Unearthed Arcana: Difference between revisions
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{{Infobox Book |
{{Infobox Book |
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| name = Unearthed Arcana, 1st edition |
| name = Unearthed Arcana, 1st edition |
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| image = [[File:UnearthedOld.jpg|200px]] |
| image = [[File:UnearthedOld.jpg|200px|alt=The cover of the book features an old, bearded wizard reading a book and surrounded by flasks and test tubes.]] |
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| image_caption = Cover of ''Unearthed Arcana'' for the 1st edition of ''[[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]''; cover art by [[Jeff Easley]] |
| image_caption = Cover of ''Unearthed Arcana'' for the 1st edition of ''[[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]''; cover art by [[Jeff Easley]] |
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| author = [[Gary Gygax]] |
| author = [[Gary Gygax]] |
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{{Infobox Book |
{{Infobox Book |
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| name = Unearthed Arcana, 3rd edition |
| name = Unearthed Arcana, 3rd edition |
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| image = [[File:Unearthed_Arcana_coverthumb.jpg]] |
| image = [[File:Unearthed_Arcana_coverthumb.jpg|alt=The cover of the book features a young woman reading a book, where the pages come to life and change shape into other things.]] |
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| image_caption = Cover of ''Unearthed Arcana'' for the 3rd edition of ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' |
| image_caption = Cover of ''Unearthed Arcana'' for the 3rd edition of ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' |
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| author = [[Andy Collins (game designer)|Andy Collins]], Jesse Decker, [[David Noonan (game designer)|David Noonan]], and Rich Redman |
| author = [[Andy Collins (game designer)|Andy Collins]], Jesse Decker, [[David Noonan (game designer)|David Noonan]], and Rich Redman |
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Revision as of 02:34, 25 February 2010
| The cover of the book features an old, bearded wizard reading a book and surrounded by flasks and test tubes. Cover of Unearthed Arcana for the 1st edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; cover art by Jeff Easley | |
| Author | Gary Gygax |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Jeff Easley, Jim Roslof, Roger Raupp, Timothy Truman, and Jim Holloway |
| Genre | Role-playing game |
| Publisher | TSR, Inc. |
Publication date | 1985 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | 0-88038-084-5 |
| OCLC | 15054860 |
| 794 19 | |
| LC Class | GV1469.62.D84 G96 1985 |
| The cover of the book features a young woman reading a book, where the pages come to life and change shape into other things. Cover of Unearthed Arcana for the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons | |
| Author | Andy Collins, Jesse Decker, David Noonan, and Rich Redman |
|---|---|
| Genre | Role-playing game |
| Publisher | Wizards of the Coast |
Publication date | February 2004 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 224 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7869-3131-0 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Unearthed Arcana (abbreviated UA)[1] is the title shared by two hardback books published for different editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Both were designed as supplements to the core rulebooks, containing material that expanded upon other rules.
The original Unearthed Arcana was written primarily by Gary Gygax, and published in 1985 for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rules. The book consisted mostly of material previously published in magazines, and included new races, classes, and other expansion material. However, the book was infamous for its considerable number of errors in the text, and was received rather negatively by the gaming press who felt that the races and classes were over-powered, among other criticisms.
Much of the book's content was not reused in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons second edition, which went into development shortly after Gygax's departure from TSR. A second book using the Unearthed Arcana title was produced for Dungeons & Dragons third edition in 2004. The designers did not reproduce any of the original book's contents, but instead attempted to emulate its purpose by providing variant rules and options to change the game itself.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
Development history
The original Unearthed Arcana was written by Gary Gygax with major contributions by Jeff Grubb and Kim Mohan, and then published by TSR in 1985.[2] Gygax reportedly produced the book to raise money as TSR was deeply in debt at the time.[3] He announced in the March 1985 issue of Dragon that Unearthed Arcana would be released in the summer of that year. He proposed the book as "an interim volume to expand the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook", as the information was spread out in several places and difficult to keep track of.[4] Unearthed Arcana was to include material written by Gygax and previously published in Dragon magazine, and later updated and revised for the book. The book would also contain previously unpublished material, some of it written by other contributors to Dragon.[4] According to British writer Paul Cockburn, some of the material in Unearthed Arcana had been previously published in Imagine magazine as well.[5]
The original Unearthed Arcana contains a number of errors in its text, which readers discovered and reported to Dragon magazine.[6] Even some positive reviews of the book pointed out the considerable number of mistakes.[7] Dragon editor Kim Mohan, with ideas from Gygax, Frank Mentzer, and Jeff Grubb, addressed the many errors found in the book. In the November 1985 issue of Dragon magazine, Mohan printed four pages of rules corrections as well as new supplementary material intended to be inserted into the book, and some explanations and justifications for items which were not actually errors,[6] and compiled a two-page list of type corrections meant to be pasted into further revisions of Unearthed Arcana.[8] Dragon also devoted the entirety of its "Sage Advice" column in the January 1986 issue to answering readers' questions about Unearthed Arcana, as a follow-up to Mohan's prior column.[9] However, the errata was not incorporated into later printings of the manual.[10]
Contents
This 128-page book was written for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rules,[2] and was divided into two sections (one for players and one for Dungeon Masters). The book provided new races, classes, and other expansion material. The book gives details on using various "subraces" of the standard races, such as dark elves (drow), and deep gnomes (svirfneblin), for use as both player characters and non-player characters.
Unearthed Arcana includes the barbarian (found in Dragon #63[11]), cavalier (found in Dragon #72[12]), and thief-acrobat (found in Dragon #69[13]) character classes,[4][5] and also includes expansions and revisions of the druid and ranger classes.[4] The book presents a large addition to the range of character races, including the drow and svirfneblin.[5] The book includes new weapons, and revised information on demi-human level maximums.[4] Unearthed Arcana details the weapon specialization rules, in which a "fighter or ranger can adopt a weapon as a special arm, and receive bonuses in its use".[5] The book also describes the comeliness attribute, and contains new spells as well.[5]
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition
By 1985 Gygax was planning a second edition for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules, and intended beginning work on this in 1986. He intended to incorporate material from Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, and the original Players Handbook into the new edition's Players Handbook.[14] Shortly after announcing his intentions for second edition, Gygax was removed as TSR's President and Chairman of the Board. In 1986 he resigned all positions with TSR, leaving the shape and direction of the Dungeons & Dragons game to other designers.[15]
The designers of second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons did not include some material from the original Players Handbook in the second edition game, as well as much of the new material that appeared in Unearthed Arcana, which they considered to be "unbalanced".[16] The book had five printings after the release of AD&D 2nd edition with the last printing being two years after the new edition was released.[10]
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition
The second book to use the name Unearthed Arcana was written by Andy Collins, Jesse Decker, David Noonan, and Rich Redman, and published in 2004 by Wizards of the Coast, for use with the Dungeons & Dragons third edition rules.[17] The designers aimed the book at experienced players and DMs looking for something new, encouraging them to customize the game's rules. The designers did not want the third edition book to be like the original Unearthed Arcana mechanically, because according to Andy Collins: "Every book on the market looks like the original Unearthed Arcana. New classes, new spells, new magic items - that's the default "recipe" for a d20 product these days. We saw no need to do that with this book."[18] Where the original Unearthed Arcana had simply expanded the rules and options of the core game, this 224-page supplement was aimed at providing an extensive list of variant rules and options to change the standard game's baseline.[18] In fact, the volume of options added was intentionally excessive. According to the designers, a Dungeon Master who reads the book must be prepared to "Drink from the fire hose",[17] or only use a few of the numerous variants.[18]
Reception
Paul Cockburn gave the original Unearthed Arcana a highly critical review in issue 73 of White Dwarf magazine (January 1986), rating it 4 out of 10 overall. He summed up the book's contents by calling them "A rules extension package of reprints, most of which add very little of interest or value to anybody's game."[5] Cockburn felt that the book would be a huge commercial success due to the seemingly never filled appetite some people have for new material. However, he felt that as a rules companion book it would not be used universally by gaming tournaments or by other publishers, or even players moving from one group to another, and that the book would wind up causing problems and confusion for gamers. Cockburn criticized the weapons specialization rules and the new character generating method, called the barbarian class "a farce" after losing their prohibition from magic, and considered the extension to the number of character races "virtually ridiculous", as it added several over-powerful races to the list.[5] Cockburn noted that the bulk of the book was taken up by the new spells; while he felt these spells were OK, he said they "add nothing very scintillating to the game".[5] Cockburn did like the cavalier class, calling it "everything the paladin should have been in the first place", and felt that the acrobat "offers possibilities that should have been attached to the thief from the beginning".[5]
Following Cockburn's review, UA was subjected to further criticism by Allan Miles in two articles published in the magazine. In White Dwarf 85 (January 1987), More Than Skin Deep, a general discussion of the subject of PC race in AD&D, touched upon the subject in the context of Unearthed Arcana.[19] Arcana or Errata? in White Dwarf 89 (May 1987) covered the volume specifically, opening with the observation that the material published in the book was now "definitely affecting the way the game is played," despite the fact that the bulk of its reception had been negative.[20] Miles began by mentioning the aspects of the book that he considered predominantly unproblematic, such as the addition of new spells, magic items, weapons, and the introduction of minimum starting values for hit points. He then went on to discuss the areas he considered disruptive of game balance at length, including the new methods for character generation, malleable limits to demi-human class levels and characteristics themselves, the rules regarding the new Comeliness attribute, aspects of the Cavalier and Barbarian classes, changes to Thief alignment requirements, and the results of UA's version of weapon specialization.[20]
William B. Haddon's review of the third edition Unearthed Arcana on RPGnet lauded the book's content while criticizing the interest level of the content as "very flat". He found the power level unbalanced for each of the new sub-systems introduced, and found very little in the suggested rules that he wanted to use. He did note that the book was "jam packed" with pages of variants, ideas and suggestions, and found that the "Behind the Curtain" explanations from the designers gave him insight into their thought process behind the book's contents. Haddon called the book's art "terrible," explaining that "It looks cartoony and has little of the flavor or strength found in the art of so many other WotC products."[21]
References
- ^ "Dungeons & Dragons FAQ". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved October 3, 2008.
- ^ a b "Unearthed Arcana (1985)". RPG Database. Pen & Paper. Retrieved January 11, 2009.
- ^ La Farge, Paul (2006). "Destroy All Monsters". The Believer Magazine. Archived from the original on October 4, 2008.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b c d e Gygax, Gary (1985). "Demi-Humans Get a Lift". Dragon (95). TSR: 8.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b c d e f g h i Cockburn, Paul (1986). "Open Box: Dungeon Modules". White Dwarf (73). Games Workshop: 7. ISSN 0265-8712.
{{cite journal}}:|format=requires|url=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b Mohan, Kim (1985). "Arcana Update, Part 1". Dragon (103). TSR: 12.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Farstad, Errol (1987). "The Critical Hit". Polyhedron Newszine (38). TSR: 8.
- ^ "Unearthed Arcana additions and corrections". Dragon (103). TSR: 48-49. 1985.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Petticord, Penny (1986). "Sage Advice". Dragon (117). TSR: 32, 47, 54.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b Later AD&D Manuals. The Acaeum. Retrieved on June 1, 2006.
- ^ Gygax, Gary (1982). "The Big, Bad Barbarian". Dragon (63). TSR: 8-10.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Gygax, Gary (1983). "The Chivalrous Cavalier". Dragon (72). TSR: 6.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Gygax, Gary (1983). "A "split class" for nimble characters: the Thief-Acrobat". Dragon (69). TSR: 20-23.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Gygax, Gary (1985). "The Future of the Game". Dragon (103). TSR: 8.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Gygax, Gary (1987). "From the Sorcerer's Scroll". Dragon (122). TSR: 40.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Winter, Steve (1997). "Cure Light Wounds". Polyhedron Newszine (49). TSR: 24.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b Collins, Andy (2004). Unearthed Arcana (3rd ed.). Wizards of the Coast. ISBN 0-7869-3131-0.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b c Ryan, Michael (February 7, 2004). Product Spotlight: Unearthed Arcana. Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved on June 1, 2006.
- ^ Miles, Allan (1987). "More Than Skin Deep". White Dwarf. 1 (85). Games Workshop: 12–15.
Problems of race in AD&D, expounded by Allan Miles.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b Miles, Allan (1987). "Arcana or Errata?". White Dwarf. 1 (89). Games Workshop: 52–54.
I never wanted to be a barbarian anyway... criticisms from Allan Miles.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Haddon, William B. (February 20, 2004). "Review of Unearthed Arcana". RPGnet. Retrieved January 11, 2009.
{{cite web}}: External link in|author=
Additional reading
- Review: The V.I.P. of Gaming Magazine #3 (1986)