What is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition and Why Play It Instead of a Modern Edition?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 มี.ค. 2020
- Tonight, I attempt to provide a comprehensive overview and review of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, many of its most popular supplements, its iconic settings, and suggestions for who might want to run AD&D 2nd Edition instead of a more recent edition of D&D.
You can access my House Rules for AD&D 2e here: drive.google.com/file/d/1Ft60...
You can snag a free copy of For Gold & Glory (the AD&D 2e OSR game mentioned in this video) here: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...
You can snag a PDF and/or Print on Demand copy of the AD&D 2nd Edition Player's Handbook here: www.dmsguild.com/product/1686...
You can snag a PDF and/or Print on Demand copy of the AD&D 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide here: www.dmsguild.com/product/1755...
You can snag a PDF and/or Print on Demand copy of the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual here: www.dmsguild.com/product/1686...
If you enjoyed this video, I would ask that you consider making a donation to the SOS Children's Villages charity through the Heroes Save Villages campaign, which can be found at the link below.
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I currently DM a group of 7 players in AD&D 2E and we've been playing every week for over 9 months now. I didn't play for 30 years and a group came together and asked me to be the DM. My old books and box sets still work just fine and the players are enjoying it.
That is awesome to hear, Justin! Thanks for watching, and your comment, and I hope your campaign is going great!
I wish I lived near you. I want to play so bad lol.
I hope your still playing.
More power to you. I've tried to get people interested in a 1st/2nd edition game, but to no avail. I really miss those days
@@dougrutledge532 playing D&D first and second edition shows you have Class 👍🤟.Don't give up brother!
sick man, I've got an AD&D 2E Monstrous Manual and the Arms and Equipment Guide.
I used to play 1st Ed back in the 90's with my brother, sister and some friends, my nephew, sisters' son, was like 8 and wanted to play and asked to play a pixie because they seemed neat. So first battle we get in, he asks if he can cast a spell like his mom, so DM says sure, but all you have is a cantrip. He says, in the cutest matter of fact tone, "Ok, I summon a can to trip the goblin". Who could argue with that logic? So that became a thing until he was high enough to get real spells, you gotta love kid logic. The next year his sister joined in as a Sprite, and that was a new collection of chaos from her.
Ha ha, that is adorable! Thanks so much for sharing the war story. :)
@@DungeonMusings My pleasure, thank you for the refresher of good old days!
I just found your link. This was pure GOLD. Thanks for doing this. Being an old dude, I played Basic, then Advanced, and then 2nd Edition. I have bought the books for newer editions, and seen them played, but I prefer the players coming up with ideas to solve problems instead of giving them all the answers in special abilities. I also feel that WOTC is just mining us for more money.. republishing prior ideas for newer editions. I loved your house rules and agree with 99% of them. I can tell by your delivery that you'd be a great DM on any platform.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Steve. :)
mee too i started with the red box, and carried on, love 2nd ed
another important part of 2e initiative is that players announce intentions before rolling. which is nice because by the time initiative is rolled, the game keeps moving rather than slowing down as each player "takes a turn."
Completely agree. We did a retrospective of our first year of running the Night Below mega-adventure with 2e, and the pacing of combat was one of the things the guys cited as their favorites, and the risk/reward decisions that players of spellcasters engage in, as they try to get spells off before getting tagged by an attack, and losing the spell. :)
That is why I like using one of the later, more complicated, initiative options from 2nd edition where players may act multiple times based on their choices. It makes combat seem more realistic with multiple attacks and changing battlefield conditions.
I also like the various options to speed up or protect against spell disruptions, especially since BTB, a successful attack is enough to disrupt spellcasting with damage being irrelevant. Taking a proficiency like concentration can allow a spellcaster to still get a spell off.
Amen. It's been so long since I played 2E that I completely forgot about this, but yes... as a GM and a player of modern TTRPGs sometimes every round of combat feels agonizing as everyone discusses what each character should do *when* that player's turn comes around.
Combat in 2E was a much quicker and more cinematic thing when at the outset of each round characters declared their actions. No debate or discussion about the best power of class feature to use for each individual person as their turn came up at the table.
That first release of 2nd edition has some of the best art in roll play history.
100% agree. :)
I've been re-re-reading the PHB to play 2e again, and I had that same thought. The color artwork is iconic and evocative. The black and white is still damn good. It has feel to it. You know what those characters are feeling and thinking just by looking at the artwork.
the cartoons in original 1st, they were the best....
some of the best art in history
2e was the majority of my player/GM experience.
Fantastic. :)
Over the past year I started running a 2e game that's open table, so I have like 15+ players total. Everyone including myself came from 5e so it's been really fun seeing the differences. I'm enjoying running this 2e game a whole lot more honestly. All the "scary" things the players initially complained about like THAC0 turned out to be really easy to understand.
That is terrific to hear, Brandon!
While the first version of AD&D I played was 1st Ed, 2nd was what we played in all my groups through college and several years after. It is definitely the "middle child" of editions, but there is a lot to love: it corrected some of the cludgy baggage and mechanics of the previous edition, and moved toward a more story-friendly approach, while still maintaining the danger of the old school dungeon crawl. Proficiencies, Kits, and (controversial opinion) psionics were all high points for me.
I am one of the few who actually likes the Monstrous Compendiums. It allowed me to pull the monsters I knew I would need for the day's gaming session, and I did not have to flip through a whole book to find what I needed.
2nd edition is the version of the game I put more time into than any of the others. I was in the military during it's heyday, we we gamed alot, and I mean alot. While I don't use the rules set anymore due to some rough edges, I still have many books for it that I use for converting settings, etc. I have many fond memories of this game and I could talk with you for days on this game and we would never run out of things to mention.
Returning to dnd as an adult, a bought the 5e books and read them... And wtf? It isn't the same game at all. I played 1e as a kid, but 2e is just perfect. Love it, I can't believe no one plays it. Great video.
Yeah, the so-called 5e is really just TTJRPG light. Every class gets super powers.
I love AD&D. I played it as a kid and now at 47 I'm running it again, and have been for a few years now. It's such an amazing game and newer D&D players would do themselves a great service by giving AD&D 2e a shot. And don't worry about the balance that much. Just have fun. There is this obsession in modern game builds that every player has to be somehow exactly as effective as the next player. I find it just makes those games bland and you can feel that artificial constraint of "game balance". Sure, players who want to can figure out a way to break the balance in AD&D but they'll do that in any game. Just make your character and get into the world. Have fun and roll for initiative.
Thanks for your comment, Jason! I totally agree that the lack of concern over balance adds to the unique experience with these old school games.
I think the whole "characters need to be balanced" thing comes from competitive video games. Back in the day when we played, nobody kept track of how much damage anyone was doing. All we cared about was that people were having a good time.
@@TheRockinDonkey 100% agree. The "Keeping Up With the Joneses" aspect of relative PC power is an unfortunate new development, largely driven, I think, by the proliferation of websites offering "think pieces" on the comparative "value" of classes.
@@TheRockinDonkey it's less about general competition between players... And more toxic behavior at the table.
I've played that overpowered character in the group, and the GM repeatedly tried to scale the challenge to 'challenge my broken character' when there was genuinely no need to do that. I was happy to hang back and feel no stronger than the rest of the party (unless an emergency pops up where that power is needed) but a toxic GM looks at the sheet and starts an arms race.
On the opposite side of the coin, toxic powergamers exist who thrive on dominating the table in play, hogging all the spotlight in battle and making the other players feel like their characters aren't important.
So long as everyone at the table is a good person who wants to share fun with everyone else and doesn't get wrapped up in 'the game' it's all good
@@priestesslucy3299 I agree 100%. Competitiveness isn't necessarily unhealthy. It can add fun to the game if it's done in the spirit of fun and not belittling someone else because they aren't "keeping up".
Refreshing to see someone advocate AD&D 2nd Edition without disparaging other versions of the game. I love 2nd Edition, but I'm currently playing 5e because it's what my stepdaughter knows and I didn't want both of us having to learn 2nd Edition rules (it's been so long I need to re-learn pretty much everything, so why not learn the latest version?). At the end of the day, if you're enjoying yourself playing tabletop games, that's what matters.
Thanks very much for the kind words, RD. I 100% agree that the only thing that matters is finding the right fit for your table. Hope you have a blast relearning/teaching 2e and thanks again!
I just switched my group from 5e to 2nd edition. It’s not much to learn it’s actually much easier to run than 5e. Thac0 is easily converted to modern ascending ac. Ability scores are much easier it’s just roll under ability score and combat is much faster and easier to balance
I thought it was the lack of women warriors.
I happen to be fond of the "firing into melee" rules 2nd Edition had.
Terrific if they worked for you! 2e is all about different strokes.
I used those rules as well as called shots so one could choose their targets rather than being random.
I used to play AD&D 2e as a kid, and while I don't play any old school RPGs these days, I sometimes miss the lethality of AD&D. There is nothing like having a real risk of death and then surviving a difficult encounter,;r even series of game sessions in a single campaign.
One of the most memorable campaigns I played in as a teenager was an AD&D campaign that took about 6 months to finish--one 8 hour session every Saturday. The DM was amazing, frankly, and the game was incredibly lethal.
Very rarely did you end up with a character who lived until level 3; and you are absolutely correct, I got attached to each and every character I played. That campaign ended with me retrieving the magic item at the center of the campaign--literally every other character died during the last fight. I was so close to death, and had two levels drained, that when I stumbled back into town I traded this magic item to a temple that would heal me and restore just one of my levels. So there I was, a level 2 fighter and the only survivor of the Castle Pause who had traded away the thing that had cost hundreds of people their lives for my own life--and I was happy to do it!
That character carried over to the next campaign, and literally within the first hour of the first session he died when a rock ceiling collapsed on him (I made two of the three consecutive saving throws against death I need to survive...) and I can honestly say I did not feel cheated at all. I just rolled a new character and started over.
Around the same time I played in a campaign where a lot of the players had never played an RPG before, and since character death was a given the DM had a set of rules that I think really helped teach the game to the players.
When your character died, you were not allowed to re-roll the same character class *until* you had played one character from each class available in the Players Handbook. Multiclassing worked in a similar way--you were not allowed to multiclass a character in a particular class until you had actually played a character of your second class.
Like I said above, I play modern RPGs still and, while I am content with how they play, I often get into philosophical discussions with players who never experienced these older games where death was a very *real* threat to your PC. Many of them seem shocked that GMs and systems could be so "callous" and unfair to the players; however, I am of the opinion that, while modern systems are great and I am not complaining, there really is something about having a *real* fear of losing your character.
It makes each encounter that much more intense and makes the idea that this hallway you are about to walk down might be trapped something to really worry about. It also promotes that type of emergent gameplay you are talking about here, because often as not players are inspired to come up with novel and creative ways to get around obstacles or to find solutions to that pack of goblins other than charging in with weapons out.
I also vividly remember how excited I was to get my first AD&D from level one to level five--only to have him die two sessions later. 😂
Reading the magical items chapter of ADD2 Dungeon Master Guide is like walking in the cave of Ali Baba or Smaug's (stolen) treasure vault. Reading the same chapters in editions after ADD2 feel like reading Ikea catalogue (D&D4 being the biggest offender).
Gygax's prose make me want to touch each of those magical items, especially my favorite ones: the marvelous figurines and the enchanted tarot.
RIP Gary, I miss you. You may balance classes like potato, but I can't deny the power of your prose. I WANTED to walk those lands where you invited millions of people of all walks of life. I want to feel the burning sun of Athas, sails the seas of stars in Windjammer, sleep under the trees of Greyhawk, play a game of cards with fantasy races walking in the City of Sigil, feel a chill down my spine in the corridors of a lost castle in Ravenloft and jump in the cart of a merchant caravan heading to the Far East of the Forgotten Realms.
As a huge fan of D&D4e.
GOD, it's magic items are just awful and bland.
Shit magic items already got bland in 3e "So we pulled back the curtain on magic item scaling, also we made all the fun items way more expensive than the boring +X shit".
Underrated comment right here!!
Gygax had no part in 2nd edition.
@@williamhanses7651 Gygax had a huge part in 2nd edition. Aside from being based on 1e that he wrote, entire sections of text were copy/pasted directly from his own earlier writings. Compare magic item descriptions in the 1e and 2e DMGs, or spell descriptions in the 1e and 2e PHs; aside from minor tweaks to game mechanics (e.g. changing a range of 12" to just 12, without the inch symbol), many of them are word-for-word identical. Gygax wrote a sizable chunk of 2e, even if he did it unknowingly, years before.
I really like this guy, great views and is giving the facts clearly and with information for better information absorption
Thanks very much for the kind words, John, they are greatly appreciated. I am glad that you enjoyed the overview. :)
One thing I like about AD&D 2E is attributes serving as target numbers, with bonuses or penalties applied. It means that any two 2E character sheets have dramatically different mechanical fortunes at the table than any two sheets from later editions which use CR targets. Two different attribute spreads in 5E (for instance) are far less dissimilar because of the way attributes boil down to a -5 through +5 modifier spread, as opposed to two different attribute spreads in Second Edition.
2E characters sheets feel more unique and more personal, which makes their stories feel more special.
I totally agree, Hero, the granularity with the AD&D 2e stat bonuses, and their interaction with the proficiency system makes for more variety and more competence, even at lower levels.
You hit upon something that really bothers me about D&D 3+, which is that attributes are largely meaningless. In reality, you could replace them with a number from -1 to +4 (or 1 to 6 if you want to eliminate negatives and 0). Why have 3-18?
We always used to do lots of "skill checks" that were 1d20
@@garrick3727 Yeah. I feel like this approach could very, very easily be homebrewed into 5E since it has a built in skills list. Just remove DCs for checks (which makes things easier on the DM for sure) and give players a number of points every few levels to sink into their skills. But I'm not sure if it breaks the 5E game. I do not think it would.
@@garrick3727 I've thought about adding Perception, and maybe Willpower, to base stats as well. I don't suppose you have some blog where you've written up play sessions, or a theory thread on a message board? Thx in advance!
@@ldl1477 Unfortunately I am not that organized. From a theory perspective, the problem of having too many stats is worse than having too few. With too few, they all do double or triple duty but each one is fairly distinctive in itself - you never have to think too hard about which attribute to use. But when you have more attributes you create more confusion and more dump stats. My reason for "perception" was that I found that I was rolling whether a person noticed something very often, and the default attribute for that is Wisdom, which is not an attribute that tends to have a high value for rogues and other physical types. On the other hand, clerics were very good at spotting things - which made no sense. So my thinking was that perception would be a "mental" ability that was geared more towards rogues. Willpower is more tricky because you could argue that there are aspects of it in Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma and even Constitution. My motivation was, once again, that I did not see why Clerics would have high resistance to magic but Magic Users would not. I also thought there was an argument for having a "mental" stat that was of interest to Fighters and Rogues, since it made sense that a disciplined Fighter would have strong resistance to mind control etc.. However, I have also toyed with the idea of making Charisma the "willpower" stat since it makes Charisma more useful and it makes sense in a force-of-personality kind of way (I have never considered Charisma to have any bearing on physical appearance - which is something many people assume). Overall though, Willpower is more difficult than Perception because it is less clearly a standalone concept. Also, if you remove both Perception and Willpower from Wisdom then Wisdom becomes almost useless except for Cleric spells.
In general, I recommend looking at other systems where they change the attributes a little, like Dungeon Crawl Classics. Also, Runequest and Call of Cthulhu have six slightly different attributes and one of them might be Perception iirc. It's not a decision to take lightly and we found that we were changing our homebrew rules every few sessions.
AD&D 2e was my introduction to the world of TTRPG way back in the 90's in high school. I found my old DMG and have been wanting to get back into playing. Before the pandemic I was playing a couple 5e campaigns and I noticed a difference despite the claims that 5e was a callback to the days of 2e. #THAC0 #ADnD2e
My biggest gripe with 2nd edition (played it from 1990 until about 2002) was the removal of half-orcs and monks. I loved almost everything else.
While both did get added back into the game (eventually, and in fits and starts), I agree that it would have been nice to see those (and the Barbarian) in the 2E PHB.
Thanks for your comment, Doc!
I don’t know if I’ll ever play again, but sitting through this brought back A LOT of memories. And, like you, I absolutely LOVED the Wilderness Guide.
Love these types of videos from you! I wish you had the non-actual plays (these discussions) in an playlist and do more of them.
Thanks, Saladdragon, I am glad to hear you are enjoying them. I actually have all my overviews and reviews organized in a playlist that you can find, here: th-cam.com/play/PL1dc382O8j8TD_8cCUU63k88ZVGOqyb7B.html
As for doing more, I try to make sure that I have something useful to say about any of the games I review, and that I have seen them at the table before giving my two cents, which means that I usually need to have a few ducks in a row, as it were, before I dive into an overview. :)
@@DungeonMusings well there's egg on my face now! Thanks for sending that through - it'll make it easier for me to watch now :)
This was actually my introductory set of AD&D and I continued to play it deep into 3rd editions lifespan because I was fond of its style.
I convinced my 5e group to try an older system so we're gonna be doing Ravenloft and B1-9 using a bastardized mix of 1e, 2e and the Rules Cyclopedia. This is a really cool vid and convinced me to pick up a few additional 2e books haha
Thanks for the kind words, Shawn, and I hope you folks are having a blast with your Ravenloft/B-series game!
I mix 1E, 2E and BECMI together. Mystara is still my favorite setting.
Been a year now.... I'm curious. How did it go?
@@jkdbuck7670 They love it. We're sticking with this hacked together 1e/2e/becmi system as our "Grand campaign" going forward. We take downtime in between big story points to try other systems for a bit (Finishing up a Starfinder adventure, gonna do Dark souls next break). They like that it forces outside the box thinking a lot more than the newer editions. They're weaker and squishier so directly fighting everything isn't always an option.
This is an amazingly in-depth analysis of the system. Well done! I really like your observation that, unlike in 5e, your characters are not looking for the solution for a problem on their character sheet, but instead, in how they roleplay the situation. That kinda sums up why I prefer something like 2e over 5e.
I realized the problem with the Monstrous Compendium books before I destroyed them all, and bought plastic sleeves for all of the pages, and threw them into a 3" binder. So mine are all mostly pristine.
Thanks for the kind words, Yippee! Glad that you enjoyed the overview. :)
This is my favorite edition of D&D.
I realized this when I started trying to hack 5E back when it released. I hacked at it so much, that the end product resembled one of Freddy Krueger's victims by the end. Then, I looked at my notes and understood..."holy crap, you're just trying to recreate AD&D 2E!".
Haven't DMed any other edition since.
Freddy Krueger? Such an 80s reference! :D
@@SimonAshworthWood Well...I did grow up back then... :)
2e has become my favorite edition for an ongoing campaign. :)
Best rpg reviewer out there. Thanks for the awesome content. Keep up the good work and stay safe.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Ryan, that means a lot. :)
Hope you are healthy and safe and thanks again.
I would like to thank you for this great gift overview. It brought back so many memories. I started with becmi and transition directly to ad&d 2e and loved the hell out of it, as did my play group.
You have reignited my desire and have purchased all the ad&d 2e books except some of the kits. Thanks for that!
Fantastic overview of my favourite version of AD&D. Brought back memories of old PC’s and adventures along with some great tips & advice. I really like your house rules Kevin and I went out & got For Gold & Glory which does an excellent job of bringing the rules together coherently. Watching this along with the Night Below actual play is a great (re) introduction to 2nd Ed. Cheers!
Thanks so much for the kind words, Mark, and I am glad to hear you found it (and my house rules) helpful. I hope you area enjoying the hell out of For Gold and Glory!
Let's put THAC0 into perspective.
In 3.5 whenever you attack you do the following: roll d20 add attack bonus compare to AC. Now let's say you're fighting several identical enemies all with the same AC, what you do instead of modifing the roll every time, you substract your attack bonus from enemy AC wich results in the number you have to roll to hit. You have to do it only once in that battle! -> That's is basically what THAC0 is, but inverted. Substract AC from THAC0 gives you the number to roll.
No need for subtraction. Hit roll + mods + enemy ac vs your THAC0. You meet or beat, you hit. End of story.
@@Eron_the_Relentless My point was that you don't have to modify the roll every time, just find out what number you need to roll to hit (only once per battle against the same enemy) and just roll it. If you're modifing the roll every time then you might as well use 3.5 base attack instead.
Starting up an AD&D campaign with my family during lockdown (still have most of the books you featured here), stumbled across your site searching for info. (have not played in decades), love your style. Subscribed! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the kind words (and the sub), BBB, and that is awesome that you are sharing AD&D with your family! Are you using a pre-gen setting for your game or homebrewing a setting?
@@DungeonMusings Originally I was going to homebrew a mix of Greyhawk that I played back in the 80's with Forgotten Realms, but decided to just go with Forgotten Realms focusing on the Dalelands. Blending in modules from the former such as Cult of the Snake God and the Slavers series along with some 5th edition modules.
Recently started playing the Baldur's gate series on iPAD having never played it before. I wanted to learn more about the ruleset used (having never actually played a TTRPG - I know, I'm sorry). Absolutely loved this explanation of the system and how you use it!
Thanks, Richard, glad that you found it helpful!
2E is a game of ambition not permission. The rules were written well enough to provide clear guidelines, but with loose examples that couldn't be reverse engineered from the RAW that it forced everyone to accept that there were unenumerated options that were canonical. You rolled some stats, make some basic selections, and then played with ambition. If you wanted to be a pyromancer you'd just lean into the idea of fire magic in the actual game itself, and leaning into fire magic would give hooks to the DM to bend the story arc to allow for the ambition to play out. You didn't need permission from rulebooks, or get frustrated at TSR for not giving you a viable pyromancer class and therefore TSR was not doing their job by denying you the ability to play a pyromancer. Plus your character rules were thin enough that the DM knew that had to step in to make it happen instead of just assuming you'd pick the right level up options if you wanted to play that. Further, things like morale in combat meant that ambition in combat was actually more powerful than being mechanically good at combat. It wasn't a board game with stat blocks where you fought to death in a cage match, it was about actually looking at the situation and figuring out some way to break the other side's morale (or escape in the chaos when your henchmen and hirelings break and get everyone regrouped). It doesn't matter if 1st level characters randomly encounter a grizzly bear in the woods that could kill everyone in the party if the fighter can keep it at bay with a set polearm, or the ranger wards it off with a burning torch because it fears fire, or the priest blinds it with a light spell, or a combination of things to finally drive it off. The min-maxed 1st level character built to be a mechanical combat monster would be laying on the ground with several parallel sucking chest wounds while the grizzly bear ate them alive for trying to smash their stat block against the bear's stat block. Gandalf and company didn't cage match that random encounter of trolls to death when they rolled it in the forest. Gandalf had FAR more ambition than that.
Note that some of the most ambitious settings like Dark Sun and Planescape came out of 2E. They've failed to successfully replicate those settings that were predicated on ambition because they've carved ambition out of their game design in favor of permission.
I tried to run Dark Sun 2E a little while ago with people used to more modern games. It was like pulling teeth to get them to show any ambition. They started as naked slaves in a caravan that got raided, where the raiders took all the good loot and left them to live or die in the desert (so pretty much Dark Sun's version of you met in a tavern... yea it is a tough neighborhood). The ambition required for them to look at a pile of junk and use agency to grab potentially useful materials and make makeshift gear was just beyond them. They mentally couldn't break out of the box of needing pre-defined "loot" to equip, instead of seeing a pile of junk and taking that as a license to make anything they had the ambition to make useful. It was like people with a cow and a knife starving to death because they didn't have any steaks to eat.
I won't say that 2E is the best system, but I will say that 2E was one of the best for working with player ambition. All RPGs are better when they assume player ambition as a central pillar of the system. Otherwise they are just really low production quality version of a sequential dungeon in a box board games like Gloomhaven.
The rules can even explicitly require player ambition. The skill system in 13th age is a classic example. Players have to describe their backstory and assign points to elements of it. So you could put 3 points in "being a sailor" (which does require ambition since it isn't something picked from a list) which allows you to perform any skill that a sailor would know how to do with a score of 3. Of course the system outright tells you that "being a sailor" lacks ambition, and that a more ambitious "I was a sailor on a war galleon under captain Millhaven in the southern imperial fleet during the anti-piracy action actions against the pirate lords of the slave coast" means you are suddenly able to apply that score of 3 to breaking manacles or many other things that "I was a sailor" would never get you to. Rules could be written where a class might get 4 bonuses, and the rules then only list 3 examples of bonuses, which simply forces the player and DM to look at the example powers and make up at least one bonus. Once they've been forced to make up one bonus, they could then make up more and never even use any of the example bonuses for the class. The rules would not be incomplete, they would be a complete set of guidelines with clear examples presented in such a way as to require creativity to actually use. Connecting 90% of the dots is in a sense a more complete product than connecting 100% of the dots, because the 90% complete product teaches you how to extend the product while still doing 90% of the work for you.
I also do not understand how some players get upset at the idea of trusting the DM. 3E tried to decide for me what was and was not appropriate to give players. The edition insisted players needed rules to protect them from me. Well fine. Under 2E it was just assumed that a player could randomly find a really cool magic item, and that any given item was just a guideline. So maybe I'll just let a 1st level character find a ring of elemental command, and the unlocking of it's secrets can then be part of that character's arc over many levels and much roleplaying. Or they'll never unlock it if they play like a cold fish that just casts identify and equips it for their level appropriate stat bump like they are playing Diablo instead of taking actual interest in having a magical item and I'll give them something else later and have an NPC antagonist steal the ring and use it against them after mastering it and then use the powers of the ring to escape to never be seen again. Instead, they just won't get a ring at all under 3E because apparently that is somehow inappropriate and I can't be trusted to manage that, and even if I flouted the 3E rules all the players know something is up with finding a magic ring because the rules say this is totally level inappropriate. Heaven forbid a 1st level halfling find a magic ring of invisibility, we couldn't possibly trust a DM to allow THAT in a game. Someone has to think of the balance!
It is to the point where people will argue that disintergrate is a "bad spell" in 5E because while it could do massive damage, it won't do massive damage reliably and that makes it a bad spell. Hold up a minute. A spell that can de-mast a ship, carve a hole through a wall, or just about any of a million possible ambitious contextual uses of outright deleting matter with a snap of your fingers while ALSO giving you the option to use that spell slot to try for massive damage in a pinch is a BAD spell? Why not just play Gloomhaven at that point?
Thanks W&W, I totally agree with you. I love how much my players think beyond their character sheet in AD&D. :)
Excellent post.
This is the comment. I still don't get the whole, 'make a table-top RPG into a board game' or even worse 'a video game'. But it seems creativity and agency are being eroded in society
I'm v. late to this vid, but this comment perfectly encapsulates the issues I'm having with 5e. I'm constantly looking at my character sheet to work out what I can do. Just look at some of the vids discussing e.g. the OneD&D playtest, or any other 5e rules. There's the constant refrain of, "This feats **lets you** do this...", "This rule **allows you** to do that...". I don't want to be "allowed" to do something. I want to do it. Thanks for putting your finger on it so well, and above all thanks to @DungeonMusings for the vid. I stayed awake for far, far too long because I lost track of time listening to it.
My start in D&D was BECMI/AD&D and AD&D 2e - thanks for this massive video - I feel like I've stepped back to my native habitat. 2e dos definitely have traps for people used to more recent editions - on that Ihave to say it's about playing an edition you're comfortable with and make the group play work for everyone in the gorup as much as it's about rules as written more generally. Anyway - excellent discussion starting video. Very detailed!
Thanks so much for the kind words, Mark, I am glad to hear you enjoyed my overview! I totally agree with you that it is about finding the right set of rules to fit the sensibilities and expectations of the table. :)
Thank you for this! I played Basic and 1st Edition as a kid/high school and 3rd/3.5 as well, but 2d Edition was the majority of my serious D&D gaming in the 90s. I had so many great campaigns in many of those settings you showed: Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Birthright and (most especially) Al Qadim. (I had Dark Sun and thought it looked great, just never got around to running it). Lots of fond memories.
Thanks, Cheney! I'm glad I could help to bring back some of those memories. :)
Oh man, you need to do more of these. I am looking for the best game for my setting and this kind of videos is what I need for more games.
Thanks, Lukasz, glad you found it helpful! :)
I had a first edition PHB gifted to me as a kid and loved the book, loved the vibe so much magic but never really played. It was the older cool kids that did...as a teenager 2nd came out and D and D was huge! Most of the creative skater types in the eighties were playing I knew. Now I played but was abit overwhelmed by all these worlds and books appearing. I always looked up to DMs, the best ones were so good, fair, cool dudes. Fast forward many many years later and I'm like 46 and I bought a bunch of 5th edition books, I created a game, I DMd it and I liked the DM guide best but found most of 5th abit cheesy and I didnt like how hard it was to have players die who played like s**t...so I sold my books! Now I'm getting the itch back...I went over to my buddies and borrowed his core 2nd edition rule books and I'm about to take the plunge once and for all. Long winded I know...but here's the thing, can my 49 year mind can digest all this info enough to flow out an adventure as DM?? Yikes! I've been tiring to read as much as I can each day to absorb. I dont see cheat sheets...well I did but they appear to differ from the original edition I have here, perhaps the revised tables differ? Attack bonuses I don't get this part...if I get a bonus on an attack is that to hit and to the damage? Unclear. Anyhow I'll plug away but hope I can keep the stoke on long enough to run a game! I do like lots of what I see here don t get me wrong! Looking forward to your video here now and get your insights!! Thanks!
Thanks, Sean, I hope your dive into 2e is proving to be an exciting one!
Awesome, in-depth look at one of my favorite games. I came of age in the 3rd edition days but I always fondly remember my older sister's stash of Dragonlance novels, her Elmore inspired art and my best friend and his brothers with their walk-in closet full of AD&D 2e materials (talk about skeletons in the closet.)
I remember playing (muddling really) through the Ravenloft 'Realm of Terror' box set and 12 year old me being absolutely enthralled with the sunsword even though it was just a line of text and a shared thought between a bunch of dorks.
As someone who has read through every DMG for every edition I have to say that the 2e DMG really nails down what makes encounters concretely gameable/engaging. No other edition nails this so perfectly as the 2e DMG and is worth picking up even if you aren't a 2e person or even an AD&D person.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Ack! I am totally with you on the Realm of Terror boxed set. That Stephen Fabian art, in particular, seared itself on my brain and it is always my first frame of reference for Ravenloft.
I am totally with you on the 2e DMG. I am a big fan of the 4th edition DMG 2 as well (tons of great advice in that one), but the 2nd edition DMG has just so much great stuff in it.
This one was the best and most useful video I ever saw about advanced d&d. Cheers and greetings, man. You doing pristine job here
Thanks very much for the kind words, Furuzzolo! They are appreciated. :)
I began playing AD&D a year or two after the second edition came out and everyone that I played with had started with the first edition of AD&D. Every one of them considered the 2nd edition to be such a great improvement that it would be the definitive version of it. If I still had my books, it would be the only version I would play.
Thanks, Brian!
Excellent video! 2nd edition is also my favourite, and very keen to get started again. If things go as planned, I swear I am splurging for Night Below, come hell or high water!
Thanks for the kind words, Buddy, and hope you have a blast with your 2e plans!
There's a copy of Night Below that has been sitting at my local game shop since last summer...for $170. I can't justify paying that, even though I'd love to have it vs. a pdf or reprint.
Great review. Revisiting my 2nd edition books again. Last Spring I ran B/X for about three months and prior to that white box OSR adventures. Looking forward to the AD&D fun.
Thanks for the kind words, Edward, and I hope you are having a blast with 2e! :)
Thank you for taking the time to make such a thorough review of 2e. I played 2e a lot during my youth and the crew is thinking of giving it another shot. Not only did this video re-afferm why a 2e is the right fit for us but also bought up a lot we as a group never thought of. Bravo. Looking forward to viewing your other content. Subbed!
Thanks for the kind words and the sub, Tecnolock!
great video. loved the detailed coverage of so many books, including sharing the art!
Thanks, Seodoth! Glad that you enjoyed it. :)
I remember playing with 1st Edition Monster Manual and 2nd Edition Players Hand Book. It was a challenge but worked fine for my group.
That's great to hear, Y-F, and I agree that you can get some terrific old school sensibilities with PF1/D&D 3.5 (our 3.5 Barrowmaze game was our favorite iteration of that setting).
Very in depth discussion. Thanks for your very thoughtful insights and suggestions. I love the fact that you're a gamer first and not just a slave to one specific edition or game. I feel like it really gives a lot more value to what you have to say and that you really give an honest sense of what the game is all about.
Thanks very much, Jason, that is greatly appreciated and I am glad you found the overview helpful. :)
what i liked about 2e is how front loaded the classes were immediately fleshing out their identity. What i hate in 5e is how you always multiclass because most campaigns dont go past 10-15 levels so you try to get the early abilities and you are also almost always certain high level abilities wont really matter. With paladin, bard and many others you immediately got the core of the class and you did rogue things with rogue, paladin things with paladin and ranger things with ranger all day long. Also the way everything was described was sooooo not videogamey it made my immersion so much easier because it usually talked about the mechanics rather briefly and it talked more about its implications and what it meant in the world (the completes fleshed that out even more). I mean i read the completes of 3.5e and when i view the completes of 2e there is just no comparison. They tried adding flavor choices in 3.5e but the system doesnt support that making 70% of the choices sub par and the rest 30% op as hell. In 2e since most benefits given were rp based anyway and you simply grew your character from there you could practically play thief 1000 times and make it unique every time.
I completely agree that AD&D 2e does a great job of making most of the classes feel "whole" right from the start. Thanks for your post, Jason!
@Maximillian Wylde Fighter was also solid as a human for dual classing with mage. But the incredible versatility due to simplicity that 2e had is still unattained to this day i believe.
@Maximillian Wylde I only have a completed homebrew 2e campaign in my resume and another homebrew 3 part mini campaign, so i lack experience with the ED. Also my problem is that the rest of the players are not the most adaptable kind and have so many habits from 3rd and 5th that they at times do not understand what they are supposed to be doing in this ed, even though they like playing it, but they certainly cant run it and also at times they are lost in a host of different mindsets and rulings. But my 2e homebrew campaign which was led by a thief, a mage and a ranger the favourite campaign of 2/3 players and my personal best campaign i have ever made, because the abstract nature of AD&D helped me materialize many things i wished i could do in other eds.
2e really was great about this, handing out "your entire character" all in one go.
"Here is all your stuff, it might get better but you basically aren't getting anything **NEW**"
Kit that basically completely changes your entire class? Yep have everything at lvl1.
My experience with AD&D--the entire 1990s--was that no campaign ever got much higher than level 5 PCs. Any level above 10 seemed impossibly over powered when you read about abilities--particularly higher level spells--and the conversation often came up about playing a campaign specifically designed for higher level characters.
The consensus of those conversations, at least among my regular group at the time, was that it was not worth the time or effort and honestly playing what seemed like 'god tier' characters seemed kind of unfun.
While I do not run D&D or Pathfinder anymore--I stay away from any games with 'levels' mostly--this philosophy still permeates the games I run. A year long campaign of mine will never see the PCs amass the kind of power a character over around level 10 would be in AD&D 2E--and I have not had any complaints.
Very nice review video! There is a lot to like about each of the D&D editions imo. They each favor certain preferences in play and you ably relate the strengths and appeal of 2e here. It's always a pleasure to view when you share your considerable knowledge of a system and I always feel that I have learned a lot - even when it's about a system that I think I know pretty well. Your enthusiasm for the hobby is refreshing and inspiring.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, Fred, it was greatly appreciated. I am glad to hear that you found value in the overview. :)
Thank you for doing this video. It brings back a lot of good memories from back in the day. 2nd ed is still my favourite version of D&D. I do enjoy 5th ed though, but there are times when i miss the old days. Long live the company of the falling star ...cheers from canada.
Thanks PT, glad I could help bring back some great memories. :)
Probably the best overview of the edition I’ve seen yet. Good job.
Thanks very much, Chris! Glad you enjoyed it.
Love that you talked about For Gold and Glory! I had been wondering about if it would be a good way to learn 2e
FGG is such a great product, especially since it is free. :)
In Brazil, D&D arrived in PT BR for the first time in the 90s through the basic black box (TSR 1070 - Brown/Denning) in 1992 and AD&D 2e in 1995. When we talk about Old School here, we are talking about these two versions.
From the outside point of view, I think that, apparently, the old school community in the US doesn't pay as much attention to 2e because many of the most notable bloggers who talk about OSR simply started with 1e Gygax or Basic Moldvay or Mentzer.
That is really interesting to learn, Artur, thanks very much for sharing! I really know very little about how D&D spread to other countries, but you have me eager to learn more.
@@DungeonMusings Any time!
Drivethrurpg has the Softcover DMG, Player's Handbook, and Monstrous Manual, they range from $21 - $25
You can also use For Gold & Glory, by Justen Brown, which is a 2nd Edition Clone, the PDF is free, but the Black and White Standard hardcover was around $18.
Wow, a thousand thanks for this video. Really insightful and imformative.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Scott, I am very glad to hear it was helpful! :)
Great Video! It helped me put into words things I've felt about 2nd ed for years. Still my favorite edition by a long shot (although, both games I'm playing right now are 5e, the next one I run will be 2nd again.)
I haven't even finished the video and it's already well worth the watch!
I've always wanted to run a Dark Sun campaign (and specifically in AD&D). You not only sold me on giving it a chance, you helped me find the right way to try it (Gold and Glory seems like a perfect low risk way to try). Thanks and thanks again.
Thanks very much for the kind words, Diad, glad that you found it useful! :)
Enjoyed this vid I mostly played bx 1e back in the day contemplating picking up for gold & glory
Great video. I'm going to need to dig into some of the AD&D2e stuff, even if just for inspiration. I've been using the setting books forever, but I always just skipped over the mechanics because I wasn't running 2e
Wow this was an impressive and thorough intepretation and explanation of 2e. I love it, I'm about your age and played mostly 2e as a kid. I havent played DnD in probably 20 years. I just started up so I could teach my daughter
I also appreciate your shoutout to a few places I could shop for some 2e books since I don't have any of them anymore. Thanks a bunch! I'm subscribed and will follow your vids!
Thanks so much for the kind words, Nate! There is nothing I enjoy more than hearing folks getting back to the game (especially with family)!
Thanks, Nate, I hope you have a blast getting reacquainted with AD&D 2e! :)
Great video!
Watched from Beggining to end. And I learned a ton about AD&D.
I played back in the early 90s but we were all about 1st edition, but i loved the proficincies in 2nd so we ran a hybrid.
Also my favorite book was Unearthed Arcana, loved the way it brought power to the dice rolls for.more specialized classes.
I've been on a tear of catching up on all the differences from set to set.
GYGAX to 5e its been enlightening to see how different each set is.
Bottom line,: it all depends on your DM. The more creative and quick on their feet, the more fun the larty has.
I'm just glad to see so many rolling dice. Makes me want to dust of the dice bag and toss a few.
Yeah. That didn't sound right lol
Thanks for the kind words, Goz! I totally agree that the DM is key for setting the tone for the table, and that the table needs to all be on the same page for the type of experience they want out of the game.
Wow! Musings is an understatement! This is wonderfully comprehensive. I really love the sound of your gaming sensibilities - I wish you could be my DM! I have only role-played with (a heavily home rule modified version of) AD&D2ndE so it's quite dear to my heart.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Ed! :)
Great review.
I have just gone back to AD&D after a break of many years. Now playing with my kids. This was a great review which reminded me of a lot of stuff about the game, and also lots to think about re mods and house rules. Thanks!
Thanks, Michael, glad that you enjoyed the overview! :)
This brings back memories from the latter half of my high school years! Good stuff!
I love Palladium Fantasy and house rules are always the way to go for me too.
It has been years since I have run Palladium Fantasy, but I did have a lot of fun with that, back in the day (especially the Adventures on the High Seas book). :)
Dungeon Musings does that mean a Palladium Fantasy session is not entirely out of the question? 😲
We homebrewed Gygax's AD&D with Palladium, plus some ideas for Simon's Necronomicon and HP Lovecraft mythos to make out own system when we were in high school (1984-86 time frame). :D
I remember asking a friend if he still had AD&D books, and he told me: "I was about to dump them to the litter, do you want them? And I just answer, YES!
And so, I ackired the core rlebooks (Player book, DM book and a monsters roster to add to the suplements that I kept (the complete....[you name it]...etc.) I don't regret my decission.
The algorithm brought me here today. Gotta say, when it works, it works. Great vid!
2E AD&D is where I got my start. Ended up moving to 3.x/Pathfinder when I started DMing. Both are great systems, and I have fond memories of AD&D, even though it’s been 2 decades since I played it.
Thanks, D! Glad to hear that you enjoyed the overview. :)
I appreciate how you are the opposite of an edition warrior. Super refreshing considering how tribal some players can be. Love this video!
Thanks very much for the kind words, Ancestors, they are greatly appreciated. :)
Great video! I've always lumped 1st and and together because I started off with Basic and 1st edition AD&D and found the game itself constantly had additions coming out and it was not just stated in the DMG notes from Gary Gygax, but also part of the gaming culture to make any RPG your own. So, 2nd felt like it just coalesced and threw in a few more options and features that had been collected over time; it was a natural evolution of the game, rather than a massive shift like the d20 system or 5e are, for good or bad, depending on your point of view (I personally like something in every edition). Thank you for going through the changes. It's nice to have a detailed list of what technically sets 2nd edition apart. When I get asked by younger players, I usually just tell them, "It's AD&D with THAC0. Oh, and they changed the names of fiends to appease the squares."
The best part of 2nd edition for me (even though I tend to play all AD&D the same) is the fantastic array of settings for just about any gaming group's desire. The adventures in 1st edition were very dungeon crawl heavy and left it up to the DM to bring a full story to the campaign. Of course, there are notable exceptions (Ravenloft, for example), but it's a very "hack and slash" game. I often hear people cry out for WoTC to make a 5e Planescape or Spelljammer. That might be fun, but I just use the 2nd edition books and alter them were appropriate. I do it all the time as 2nd had such great campaign settings that round the D&D multiverse out like no other edition, at least in my opinion.
Glad I found your channel. I look forward to more of your videos.
Thanks for the kind words, Jack, I am glad to hear you enjoyed the overview! I am with you that there are things about each edition to like (I still have a special place in my heart for 4e), but it is pretty cool to think how many signature settings came out of 2e.
This was my go to game back in the day. I remember buying that book in 1989. We played the hell out of that system all through high school and college. Just a good time playing that game. People complain its confusing or difficult but it seemed easy to understand to me. I like the variety of optional rules that makes games unique and fun. I agree with everything you said. You got a new subcriber in me!
Thanks so much for the kind words, Antonio, and for subscribing! Glad you enjoyed the overview. :)
I enjoy your reviews....been trying to watch your Night Below session....keep up the good work. Will show my daughter your house rules, as she wants to DM her 1st game, running Keep on the Borderlands.
Thanks for the kind words, TXCBOY, I am glad to hear that you are enjoying them. :)
And Keep on the Borderlands is an EXCELLENT choice for a 1st game! Assuming that she will be inviting you to the table, too, I hope you all have a blast with it!
@@DungeonMusings oh yeah, I am definitely playing....just picked up Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, 25th Anniversary edition, gives more info that she can use for some additional encounters outside of the main event at the Caves of Chaos.
@@DungeonMusings Last time I played this one was about 30 yrs ago so I am very excited to play it again....
I also love 2e. One of the issues a lot of DMs had when I played was the way Darts were handled. IIRC, while low in base damage, you added your strength bonus damage as well specialization damage and when you could fire multiple darts per round....especially at the same target....combat tended to end rather quickly. We had a DM who said it was like having a Gatling Gun :P
Great video BTW! Really good stuff in there!
Thanks for the kind words, Marco, and for the idea of the machine gun-like dart throwing (I think I see some dart-throwing ogres in my players' futures). :)
First time watching one of your videos and I cannot stop staring at the shelf behind you....
Ha ha, it holds all sorts of secrets and treasures. :)
Thanks for putting this together. I was a good explaination of AD&D 2nd edition.
Thanks, Martin, glad that you found it helpful!
Great presentation! 2nd Edition is the only version I ever played, and I have to get the rules out every few months to remind myself how combat works. I have fond memories of building and managing a castle in Birthright, playing an amber dragon druid in Council of Wyrms, and taking on the Phantom of the Opera in Masque of the Red Death.
Thanks, Bobby! It sounds like you had some amazing adventures with 2e.
Holy crap, this was exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks for such a deep dive.
Thanks for the kind words, GMB! Glad to hear that you found it helpful. :)
Trying to get my 2.5 based homebrew campaign running on forums at World Anvil as a turn based Play by Mail. No shortage of anything except players. Can't seem to attract any attention. Wish me luck! This video caught my interest and you know, it was really informative, honest and gave me quite a few things to think about. Glad to hear you like Dark Sun, I've heard a lot about it but never had the chance to get involved. The blue books you mention, I think the best two are definitely Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide and The Complete Book of Necromancers. Great stuff!
The biggest thing I think of when it comes to 2E is customization. Fighters can specialize in weapons, thieves can specialize in their skills, priests can be specialists with different spells than clerics, wizards can specialize in a school. Splat books give a million options and there’s even a huge amount of campaign boxes to choose. It was a golden age where players were still not pleased with what they were given, much like today.
The algorithm sent me here several times and I finally succumbed. Glad i did. Great food for thought and silky smooth radio voice. Played a ton of 2e (Darksun, Ravenloft and FG) in the 90s. Right now I am playing a lot of Whitebox and BX.
Thanks, Rol, and welcome! Glad you enjoyed the overview and hope you are having a blast with Whitebox and B/X!
Thank you for doing this 'talk through', I used to play a hybrid AD&D/2E version as we all had the books 'back in the day'. Its been nearly 30 years now and me and one of the guys are looking at starting again. Always good to get a second opinion on this stuff. I've totally reworked the 'Non Weapon Proficiencies' so that players can be competent or even good at something at a low level but it will also mean that there are gaps so they will be more reliant on NPC's, just need to find a few more bodies to fill out the party, neither of our wives are interested.... predictably. Thanks again mate.
Thanks very much for the kind words, Deeps! :)
Amazing coverage, dude!
Thanks, David! :)
Really interesting dissection of the game, thank you. Have you thought about pushing the audio out to your Podcast? This would be great as a Pod episode to pick up and listen to on the road!
Thanks for the kind words, D! I have tried to convert episodes to an audio format in the past, without success, but I really should give it a try again.
Great vid. We got Kingdom of Karameikos from the Mystara setting for AD&D 2E from Drivethru. (setting you missed lol) Was originally a box set and got it in one volume of really good quality. Anyway def subbing ya
Thanks for the kind words, Trace!
Can I just say thanks so much for making this. I have played every version of D&D including Pathfinder and other D20 systems but always come back to 2E. You nailed so many aspects in this video but for me it's when you pointed out that it hinges on a kind of trust between the player and the DM.
I would say the system can work great for solo play but again it requires a bit of creative thinking and an understanding of the stakes between the player and the DM haha!
You are very welcome, VV! Thanks so much for the kind words. :)
@@DungeonMusings loving the channel. Been watching while working
Great vid! A method of rolling for above average character stats which I read from somewhere and has worked well for my tables is 2D6+6. I totally agree with the concept that an adventurer should be someone of above average qualities. Otherwise, they probably won't be adventuring for long...
Thanks for the kind words, chip, they are appreciated! And I may have to try 2d6+6 next time. I could live with an 8-18 spread.
We had other rpg's that were popular in Sweden and got most of my early D&D experience from computer games. As such, I really got myself into both playing and roleplaying D&D in 3rd edition. Thanks to the old games however I kept going back to check out the sourcebooks to see where games such as Eye of the Beholder, Ravenloft and Dark Sun were coming from. And that gave me a lot of experience with the AD&D2 monster books in particular.
And eventually I realized that I rate the AD&D2 monster books over all others for the simple reason that every monster have a segment going into their habitat/society and ecology. That was completely lost in the v3 monster manual. Once I realized this, and now make a comparison between the monster books, I get pissed... Because that stuff was so great for making monsters into something more than a cannon fodder statblock.
I completely agree that monster write-ups in the 2e monstrous compendiums/annuals give so much more lore to work with, when trying to make the experience unique.
Thanks for giving 2nd Ed AD&D a clear, practical, and well-thought out explanation for the viewers!
I started playing tabletop RPGs in the Fall of '95 (high school Freshman) among the golden sands of Zakhara in the Al-Qadim setting (which, yes, exists in the Forgotten Realms, just far to the south east, I think). My DM unfortunately transferred and moved away at the end of the year, but he sold me my first dice set and his complete Boxed Sets of Ravenloft and Dark Sun for cheap since I expressed far more interest in them than he did. I then crash-coursed it as a DM after he left - not only with the other four players he left behind, but also with another SIX we picked up, which ended up making me quite capable of running groups of 10 or so players. One of my best games was my very first Forgotten Realms homebrew adventure AND my very first 3rd Edition game (right after the 3rd Edition Forgotten Realms book came out), in which I had 11 regular players every week for most of a college semester. I wouldn't run such a large group again these days, and especially not outside of 2nd Edition, but I had a great time with a group of great gamers.
I am still trying to perfect my skills to this day, and although I grew tired of level-based systems over a decade ago and now favor skill-focused systems like the Design Mechanism's Mythras (and Classic Fantasy add-on, which is essentially AD&D converted to that system), I still do harbor a strong love for the game that started my descent into roleplaying madness, especially because of the wonderful settings it spawned. Although 5th Edition has some things I like, I ended up houseruling so much in it over two years that I finally decided just a few weeks ago that if I'm going to run D&D again, it will only be AD&D 2nd - whose modular design and relatively easy-to-run ruleset I still enjoy to this day - and not the new "in-crowd" edition just because that's what everyone is playing. I'm sure I can find some players willing to give 2nd Edition a chance if Mythras is off the table. :)
Top settings from best to worst: Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Al-Qadim (the latter two technically are tied; i can't decide which I prefer), with Planescape as a close fourth. Not a huge fan of Spelljammer, but I've always had interest in Dragonlance, Birthright, and Council of Wyrms.
EDIT: With some work, Cakebread & Walton's Renaissance Deluxe rules system is absolutely great for running either Ravenloft or, more specifically, Masque of the Red Death adventures.
Thanks so much for the kind words, LS! I totally agree with you about the awesome settings for 2e. Dark Sun is probably my favorite of the lot, but there are so many great ones to choose from (Al-Qadim is definitely up there too).
I had a similar experience coming back to 2e, in that I was running a lot of more modern fantasy RPGs (PF 1e, PF 2e, and 5e), but after running Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea for a year, I realized that a house ruled AD&D 2e would much more likely fit the style of play I wanted at the table than one of the modern games hacked to play like an old school game (particularly with respect to Dark Sun...boy, do I love Dark Sun). :)
I have heard great things about Mythras (particularly from fellow TH-camr Runeslinger), but have yet to get it to the table.
Thanks again for the kind words; I hope this finds you healthy, safe, and weathering the crisis as well as can be expected; and happy gaming!
Great video. We still play AD&D 2e regularly - I won't let the group change as I have all the books and don't want to let that investment go to waste! I gradually bought cheap copies of the PH online over the years and gave them out as prizes during the campaign, so now the players have an investment too...
But yeah, much like you we have house rules that work for us (coincidentally I have a very similar cantrip rule), we use what rules we like, and ignore what we don't. It's a great system.
Oh, I like the Astonishing Fortune idea - I might try that...
Thanks, Dave, I am always thrilled to hear from folks who have kept on with 2e. There is so much great stuff to draw on for a 2e game, too (the benefit of such a long publishing history, in such a prolific time for the company). :)
10:52 "I anticipate this is going to be a long one"
Don't worry man, its run time is actually why I clicked and subscribed. :) glad to be here, keep doing videos!!!!! My first ever dnd campaign was ad&d ravenloft lol I played a drow ranger (original huh? Lol) and I went demented and had to eat all my meals from a cleaned out skull. I also sprouted bat wings because I killed a ghost girl. Fun times lol. I never forgot it and now I'm teaching my wife to play with 5th ed (books are cheaper). If anyone knows a good site to get non-price-gouged older dnd books I'd appreciate it :) may all your hunts in the wilds be bountiful
Thanks so much for the kind words, Richard, they are appreciated. :)
Merry Hallowe'en, Kev! I hope all is well.
Started in 3e but most of the players were 2e vets. I have always had the perspective that editions and games are all useful.. When I started DM'ing I borrowed heavily from all sorts of non-dnd game. Planning on starting a b/x game but I plan on incorporating rules from other editions. This was a very helpful overview to start delving back into 2e ad&d. Thanks
Glad to hear that you found it useful! :)
Getting to make use of the "Players Options" books was some of the best gaming I had with AD&D.
Yes it adds a LOT of choice and options, but you really do get to feel that you are playing the character than you WANT to play, that sometimes the static set classes don't really offer.
I still have yet to use Skills & Powers, yet, but I am thinking I need to give it a try.
Sounds like you are a good DM!
I wish I was your neighbor! With all that old D&D stuff in your room. You would be throwing me out every day!
Ha ha. :)
This vid convinced me. Thanks for the walkthrough
De nada, PM, glad to you found it helpful!
Great video! 2nd Ed. was my major experience until 5e. I always like the concepts of Cantrips as just through away magic that was what Apprentices learned. I always house ruled that you could have a number of Cantrips = you Int score. That way low level Wizards could do some VERY basic stuff. The premise being that Cantrips we so low level that they could not actually do damage. They were just fluffy tools.
Thanks, J, glad you enjoyed it! Regarding cantrips, I actually had a viewer bring my attention to an old Dragon magazine article titled "Little Wishes," which presents some optional rules for cantrips that treats them as a Proficiency that has limited uses per day. It allows the wizards to have an enormous amount of flexibility in those minor spell effects, while preserving that "old school" feel.
2e was more fluid , the campaign settings melded well , I had a rule every campaign setting was accessible and might come up in games so I allow every class race option to players and tons more for the DM . I had the complete compendium and duplicates they lasted me years till I went digital 🤣
I had 3 campaigns where players ended up hitting demigod or higher after 4 years of weekly games.
I even had the Cards and still read my Draconomicon 😘
That's a great option to make use of all of those settings. :)
With the new Dragonlance campaign coming out I've decided to get inspired from old products. 5e suffers from a lot of issues and I think taking inspiration from past editions can really help to bring new life to it. Thanks man, this has gotten me excited.
I like to roll for stats. I allow players to roll 3d6 and change the lowest dice to a 6 as long as the total is less than 13. Never have less than an 8. The highest number you can get from a flip is 17, but you would have to roll a 6,5, and1. If you want 18 you have to roll 3-6's.
I came to the video because I'm nostalgic for 2nd edition ADND. Then you said PF2E was more to suited to you than 5th DND, and I had to sub lol. You are my spirit youtuber.
Ha ha, thanks very much for the kind words, Akai, that's great to hear. :)
wow, was this long... but definitely worth it! Long time player here (about your age) and I got some good stuff out of your video. Thank you! And thank you so much for some tips on where to find these books aside from ebay and amazon :-)
Spells in players hand book: minor oversight in-the-moment, but in the back of the book is a appendix with all spells in alphabetical order. it may be divided between priest and separate list for wizard, or all in one list (can't remember). I do not intend to correct you on something petty but hopeful it useful if someone reads this
Thanks for the kind words, TM, and for the reminder of the spells being in the back (I only remember that half of the time)! :)
Absolutely fantastic review.
Thanks very much for the kind words, FQ, they are greatly appreciated! :)
In my 2E AD&D games I house rule that Cantrip is free for Wizards to cast. It can’t do damage or even interrupt spell casting. It’s basically magic tricks with real magic, moving smoke rings, dry oneself off, sweep the floor with a tiny whirlwind... etc...
Thanks, Sandor! I used a similar rule for cantrips in one of my Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea games (an RPG very similar to AD&D), but decided to try something different for my current games.
I loved Dark Sun. I used to play Blade Bard and Untrained Psionicist. As always half-elf.
One of my all-time favorites too. And bards are awesome in Athas. :)
Love Dark Sun. But the rules didn't do the setting justice.I'm thinking of using the rules for Forbidden Lands.