Retrospective: Unearthed Arcana

Believe it or not, I've never done a formal Retrospective of 1985's Unearthed Arcana. Like me, you might have thought I'd done so, but what you're remembering is an early, rather hyperbolic post entitled "Why Unearthed Arcana Sucked." Since I'm already in the midst of writing several posts that revisit topics I've covered before on this blog, I thought it might be worthwhile to begin by tackling UA, since it's an important book for both the history of AD&D and for the OSR. 

Re-reading my original 2008 post in preparation for this one, I couldn't help but wince a little. It's not so much that I have changed my mind on most of the topics I addressed in it, but rather that I wouldn't phrase my objections so intemperately. The original post and comments are nevertheless worth reading. They're a useful window into the mindset of the early OSR and the diversity of opinion that existed within it on a whole host of topics. Valuable though that 2008 post is as a historical text, it doesn't represent my considered evaluation of Unearthed Arcana and its place in the history of Dungeons & Dragons (and the hobby more generally). 

Before proceeding into the meat of the matter, some background. I was an avid reader and subscriber of Dragon for a five-year period starting in 1982. During that time, one of my favorite recurring columns was Gary Gygax's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll." In those columns, Gygax would often share previews of new rules additions to AD&D, many of which he said would be formally added into the game with the publication of its eventual second edition. I often introduced some of these additions into my ongoing campaign and found I liked some more than others – I generally disliked the new character classes, but I mostly approved of the new spells, for example. This was fine, because none of the options were yet "official" and I could pick and choose which ones to use.

Owing to a number of real world factors – primarily, TSR's financial troubles and Gygax's attempts to save it – plans changed. The additions Gygax originally intended for a new edition of AD&D were all bundled together, along with some additional material, to fill out a new 128-page book called Unearthed Arcana. The book was announced with great fanfare in the pages of Dragon and, of course, I snapped it up as soon as I found a copy at my local B. Dalton. I then spent untold hours poring over it so that I could incorporate its "new discoveries ... [and] a wealth of just uncovered secrets" into my own campaign.

Unfortunately, the book I took home and read that day in 1985 was nowhere near as good as I imagined it would be. To be fair, I'm not sure that it could have ever lived up to my expectations and I suspect that my disappointments then have forever colored my feelings about Unearthed Arcana. Even so, the book presents numerous problems that I do think are worthy of discussion. The most immediate of these is that, as printed, it's riddled with typos, omissions, and outright errors, probably due to the haste with which the book was put together. I still keep a two-page list of additions and corrections to UA that appeared in the November 1985 issue of Dragon inside the front cover of my copy. These problems made using a lot of its contents frustrating and led to numerous misunderstandings.

A much bigger problem is that Unearthed Arcana represents a clear and significant shift in the power level of AD&D characters. Both the barbarian and cavalier classes, for example, are very potent, with a wide range of abilities. Many of the new demihuman races are similarly more powerful, particularly in light of the wider range of classes available and levels attainable by non-human characters. Combined with weapons specialization (for fighters and rangers), mightier magic items, and greater flexibility for spellcasters (thanks to cantrips and new spells), the overall effect of Unearthed Arcana is to push AD&D in a direction that's generally higher-powered.

Now, many players might not mind this and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with this approach. However, I think I'm correct in saying that the direction UA heralded was a clear change from the earlier presentation of AD&D. Gygax states in his preface to the book that "the AD&D® game system is dynamic. It grows and changes and expands." That's a fair point. I have no doubt that, for many who had been playing AD&D since its completion in 1979, welcomed the growth and changes Unearthed Arcana brought with it. For me, then and now, it was a step too far, evidence that, after a certain point, you can change a thing too much for it to remain the thing it once was.

In retrospect, it seems odd that I should feel this way about UA. As I explained at the beginning of this post, I loved Gary Gygax's columns in Dragon, even the ones whose content I didn't use in my own campaign. Individually, they possessed a freshness that was very appealing. They suggested that AD&D still had new horizons to cross, new frontiers to explore. When assembled together, all the little additions Gygax had released piecemeal over the years now seemed to lack that freshness that had once appealed to me. They seemed not merely stale but ponderous and even restrictive. It's difficult to explain, but, somehow, the transformation of Gygax's proposals into "official" rules laid down in a hardcover book had robbed them of the fun and vibrancy they once possessed in my mind. 

As I flip through Unearthed Arcana today, I find it difficult to dislike most of its contents. Taken individually, like the original articles in which they appeared, most of them are fine as optional additions or expansions of the AD&D rules. I can easily imagine using many of the spells or magic items, for instance, and I still think the thief-acrobat is a fun addition for certain kinds of campaigns. As a whole, though, UA remains disappointing to me and I'd never use all of its contents. Perhaps if Gygax had had more time to develop them, I might feel differently, but, as it is, Unearthed Arcana is the book that started to shake my confidence in Gygax, TSR, and D&D itself – which goes some way to explain why I've often been so immoderate in expressing my negative opinion of it.