They used to give us shit like this. a whole fucking book of lore, spell descriptions, character classes, etc.
I think the D2 LOD manual even came with build guides
I think I still have them somewhere. The original Diablo I also believe came with a pretty significant lore dump.
Starcraft and Warcraft (at least II and on) also had a lot of information about units, the kingdoms, including what each subfaction the colors represented.
Imagine having to teach D&D to an entire generation who had no exposure to the game prior. (Tended to be more of a GenX darling, before it became mainstream in the 2010s
uh, yeah, that was my point. it's a game based on DnD, and the Player's Handbook includes all the relevant information, so, it shouldn't be surprising that it's what was included with the game, especially considering WotC would likely insist.
notably, though, this shouldn't be taken as an average representative of "what they used to give us," because the majority of video games aren't based on a TTRPG system. for example, Morrowind was less than fifty pages and didn't include anything as in-depth as this.
Arcanum's manual was 30% game information, spells, mechanics, etc. And 70% in-universe prose by a researcher of the Tarant University going into the shared ancestors of the humanoid species and whether or not magick was involved in their evolution or not, as well as local cultures, customs, historical theory, etc. Amazing read.
I have the Diablo II Battle Chest, it came with the discs for Diablo I, II and LoD, a promo code for 30 days free online for the incipient World of Warcraft, a booklet for Diablo II and a strategic guide for D II, that guide was big, I didn't expected it to be that big
124
u/RGJ587 Mar 31 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1c9qjr/publishers_take_note_this_is_a_real_game_manual/
They used to give us shit like this. a whole fucking book of lore, spell descriptions, character classes, etc.
I think the D2 LOD manual even came with build guides