So I’m moving up in the world, and am now a VP. So I have an office, and it has a bookshelf. One of the things I’ve noticed is that a lot of executives miss the opportunity to send a clear message with the contents of their bookshelves.
Not me.
I want to let my gamer freak flag fly. So, Dopers, tell me: Which version of D&D should I have on my bookshelf? Please feel free to make the case for your choice below.
Note that I’m not including OD&D because I don’t have that one - I started late, with first edition AD&D. And I’m not including 3.0, because 3.5 is just better. Feel free to disagree with me.
You should display your own favorite, and possibly some favorite figurines. I’d go with the original boxed set, myself, but that’s because I have very fond memories of it.
Other options would be to display some attractive but bad rolling dice, and by bad rolling I mean either that they consistently roll poorly or that they are those crystal caste dice.
For non-D&D geekiness, I have an hourglass which I refer to as a lifetimer. It’s decorated with skulls. I also have a clear plastic skull, because I’m too damned cheap to pay for a crystal skull, even if I could find one. A crystal skull was one of the treasures in Zork.
You should display whichever version you’re most familiar with or like best. because if anyone does notice, you want to be able to chat about it. Or, of course, you could display all of them.
Hmmm…just from an aesthetic/manipulative weasel point of view, I’d go with older as possible. The latest editions might give the impression that you got the newest (read: easiest to find) books simply as decor, that you’re just crafting a facade of geekiness. A battered old Dungeon Master’s Guide may give the impression that your geek cred runs deep, and faithfully.
On the other hand, that might also give the impression that you’re stodgy, stuck in the past, and hostile towards new ideas…
The problem with older is that it is now old enough that it suggests that you, yourself, are old–especially since there’s never been a significant revival of younger people picking up the older editions to actually play them.
Was a time when a boxed set on your shelf said “I was into gaming before it was cool”. Now a boxed set says “I am so old that I was around before gaming was cool”.
Whether that is a good or bad thing depends on your own persona and the corporate culture and all that jazz. But do note that first edition is 35 years old at this point. It’s two generations back now, not one.
I don’t really think it matters. Some time in the future it will dawn on you that you were once the kind of guy that left shit out on display to impress other people. It used to be books or magazines or CDs. It doesn’t really matter what it is, I imagine once it was tulip bulbs, but you’ll wonder, “What was I thinking?”
3e and 4e are both better systems than 2nd edition, but that’s the one that I cut my D&D teeth on. It wins out purely on nostalgia.
I also bought most of them with my own money in high school, so they represented a significant outlay for me at the time. They still have a high value in my brain.
Oh good god, THAC0 was positively weird, but it grew on you quickly.
But yeah, anything first or second edition is suitably old enough to escalate your geek cred. I’ve still got a full set of second edition stuff in a closet somewhere.
AD&D, and not the second set of covers, either. I’m talking the crayon Monster Manual, the big ol’ red dude DMG, and the big fat idol Player’s Handbook.
That’s what I’d go with as well. With a little determination and no small sum of cash anyone can lay their hands on the OD&D pamphlets, but it would be kind of like having an ENIAC (not to be confused with Eleniak) programming manual on your shelf–the system existed, it was foundational, and the odds are astronomical that anyone putting it on display is just a poser who never actually used it. 1st ed AD&D and a set of dice with the numbers filled with black marker–books & dice in battered condition would be the gamer equivalent of whichever prison/gang tatoos say “danger” to the initiated.
If the goal is geek cred, then you want to go old-school. Yes, this does end up implying something about your own personal age as well, but that’s not something to be ashamed of.
Just remember, old age and treachery will always defeat youth and skill.
