No more searching through stacks of books and magazines to find out what you need to know. The Players Handbook puts it all your fingertips, including:
All recommended character classes. Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Magic-Users, etc.
Character Races. Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Orcs, Humans, etc.
Character level statistics.
Equipment lists with costs.
Spell listings by level and descriptions of effects (including many new spells).
As a dungeon adventurer or a dungeon master, you will find the contents of this book to be what you have been waiting for. All useful material is now compiled under one cover, especially for the players!
Expectations
First, I have to say that I'm impressed with how weird and alienating that back cover is. It really sells the "if you don't know what this is, it's not for you" feel. I suppose that's all part of labeling your game "advanced," though. Doesn't make sense to be "advanced" Dungeons and Dragons, unless there's also a regular Dungeons and Dragons out there for you to be advanced from.
I'm not too worried about it going over my head, though. I'm a pretty old hand at this stuff, and I got my start with AD&D 2nd edition. In fact, the only real reason I have this book is because I wanted to fill the gaps in my collection. One day, I looked at my shelf and I said, "you know, you've got Basic D&D, AD&D 2nd edition, D&D 3rd edition, and D&D 4th edition (which, at the time, was the most recent), so why don't you have AD&D 1st edition?" And while that's not literally how it happened, it was the basic thought process behind why I wound up buying more than a half dozen books for a game I never intended to play.
The weird thing about AD&D 1st edition is that it is the oldest game in my collection. The copyright on my Players Handbook is 1978, a full four years before D&D Basic. Not going to lie. That surprised me. What were the newbies buying between 1978 and 1982? It can't be those books and magazines alluded to on the back cover, because they were the problem AD&D was created to solve. Maybe it was just AD&D. Maybe they saw it on the bookstore shelves and said, "you know, I'd feel more comfortable with just regular Dungeons and Dragons, but there isn't any here, so I'll just have to get advanced and jump in feet first. Gotta run before you can walk, right?"
Anyway, I'm expecting this to be pretty rough, as befitting its age. I'm also expecting, after reading the later BECMI D&D to have it be thoroughly inspired in the oddest of places. That's something to look forward to, at least.
There was the 1977 John Holmes Blue Box Basic Dungeons and Dragons boxed set before the Tom Moldvay Red Box Basic.
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