I’ve had AD&D 1st Edition on my shelf for years. I’ve dipped into the Rules Cyclopedia more times than I can count. I’ve read chunks of the original books. But I’ve never read everything, and I’ve never read any of it in the order it was actually published.
So I’m going to do it. Starting with the 1974 three-volume set - Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures - and working through every major rulebook TSR published, in chronological order, all the way to the end of 2nd Edition in 1996.
56 books. Roughly 7,800 pages. 22 years of publishing history.
Why Chronological?
Most people encounter D&D editions in isolation. You play 5e, maybe you’ve flipped through an old AD&D book at a shop. But you don’t see how the game evolved.
Reading in publication order changes that. You see the thief class appear for the first time in Supplement I: Greyhawk. You watch psionics show up in Eldritch Wizardry and immediately understand why they’ve been controversial ever since. You hit Holmes Basic in 1977 and realise TSR was already trying to make the game more accessible before AD&D even had a Players Handbook.
The overlaps are the interesting part. In August 1983, TSR published the Mentzer Expert Set and Monster Manual II in the same month - two completely different games running in parallel. In June 1986, the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide and the Immortals Rules came out together. One game goes underground. The other reaches godhood.
You don’t see any of that unless you read in order.
The Format: Shorts
I’m recording these as YouTube Shorts. One page, one reaction, one Short.
No scripts. No editing plan. I sit at the table with the book open, read what’s in front of me, and react. If something’s interesting, surprising, or just plain weird, that’s a Short.
This isn’t a review series. It’s more like reading notes - what catches my eye when I actually sit down and read cover to cover instead of dipping in and out.
Some pages won’t get a Short. Nobody needs my reaction to a spell list. But when I hit something like “a character needs 3,001 XP to reach level 2 as a Magic-User” - yeah, that’s getting recorded.
The Long Game
The Shorts are raw material. Over time, patterns will emerge - enough clips about character creation across different editions to cut a proper long-form video comparing how D&D handled it from 1974 to 1996. Enough reactions to the various monster books to put together a “how D&D monsters evolved” piece.
The Shorts feed the channel. The long-form videos are where the actual analysis happens. Both have value on their own.
The Reading List
Here’s what I’m working through, in order:
OD&D (1974-1976): The original three-volume set, plus all four supplements - Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, and Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes.
Holmes Basic (1977): The blue book. TSR’s first attempt at an introductory rulebook.
AD&D 1st Edition (1977-1988): Monster Manual, Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Deities & Demigods, Fiend Folio, Monster Manual II, Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures, both Survival Guides, Manual of the Planes, Dragonlance Adventures, and Greyhawk Adventures.
The AD&D 1st Edition Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide - where most people’s nostalgia lives.
B/X (1981): Moldvay Basic and Cook/Marsh Expert - the edition the OSR loves most.
BECMI (1983-1991): All five Mentzer box sets from Basic to Immortals, plus the Rules Cyclopedia.
The Rules Cyclopedia - all of BECMI compiled into one 304-page book. A quiet farewell to Basic D&D.
AD&D 2nd Edition (1989-1996): Core books, Monstrous Manual, Legends & Lore, Tome of Magic, Book of Artifacts, all fifteen Complete Handbooks, and the Player’s Option series.
These interleave chronologically - so I’ll be jumping between product lines as TSR published them. That’s the point. It’s not five separate reading projects. It’s one story.
Follow Along
I’ll be posting the Shorts on the Fumble Table YouTube channel, organised into playlists by book. Subscribe if you want to see D&D evolve one page at a time.
This is going to take a while. I’m fine with that.
