"Dungeons & Dragons has always consisted of three books: The Player's Handbook, the Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master's Guide. Of those, the Player's Handbook - colloquially called the PHB - has always been the keystone." (from a review of the new PHB in The Escapist)
I was asking myself this question a few days ago, I think because I had seen a similar comment in another location. It got me thinking at the time, and this reminded me of that internal conversation. I have to disagree. I loved my original Player's Handbook, but the book that stood out from first edition was the Dungeon Master's Guide. It had the combat charts, rules on random dungeon generation, not to mention rules on gaming and gambling. That is where I learned to rank hands in poker. But the most interesting section was the pages of tables and descriptions of magic items. The magic items were wonderful, but the ability to create intelligent weapons with special abilities, curses, etc. was a powerful aspect of the game which faded as the game aged.
For the second edition, the book that stands out for me is the Monstrous Compendium. Each monster had its own page, illustrated with great artwork, and as Karen points out, full of humorous and quirky details. I liked the non-weapon proficiencies, and playing with Ed, we got the most out of the PHB, but the book that sticks in the mind from that edition was the Monstrous Compendium.
In the third edition, the PHB came into its own. For that edition, the statement above is accurate. The DMG for 3E was relegated to obscurity. You could have played third edition with nothing but the PHB. That was one of the selling points of that version. Fourth edition carried on this emphasis on the PHB. It has become a truism of the game that the PHB is the keystone rule book, and given that the game has always needed characters to be played, it has always been relevant, but I still think it is Monday morning coaching to retroactively elevate the importance of the Player's Handbook over its companions.
Well - it kind of depends on what you mean. Their point isn't far off - the PHB is where the core of the rules has always been. But no doubt - it hasn't always been the best book. With ADD, it was functional and necessary, but the DMG was definitely where the fun was. And a lot of the meat of the game as well - combat rules notably. And it was definitely the book you picked up to read for fun. That has changed - by 4E, the DMG was an afterthought - you don't need it to play, you just needed it to look up XP values once in a while. Not necessary, and stripped of most of the really interesting material - magic items; most of the combat rules, the ones you really use... Pathfinder takes it all the way, puts it all into one book - which is basically a slightly expanded version of 3.5's PHB. (3E had some good stuff - prestige classes, NPC creation - we never played it enough to take advantage of that stuff, though I remember that being worth some attention. That stuff - NPCs in general - were pretty well gutted in 4E...)
ReplyDeleteThough it raises an interesting point - there are things gone from 5E's PHB - magic items, notably. It's got some monsters in there, but other than a potion or two - no magic items. I can't deny - I would be very happy to see a DMG worth reading. Lists of magic items would certainly help there. On the other hand - it seems clear they expect people to be able to play quite effectively without a DMG.