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DrOfDemonology — Blast From the Past
Published: 2008-07-24 21:17:58 +0000 UTC; Views: 793; Favourites: 15; Downloads: 11
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Description
Here's the cover of the original "blue book" for Dungeons & Dragons. It came in a cardboard box, along very cheap dice and with either In Search of the Unknown or The Keep on the Boderlands, which were adventure modules. The box cover was the full-colour version of this same image (it's a red dragon, of course)
For my fellow Old School Old Geezers out there, this should hopefully make you smile as you go down Amnesia Lane
For those D&D gamers too young to remember, well, here's a piece of genuine history. First printed in 1974; my second edition copy (here) was printed in 1978
This was copyright by TSR Games at the time. I'm guessing this loooong out-of-print stuff is now owned by Wizards of the Coast, but I'm not sure.
In any case, enjoy!
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Comments: 45
I've seen this before and I'm not even that old. My uncle use to play D&D and he still has most of his 1st edition books. I've even seen the first edition of Dragon...in a picture. The comic srip Nodwick was showing some of their beginings.
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The true classics never die
Thanks for the 
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Cool! I'm just grateful I *own* the original set, and in mint condition too...
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Ah you do my heart proud, i still long for the days when elves were a class, when low AC was a very good thing and you could say that THAC0 is wacko...
I run a modified version of D&D about every other week.
Seriously, thanks for the reminder.
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Have you read the modern monster manuals? They're almost no fun reading.
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I own the 3.0 and 3.5 versions, but there's no way in hell I'm ever touching Version 4, which sucks beyond all measure. It doesn't resembl;e D&D at all
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That's right. Half the fun of the monster manuals was the great descriptions of each monster. They were usually like at LEAST 3 paragraphs. Now they're at most 3 sentences.
The only possibly good feature are the illustrations. But then again, they're not really a D&D style. You can just go to Magic Cards for it.
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Been many, many years... Used to have all the hardbound books too, including the original Monster Manual, before they re-issued it with the section they took out removed...that book "walked off" after a session one night.
Can't remember what they removed...2 things I think, but don't remember.
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I still have all my old 1st Edition books, thankfully
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I ended up losing all of them in a divorce after that.
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Aarg. Yet *another* reason for me to never get married
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3rd time's the charm... (I hope)
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my first dnd session was in the keep on the borderlands! DANG was that fun!
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It was my first adventure as well
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and from there life continued... unutterably bad dice rolls, exploding backpacks, hobgoblins, nightmarishly badly placed dragons, hordes of the undead, and chocolate chip cookies.
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*bows to the almighty core book* my master you ahve finally shown your slef ot me!.. lol my gods that si cool you hold their iece of gaming hystory!
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I replaced my ancient, tattered copy with a *mint condition* boxed set, which included 2 copies of the Into the Unknown adventure module (gave 1 copy to a good friend)
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lucky man!.. *is jelouse* man i wish i had yor luck
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*gets down on his knees* I'm not worthy!!!
And yes....that is now the property of WotC....
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Probably a silly question, but why does it say 2001 in the corner if it's old?
xD;;
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That's a product number, not a date.
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Wow...cool. I feel weird now, all these old people. 
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That's too bad; a good tabletop RPG with friends beats video games any day
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Well that might be but playing video games with some good friends is not a bad way to spend a afternoon.
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I ran keep on the Borderland for the first time in 1980, then.. again in 2005... it was a blast both times.. Updated for 3.5 of course on the second run. But wow...
Good times my friend, good times indeed.
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I've used Borderlands lots of times, sometimes just for the cave maps. It's a complete classic, and I really need to fin a good copy again; mine's in tatters
Thanks for the
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I'll keep my eyes open.. I think they reprinted it.
I need to run that again and soon.
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I just relized.. I've been gaming close to 30 years now. I started in 1978? with my mom, she taught me a lot.. then I showed her some tricks.
She didn't like CoC much, but loved D&D.
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For me it was 1979, in my very first year of high school. Some friends introduced me to D&D. I immediately went out and bought the old boxed set. Couple months later I owned the first edition PHB, MM and DMG
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I first started playing D&D in 1979, #$%& I'm old!
I like to pull out the old books and modules and read them from time to time.
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I bet we had the same dungeon master then!
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Would not be surprised in the slightest since I grew up an army brat.
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Ah, always good to know a fellow Geezer
I do the same thing! I was even thinking about putting the Lil' DMC gang into D&D stats, maybe even Blue Book stats, just for the nostalgia value
Thanks for the
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Right now I'd kill for a good game of D&D, nothing but damn CCG players here in TX.
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THAT would be funny! And an occasional "campaign" like strip? *evilgrin*
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Read Lil' DMC. They've been doing the dungeon adventure since strip 093
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