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Player's Handbook: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Common questions
When was the first Player's Handbook released and who wrote it?
The first Player's Handbook hit store shelves in June 1978 and was written by Gary Gygax and edited by Mike Carr. This 128-page hardcover book focused exclusively on the player experience and introduced standard character classes like the cleric, druid, fighter, ranger, paladin, magic-user, illusionist, thief, assassin, and monk.
What changes did the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook make to character classes?
The 2nd Edition Player's Handbook released in February 1989 organized character classes into categories of warriors, wizards, priests, and rogues while removing the assassin and monk from the core rules. This edition also removed half-orcs from the game though these were later added back in supplements like The Complete Book of Humanoids.
Who designed the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook and when was it published?
The 3rd Edition Player's Handbook was published on the 10th of August 2000 with design credited to Jonathan Tweet and contributions from Monte Cook and Skip Williams. This edition saw the return of half-orcs and monks to the core rules set along with some all-new classes to make the game more combat-oriented.
What was the release date and design team for the 4th Edition Player's Handbook?
The 4th Edition Player's Handbook was released on the 6th of June 2008 and was designed by Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt. This book introduced the warlock and warlord classes and the dragonborn and tiefling races while leaving out previous core elements such as the monk and bard classes.
When was the 5th Edition Player's Handbook released and what awards did it win?
The 5th Edition Player's Handbook was released on the 19th of August 2014 by Wizards of the Coast and won the 2015 Origins Award for Best Role Playing Game and Fan Favorite Role Playing Game. It also won three 2015 gold ENnie Awards for Best Game, Best Rules, and Product of Year.
Player's Handbook
The first Players Handbook hit store shelves in June 1978 as a 128-page hardcover that would fundamentally change how people told stories together. Written by Gary Gygax and edited by Mike Carr, this book did not contain the complete rules for the game but instead focused exclusively on the player experience. Before this release, the game relied on a single rulebook that mixed player and referee duties, but Gygax and his team decided to split the core rules to create a dedicated referee role known as the Dungeon Master. The book introduced standard character classes like the cleric, druid, fighter, ranger, paladin, magic-user, illusionist, thief, assassin, and monk, alongside non-human races such as dwarves, elves, and halflings. It also detailed equipment, spells, and optional rules for psionics, establishing a split between player and game master materials that has persisted through most of the game's history. The original cover art by D.A. Trampier and interior illustrations by David C. Sutherland III set a visual tone that would become iconic, while foreign editions soon appeared in the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and Germany. Even after the second edition was released, dealers continued to order the first edition, leading to a final printing in July 1990, twelve years after its initial release. In 2012, Wizards of the Coast released a premium reprint of the original book to support the Gygax Memorial Fund, which was established to immortalize Gary Gygax with a memorial statue in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
The Split And The Streamline
Gary Gygax originally planned to incorporate rules revisions from the Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures into a new Player's Handbook for the second edition, but he was forced out of TSR by the end of 1985, leaving his plans abandoned. In 1986, Editor Steve Winter convinced management that the game needed a complete redevelopment rather than a simple reorganization, leading to a multi-year development process by Winter and David Zeb Cook. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Player's Handbook was released in February 1989 as a 256-page hardcover with original cover art by Jeff Easley and eight full-page color illustrations. This edition streamlined and clarified the information from the 1978 book, becoming the larger core rulebook that included most character creation rules and everything else players needed to know. The book organized character classes into categories of warriors, wizards, priests, and rogues, regularizing the bard to function more like other classes while removing the assassin and monk from the core rules. TSR also removed half-orcs from the game, though these were later added back in supplements like The Complete Book of Humanoids. Following the release, TSR published a player-focused series of splatbooks known as the PHBR Complete series from 1989 to 1995, which expanded on role-playing, combat, magic, and equipment. A new version of the 2nd edition Player's Handbook was released in 1995 as part of TSR's 25th anniversary, becoming sixty-four pages larger due to layout changes and new artwork, with a foreword explicitly stating it was not Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition. The book was reproduced as a premium reprint on the 21st of May 2013, preserving the legacy of the 1989 release.
When was the backward compatible Player's Handbook 2024 released and how many copies were sold?
The backward compatible Player's Handbook 2024 was released globally on the 17th of September 2024 and became the fastest-selling Dungeons & Dragons product ever. BookScan reported a total of 3,773 copies sold in the U.S. from chain retailers and independent booksellers.
The third edition of Dungeons & Dragons, published on the 10th of August 2000, represented a major overhaul of the game including the adoption of the d20 system and the dropping of the word Advanced from the title. Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams all contributed to the 3rd edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual, with Tweet credited with the book's design. This edition saw the return of half-orcs and monks to the core rules set along with some all-new classes, smoothing out rough edges from the 2nd edition while adding tons of new features to make the game more combat-oriented. In July 2003, the rules were revised again to version 3.5 based on two years of player feedback, with Andy Collins put in charge of the Player's Handbook development and Rich Redman on the Dungeon Master's Guide. Collins and Skip Williams aimed to balance the classes against each other, making changes that ranged from almost invisible to pretty radical while ensuring characters still felt like the same character. Monte Cook, one of the lead designers of the 3rd Edition who left Wizards of the Coast in 2001, was critical of the 3.5 revision, claiming it was motivated by financial need rather than design need. The 3.5 edition Player's Handbook was reproduced as a premium reprint on the 18th of September 2012, and the 3rd edition also saw the release of the Player's Handbook II in May 2006, designed by David Noonan, which contained four new classes, new spells, feats, and new role-playing options with cover art that paid homage to the 1st edition Player's Handbook.
The Cinematic Shift
On the 6th of June 2008, the Fourth Edition Player's Handbook, subtitled Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes, was released, originally planned to be released over three months but changed to a single month release after customer feedback. The book was designed by Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt, with front cover illustration by Wayne Reynolds and back cover by Dan Scott. The first Player's Handbook included eight classes and eight races, introducing the warlock and warlord classes and the dragonborn and tiefling races while leaving out previous core elements such as the monk and bard classes and the gnome and half-orc races. Shannon Appelcline highlighted that the omission of some classic character classes was considered controversial, with designers later regretting not clarifying that the first Player's Handbook was just a starting place for D&D 4e. The book was notable for being the most complete player's rulebook ever produced for Dungeons & Dragons since it contained all character creation rules, all other core rules, and for the first time included magic items. One of the 4th Edition goals was moving the game away from being a simulation and toward being a more cinematic gaming experience, allowing players to reskin their character fluff without changing the game itself. This shift meant player character classes saw the biggest revamp, with fewer roleplaying aspects codified while gameplay mechanics were more focused on combat, making battle maps very important. The healing surge mechanic reflected the importance of combat while spells and other abilities that weren't combat-oriented either disappeared or were revamped. Subsequent books, Player's Handbook 2 and Player's Handbook 3, were released in 2009 and 2010 to reintroduce the missing classes and races, with the latter including new multi-classing rules for hybrid characters.
The Return To Story
The 5th Edition Player's Handbook was released on the 19th of August 2014 by Wizards of the Coast, containing the basic rules of the 5e system, the base classes and races, and character customization options. The cover art by Tyler Jacobson featured King Snurre from The Hall of the Fire Giant King adventure module looming over two heroes engaged in battle, with an extreme angle to convey a desperate battle and a blue magic focal point contrasting the hot colors elsewhere. Wizards of the Coast rereleased the three core rulebooks as part of a bundled boxset titled Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebooks Gift Set in November 2018, with an alternative edition featuring new cover art by Hydro74 available only through local game stores. The 5th edition Player's Handbook won the 2015 Origins Award for Best Role Playing Game and Fan Favorite Role Playing Game, and it won three 2015 gold ENnie Awards for Best Game, Best Rules, and Product of Year. The book was the top selling book at Amazon on its release day and remained in the Hardcover Nonfiction top 25 for four weeks, selling 22,090 units in its first week. Reviewers praised the visual appeal of the covers, the light approach to rules making it a natural system for old fans to bring new players into the hobby, and the fast-paced combat with bounded accuracy. The character creation process was highlighted as fast and easy without an overload of options, and the game was seen as fun and guaranteed to pull new players into the fold. While some hardcore RPG players felt the game was less complex and heavy on story, the edition was considered easily my favorite by many, ranking even higher than D&D 3.5, my first love in D&D.
The Modern Reimagining
The backward compatible Player's Handbook 2024, as part of the 2024 revision to the 5th Edition ruleset, updates preexisting player options while introducing new content to the game, released globally on the 17th of September 2024. Wizards of the Coast released a limited number of copies for sale six weeks early at Gen Con, with local game stores in the Wizards Play Network allowed to release the Player's Handbook for early access on the 3rd of September 2024. The digital edition on D&D Beyond also came with early access for subscribers who pre-ordered, though the platform was criticized for being cluttered and complex. Wizards of the Coast also released an alternate cover edition available only in local game stores, with shipping delays pushing the release of the alternate cover outside of North America to October 2024. The standard edition features cover art by Tyler Jacobson showing a party of adventurers with a friendly golden dragon standing behind them, while the alternate cover features art by Wylie Beckert showing the party in a cave sharing a pot of tea with the dragon. Matt Bassil of Wargamer commented that the old cover was an obvious power fantasy while the new cover focused on the variety of DnD races and classes and the cool people you would be hanging out with. Josh Herman, head of art at Wizards of the Coast, explained that they liked making a not so aggressive cover which was a sweeter, calmer version of the standard cover, reflecting that combat is a huge pillar of D&D but sometimes a lot of what D&D is, is just storytelling. The 2024 update was announced as the fastest-selling Dungeons & Dragons product ever, surpassing Tasha's Cauldron of Everything to become the biggest product launch in the game's 50-year history, with BookScan reporting a total of 3,773 copies sold in the U.S. from chain retailers and independent booksellers.
The Art And The Audience
The Player's Handbook has consistently been judged not just on its rules but on its visual presentation and accessibility to new players. The original 1978 cover by D.A. Trampier was listed as number one in The Top 10 TSR Cover Paintings of All Time by Scott Taylor for Black Gate in 2014, while the 1983 Jeff Easley cover was listed as number five on the list of Top 10 Orange Spine AD&D Hardcovers. The 2014 5th Edition cover by Tyler Jacobson was praised for its action-packed composition and the female hero in a last ditch effort pose, while the 2024 alternate cover by Wylie Beckert was noted for its serene tea party vibe and the dragon grasping a normal-sized tea cup. Reviewers like Benjamin Abbott of GamesRadar+ highlighted that the 2024 edition is finally as lavish as expected, with grander hero art for each class, evocative illustrations for each subclass, and artwork displaying how a spell works every page or two. Joshua Rivera of Polygon praised the thoughtful layout and the organic path through the game's concepts, while Charlie Hall of Polygon emphasized the user-friendly aspects that seamlessly onboard players. However, critics like Chase Carter of Rascal and Christian Hoffer of ComicBook.com pointed out that the 2024 update played it safe and that the sourcebook features many changes that were already implemented via different expansions or exist in the same design space as third-party material. The reception of the 2024 edition was mixed, with some praising the improved layout and accessibility while others felt it lost a sense of place and character in terms of world-building and had issues with homogenisation.