ggroy's page

With all this talk of WotC not doing any printings for the 4e core books in various threads, let's look at what the actual printings the 4E D&D books are.

Here's a guide to determine what printing a particular book came from.

http://www.travelinlibrarian.info/writing/editions/#prfa

One should see a sequence of numbers on the page with the copyright information.

In the case of WotC 4E D&D books, this information will be on the second pages of most 4E books, at the bottom left hand corner. (Page one is usually the title page, while page three is the table of contents).

For a first printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For a second printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

For a third printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4 3

For a fourth printing, one should see the sequence of numbers

9 8 7 6 5 4

etc ...

Looking through all my 4E books, they all have the sequence of numbers "9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1" which means they are all first printings.

So far over the last year or so of looking through big box bookstores and gaming stores, the only second printings of 4E books I've seen so far have been for the 4E Player's Handbook 2. (These printings have the sequence of numbers "9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2").

The misleading part about many 4E books, is that it will also include a string "First Printing: **Date**" also right below (or above) the sequence of numbers "9 8 7 6 ...". For example, the 4E core books PHB1/DMG1/MM1 will have a string "First Printing: June 2008", regardless of the printing. This string does NOT tell you what the actual printing is.

Using this convention of a sequence of numbers to determine the printings of the 4E books, which printings of 4E books do other people have?

(Fork the thread to discuss "canon" type issues).

It will be interesting to hear how Paizo is going to be managing the canon produced by various Pathfinder product lines such as the APs, chronicles, companion, modules, etc ... and future stuff like Pathfinder novels.

IMHO, what happened to Forgotten Realms over the years with the proliferation of canon and appearance of "canon lawyers", completely turned me off from the setting.

The title says it all.

At the present time, Golarion reminds me a lot of the days when 1E AD&D Forgotten Realms was first released.

(I'll first discuss Forgotten Realms for some background context).

In the time period before the "Time of Troubles" and the release of 2E AD&D, Forgotten Realms was a cool "sandbox" type setting which consisted of the 1E FR "grey box" campaign setting and the first 5 or 6 FR supplement books. There weren't many FR modules released back then which were really impressive. (There was one which was based on the Pool of Radiance video game, which was largely mediocre imho). Without any good FR modules, the DMs of my 1E FR games at the time just made up their own adventures for which they were able really bring the FR setting to life and made the setting really exciting.

Shortly before 2E AD&D was released, I largely left gaming behind and took a very long hiatus. During my hiatus, I ended up acquiring some old AD&D stuff from some old gamer friends who sold them to me for a pittance (or just gave to me), of which included some 1E and 2E Forgotten Realms books. Looking through the 1E FR "grey box" and other FR splatbooks I acquired, I wondered what made the setting really exciting back in the 1987 -> early 1989 period. The "grey box" and 1E books were quite well written. At the time I thought about picking up the rest of the 1E and 2E FR splatbooks that I didn't have. Though after doing some research online and checking out several FLGS, I was aghast when I came to the realization that there was a huge flood of FR box sets, splatbooks, modules, novels, etc ... that it completely discouraged me from picking up any more FR stuff at the time. I didn't go back to gaming for many years after that.

Many years later when I started to game again, I played in a 3.5E FR game which had some FR "canon lawyers" types playing, which completely turned me off further from FR. A second 3.5E FR game I played in later, also had the same problems with "canon lawyers" ruining everything and making the game really frustrating. These games were nothing like the 1E "sandbox" FR setting that I knew of back in 1987-1989.

Here's a few blog posts about 1E Forgotten Realms which describes a similar sentiment as mine.

Undeveloped Realms
Time of Troubles

In hindsight, the beginning of the end of Forgotten Realms as a cool "sandbox" setting was the "Time of Troubles" and the introduction of 2E AD&D. The "Time of Troubles" was not a problem per se with respect to the setting in and of itself, nor with 2E AD&D. The problems in hindsight was due to stuff around and outside of the setting, such as the proliferation of many semi-useless splatbooks, box sets, etc ... of questionable utility, and the emerging appearance of "canon lawyers".

With all that said about Forgotten Realms, I feel that Golarion at the present time reminds me a lot of the old "sandbox" days of 1E AD&D Forgotten Realms comprising of the "grey box" and the first 5 or 6 supplement books, with very few FR novels and no "canon lawyers". (This short lived period lasted about 2 years, from 1987 to 1989). Hopefully Golarion will have a "golden age" lasting longer than the two short years of the 1E AD&D "sandbox" era of Forgotten Realms. Also hopefully there will no need to pull off any realms changing events like a "Time of Troubles" or "Spellplague" for Golarion in the future. If Golarion becomes popular enough, hopefully there will also be no canon lawyers ruining the setting.

On the other hand, this may just be me going through an early "mid life" crisis and searching for something which reminds me of the days of my misspent youth playing 1E AD&D Forgotten Realms. ;)