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Unearthed Arcana
Unearthed Arcana (abbreviated UA) is the title shared by two hardback books published for different editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Both were designed as supplements to the core rulebooks, containing material that expanded upon other rules.
The original Unearthed Arcana was written primarily by Gary Gygax, and published by game publisher TSR in 1985 for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rules. The book consisted mostly of material previously published in magazines, and included new races, classes, and other material to expand the rules in the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook. The book was notorious for its considerable number of errors, and was received negatively by the gaming press whose criticisms targeted the over-powered races and classes, among other issues. Gygax intended to use the book's content for a planned second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; however, much of the book's content was not reused in the second edition, which went into development shortly after Gygax's departure from TSR.
A second book titled Unearthed Arcana was produced by Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons third edition in 2004. The designers did not reproduce material from the original book, but instead attempted to emulate its purpose by providing variant rules and options to change the game itself.
The title Unearthed Arcana is also used for a regular series on the official Dungeons & Dragons website that presents new playtest content for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition.
The original Unearthed Arcana was written by Gary Gygax with design and editing contributions by Jeff Grubb and Kim Mohan, respectively, and published by TSR in 1985. Gygax reportedly produced the book to raise money as TSR was deeply in debt at the time. He announced in the March 1985 issue of Dragon magazine that Unearthed Arcana would be released in the summer of that year. He proposed the book as "an interim volume to expand the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook", as the information was spread out in several places and difficult to keep track of. Unearthed Arcana was to include material previously published in Dragon, written by Gygax and updated and revised for the book. The book would also contain material that had not been published previously, some of it written by other contributors to Dragon. According to British writer Paul Cockburn, some of the material in Unearthed Arcana had been previously published in Imagine magazine.
The original Unearthed Arcana contains errors in its text, which readers discovered and reported to Dragon magazine. Even some positive reviews of the book pointed out the considerable number of mistakes. Dragon editor Kim Mohan, with ideas from Gygax, Frank Mentzer, and Jeff Grubb, addressed the many errors found in the book. In the November 1985 issue of Dragon magazine, Mohan printed four pages of rules corrections and new supplementary material intended to be inserted into the book, as well as some explanations and justifications for items which were not actually errors, and compiled a two-page list of type corrections meant to be pasted into further revisions of Unearthed Arcana. Dragon also devoted the entirety of its "Sage Advice" column in the January 1987 issue to answering questions from readers about Unearthed Arcana, as a follow-up to Mohan's prior column. However, the errata were not incorporated into later printings of the manual.
In 1999, a paperback reprint of the first edition was released.
Wizards of the Coast reproduced the original Unearthed Arcana in a premium edition featuring gilded pages, released on February 19, 2013, following the premium reprints of the original 1st Edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual. This reprint is the first printing of the book to be modified using the errata previously published in Dragon magazine incorporated into the corrected text.
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Unearthed Arcana
Unearthed Arcana (abbreviated UA) is the title shared by two hardback books published for different editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Both were designed as supplements to the core rulebooks, containing material that expanded upon other rules.
The original Unearthed Arcana was written primarily by Gary Gygax, and published by game publisher TSR in 1985 for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rules. The book consisted mostly of material previously published in magazines, and included new races, classes, and other material to expand the rules in the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook. The book was notorious for its considerable number of errors, and was received negatively by the gaming press whose criticisms targeted the over-powered races and classes, among other issues. Gygax intended to use the book's content for a planned second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; however, much of the book's content was not reused in the second edition, which went into development shortly after Gygax's departure from TSR.
A second book titled Unearthed Arcana was produced by Wizards of the Coast for Dungeons & Dragons third edition in 2004. The designers did not reproduce material from the original book, but instead attempted to emulate its purpose by providing variant rules and options to change the game itself.
The title Unearthed Arcana is also used for a regular series on the official Dungeons & Dragons website that presents new playtest content for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition.
The original Unearthed Arcana was written by Gary Gygax with design and editing contributions by Jeff Grubb and Kim Mohan, respectively, and published by TSR in 1985. Gygax reportedly produced the book to raise money as TSR was deeply in debt at the time. He announced in the March 1985 issue of Dragon magazine that Unearthed Arcana would be released in the summer of that year. He proposed the book as "an interim volume to expand the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook", as the information was spread out in several places and difficult to keep track of. Unearthed Arcana was to include material previously published in Dragon, written by Gygax and updated and revised for the book. The book would also contain material that had not been published previously, some of it written by other contributors to Dragon. According to British writer Paul Cockburn, some of the material in Unearthed Arcana had been previously published in Imagine magazine.
The original Unearthed Arcana contains errors in its text, which readers discovered and reported to Dragon magazine. Even some positive reviews of the book pointed out the considerable number of mistakes. Dragon editor Kim Mohan, with ideas from Gygax, Frank Mentzer, and Jeff Grubb, addressed the many errors found in the book. In the November 1985 issue of Dragon magazine, Mohan printed four pages of rules corrections and new supplementary material intended to be inserted into the book, as well as some explanations and justifications for items which were not actually errors, and compiled a two-page list of type corrections meant to be pasted into further revisions of Unearthed Arcana. Dragon also devoted the entirety of its "Sage Advice" column in the January 1987 issue to answering questions from readers about Unearthed Arcana, as a follow-up to Mohan's prior column. However, the errata were not incorporated into later printings of the manual.
In 1999, a paperback reprint of the first edition was released.
Wizards of the Coast reproduced the original Unearthed Arcana in a premium edition featuring gilded pages, released on February 19, 2013, following the premium reprints of the original 1st Edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual. This reprint is the first printing of the book to be modified using the errata previously published in Dragon magazine incorporated into the corrected text.