D&D 1E What 1e Books Should Make a 5e Comeback?

[Cadriel]

I think one of the difficulties I have seen is the interpretation of the question. Some people (like me) were answering the question in the sense of, "Should we try and (mostly) convert the material into 5e," while others were thinking more in terms of the *spirit* of the books. I think this is best exemplified by Unearthed Arcana ("UA").

I was thinking more of the "spirit" in setting up the poll - just like they currently call the sets of rules options they're trotting out online "Unearthed Arcana." Especially since obviously bits of the manuals are already in the core.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

Outside the core 3 that they have already released, I would prefer them to not recycle titles even if they use a similar concept for a book. It just gets confusing to new players to see three or four different versions by edition of Deities and Demigods or Unearthed Arcana on Ebay. And for me as an old player, although I certainly have nostalgia for the old stuff, I think packaging that same content in a different way is more likely to get me interested. Although, I certainly don't want to stuff like Swampscape: The complete guide to everything swamps unless it is tied to a setting or is a complete minisetting. So much of the later 3e releases felt so inessential from the title that I never got around to checking them out even though there was good stuff contained within them.

 

[Cadriel]

I see WotC as being very focused on D&D being "iconic," and I think particularly the 1e hardbacks that had equivalents in 3e and/or 4e (Deities & Demigods, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual II, Oriental Adventures, Manual of the Planes, Unearthed Arcana) are both somewhat iconic names, and concepts that wouldn't bloat 5e too much. I do understand the headache for instance finding 1e versus 3e MotP.

I'm really eager to see a second monster book, partly because I'm a monster fanatic and want "MOAR," and partly as a pure utility thing of having the work done for me on more existing monsters. My preference is for a "Fiend Folio," especially if that would signal off-beat monsters who don't fit neatly into the very standard image of D&D that the Monster Manual presented.

 

[Mercule]

While I voted for a few books, it was a pretty limp vote. I'm actually okay with not pushing more "core" content out. The really good stuff from earlier editions has made it in. Well, except psionics, which I'm not entirely convinced of either a) it was as good as my nostalgia remembers and b) Mearls thinks of psionics even remotely in the arena that I do, so it might be better left dead.

I think that we'll eventually see enough worthwhile content from Unearthed Arcana (the digital version) along with the supplemental stuff from things like PotA to bind and publish in the same way the the original Unearthed Arcana was done. I also think there is room for more monsters with stats. I don't think there's room for more than one or two more books, though.

I'd like to see Oriental Adventures redone, though. I happen to like the core of D&D being pseudo-Medieval European -- or, at least, descended from its fictions. At the same time, there are a lot of great stories to be told around Eastern history/fiction. Publishing an OA book would create an implicit division between the genres for those who want it, but allow people to blend them, too. Personally, I'd be okay if the new Oriental Adventures book was a full-on PHB that did not require people to pull out the base PHB to get various rules bits. I could see some strong disagreements about that, though.

I loved Deities and Demigods and Manual of the Planes, back in the day. To be honest, I'm not overly fond of the Great Wheel, anymore. In fact, I really don't like it at all. I could handle a book that provided a framework for building your own cosmologies, but that would be counter to the renewal of the Great Wheel. For DDG, I'd also rather see a toolkit than what was provided in 1E.

I didn't care for the Survival Guides, but I wouldn't be opposed to something that endeavored to fill the DM side of that niche (world building) better. I don't know how well it'd sell, though. The player info in those books (mainly proficiencies) has been incorporated into the core rules and improved.

 

[Wik]

Oo! This is a great thread topic.

Personally, though, the hardbacks of the 1e era are really the weak part of what made 1e D&D so great. For that, you need to look at all the amazing adventures - that's where the game's true strengths lie.

But, going with just hardbacks, I have a few I'd love to see:

Fiend Folio/MM 2: Monster books are always good, and both of these had some lovelies in there. I'd like to see any new MM for 5e have a mixture of classical monsters as well as a few new ideas. And some monsters that range the gamut of game types would be preferred - a few oriental monsters, a few horror monsters, some silly monsters (flail snail!), etc.

Wilderness Survival Guide: I loved the original, and would love to see a rewrite. There's a lot of great information, and it'd be cool to have a book that actually had some real-world information in it. Stuff about sailing from a practical point of view, and not the usual D&D simplification of "you travel x miles per hour in a sailboat" stuff that we usually see. Same for horses, walking, etc. Some stuff about the daily realities of travel, and how to make moving/surviving in the wilderness INTERESTING. Finally, the practical advice for worldbuilding was perfect, and I'd love to see an updated reprint.

Unearthed Arcana: Rather than the ubersplat that the 1e UA was, why not the alternative rules source of the 3e era? That book remains one of my all-time favourites, and I'd love to see an update.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Wilderness Guide and Manual of the Planes for me. Each fleshed out a different mode of adventure. I especially liked some bit of the WG that added verisimilitude, like the random weather table. People have adventures in real life with just natural wilderness obstacles - D&D ought to be able to include some of these challenges and make them fun.

As for the others ... there are several flavors of monster books, which I don't see as having much value of a generic monster book. A book about applying defunct or mostly-defunct religions to D&D would be very interesting to me, but not if it gives the deities stats. And if I'm going to do oriental adventures, I'd rather do them with a game custom made for that purpose than a D&D tack-on - I understand that there are some pretty good ones out there.

 

[Lanefan]

I'll join the growing chorus for another monster manual - you just can't possibly have too many monsters.

Deities and Demigods or a variant thereof would be wonderful, hopefully with better-fleshed-out pantheons for non-Humans and monsters. And if the concern is adventurers will kill gods if they have stats, don't give 'em stats...or give them stats and make them flat-out immune to everything except other gods. And to give the gods homes, combine it with the MotP.

I could live without both of DSG and WSG. UA was a book full of traps and power creep, and we've had enough of that.

OA is an interesting one. I think it might be better served to be folded into some sort of alternate rule-set and-or expanded setting box. On its own it's not enough, then or now.

Lan-"I don't care if you're the god of flumphs, you're still a flumph; and I'm still gonna laugh"-efan

 

[Li Shenron]

I would be interested in an Oriental Adventures sourcebook (which wasn't exclusively 1e...), and maybe a Manual of the Planes. However for the latter, I use the 3e MotP mostly for the fluff, which is still valid, so I don't think I really need it updated.

 

[dracomilan]

I voted for Manual of the Planes, even if the 5e way I intend it is more as a guide to different Material Planes (Dragonlance vs Everron vs FR vs Dark Sun) and related external planes (Planescape) than the traditional.
That guide would make regional setting books (Sword Coast) more useful without the need to republish/refluff all the different settings.