The PDF Is great, and very usable, espeically if you want to snip text and things for your own printouts.

The POD is amazing looking. It took almost a month to get here as they sent me 2 Unearthed Arcana book incorrectly, but it seems they've fixed the issue. That said, the printed book is easily worth the money. Its crisp and well put together.

BLURRY print. The scan is very unclear and causes headaches to read. The general content is wonderful of course... but the reprint is a fiasco to read.

This review is for the quality of the book itself and not so much the contents or rules themselves.

I received my copy today. For those who had the original, by looking at the cover it's fairly obvious this is a reprint, but a very nice looking one. Someone who never had the original to compare it to probably wouldn't notice. It's very slick and shony and quite attractive. The back cover has a big ding in it - a very noticeable one - from where one of the mail people obviously dropped or threw the package. Although I'm not angry about this, and based on some other reviews, kind of expected it, I have to echo those other reviews in that, for the price, they could have used a little bubble wrap to prevent this.

As for the interior, the pages are thick and durable-looking, though I want to keep water from from it as it looks like a drop of water could do a lot of damage to these kinds of pages! The book opened with a satisfying crack. Some of the pages are slightly blurrier than others but after skimming and flipping through a few times I didn't see any particularly bad ones. Overall the print quality was fine, the green color bars above tables seem about right, and the full-color maps in the back are beautiful, and will be useful to me in other games as well since I often run in the world of Mystara regardless of version or edition being used. I do wonder why a scanned PDF had to be used at all; if this is being done by permission of WotC, doesn't WotC own the original proofs or whatever? Couldn't they have provided these instead of forcing the printer to use a scanned PDF? In any case, the quality is still quite good, and wasn't close to as jarring or shaky as some reviewers made me afraid it would be. It was certainly crisp enough for me to read.

Overall I would give it 5 stars but the bad packaging leading to a damaged product detracted slightly, as does my question about the need to use a scanned PDF at all. In reality I would probably give it 4 1/2 if I could. I'm quite pleased with the product and it even makes me want to run a classic D&D game sometime.

Just got the POD ersion last week and finally had a chance to review, the pront is verry blurry amd some pges so blurry that it gives me a headache to read.

I ordered the Print On Demand version and got it 2/12/18. Bashed corners due to inadequate packing when mailed (that's what happens with only a cardboard wrapper for protection), and the printing on my spine isn't centered well. I've requested a replacement, so we'll see how it looks when I receive it.

The binding is excellent, and the pages are thick and have a nice weight (but aren't glossy, like the newer rulebooks). While the print quality is good, it's far from perfect. Granted it's perfectly readable, but when you take a close look, you can easily tell it's a scan, since the text is not sharp, and the boxes images are in can have jagged lines since they were not scanned straight (although some pages fair better than others). Take a look at the full sized sample pdf and you'll know what to generally expect.

Be aware that while well organized, it's not as tightly written as modern rulebooks. For example, regaining hit points for resting has been left out (although it's in the Moldvay and Mentzer Basic books). Also, on page 102 it says you can't do two things in one round, and on the next page it says you can move your full speed and attack in the same round. There are many more examples, all thoroughly examined by the community, if you'd like to investigate.

It doesn't matter much to me though. I've spent the weekend going through it, and it's a fun read, especially to see what changes they made between it and older B/X/BECMI rulesets. I own the Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert box sets, and while I'm not sure anyone needs the extra stuff that's in the RC, it is nice to have if you want to experience the history of D&D. So if you want to own a hard copy of this ruleset, and have no interest in spending whatever absurd amount of money people are asking for an original copy, it's a no brainer...get it (4/5 for quality of scan and rules inconsistancies).

Ordered the POD hardcover. The print quality is poor. The letters are blurry instead of crisp.

It looks like a crappy print from an old inkjet printer that has a bad alignment. Blurred and ghosted text abound.

Disappointing, especially concerning the cost of the print.

This is an incredible book for those who want to go back to the basics for roleplay. It has all the special rules for a ton of situations for you to geek out with and remember your early days in the hobby! I can't say enough how much I enjoy having this book and the fun we're going to have with it.

This is a good scan of the product. The text is clear, and I cannot see any evidence of anti-aliasing or blurring of the letters when zoomed in. These two PDFs work fine on my old, underpowered tablet, zoomed in on my phone, and on my Kindle (not all PDFs sold here load quickly and work properly on these three devices). The bookmarks are well done.

This was never my favorite version of D&D (since I'm not a huge fan of racial classes), but I did really enjoy it before I got into AD&D. The fact that the two are almost completely rules- compatible was a huge help. It didn't take very much to bridge the two. The page layout is also iconic of an earlier, simpler time in games.

This is the essential complete volume of Basic D&D. All rules are compiled into one handy book. If WOTC tried this in 5e or in the future 6e, I would certainly buy it for its portability, handiness, and critical role.

One of the best versions of Dungeons & Dragons. The book is well written with detail and has everything inside (rules, monsters, equipment, classes, etc) to get started playing. If that is not enough the site has lots of old school legendary adventures that are compatible with this classic edition of D&D. The book conveys the spirit and feel of true old school D&D. I highly recommend it to every gamer that enjoys fantasy roleplaying games.

This brings back memories of the late 70's when I started D&D. Many of the rules I won't use, but there are many little forgotten gems that I will be using for my campaign. A good buy.

The scan of the book isn't really nice, but readable. It can use a lot of improvement for digital consumption.

Test prints to Epson L210 at 70g. result in good copy print with a bit fading on the edges of the text, highlights on the tabes, and some images.

Brother HL1110 is good too, except that darker colored images tends to merge together. Perhaps if this is a grey scale version, this can be perfect, Text fading seems less evident.

Overall, if you just read it on paper prints and 100% zoom on pdf reader, it's already satisfactory. However, if you are meticulous or expect a retina display on digital tablets, its a bit frustrating when zoomig to more than 400%.

Just price it at $4.95 until it gets better... A deal I am satisfied.

The scan quality is disappointing. No matter how I resize the file for easier viewing, the text is just too fuzzy; I get a headache trying to read it for more than 5 minutes. For such a significant product, which likely brings in a massive cash flow for both the publisher and this website, I'm astonished a higher quality scan wasn't done. The copy of the book they scanned seems in great shape, but the DPI settings they used for the scan were pretty low. This is definitely nowhere near 300 DPI!

As far as the content goes: This version of the D&D rules is one of the best out there, and this particular product is an excellent, complete, crisp compilation of its rules, if a bit dated. It's just a shame the quality of this file is so low that I'm basically unable to use it...

As far as game books go the D&D Rules Cyclopedia offers what may be the best value for your money. It certainly has sentimental value for us old school gamers who remember when elf, dwarf, and halfling were classes and playing D&D didn't require pouring through sourcebooks to decide what kind of fighter to play. It harkens back to an earlier age when RPG rules were simple, uncluttered, and the game was more about imagination than balancing skills and character options.

Beyond the nostalgia value there is still a lot to love about this product. In addition to character generation it covers rules for making characters immortal, game world information for Mystara, a little bit of the Hollow World setting, monsters, treasure, converting characters to and from OD&D to AD&D, and large scale combat. Seriously, it has everything but the kitchen sink! I highly recommend this product for any D&D fan-young or old, new or experienced.