Player's Handbook

• 1. Introduction

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  The Player's Handbook became, in 2024, what Wizards of the Coast called "the fastest-selling Dungeons & Dragons product ever." The company also called it "the biggest product launch in the game's 50-year history." Wizards of the Coast and its predecessor TSR have rewritten this one rulebook five separate times since it was first published. Each rewrite dropped some character classes and added others. Each rewrite swapped illustrators, too, and drew reviewers who disagreed sharply, from glowing praise to harsh dismissal, about whether the changes were worth making. What decided which classes survived a rewrite and which ones got cut? And why did a rulebook rewritten so many times over so many decades end up outselling everything the company had ever released?

• 2. Two Books, One Game

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  Shannon Appelcline called Dungeons & Dragons "one of the few roleplaying games to maintain a split between core books for players and game masters." That divide, he noted, ran throughout most of the game's history. It began with the release of the Players Handbook and continued a year later with the Dungeon Masters Guide. Under the new, more open-ended rules, a campaign could no longer run itself. It needed a referee, a Dungeon Master, working from a separate set of instructions.

  Ten character classes filled the Players Handbook's original roster: cleric, druid, fighter, ranger, paladin, magic-user, illusionist, thief, assassin, and monk. The book also described non-human character races, including dwarves, elves, and halflings.

  Spell descriptions for classes like wizards and clerics filled much of the remaining pages. Armor and weapon costs came next, along with optional rules for adding psionics to a campaign. Both the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Player's Handbook offered advice on different styles of play. Only the Player's Handbook, though, was ever meant to sit open in front of every person at the table.

  Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Player's Handbook: for most editions, those three books formed a fixed core. It was the trio a new group needed before anyone could start playing. What varied from one trio to the next was what the Player's Handbook actually asked of the person holding it. That answer changed with nearly every edition to come.

• 3. The First Handbook

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  Gary Gygax wrote the first Players Handbook, a 128-page hardcover released in June 1978. Mike Carr edited the book and wrote its foreword. D.A. Trampier painted the cover, and alongside David C. Sutherland III, he provided the interior illustrations.

  Foreign printings followed quickly, with editions for the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and Germany. Games Workshop, based in the U.K., published its own softcover version that same year.

  TSR changed the cover art in 1983, hiring Jeff Easley for a new painting while leaving the interior contents untouched. Printings with the Easley cover carried an orange spine, matching the color scheme of other Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books.

  Dealers kept ordering copies of the first edition Players Handbook even after TSR released a second edition. That demand pushed the final printing of the original book to July 1990, a full year after its successor had already reached stores.

  Shannon Appelcline observed that TSR mostly published books aimed at Dungeon Masters after the core rulebooks came out, at least until 1985. That year brought Unearthed Arcana, which Appelcline said "could easily have been called Player's Handbook 2." The same year brought Oriental Adventures, which he called "an alternate players handbook for the east."

  A paperback reprint of the first edition arrived in 1999. Wizards of the Coast followed in 2012 with a "1st Edition Premium Player's Handbook." It was part of a limited run that also reprinted the original Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide. All three kept the original art and content but added new cover designs. Sales of that reprint helped fund the Gygax Memorial Fund, established to build a statue of Gary Gygax in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

  Don Turnbull reviewed the book for issue No. 10 of White Dwarf and gave it a perfect 10 out of 10. He wrote that he had never seen a product sell so quickly as the Handbook did when it debuted at Dragonmeet, a British roleplaying convention. Turnbull judged the new rules "a detailed and coherent game-system, and very sophisticated," against the ambiguity of the original rules. He called the finished book "nothing short of a triumph."

  Scott Taylor wrote for Black Gate in 2014. He ranked Trampier's cover art as number one on his list of the Top 10 TSR Cover Paintings of All Time. Two years later, Taylor placed the 1983 Easley cover fifth on a separate ranking of orange-spine AD&D hardcovers. He wrote that for many players who didn't start in the 1980s, Easley's version was simply "their Players Handbook."

  TSR's next Players Handbook would come out of a crisis inside the company itself, one that started with Gary Gygax's own departure.

• 4. A Game Redeveloped

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  David "Zeb" Cook wrote the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Player's Handbook, a 256-page hardcover released in 1989. Jeff Easley painted the cover, and the book included eight full-page color illustrations inside.

  Gary Gygax had originally planned this next edition himself, intending to fold in rules revisions from Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures, both published in 1985. By the end of that year, Gygax was forced out of TSR, and his plans for a second edition were abandoned.

  Editor Steve Winter convinced TSR's management in 1986 that the game needed more than a simple reorganization. In his view, it needed to be redeveloped entirely. Winter and Cook then spent several years building the new edition from that starting point.

  Michael Dobson, TSR's Director of Games Development, laid out a production schedule in August 1987. The two core books were to be finished by December 1987. From there, the RPGA would playtest them in early 1988. TSR would redevelop them in late 1988, and the books would reach shelves in March or April of 1989. Shannon Appelcline noted that Dobson's timeline proved accurate: the 2nd edition Player's Handbook appeared in February 1989, with the Dungeon Master's Guide following in May.

  TSR built the new book to stay compatible with 1st edition rules while streamlining and clarifying them. Appelcline observed that, unlike its 1978 predecessor, the 1989 Player's Handbook became the game's true core rulebook. It folded in nearly all the character creation rules and everything else a player needed to know.

  Four categories organized the standard classes this time. Warriors covered fighters, paladins, and rangers. Wizards covered mages and specialist wizards such as illusionists. Priests covered clerics, with guidance for varying by mythos and the druid offered as an example. Rogues covered thieves and bards. The bard, previously an odd case, was regularized to work like any other class, while the assassin and the monk were dropped entirely. TSR also removed several races from the core game, including half-orcs, though supplements such as The Complete Book of Humanoids later reintroduced some of them.

  After the new Player's Handbook shipped, TSR launched a player-focused splatbook line, the PHBR Complete series (1989-1995), Appelcline noted. In TSR's own code system, PHBR stood for Player's Handbook reference series. One of those supplements, Player's Option: Spells & Magic, introduced the artificer as a specialist choice for magic users. A new set of optional proficiency rules represented character skills. Sections on role-playing, combat, magic, time and movement, equipment, and spells all grew beyond what the original book had covered. New material came in from Unearthed Arcana and from 1987's Dragonlance Adventures.

  TSR issued a revised version of the 2nd edition Player's Handbook in 1995 to mark the company's 25th anniversary. Layout changes and new artwork made the book sixty-four pages longer. A new foreword took care to state that this was not a third edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Wizards of the Coast reproduced the 2nd edition Player's Handbook again as a premium reprint on the 21st of May 2013.

  James Wallis, reviewing the book for Games International in May 1989, called it "an improvement over the original" but only "a very small step" forward. He faulted its "archaic mechanics" and "hugely overly-complex" rules, and gave it 2 out of 5. Wallis wrote that the game might be the biggest-selling roleplaying game of all time, yet still "thoroughly obsolete and to be avoided."

  Lawrence Schick, in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, called the 2nd edition Player's Handbook "a vast improvement" over its predecessor. He noted with approval that the monk class had been "banished to Oriental Adventures where it belongs." Stephan Wieck reviewed the wider 2nd edition rules for White Wolf that same year. He praised an interior "laid out very well and graphically attractive." The book went on to win both an Origins Award and a Gamer's Choice Award.

  TSR's next Player's Handbook would drop the word Advanced from its title altogether, arriving alongside a new system built around a twenty-sided die.

• 5. The d20 Overhaul

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  Wizards of the Coast published the third edition Player's Handbook on the 10th of August 2000, debuting that same month at that year's Gen Con. The new edition adopted the d20 system, a major overhaul of the game's mechanics. It also dropped the word "Advanced" from the title. The publisher now planned only one version of the game, instead of separate basic and advanced lines.

  Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams all contributed to the 3rd edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. Each designer then wrote one of the three books based on that shared work. Tweet is credited with the Player's Handbook's design. Half-orcs and monks, both dropped from the 2nd edition core rules, returned in this edition alongside some brand-new classes.

  A reviewer for Pyramid praised the book's "gorgeous and evocative" new artwork and called its 286 pages "well-written and tightly packed." A third reviewer for the same outlet had a similar take. The design team, he wrote, had "smoothed out the rough edges" from the 2nd edition and "added tons of new goodies."

  July 2003 brought a revision to version 3.5, based on two years of player feedback. The main goal was making the character classes more balanced against each other. Andy Collins explained that he was originally assigned to evaluate the 3.0 Dungeon Master's Guide for possible improvements, purely as "a thought experiment for R&D." By the winter of 2001, that thought experiment grew into a full v3.5 revision meant to keep pace with the game's fast evolution.

  Collins took charge of the Player's Handbook for this revision, with Rich Redman developing the Dungeon Master's Guide and Skip Williams handling the Monster Manual. Asked how the new book differed from its 2000 predecessor, Williams said the changes ranged "from the almost invisible... to the pretty radical." Collins disagreed, insisting none of them were truly "radical," and aiming instead to keep each character "feel like the same character."

  May 2006 brought the Player's Handbook II, designed by David Noonan as a follow-up to the standard book. It added four new classes along with new spells, feats, and role-playing options, and its cover paid homage to the original 1978 edition. Wizards of the Coast reproduced the 3.5 edition Player's Handbook as a premium reprint on the 18th of September 2012.

  Two years after that reprint, Wizards of the Coast tore the rules down again. This time, the rebuild would reshape which races and classes counted as core.

• 6. Fourth Edition's Gamble

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  Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt designed the Fourth Edition Player's Handbook, released on the 6th of June 2008. Its subtitle was Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes. Wayne Reynolds painted the front cover, and Dan Scott painted the back. Wizards of the Coast had originally planned to release the three 4th edition core rulebooks across three separate months. Customer feedback showed most buyers preferred all three in the same month, so the schedule changed.

  Eight classes filled this first 4th edition book: cleric, fighter, paladin, ranger, rogue, warlock, warlord, and wizard. Eight races joined them: dragonborn, dwarf, eladrin, elf, human, half-elf, halfling, and tiefling. The warlock and warlord classes were new, as were the dragonborn and tiefling races. The monk, the bard, the gnome, and the half-orc, though, were all left out of the core rules entirely.

  Wizards of the Coast said those omitted classes and races were simply being saved for later Player's Handbooks, not discarded. Shannon Appelcline noted the decision proved controversial regardless. The designers later admitted they regretted not stating clearly that the first 4th edition book was only a starting point.

  Appelcline called the 2008 Player's Handbook "the most complete player's rulebook ever produced" for the game. It packed in every character creation rule, every other core rule, and, for the first time in the series, magic items as well. One stated goal of 4th edition was moving away from simulation toward what Appelcline called a more cinematic style of play. That approach let players reskin a character's flavor without altering the mechanics underneath. Combat took center stage under the new rules, and battle maps grew more important. A new healing surge mechanic underscored how central fighting had become to the redesigned game.

  The Player's Handbook 2, subtitled Arcane, Divine and Primal Heroes, followed on the 17th of March 2009. It added eight more classes: avenger, barbarian, bard, druid, invoker, shaman, sorcerer, and warden. Five more races joined too: deva, gnome, goliath, half-orc, and shifter. The book reached No. 28 on USA Today's bestseller list the week of the 26th of March 2009. It also reached No. 14 on the Wall Street Journal's non-fiction list the following week.

  Mike Mearls, Bruce R. Cordell, and Robert J. Schwalb designed the Player's Handbook 3, released on the 16th of March 2010. Its subtitle was Psionic, Divine and Primal Heroes, and Michael Komarck painted the cover. It added six more classes: ardent, battlemind, monk, psion, runepriest, and seeker. Four more races joined as well: wilden, minotaur, githzerai, and shardminds, alongside new rules allowing hybrid, multi-classed characters.

  John Baichtal, reviewing the game for Wired, liked how the new powers made character advancement "more fun." He felt "all the classes are equally balanced," comparing the shift away from version 3.5 to the leap from 1st edition AD&D to 3.5 itself. He also praised the healing surge mechanic for letting characters "be more adventurous and daring." Still, he said he "didn't like" seeing the bard, barbarian, druid, monk, gnome, and half-orc left out of the first book.

  That gap between what the first 4th edition book included and what it saved for later volumes would echo forward. Wizards of the Coast's next rewrite of the game took a very different approach to it.

• 7. Fifth Edition Returns

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  Wizards of the Coast released the 5th Edition Player's Handbook on the 19th of August 2014. It covered the basic rules of the new system, along with base classes, races, and character customization options. Tyler Jacobson painted the cover, depicting King Snurre, a figure from the 1978 adventure module The Hall of the Fire Giant King. Snurre loomed over two heroes locked in battle. Jacobson said he wanted "a composition that was very action-packed." A burst of blue magic "about to be cast" by the heroine stood out against the "hot colors" filling the rest of the image.

  The book sold 22,090 units in the week ending the 1st of September 2014, according to Publishers Weekly. It landed at No. 1 on the "Hardcover Nonfiction" chart and No. 7 on the overall bestseller list. The book stayed in that nonfiction top 25 for four weeks, and it was the top-selling book on Amazon on its release day.

  In 2015, the book won the Origins Award for Best Role Playing Game and for Fan Favorite Role Playing Game. It also took home three gold ENnie Awards: Best Game, Best Rules, and Product of the Year. A silver ENnie for Best Writing went to Jeremy Crawford, James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, and Bruce R. Cordell.

  Jeff LaSala of Tor.com called the cover's "action heroine in sensible clothing" a stark contrast to the previous edition's artwork and "a huge win." James Floyd Kelly of GeekDad compared the book directly to the 1978 original. He wrote that the new edition "feels streamlined... and much more accessible," with writing that was "much more polished" and artwork that was "more inspiring."

  Henry Glasheen of SLUG Magazine praised art with "the patient beauty of old-school high adventure." John Farrell of Gaming Trend called the same artwork "both iconic and evocative." Both reviewers liked the streamlined character creation process, including a new Background system, and Farrell singled out the game's "bounded accuracy" for keeping combat "fast-paced." Glasheen ranked the edition above 3.5 as his personal favorite. He cautioned, though, that players chasing deep mechanical optimization might find the ruleset too "heavy on story" for their taste.

  In November 2018, Wizards of the Coast rereleased the three 5th edition core rulebooks as a bundled boxset. It was called the Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebooks Gift Set, and it corrected earlier errata along the way. An alternate version of that set, sold only through local game stores, carried new cover art by Hydro74. Gavin Sheehan of Bleeding Cool described that alternate cover as King Snurre's "welcoming face." Sheehan noted the helmet was recast "in a slightly deeper red with orange eyes."

  A decade after Jacobson's King Snurre first appeared on the cover, Wizards of the Coast sent the giant back into battle. That next rewrite would arrive under a different name entirely: the Player's Handbook (2024).

• 8. The 2024 Relaunch

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  Wizards of the Coast released the Player's Handbook (2024) globally on the 17th of September 2024. It was part of a backward-compatible revision to the 5th Edition ruleset. Local stores in the Wizards Play Network could sell early copies starting the 3rd of September 2024. A limited run also went on sale six weeks early at Gen Con. D&D Beyond gave pre-order subscribers early digital access too.

  Tyler Jacobson painted the standard cover again, this time showing a party of adventurers. Alex Meehan of Dicebreaker described "a friendly golden dragon standing behind them" in the midst of battle. Wylie Beckert painted an alternate cover, sold only through local game stores. Shipping problems delayed its release outside North America until October 2024. That cover showed the same party sharing a pot of tea with the dragon in a cave. Josh Herman, head of art at Wizards of the Coast, called it a deliberately "not so aggressive," calmer image. He explained that "a lot of what D&D is, is just storytelling" between fights.

  Matt Bassil of Wargamer contrasted the two Jacobson covers a decade apart. The 2014 image, he wrote, sold "an obvious power fantasy." The 2024 cover instead emphasized "the variety of DnD races and classes you can play, and the cool people you'll be hanging out with."

  Scott Thorne of ICv2 offered a grounded measurement of the new book's launch. He reported that BookScan, a data service covering roughly 85% of the U.S. book market through chain and independent stores, recorded 3,773 copies sold. Thorne cautioned that BookScan's figure excluded most hobby game store sales and did not count the 3,000 copies sold directly at Gen Con.

  Benjamin Abbott of GamesRadar+ wrote that the 2024 edition was "finally as lavish as you'd expect." He contrasted it with the 2014 book, where "the spell section was an unrelenting wall of text." Joshua Rivera of Polygon called the new book "a modern and clean reworking of the first book every D&D player reads." His colleague Charlie Hall credited designers Matt Cole and Emi Tanji for a brand that "feels suddenly glossy, modern, and new." Hall still criticized the D&D Beyond digital platform itself as "cluttered and complex."

  Christian Hoffer of ComicBook.com called the update "an improvement from its 2014 predecessor in almost every single way." Mollie Russell of Wargamer rated it 9 out of 10. She noted the game still "feels like fifth edition" up close, despite a "complex web of small changes" underneath. Chase Carter of Rascal took a harsher view. He criticized Wizards of the Coast for releasing the Player's Handbook months ahead of its companion core books. That move, he said, was "prioritized towards the largest population of wallets."

  Fifty years after Gary Gygax first wrote a rulebook for players holding character sheets, that same title still sat at the center of the game. Its cover was now painted by an artist named Jacobson rather than Trampier. Its sales were tracked by a data service instead of a single British reviewer at a convention called Dragonmeet.