Encyclopedia Magica” collected every one-off magic item or artifact that appeared in a module, supplement, or magazine article from Dungeon or Dragon over the span of three decades. To make things even more fun and chaotic, it includes every variant (of the time) for items that appeared in multiple places with different stats, and tied everything together with a tidy bow in Volume 4… the “bow” in question being an absolutely MASSIVE random generation table that could (and WOULD) drop ridiculous things into random loot hauls.
2. The Book of Wondrous Inventions
This particular book hails from the days of 1st Edition and was originally published in 1987. It compiles a large number of bizarre contraptions inspired by the misappropriation of modern technology and seems to be intimately involved with Tinker Gnomes. While it may have been originally intended as a comedy book, the “Book of Wondrous Inventions” still provides genuinely useful ideas for players and DMs alike, while giving any uninspired Tinker Gnome players a good jumping-off point for designing new gadgets.
3. Psionic Artifacts of Athas
This 2nd Edition book comes directly from the Dark Sun setting, which has seen nothing but increased popularity after its discontinuation, largely due to the unnatural popularity of Dark Fantasy settings brought on by videogames like ‘The Witcher’ and ‘Shit Souls,’ and the phenomenon that was George R.R. Martin’s collaboration with HBO for “Game of Thrones.” I, personally, don’t care much about the Dark Sun setting, as its low-magic, all-desert, no-metal setting – while admittedly unique – doesn’t do anything for me. However, because the setting has little-to-no magic, psionic – the D&D equivalent of psychic powers – gets to take the stage. And as an admitted magic item junkie, the ability to sprinkle a few non-magic-magic-items into a campaign is irresistible. The cherry on top is that most of these psionic artifacts are organic in nature, and incredibly gross looking, so players are confronted with the dilemma of gaining power by grafting tumors to themselves or missing out on some sweet, sweet stacking bonuses but maintaining their 6 points of Charisma (because nobody in games I run ever cares about Charisma).
4. Player’s Option: Combat & Tactics
The “Player’s Option” trilogy of supplemental rulebooks was released alongside the Black Cover reprints of the AD&D 2nd Edition Core Rulebooks. Being the sucker I was, I bought (read: my parents bought, at my request) all of the new Black Cover books, while I sold my older 2nd Edition Core Rulebooks to a less-fortunate friend for cheap. Anyway, “Combat & Tactics” was the one “Player’s Option” book that got the most use at my tables when I was young and dumb, and still gets use now that I’m old and jaded. Specifically, the book, when dropped onto the table or floor, will automatically fall open to the Critical Hit tables due to how frequently that chapter has been consulted. Essentially, the “Combat & Tactics” Critical Hit tables compare weapon size to target size, and use a variety of Gygaxian dice rolls to determine the severity of a Critical Hit and its location on the target’s body. In spite of some misreading (and not reading) of the rules as a dumb kid, these days the possibility of lingering injuries or insta-death in the decidedly-much-safer-and-fairer-than-2E modern game keeps players (and the DM) on their toes.
5. Dragon Magazine Archive
While the rules and mechanics in D&D have gotten much, much better over the years, ever since Wizards of the Coast made their “Diversity Pledge” in 2020, the game’s lore and worldbuilding have gone severely downhill, even moreso than during the Satanic Panic of the ‘80s. I mean, removing Demons and Devils is one thing… removing Race and Gender is just… bonkers. So what is a modern Dungeon Master to do when orcs and drow have been changed from “inherently evil” to “historically marginalized,” beholders are no longer allowed to be paranoid, and illithids are no longer allowed to own slaves? Why, you just hop into your time machine and go back to the Good Old Days when the lore was originally being written. And you will literally need a time machine to do so, since the “Dragon Magazine Compendium” is the only supplement on this list that doesn’t take the form of a physical book. Instead, it’s a CD-ROM compiling .PDFs of EVERY issue of Dragon Magazine, from its humble beginnings in 1976 up to 1999 when the archive was released. That’s nearly 25 YEARS of magazines, coming to a grand total of 250 issues! Amazingly enough, it’s still possible to install the custom archive search software on modern Windows, but since there’s no DRM on any of it, it’s quite simple to just dump the .PDFs off the CD onto a flash drive or networked storage and have access to all that lore from anywhere.
