I remember when 2nd edition came out. I was at a sci fi and fantasy convention that Gary Gygax was speaking at. Despite him telling me that he wasn't involved in it, I had him sign my 2nd edition players handbook
This was my favorite edition of AD&D. I've heard some critics complain that it failed to innovate and added nothing new, and that may be true to a certain degree but the backward compatibility of this edition is part of what made it so appealing to me.
Really it's hard to compare 1st and 2nd edition, because not much really changed -- pretty minor stuff -- 1st and 2nd edition are really the same set of rules. Both great rule sets!
@@quantus5875 Well that's because it's an actual new edition, that is a revision of the game. The idea that "edition" for some reason had to mean basically a new game didn't start until 3E (or possibly 4E, because before then it could have been argued that WotC had just made their own D&D game).
I hope you enjoyed last week's video on the PHBR "Complete Handbooks," then! Also... SPOILER ALERT: This week's video will *also* be about 2E! Thank you for watching and commenting!
If you ever feel you are running out of general D&D material, I would enjoy some kind of history and overview of any kind of TSR releases. For instance the boxed sets like Myth Drannor and Undermountain, or the Complete Book of.. (fighters, thieves, etc), or specific campaign setting books. Really like the blend of historical knowledge and substantive overview you provide in all these videos. Hope to catch you at the convention!
I *love* how you connect the dots of the timeline with those Dragon magazine articles. I don't know how much time that would have taken me to piece together on my own. Great job Martin!
Your timing on this video is impeccable. I was currently in the process of creating 4 AD&D 2nd Edition characters for my Solo Campaign. I have already finished the Paladin and the Cleric. The Mage is almost completed, and the Elven Thief will be finished tonight.
The Masque of the Red Death boxed set for Ravenloft (AD&D 2nd Edition) used the proficiency system for all of the thieving skills. It made the class a lot more powerful at lower levels because of the higher chances of the character to succeed at any of its core abilities (e.g. Pick Pockets or Find/Remove Traps).
That was such a unique product! I only have it as a PDF but I chat with William W. Connors (the author) frequently in social media and I've told him many times how great and unique I thought that supplement was. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Great Historical video on 2nd Ed and the direction EGG might have gone. Funny, you mention about Weapon Vs Armor being seldom used and a bit Clunky. I guess in Long Beach we had an enclave at the now out of business FLGS "Warhouse" aka Balboa Game Company. Where I worked during college, that used those and speed factor in every campaign. Every during the 80s and somewhat into the 90s used them. The store usually had between 3-5 separate campaigns playing every week. I began using those rules when I was about 12-13 years old. So I guess it was how often you used them. We even modified them from using Armor Class (ie AC 2, 5, 10 etc.) to the actual Armor Type (Platemail, Shield, Chainmail, No armor etc.). They worked wonderful and we included them for the weapons on our character sheets. Back then since the Classes did not have nearly as many abilities as the new editions of the game, allowed different classes to vary by the weapon they used. Sort of like Weapon tags they are talking about using in the new Edition of DND coming out in 2024. Anyway, I know you live in the San Diego area, so it is interesting how different areas and groups all played the same edition of the game in so many different ways. Again thanks for another Great Video, always looking for your next one. Also, as an aside, I bought my three daughters each one of your dice shirts. They loved them. Take Care
Firstly, thank you so much for your support of the channel! I'm so thrilled that your daughters love the shirts! That makes me so happy! Also, very small correction, but I live in Pasadena, not San Diego. Close(ish), though! I totally remember hearing about the Warhouse in Long Beach but I never got a chance to visit. I've been able to go to a few classic Southern California game stores before they closed, including Aero Hobbies, Games of Westwood, and the Last Grenadier. A smaller one, but much closer to my heart, was All-Star Games in Diamond Bar. Thanks so much for sharing the stories about your games back in the 80s and 90s! I love hearing about other peoples' games. Cheers, and thanks again!
Hey thank you for this amazing vid! Any part of the rise and fall of Gygax is super fascinating. It always seems like he was constantly trying to define the hobby with ebbs and flows of certain ideals. Btw I still watch and like all your vids - they're great entertainment while working! Just haven't gotten to comment on all but it's all amazing stuff!!!
Check out the RPG Adventures Dark and Deep. Its designed to be the What If Gygax did 2e and the designer used the same sources of information you bring up in this video. There is a revision of the game on Kickstarter as of this moment.
Thank you! I was always very careful with my books and toys as a kid, as I didn't want to disrespect my mom, whom I knew had paid money for them. As a consequence, my collection is in very good shape!
It's interesting to see where the things in 5e came from and why. The evolution of D&D is interesting. My old school version of choice is BECMI. I wanted to add rangers and bards to the game and I realized that a ranger could just be a fighter with certain ranger-like proficiencies. Similar with a bard, just just a wizard with certain proficiencies (and a song book instead of a spell book). For the ranger, I did add in a couple other things. But I still wanted to try to keep it simple. Anyway, I do wish you were in the Kansas City area. It would be interesting to listen to a tasting of yours while, also, sampling the drinks. You have some interesting tastes.
I never bothered with 2E, having already designed my own game by then. HOWEVER, if you want to see a very slavish and comprehensive version of what it WOULD HAVE looked like, had Gary been involved; Greyhawk Grognard, Joseph Bloch, is currently releasing it as "Adventures Dark and Deep" 2nd printing.
This was a great video series. I will say that it is extremely rare that I watch a video as long as this, but I was pretty into this one. Also, I love the amaro bit at the end; I have been exploring them myself for the last few years (a home bar was one of my pandemic projects); I have tried Aperol, Campari, Montenegro, Fernet Branca, and Cynar so far. I have always wanted to see a completed mountebank.
The Dille family had first published the Buck Rogers comic strip, the character and his earliest adventures were created by a pulp writer named Phillip Nowlan, in a pair of novels (Armageddon 2419 A.D. and The Airlords of Han) in the late 1920s. John F. Dille was the head of the National Newspaper Service, which syndicated comic strips and other features. The nickname "Buck" is credited to him, so he had technical ownership of part of the character, and eventually gained full ownership, which passed through his family. Lorraine Williams and Flint Dille were John Dille's grandchildren.
2nd edition ad&d was my game. that was the edition that introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons. Only seriously played in college in the '90s, after college moved on to other hobbies. I still have a decent number of second edition books. I played in a few 3rd Edition, 4th edition, and Pathfinder games occasionally as one-offs, but second edition has always been there... Even though I really haven't played in 20 plus years, I occasionally just pull one of the many books that I have not read off the shelf and read a bit. Some of the last books for second edition were actually published by wizards of the coast, and some of them are actually pretty good.
I’d like to hear more about 2nd edition. I’ve never played it as a TTRPG but it was common to a lot of Infinity Engine games like Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2. It seems like an interesting system. I particularly liked the idea of Kits because it led to a lot of character variations.
I'm surprised that BRW Games' Adventures Dark and Deep wasn't mentioned. BRW went made a OSR game based on what Gygax posted about his hypothetical 2E of AD&D.
And we do know a lot about what Gygax was thinking post his leaving -- as after he left New Infinity Productions he did write Dangerous Journeys for GDW in 1992.
That's the game I was thinking of at a certain point when I mentioned around 28:30 there was a game out there that did this. I just couldn't think of the name off the top of my head.
Tim Kask said he convinced Gary to put psionics in D&D to counter the mind flayer, and that Gary NEVER really liked it. They intended it to be extremely rare but of course players somehow rolled high enough to get psionics with a regularity that defies probabilities just as 18/00 strength was somehow very common
I was 16 in 1983 and we didn't have social media, so most of my friends and I hadn't heard about Gary's ouster from the company until we were much older. Anyway, great video. I can see the work you've put into it.
I appreciate that. Glad you enjoyed it! My first knowledge of Gary leaving was the editorial he wrote in the pages of Dragon magazine! I had no idea until I read that.
Daddy rolled a 1, Did a quick look up of Gygax's New Infinity Production company in one of Shannon Applecline's Designers & Dragons books. New Infinities Production basically produced three things during the short time the company was in existence: 1) books like a Gord the Rogue book called Sea of Death (1987) and other fantasy books by other authors, 2) the Cyborg Commando (1987) RPG game that you talked about, 2) and a line of adventures and supplements branded under the "Fantasy Master" logo, a few examples were this adventure called The Convert (1987) written by Mentzer, and an a supplement on Africa called Aesheba: Greek Africa (1987). Company filed for bankruptcy in 1989. Cyborg Commando was the only RPG that New Infinities Productions produced during its existence.
The 1e Bard was an interesting suggestion of an alternate specific Dual-Classing path. Unearthed Arcana's Thief-Acrobat was another odd duck, much like an advanced-class such as you see in a couple video games or perhaps the Rules Cyclopedia Fighter advance class options. Druid Heirophants are another way to do things, although unlike Thief-Acrobat there isn't an option to just continue leveling as a regular Druid. Oriental Adventures' Ninja as a hybrid class is another very weird and almost 2e Kit-like approach. So there are a LOT of little variants being tried out. I don't think we can see a true Prestige Class happen until 3e's brand-new additive multiclassing system. But I can see how a lot of those earlier class oddities could have been an early inspiration.
another great video Martin! I find so many interesting little bits in your commentary about the history. I just purchased a copy of the Moldvay set and am about to play with my 7 1/2 year old son and some of his friends too! I sort of blame you for my new enthusiasm for collecting vintage D&D and other TTRPG items.... We started playing a rules-light version of 5e and my son really REALLY likes the idea of an Air Genasi Monk so I'm going to custom rule his character somehow to fit with Moldvay Basic.
I will HAPPILY take the blame for turning someone on to Moldvay B/X! I hope you've been enjoying the system, and I'm so thrilled that you're running a campaign for your son and his friends! Thank you so much for watching and commenting. Apologies for the very delayed reply, but I appreciate you! Cheers!
Again, as I posted on the Dungeon and Wilderness Survival Guides video, the NWP were (and remain) a superb way of handling "background" information for characters while also giving a way of determining skill success for some random thing (fire starting, tracking, survival, w/e). The "Complete" guides (there were something like 2 dozen) generally added issues to the game, namely play balancing. As for a instance, take the Bladesinger. That's a dual-class kit that allows for Weapon Specialization (this is clarified by the author of the book on a Dragonsfoot post some 5 or 10 years ago, but it's heavily implied in the actual class description) on ONE weapon, but also gets an enormous bonus to AC and Attack while also still retaining spell casting abilities, albeit a 2 segment penalty to casting times. The only downside to the class is that you "must" make every attempt to assist/save elves before all others... which is a roleplaying penalty. At 6th level, when they get 3rd lvl spells, taking up Strength (or Enlarge at 2nd) makes them just monsters in melee or from Range, with no actual complications to the kit itself. After having played this kit for the last 4 years, I would have to argue that they should have been school restricted as they were with weapons, so say 5 schools instead of all 8 (kind of like the Goblin Wizard kit in the Humanoids Handbook). The thing that really caused complications was the lack of walls on the editions. The "Black Book" 2nd edition books were, for all intents and purposes, 2.5E but in a 2E campaign, it starts leading in to power creep. Then there's the non-stop printing of books for the edition, which lead to all sorts of "additional content" that generally felt like untested content. My 2E group generally has issues with edition, preferring 5E for its "simplicity" (I'll hold my opinion about that), but the universal gripe that the other players seem to have about it is the round initiatives and all the different roll types (over a number to hit and to save, but under for skill and stat checks...). Apparently rolling for initiative every round makes things too complicated? /sigh As an interesting note, 3E did have spells and proficiencies being paid for with experience, so I'm wondering if the EGG had some hand in hedging that in there. It wasn't Zeb, he was at Bethesda making Fallout 2.
The schools or colleges of magic idea actually originated with the Dragonquest game in the early 80's. Dragonquest was owned by SPI which was bought by TSR in 1982. Dragonquest was SPI's attempt to enter and cash in on the RPG craze among gamers at the time. It had some interesting ideas, the magic colleges being one of them. I played it around that time (2nd edition).
Great video. I've been really enjoying these discussions about D&D history; I appreciate the exploration of the evolution of 2E. As it went, I never truly embraced 2E. During that time, the group I played with used a hodgepodge of 1E and 2E, largely favoring the former. The shutting out of Gary Gygax was one thing that turned me off (that it was a little karma coming his way after cutting out Arneson was not a thing widely known at the time). The other thing that ground my gears was the art. Some of the interior art looked phoned in and why did every single warrior type have to have wings or horns on their helmets? It lost that power that 1E illustration had to ignite your imagination and pull you into the fantasy. I ended taking a long break from D&D, and I remember a lot of gamers looking down their nose at it for a while. But then, 3E reignited my interest in D&D. My group plays 3.5 and ShadowDark these days.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I also didn't play 2E much at all, but like you, I considered 1E and 2E very compatible and mainly designed my campaign setting with 1E rules but including NWPs and kits from 2E. There was a LOT of recycled art in 2E and that was one of the things that really turned me off. I kept seeing the same cover images from Dragon Magazine re-used over and over inside books, especially the "complete handbook" series and that annoyed me. I liked a lot of the Tony DiTerlizzi art in the Monstrous Manual and later in Planescape, and I liked Brom's art for Dark Sun, but I do get your point that, broadly, a lot of stuff in 2E (including the art, and for me, even the layout) was "watered down." I, too, returned to D&D with 3E and began a campaign in May 2001 with 3E that then switched to 3.5 and finally Pathfinder 1E that is technically still going. My collection of RPG materials probably has the most from that era since there was so much 3rd party content! Thanks again for watching. Cheers!
Playing in a Planescape campaign currently that uses 1E and 2E modules and campaign book with 5E mechanics… our DM does a good job of making it seamless.
The first D&D campaign I ever played in was in Dark Sun. That setting is built around psionics being a thing. Outside of Athas, I pretty much agree with Gary on the psionics issue. I think that unless it's built into the setting it just adds complexity without making the game any better.
I never bought the Monstrous Comoendium. Even then I knew that I was way, way too disorganized to make use of something that required three hole punch binders!
It’s really interesting that you recorded this video, because Greyhawk Grognard has an old school Renaissance game called “adventures dark and deep” that posits basically, what would second edition have looked like if Gary had stayed at TSR? The revision of the game is on kickstarter right now, it looks really good.
Yes, that's the game I was referring to at around 28:30 in the video when I mentioned a game but couldn't remember the name. I've not looked at the game before and didn't even realize that it was having a Kickstarter for a revised edition but that's good timing.
Jazz at Massey Hall has a pretty wild line up. Thanks for the tip. I think my favorite all time Jazz album is Money Jungle. Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus, and Max Roach. Absolutely zero noodling, just three maestros tearing it up. Pre-internet it was a rarity, long out of print. A friend got a hold of a cassette copy of it, and I made a copy of that. I’ve never seen a vinyl copy or the liner notes. The legend is that Mingus and Ellington were mad at each other during the recording. And it’s in there on some tracks. Jazz isn’t always improvisational cooperation. Sometimes it’s contention. They say Jazz is a musical conversation. In this case it was an argument. Anyway, check it out if you don’t already know it.
So great to meet a fellow jazz fan, and thank you so much for sticking all the way through the bonus content! I really appreciate it! And yes, Money Jungle is a great album and I agree with all your points. Mingus could be, as I understand, pretty prickly. I sadly don't have the album in any physical format, but I have streamed it before and it's on my list of records to check for when I'm crate digging! Thanks again for watching and commenting. Cheers!
I loved 1st Edition, especially the Bard class. It was complicated and fun. We did play 2nd edition. When 3rd edition came out, our DM didn't like it and we continued to play 2nd edition... and until a few years ago were still playing 2nd Edition... A few of us moved and we played online for a while, but it became too difficult to continue to play, so we played Neverwinter Nights until we just faded away from the game. I miss the game, and especially the people I played with for 20+ years.
I only played 2nd edition a few times. For some reason, I was under the impression that it wasn't really different than 1st, other than rewritten to sell more books, a few word changes to satisfy the Satanic Panic, and of course, the THAC0 (I've always called it "taco", pronounced like the wonderful Mexican dish) system. However, it seems every time I hear more details about 2e there are more nuanced rules than I previously realized.
It was broadly very compatible with 1E, especially if you add in the late-1E things like non-weapon proficiencies and ideas like Weapon Specialization, etc. I'd say for the most part, the biggest changes from 1E were: * No Monk Class (there's a Kit in the Complete Priest's Handbook but it's nothing like the one presented 1E) * No Assassin Class (again, this is handled by Kits) * Revised Bard Class is a stand-alone class, not a proto-Prestige Class like the one from the 1E PHB * No Half-Orcs in the base rules (added later as a PC option in the Complete Book of Humanoids) Then there are other, smaller changes and there are quite a few, including low ability scores no longer pigeon-holing you into a class, differences in languages learned, maximum spells per level is an optional rule, different XP leveling for demi-humans, demi-human min/max ability scores changes, Ranger class re-designed, removal of Cavaliers and Barbarians from UA, no more Thief-Acrobat split-class, change in Thief abilities to make them more customizable (they start out with a set of points the player can allocate however they want to the skills), etc. Playing a 1E adventure using 2E rules, or vice-versa, works just fine and I wouldn't even bother making adjustments, but then again I also run 1E adventures in my B/X game without bothering to convert them! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
I really enjoyed the move from 1E to 2E, we played the Time of Troubles modules and it was a lot of fun. It's stuck with me a lot better than 1E has as well. I still run it. While I like most kits, I do think that there's room for more classes. Barbarians were more unique in 1E than what kits present, same with cavaliers. although the cavalier kit does gain more than barbarian kits do, in keeping with their 1e design. Subclasses offer something unique that isn't covered by proficiencies.
Man the ads in that Dragon take me back. I'd read my Dragon mag once, then turn back through it and take in what was being advertised. Thats how I tried the "Aftermath!" game.
Although the friend I started playing with had 1e and BECMI, we started playing with 2e, particularly with the original Dark Sun box, so psionics has always been a part of 2e for me, even when playing other settings or with dms not into psionics. And of course, I still play 2e to this day. I have recently branched into PF, but the only d&d products I own with a WotC logo are the Japan physical release of bg3, and the cookbook. I do have the first Diablo 2 release (minus the box), but that still has the TSR logo and just mentions WotC in the fine print.
They kicked him out bc of his selfishness, his LA escapades, his drug use and womanizing, and his bad business sense. TSR was in serious trouble. Lorraine Williams kept it alive for 10 years longer than it would have survived. Listen to When We Were Wizards podcast. Many of TSR's employees preferred working for Lorraine Williams than Saint Gygax.
Great video!! I thoroughly enjoyed it! Once again, great research on the background of development of AD&D 2nd edition. Like I mentioned in your previous post, I had an account on Enworld back in the day, really appreciate you mentioning Gary Gygax’s posts there. I wonder what Frank Mentzer would have done with 2E. His Red Box was my introduction to D&D. I think he would have done a great job with it. I don’t know if Mr. Mentzer has ever commented about preliminary discussions about 2e. I would be very interested in hearing his take on what was planned originally. AD&D 2e is the system I have played the most. I still have my books from 89 and the early 90s. When we first started playing we played it interchangeably with AD&D. We made a few minor adjustments to our Barbarians, Cavaliers, and Assassins. I had a Half-orc Fighter/thief before the Complete Book of Humanoids came out. Most of the modules we played were 1e modules. Of course, we primarily played our own adventures in our own campaign worlds. For that matter, we often used Basic and Expert Modules interchangeably with AD&D as well. I think I have mentioned to you before how we often “kit-bashed” multiple games together in our campaigns. Those were the days. I have a slightly different take on Kits than you do. I was quite fond of kits back then. Not all of them were great, but there were a few which were more like subclasses than backgrounds. Although, agree a lot of them are more on par with 5e backgrounds. One example is the Militant Mage kit, it gave you proficiency in swords and access to fighter NWPs. I think it’s better than the War Mage Arcane Tradition in 5e. One of my favorite PCs was an Evoker Specialist Militant Mage. If you check out the Complete Druids Handbook, that book introduces Druidic Circles (called Branches) and the kits are much more like subclasses. Check out the Gray Druid and Hivemaster kit. If you ever want to chat about 2e, hit me up. I’d love to discuss my experiences playing and Dming that edition. Loved the bonus content as well. You know a lot about music history. I could listen to you talk about music all day. If you ever do video where you talk about music, musicians and classic albums, I’d be interested. Have a great time at DaveCon!
@@daddyrolleda1 Many, many people cite the black and white art style of 0E & 1E as a special flavoring that set the mood of the game. This is why the OSR Culture openly embraces it. While the color art itself was often more advanced, it lacks the sentiment and original style. Particularly when you think of dark, ominous, and fearsome monsters. The color artwork never quite translated the gruesomeness of the black and whites. This doesn't really apply to the artwork in general, just those of monsters.
@@kendiamond7852 Ah, I see what you were saying! Yes, I love a lot of the 1E era art. While I know it's polarizing, I'm quite fond of some of the work in the Fiend Folio, particularly Russ Nichols. That said, I really do like Tony DiTerlizzi's art for the Monstrous Compendium.
The comment amount investment and buying the books all over again I really related too. I bought all of the 1st & 2nd edition books (even after I stopped playing). I just wanted a complete set. 3rd came out and I was “nope”.
I've always loved First Edition AD&D. Interesting to see what EGG wanted to change with subsequent editions. Some of what he didn't like I actually liked, and vice versa. AD&D bolted on a level of complexity to D&D that 2nd expanded (and reduced some.) For example, Kits and non-weapon specialization increased the complexity with 2nd Ed, and eliminating weapon speed and to-hit bonuses vs AC reduced it. I liked this complexity feature of 1st Edition as it gave a good reason why carrying axes, hammers, maces, and daggers mattered. Great video, thanks for this.
I have been watching the Questing Beast episodes on Braunstein and the Story of Black Moor and it struck me that the combat mechanics where evolved but everything else seems to have developed through actual role play. Like just tell the DM what you want to do and they would talk it out. Like you could fight an orc or talk to the orc, but in order to talk to the orc you had to talk the conversation out without a dice roll.
That's how TSR era D&D was played. Now it's just a video game, where you push a skill button on your character sheet. Very little role playing in modern editions. I am finding this out more and more since I left 5e and have been dedicated to TSR editions of D&D. I'll never go back to WOTC D&D.
There was a table for reaction and morale rolls but you're mostly correct. Narrating what your character is doing like a novel was standard. Role play > roll play
I think a lot of that is up to the DM. I think if you tell your players to just narrate what they’re doing, and that all conversations between players are happening in game, etc. You can call for skill rolls only when there’s a question of whether your Persuasion, etc. will work. Kind of like call of Cthulhu social skills.
@@danielgoldberg5357 I prefer skill based games but there is something to be said for playing a role including conversation and motivations. But without a skill check there is no room for your character being better at something then the player.
I'd been fascinated by Deathlok since the 90s and finally bought the TPB of the run a few years ago. The early stories with the three competing "voices" were really interesting and I was disappointed that they dropped that aspect of it.
Really enjoyed this video! It was so interesting to see what Gary's vision of what a 2e would have been. I would love more videos about 2e as a whole, of course. It's probably my favorite version of old-school DnD just because it has so much customizability, so many optional rules to play with, it's so compatible with almost everything that came before so you can easily mine the past books for more content and convert it with very little issue, and the character kits add a lot of nuance to making a character without going overboard like Wizards-era DnD can get. It's just so unfortunate that 2e has so much bad vibes behind the curtain, being made almost entirely as a way to get Gary out of the game after they had already cut Dave out of the picture, thus making it the first edition totally divorced from its two creators, as well as being heavily affected by public perception of DnD as Satanic and evil, resulting in a lot of censorship and cut content, and the adventures are not nearly as good nor as classic. It's not all bad; giving the demons and devils new names was pretty cool, and almost all content that wasn't used in 2e can be easily ported in (and those excellent 1e adventures can all be played in 2e), but it's a bitter pill to swallow either way. Feels like a weird middle ground where it's not modern enough for the current fans but not old-school enough for the OSR fans. Unfortunately, there isn't a single "1e" thing that has everything I want and none of the stuff I don't while 2e gets pretty much as close as it can to my platonic ideal of DnD, so I'll stick with it as my baseline!
Wow when Gary said those people aren't going to buy our products anyway so why change something to appease them, it really hit me. He had future sight about how Hasbro was going to bend a knee in the 2020s.
29:12 After a quick search, couldn't find any info on the Ultisystem. Would've been nice to see what that was all about. I loved Ultima 3 but $35 for basically a hint guide is high in those days!
It was kind of abandoned and then reintroduced with the Psionics Handbook a few years later. There were earlier monsters in the MC with powers that replicated Psionics (notably Mind Flayers et al) but it was dropped as a concept from the initial core rules on first release, and brought back as an option. Apparently, it turned out that some people actually liked them. Plus... Dark Sun came out around the same time as the Complete Psionics book, and Dark Sun really leant into Psionics more than any other product before.
Ah, true! I've also heard really good things about the 2E Psionics Handbook, but I have never really used Psionics in my games, so I didn't really pay much attention to that one. Thank you for watching and commenting!
The Armor class adjustments for certain kinds of weapons hitting certain kinds of armor really did make sense from a realistic perspective, but I get it. Who wants to play a Medieval-fantasy version of Phoenix Command? 😆
Hi I was thinking about the player classes from your previous videos. The Mystic and the Savant almost feel like they should be something like the Unearthed Arcana Druid expansion. If you think about the banishing extra planar space that is very high end. Maybe those were expansions of the top end it also would fit in with the Manual of the Planes.
Yeah, I can say that. I was always confused by people saying that Prestige Classes were like Kits. That never made sense to me. Kits gave you a small bonus and a small hindrance, and maybe a few examples of what weapons and non-weapon proficiencies you should have. Prestige Classes were full-blown classes that increased/changed your attack bonus, saves, etc. and gave you level based abilities.
Yes, Assassins were a Thief "Kit" so not quite a full subclass. Even though they said they were getting rid of them (mostly due to the moral panic at the time but under the excuse that "any class can be an assassin"), they did still appear on a watered-down form in the Complete Thief's Handbook.
@daves6220 Yes, Gary later said that Castles & Crusades was very close to his ideal version of a "2nd Edition." Of course, it's "retcon Gary" saying that - not that he didn't mean it at the time, but a lot of people misinterpret that as meaning that Gary was working on a system that mechanically would've looked like Castles & Crusades, which I don't believe is the case. Thank you for watching and commenting!
45:28 It's not that big a deal. A) you only need to check when it's close B) Once you've used it a lot you basically have it down. C) It's actually remarkably well done and I would only quibble about Axes, which Gary vastly under-rates but with the data he had, it's an admirable job.
I always just thought it was interesting that Gygax himself didn't use it and considered discontinuing it (at least, as it was currently presented) in a future edition. Once you're used to something, it definitely can run smoother and faster. For me, though, I just don't like the idea of having to stop during combat to refer to tables. At least, not how I play now. I prefer B/X D&D which doesn't have all those additional tables. I don't begrudge folks who like and/or use them, but they're not for me. 😀 Thank you so much for watching and for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it! Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Not using it makes damage die the only consideration in weapon choice and removes and important element. I also don't think it's fair to say Gary "never" used it. Gary notoriously gives different answers at different times because like most gamers his style and preferences change over time. Had he lived, he'd have come back around. More people are playing with it now than in the 80s. I never used it then, I use it now, it's made the game better. My AD&D game is in person and has 10 players and my combats are not slow. Try it.
Not sure if this is something you can cover, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts about the differences between AD&D as depicted in the SSR and Infonity Engine games versus table tops. Your conversation on kits got me thinking about this - my preferred Bhaalspawn was a Cavalier Paladin fighting the darkness within. Also, how did dual classing work? When not playing a Paladin, I liked to play a level 2 wizard dual classed to fighter or cleric.
I’ve always wanted to know, is there a story behind the cover pictures of PHB and DMG? PHB human characters look like they could be modelled on 1970s hipsters, Gygax’ friends maybe; while both books could have been actual played adventures. Any ideas?
Tim Kask said he convinced Gary to put psionics in d&d to counter the mind flayer, and that Gary NEVER really liked it. they intended it to be extremely rare but of course players somehow rolled high enough to get psionics with a regularity that defies probabilities just as 18/00 strength was somehow very common.
I only played 2nd edition a couple of times, but for some reason I always thought is was just 1st edition, rewritten to sell more books and eliminate certain names which triggered the Satanic Panic... That, and, the THAC0 (I always called it the "taco" pronounced like the wonderful Mexican food) system.
The 0e supplements, and the 1e core book production process, and especially 1e UA, gave me an overall vibe. That is, everything was always in flux, nothing was really set in stone, they didn't have a holistic design for the whole edition, and often were just cramming in anything that seemed good. Almost like a monthly zine except in hardback. Then the new edition is expected to just compile and edit all these components, but probably not remove anything. So when looking at the 1e core books (MM, DMG, PHB) as a compilation of everything they had before, it would make sense from Gygax's perspective to have 2e be just another wave of the same process. Which I think might have really sucked. Instead of a Mystic (Diviner-type) we instead got 2e's Specialty Wizards which was a great move. Admittedly, it would have been nice to have each of the specialists get school-specific special abilities to differentiate them, but that is easily houseruled or implemented with kits. As for the Jester and Mountebank, just UGH. They sound really underwhelming. The Hunter could have been interesting if they gave it some spell use at 7th or 8th with a trapping-specific spell list, give the Hunter the species enemy ability, and jack up the stealth / espionage aspect of Rangers to compensate. I think the split of all the content with Europe as the core books and each cultural genre as an expansion is a great idea. But we got an Al-Qadim and a Horde that didn't contain a whole content replacement like we got with 1e Oriental Adventures. We got a Dragonlance Adventures and a Dark Sun setting that were rich enough in player options to feel like a whole different culture. We needed a seafaring / pirate / coastal / islander expansion book, one for Underdark, one for East Asia, one for Africa, one for the Arctic. And then we could have gotten a great Gamma World / Metamorphosis Alpha, and a Boot Hill, etc. Of course at the time we didn't even have Planescape or Spelljammer on the horizon.
Lots of more interesting ideas to ponder! Thanks for all this. I quite liked the 2E Specialty Wizards and it obviously changed the class in a manner that's continued through to 5E and presumedly beyond. A seafaring book could've been fun if done right and full of fun fantasy tropes and not bogged down so much in real world cultures like "The Horde" was (at least, to me).
I "really" started with 2e, but I had the 1e books and felt they were way better written. I kind of really want to look at Castles & Crusades since that's more or less 2e if Gygax had written it.
Yes, that an interesting take on C&C. I agree C&C might have been the way Gary would have gone. Gygax definitely did a lot of good work -- with Troll Lord Games.
I think that it is important, although not critical, for a party to have a diversity of expertise. The general four catagories of adventure expertise are fighter, thief, magic-user, and cleric. I think a lot sub-classes are differentiation without distinction in order to sell books. I think that I haven't seen a system that matches skills with expertise where a profession gives a person skills that only those in the profession can get. I recently figured out from your video on Marvel Superheroes RPG that when a rpg says Heroic it means that they have added the feat mechanic in order to express a characters heroic ability. I used to think heroic meant something narrative - like a character was fighting for a heroic cause, like fighting for right against wrong. Althoguh I gues there alwasys been an element of both.
Yes, I thought the same thing when I first discovered archetype. I think there's a nice way to handle some variation without creating entirely new classes.
He predicted multiple new editions because he was aware that they had to publish new books to continue to make money. It's the problem of running a game company that publishes, for the most part, a single game: you hit a point where everyone who wants a copy owns a copy. Supplements and adventures don't sell as well as rules.
There is a game company that has been around a long time and never done multiple editions -- which is Troll Lord Games. Castles & Crusades (2004) is now on its 8th printing of the player's handbook -- but still the same edition - a few minor rule changes (like changing from a berserker-based barbarian to a wilderness-based barbarian - but note you can still play with the old berserker-based barbarian if you want) -- and the books are interchangeable, and you can still play with your 2004 books if you want. I think one reason Troll Lords has been able to do this -- is they just stayed super small and just a fantastic company. Pretty incredible achievement when you think about it -- and one of the things I love about Castles & Crusades.
There definitely were entries in the DMG that belonged in the earlier books. Aerial movement should've been in the MM, and a lot of the notes on spells should've been in the PHB. I can see not explicitly telling players that wall of stone can be cast horizontally to create a bridge, but who on Oerth is going to think of casting wall of iron at double size and half thickness? There are likely other examples. Edit: another was monster levels and xp amounts (in DMG, should've been in MM). Also, the PHB had a tidbit that should've been in the MM, viz. the effects of getting a brownie as a familiar.
I think they did a pretty good job with 2nd Edition. Nowadays, I think they should have actually turned the ranger into a fighter or fighter/thief kit, because it was kinda lame as a standoff class, but overall it was an improvement over 1st Edition. About kits, the thing that most resembles them in how it works is Pathfinder 1st Edition's class archetypes. They give a class something, they take away something from it, and they give guidelines on what you should choose as skills, feats, spells and class features choices to complement the theme of the archetype. That's exactly how a kit worked back in the nineties. Some subclasses from 5e too are developed from old 2nd Edition's kits, for example the bladesinger, from an elven fighter/mage kit. Prestige classes were an extension of multiclass, much like the original bard class was, while 5e's backgrounds are something that replaces low-level playing, since all characters are supposed to start as full fledged heroes, not as newbies with a slightly better basic training than normal people. 5e's 1st level characters correspond to 3rd level characters from 3rd Edition or 5th level characters from 2nd Edition, so having a background to fill that empty space is kinda mandatory.
I originally bought the 3-ring binder style Monstrous Compendium when it came out, but I really disliked it. For one, the pages ripped at the holes easily, and because of having two monsters per page, it would occassionally mess up the alphabetical nature of how you would probably want to organize your pages. If a new monster landed alphabetically between the front and back pages of an older set, you just had it a bit messed up in your binder(s). Yeah... didn't love it. In the end, I traded away my copy for a Holmes Boxed Set that my friend had. I had no need for it, but it was just cool to have a Holmes set. ;-) I did eventually get the Monstrous Manual like you have there... along with some of the Appendix volumes; I definitely preferred that format to the loose pages format originally presented in 2e.
Complete Psionics Handbook has always had my vote for worst 2e artwork. I remember us gathered around before a session when it had just come out and just rolling about how bad it was. They appeared to be going for some new aged cult esthetic and really nailed that, complete with cheesy CG artwork all over the place. I loved all the "Complete" series books, but that one was just weird.
You can tell by the public railing against the Legends & Lore change here that he had all but abandoned maintaining diplomatic relations with his enemies at the company. An omen in hindsight.
Yes, it is kind of hard to read that from him knowing that by the time that article is published, he was on his way out. Like you said, he wasn't going out of his way to ingratiate himself to anyone!
The problem for TSR was they never got a great handle on the continuing revenue issue. They tried to do it with the base game rules releasing waves of "new Improved editions" and then spend and hire with that sales bump thinking they got that every year but it would be four to six years to the next bump. Meanwhile Wotc was releasing card decks "every month". What TSR could have done is condensed the core rules and spent their resources on module and campaigns, not reprinting convention modules but new ones. Setting up a system like Wotc does of competitions every month at the game stores. The other angle they missed was simplifying new player engagement (and not a "Basic/Starter/Baby" edition either). A 'day zero' of just rolling characters and shopping for gear turns into a ten minute setup and they are rolling dice surviving against goblins already. Anyone I ever talked to "oh yeah I tried playing that once" the next thing they mention is they spent hours generating characters and never got into the dungeon. If you can't get new players to start and keep playing, you'll never sell them any of the books, figures, modules or anything.
Lots of reasons for their troubles in the 90s. But IMO the main thing was releasing too much stuff and collectible card gaming. Was rough for RPGs in the 90s because of Magic the Gathering -- and I guess there is a #3 poor company management in general during the 90s.
Yeah, I think people are finally starting to figure out "the first 10 minutes" angle - if you can't grab someone's attention in that time, you've lost them. I run a 1981 Moldvay B/X game for my daughter and her friends. They're 15 now (started when they were 11). One of her friends joined a D&D club at school, and I thought that was super cool and just reminded her that it would be differently, mechanically, from what we play. She was cool with that. On the club sign-up day, after she and a few others signed up, a guy pulled them aside and just began running a scenario by talking. "Such as such happens... what do you do?" Based on their answers, they fleshed out their characters so now when they show up at the first session, they'll have a sense of who their PC is and character creation will be handled partly by the DM ahead of time. It sounded like a great way to get younger kids involved. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I mentioned it briefly in the previous video on the "Lost Gygax Classes" (but I couldn't remember the name, but it's what I was talking about) but although I'm aware of it, I've not read/played it before. The creator did mention to me on FB that he has a Kickstarter currently on for a revised edition and I may check it out then.
I think we do know quite a bit of what Gary was thinking based on two games: Castles & Crusades and his work in the early 200s with the Troll Lords (although most of his work was not C&C related) and his publishing of Dangerous Journeys through GDW in 1992. I've seen the rules for Dangerous Journeys and it's a very interesting rule set. That said "Adventures Dark and Deep" does look interesting. Like that it's compatible with lots of old material. Love all the OSR variations out there. Great stuff! Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess are my three favorite OSR games.
Would Everyone who claims to know about this game PLEASE READ the texts! Martin, please look at the table of contents of the PHB and the DMG. There is an EXACT correspondence of the contents of each book. So, please stop repeating that the contents of the DMG is not organized well. Many people say it, they just repeat endlessly what they hear. It is also explained in the first sentence of the DMGs introduction. Gary explains in clear English why the material is presented as it is. I enjoy your videos and will keep watching until I'm ready for my own, and probably after too.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I probably wasn't clear enough, but the 1E DMG is my favorite of all of the AD&D books, hands-down. I have a whole video about how it's one of my desert island books. That said, for me, as a kid, I found it confusing. I have always understood the relationship between the table of contents of books the PHB and the DMG. The layout still confuses me to this day. Perhaps I am just dense and don't get it. But, as an example in the DMG: The first section is about creating a player character (after getting past the section on dice), and it all makes sense. That's fine. Then Alignment, which is of course related to how to play a Player Character. Then starting player character money. All fine. Then: Value and Reputed Properties of Gems and Jewelry. I guess you could make the case that it comes after money so it's "related" but it seems not to flow, to me. I would have thought it made more sense in the Treasure section. Then it leans into a whole section on notes regarding magical properties of gems, herbs, etc. Then armor and weapons. Then hirelings and henchmen, which makes sense because these are all things one would pay money for. Then a discussion of Time in the campaign before we get to spells, then adventuring outdoors including adjudicating aerial/waterborn/etc. combat. Then it jumps to discussions on the planes, which could be an extension of outdoor adventures, so that does make sense, but then it jumps to mirrors, detecting evil and/or good, and listening at doors. I get that Gary "had a system" and I'm sure the organization made sense to him. I find it very confusing why, for example, the Climate and Ecology section isn't closer to the section on "Adventures in the Outdoors. But again, to reiterate, I love this book and part of what I love about it is that, due to the way it's organized, I am still finding little nuggets that I'd either forgotten or perhaps just skimmed over, all these years later, and that makes it a book I want to return to again and again. But I'm not just repeating what other folks have said.
I keep hearing DungeonTubers commenting about the layout of the 1st Edition DMG being wrong. I don’t get it. You should do a video on what’s wrong with how it’s organized and how you think it should have been done.
I can certainly add that to the list of potential future topics! They're minor things, but stuff like "Note regarding the magical properties of gems, herbs, et all" would seem to me to fit better in a whole section about magic, which would also include the parts on Magical Research and maybe the Use of Magic Items as well as Appendix J and K. Like you're talking about magical gems and herbs in the section on money, but not giving the value of said gems and herbs but instead listing some "reputed magical properties." And then right after that, you're back to discussing money with the value of "other rare commodities." If I were ever picking up this book to figure out "what are some cool things that gems might do," I'd look in the magic section, not the money section. Again, just one example. But it's one of the charms of this book. I might go looking to read about one thing, and then learn about something else.
I remember when 2nd edition came out. I was at a sci fi and fantasy convention that Gary Gygax was speaking at. Despite him telling me that he wasn't involved in it, I had him sign my 2nd edition players handbook
Too bad you didn't have a copy of one of the OD&D or AD&D books with you -at the time - but still very cool to get a Gygax signature.
Well, even if he wasn’t involved, it wouldn’t have existed without him .
This was my favorite edition of AD&D. I've heard some critics complain that it failed to innovate and added nothing new, and that may be true to a certain degree but the backward compatibility of this edition is part of what made it so appealing to me.
Really it's hard to compare 1st and 2nd edition, because not much really changed -- pretty minor stuff -- 1st and 2nd edition are really the same set of rules. Both great rule sets!
@@quantus5875 Well that's because it's an actual new edition, that is a revision of the game. The idea that "edition" for some reason had to mean basically a new game didn't start until 3E (or possibly 4E, because before then it could have been argued that WotC had just made their own D&D game).
I hope you enjoyed last week's video on the PHBR "Complete Handbooks," then! Also... SPOILER ALERT: This week's video will *also* be about 2E!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
If you ever feel you are running out of general D&D material, I would enjoy some kind of history and overview of any kind of TSR releases. For instance the boxed sets like Myth Drannor and Undermountain, or the Complete Book of.. (fighters, thieves, etc), or specific campaign setting books. Really like the blend of historical knowledge and substantive overview you provide in all these videos. Hope to catch you at the convention!
I would love to see that too!
There are a few other UA-camrs that cover this material from a historical perspective - Undermountain had been covered by several people.
@@quantus5875 I found a few of them. If you can suggest a few more I would appreciate it
I enjoy all of Daddy Rolled a 1
Thank you so much for saying this to help the algorithm! I really appreciate it, and also thank you for your support of the channel. Cheers!
I *love* how you connect the dots of the timeline with those Dragon magazine articles. I don't know how much time that would have taken me to piece together on my own. Great job Martin!
Only 2+ weeks late, but I wanted to say thanks so much for watching and commenting, and I'm really glad you enjoyed the video! Cheers!
Your timing on this video is impeccable. I was currently in the process of creating 4 AD&D 2nd Edition characters for my Solo Campaign. I have already finished the Paladin and the Cleric. The Mage is almost completed, and the Elven Thief will be finished tonight.
The Masque of the Red Death boxed set for Ravenloft (AD&D 2nd Edition) used the proficiency system for all of the thieving skills. It made the class a lot more powerful at lower levels because of the higher chances of the character to succeed at any of its core abilities (e.g. Pick Pockets or Find/Remove Traps).
That was such a unique product! I only have it as a PDF but I chat with William W. Connors (the author) frequently in social media and I've told him many times how great and unique I thought that supplement was.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Noble Knight Games has The Masque of the Red Death boxed set for Ravenloft reprint for sale for $22.50.
Great Historical video on 2nd Ed and the direction EGG might have gone. Funny, you mention about Weapon Vs Armor being seldom used and a bit Clunky. I guess in Long Beach we had an enclave at the now out of business FLGS "Warhouse" aka Balboa Game Company. Where I worked during college, that used those and speed factor in every campaign. Every during the 80s and somewhat into the 90s used them. The store usually had between 3-5 separate campaigns playing every week. I began using those rules when I was about 12-13 years old. So I guess it was how often you used them. We even modified them from using Armor Class (ie AC 2, 5, 10 etc.) to the actual Armor Type (Platemail, Shield, Chainmail, No armor etc.). They worked wonderful and we included them for the weapons on our character sheets. Back then since the Classes did not have nearly as many abilities as the new editions of the game, allowed different classes to vary by the weapon they used. Sort of like Weapon tags they are talking about using in the new Edition of DND coming out in 2024. Anyway, I know you live in the San Diego area, so it is interesting how different areas and groups all played the same edition of the game in so many different ways. Again thanks for another Great Video, always looking for your next one. Also, as an aside, I bought my three daughters each one of your dice shirts. They loved them. Take Care
Firstly, thank you so much for your support of the channel! I'm so thrilled that your daughters love the shirts! That makes me so happy!
Also, very small correction, but I live in Pasadena, not San Diego. Close(ish), though! I totally remember hearing about the Warhouse in Long Beach but I never got a chance to visit. I've been able to go to a few classic Southern California game stores before they closed, including Aero Hobbies, Games of Westwood, and the Last Grenadier. A smaller one, but much closer to my heart, was All-Star Games in Diamond Bar.
Thanks so much for sharing the stories about your games back in the 80s and 90s! I love hearing about other peoples' games. Cheers, and thanks again!
Always LOVED the crunchiness of weapon speed, and weapon vs armor modifiers seem cool as well…
"The magic-user. A lynch mob will come after me if I kill the magic-user." Best game-designer line ever. 🤣
Hey thank you for this amazing vid! Any part of the rise and fall of Gygax is super fascinating. It always seems like he was constantly trying to define the hobby with ebbs and flows of certain ideals. Btw I still watch and like all your vids - they're great entertainment while working! Just haven't gotten to comment on all but it's all amazing stuff!!!
Check out the RPG Adventures Dark and Deep. Its designed to be the What If Gygax did 2e and the designer used the same sources of information you bring up in this video. There is a revision of the game on Kickstarter as of this moment.
Greyhawk Grognard
I backed it at the full amount and plan to use it to resurrect my childhood 1E campaign world!!
Very nice explanation. Your collection is in good shape!
Thank you! I was always very careful with my books and toys as a kid, as I didn't want to disrespect my mom, whom I knew had paid money for them. As a consequence, my collection is in very good shape!
O
It's interesting to see where the things in 5e came from and why. The evolution of D&D is interesting. My old school version of choice is BECMI. I wanted to add rangers and bards to the game and I realized that a ranger could just be a fighter with certain ranger-like proficiencies. Similar with a bard, just just a wizard with certain proficiencies (and a song book instead of a spell book).
For the ranger, I did add in a couple other things. But I still wanted to try to keep it simple.
Anyway, I do wish you were in the Kansas City area. It would be interesting to listen to a tasting of yours while, also, sampling the drinks. You have some interesting tastes.
I never bothered with 2E, having already designed my own game by then. HOWEVER, if you want to see a very slavish and comprehensive version of what it WOULD HAVE looked like, had Gary been involved; Greyhawk Grognard, Joseph Bloch, is currently releasing it as "Adventures Dark and Deep" 2nd printing.
Great video, Martin. Also, so happy I got my 2e books back!
I wish I would have watched this when you released it, completely forgot that DaveCon was over the weekend, and I live in the twin cities metro!
Love the detail in this overview. Thank you for your hard work!
I appreciate that so much! Thank you for watching and commenting!
This was a great video series. I will say that it is extremely rare that I watch a video as long as this, but I was pretty into this one. Also, I love the amaro bit at the end; I have been exploring them myself for the last few years (a home bar was one of my pandemic projects); I have tried Aperol, Campari, Montenegro, Fernet Branca, and Cynar so far.
I have always wanted to see a completed mountebank.
The Dille family had first published the Buck Rogers comic strip, the character and his earliest adventures were created by a pulp writer named Phillip Nowlan, in a pair of novels (Armageddon 2419 A.D. and The Airlords of Han) in the late 1920s. John F. Dille was the head of the National Newspaper Service, which syndicated comic strips and other features. The nickname "Buck" is credited to him, so he had technical ownership of part of the character, and eventually gained full ownership, which passed through his family. Lorraine Williams and Flint Dille were John Dille's grandchildren.
Wow, so the family didn’t even invent an entire character. That’s quite a legacy.
Great content as always. Thank you, good sir!
I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, as always!
2nd edition ad&d was my game. that was the edition that introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons. Only seriously played in college in the '90s, after college moved on to other hobbies. I still have a decent number of second edition books. I played in a few 3rd Edition, 4th edition, and Pathfinder games occasionally as one-offs, but second edition has always been there... Even though I really haven't played in 20 plus years, I occasionally just pull one of the many books that I have not read off the shelf and read a bit. Some of the last books for second edition were actually published by wizards of the coast, and some of them are actually pretty good.
It’s never too late to get back into playing!
I’d like to hear more about 2nd edition. I’ve never played it as a TTRPG but it was common to a lot of Infinity Engine games like Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2. It seems like an interesting system. I particularly liked the idea of Kits because it led to a lot of character variations.
I truly enjoyed this. Thank you for making it.
I'm so glad to hear that! Thank you so much for letting me know. Cheers, and thanks for watching and commenting!
I'm surprised that BRW Games' Adventures Dark and Deep wasn't mentioned. BRW went made a OSR game based on what Gygax posted about his hypothetical 2E of AD&D.
And we do know a lot about what Gygax was thinking post his leaving -- as after he left New Infinity Productions he did write Dangerous Journeys for GDW in 1992.
That's the game I was thinking of at a certain point when I mentioned around 28:30 there was a game out there that did this. I just couldn't think of the name off the top of my head.
Great video.
Thank you very much! I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Tim Kask said he convinced Gary to put psionics in D&D to counter the mind flayer, and that Gary NEVER really liked it. They intended it to be extremely rare but of course players somehow rolled high enough to get psionics with a regularity that defies probabilities just as 18/00 strength was somehow very common
Well, you know how it is.
They rolled an honest Psionisist, they just had to roll and retire about 20 innkeepers beforehand.
😂
@@TheProphessionalGeek Unless my math is wrong, they'd have to roll like 50,000 characters to have a chance at an 18/00, yet some groups had three.
@@NemoOhd20 That's a lot of farmboys that never left home for adventure.
@@TheProphessionalGeek A LOT!!!!!
I remember filling out the 2nd Ed. Survey in Dragon.
I was 16 in 1983 and we didn't have social media, so most of my friends and I hadn't heard about Gary's ouster from the company until we were much older. Anyway, great video. I can see the work you've put into it.
I appreciate that. Glad you enjoyed it!
My first knowledge of Gary leaving was the editorial he wrote in the pages of Dragon magazine! I had no idea until I read that.
Looking forward to watching this one!
Yes, awesome!
Thank you! I hope you enjoy it. Cheers!
Daddy rolled a 1, Did a quick look up of Gygax's New Infinity Production company in one of Shannon Applecline's Designers & Dragons books. New Infinities Production basically produced three things during the short time the company was in existence: 1) books like a Gord the Rogue book called Sea of Death (1987) and other fantasy books by other authors, 2) the Cyborg Commando (1987) RPG game that you talked about, 2) and a line of adventures and supplements branded under the "Fantasy Master" logo, a few examples were this adventure called The Convert (1987) written by Mentzer, and an a supplement on Africa called Aesheba: Greek Africa (1987). Company filed for bankruptcy in 1989. Cyborg Commando was the only RPG that New Infinities Productions produced during its existence.
If anything, the 1e Bard was the ancestor of the Prestige Class.
The 1e Bard was an interesting suggestion of an alternate specific Dual-Classing path. Unearthed Arcana's Thief-Acrobat was another odd duck, much like an advanced-class such as you see in a couple video games or perhaps the Rules Cyclopedia Fighter advance class options. Druid Heirophants are another way to do things, although unlike Thief-Acrobat there isn't an option to just continue leveling as a regular Druid. Oriental Adventures' Ninja as a hybrid class is another very weird and almost 2e Kit-like approach.
So there are a LOT of little variants being tried out.
I don't think we can see a true Prestige Class happen until 3e's brand-new additive multiclassing system. But I can see how a lot of those earlier class oddities could have been an early inspiration.
I expect the weapon omission was the poleaxe, a very potent and popular choice for armored footmen.
I think you might be right! Totally makes sense.
another great video Martin! I find so many interesting little bits in your commentary about the history. I just purchased a copy of the Moldvay set and am about to play with my 7 1/2 year old son and some of his friends too! I sort of blame you for my new enthusiasm for collecting vintage D&D and other TTRPG items.... We started playing a rules-light version of 5e and my son really REALLY likes the idea of an Air Genasi Monk so I'm going to custom rule his character somehow to fit with Moldvay Basic.
I will HAPPILY take the blame for turning someone on to Moldvay B/X! I hope you've been enjoying the system, and I'm so thrilled that you're running a campaign for your son and his friends!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. Apologies for the very delayed reply, but I appreciate you! Cheers!
love the channel
I wonder what medieval weapon Gary forgot to include in first edition? A pole arm?
Had to be a pole arm 🙂.
Anti-backstabbing cloak +5
Again, as I posted on the Dungeon and Wilderness Survival Guides video, the NWP were (and remain) a superb way of handling "background" information for characters while also giving a way of determining skill success for some random thing (fire starting, tracking, survival, w/e). The "Complete" guides (there were something like 2 dozen) generally added issues to the game, namely play balancing. As for a instance, take the Bladesinger. That's a dual-class kit that allows for Weapon Specialization (this is clarified by the author of the book on a Dragonsfoot post some 5 or 10 years ago, but it's heavily implied in the actual class description) on ONE weapon, but also gets an enormous bonus to AC and Attack while also still retaining spell casting abilities, albeit a 2 segment penalty to casting times. The only downside to the class is that you "must" make every attempt to assist/save elves before all others... which is a roleplaying penalty. At 6th level, when they get 3rd lvl spells, taking up Strength (or Enlarge at 2nd) makes them just monsters in melee or from Range, with no actual complications to the kit itself. After having played this kit for the last 4 years, I would have to argue that they should have been school restricted as they were with weapons, so say 5 schools instead of all 8 (kind of like the Goblin Wizard kit in the Humanoids Handbook).
The thing that really caused complications was the lack of walls on the editions. The "Black Book" 2nd edition books were, for all intents and purposes, 2.5E but in a 2E campaign, it starts leading in to power creep. Then there's the non-stop printing of books for the edition, which lead to all sorts of "additional content" that generally felt like untested content.
My 2E group generally has issues with edition, preferring 5E for its "simplicity" (I'll hold my opinion about that), but the universal gripe that the other players seem to have about it is the round initiatives and all the different roll types (over a number to hit and to save, but under for skill and stat checks...). Apparently rolling for initiative every round makes things too complicated? /sigh
As an interesting note, 3E did have spells and proficiencies being paid for with experience, so I'm wondering if the EGG had some hand in hedging that in there. It wasn't Zeb, he was at Bethesda making Fallout 2.
Speed factors and weapon type vs armor are present in 2ed. We played with speed factors but not weapon type vs armor.
The schools or colleges of magic idea actually originated with the Dragonquest game in the early 80's. Dragonquest was owned by SPI which was bought by TSR in 1982. Dragonquest was SPI's attempt to enter and cash in on the RPG craze among gamers at the time. It had some interesting ideas, the magic colleges being one of them. I played it around that time (2nd edition).
It had the coolest cover art, right up there with Runequest.
@@danielgoldberg5357 I think Jim Sherman did the art. He also drew some comic books during that period of time.
Great video. I've been really enjoying these discussions about D&D history; I appreciate the exploration of the evolution of 2E. As it went, I never truly embraced 2E. During that time, the group I played with used a hodgepodge of 1E and 2E, largely favoring the former. The shutting out of Gary Gygax was one thing that turned me off (that it was a little karma coming his way after cutting out Arneson was not a thing widely known at the time). The other thing that ground my gears was the art. Some of the interior art looked phoned in and why did every single warrior type have to have wings or horns on their helmets? It lost that power that 1E illustration had to ignite your imagination and pull you into the fantasy. I ended taking a long break from D&D, and I remember a lot of gamers looking down their nose at it for a while. But then, 3E reignited my interest in D&D. My group plays 3.5 and ShadowDark these days.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I also didn't play 2E much at all, but like you, I considered 1E and 2E very compatible and mainly designed my campaign setting with 1E rules but including NWPs and kits from 2E. There was a LOT of recycled art in 2E and that was one of the things that really turned me off. I kept seeing the same cover images from Dragon Magazine re-used over and over inside books, especially the "complete handbook" series and that annoyed me. I liked a lot of the Tony DiTerlizzi art in the Monstrous Manual and later in Planescape, and I liked Brom's art for Dark Sun, but I do get your point that, broadly, a lot of stuff in 2E (including the art, and for me, even the layout) was "watered down."
I, too, returned to D&D with 3E and began a campaign in May 2001 with 3E that then switched to 3.5 and finally Pathfinder 1E that is technically still going. My collection of RPG materials probably has the most from that era since there was so much 3rd party content!
Thanks again for watching. Cheers!
Playing in a Planescape campaign currently that uses 1E and 2E modules and campaign book with 5E mechanics… our DM does a good job of making it seamless.
The first D&D campaign I ever played in was in Dark Sun. That setting is built around psionics being a thing. Outside of Athas, I pretty much agree with Gary on the psionics issue. I think that unless it's built into the setting it just adds complexity without making the game any better.
I never bought the Monstrous Comoendium. Even then I knew that I was way, way too disorganized to make use of something that required three hole punch binders!
I felt the same, but it also helped that my group had switched to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, so I bought the 2E PHB mainly just to check it out.
It’s really interesting that you recorded this video, because Greyhawk Grognard has an old school Renaissance game called “adventures dark and deep” that posits basically, what would second edition have looked like if Gary had stayed at TSR? The revision of the game is on kickstarter right now, it looks really good.
Yes, that's the game I was referring to at around 28:30 in the video when I mentioned a game but couldn't remember the name. I've not looked at the game before and didn't even realize that it was having a Kickstarter for a revised edition but that's good timing.
Jazz at Massey Hall has a pretty wild line up. Thanks for the tip.
I think my favorite all time Jazz album is Money Jungle. Duke Ellington, Charlie Mingus, and Max Roach. Absolutely zero noodling, just three maestros tearing it up.
Pre-internet it was a rarity, long out of print. A friend got a hold of a cassette copy of it, and I made a copy of that. I’ve never seen a vinyl copy or the liner notes.
The legend is that Mingus and Ellington were mad at each other during the recording. And it’s in there on some tracks. Jazz isn’t always improvisational cooperation. Sometimes it’s contention.
They say Jazz is a musical conversation. In this case it was an argument.
Anyway, check it out if you don’t already know it.
So great to meet a fellow jazz fan, and thank you so much for sticking all the way through the bonus content! I really appreciate it!
And yes, Money Jungle is a great album and I agree with all your points. Mingus could be, as I understand, pretty prickly. I sadly don't have the album in any physical format, but I have streamed it before and it's on my list of records to check for when I'm crate digging!
Thanks again for watching and commenting. Cheers!
When you mentioned psionics you forgot to mention dark Sun where psionics were a requirement
Great episode. Thanks.
Another fun and interesting episode
I loved 1st Edition, especially the Bard class. It was complicated and fun. We did play 2nd edition. When 3rd edition came out, our DM didn't like it and we continued to play 2nd edition... and until a few years ago were still playing 2nd Edition... A few of us moved and we played online for a while, but it became too difficult to continue to play, so we played Neverwinter Nights until we just faded away from the game. I miss the game, and especially the people I played with for 20+ years.
I only played 2nd edition a few times. For some reason, I was under the impression that it wasn't really different than 1st, other than rewritten to sell more books, a few word changes to satisfy the Satanic Panic, and of course, the THAC0 (I've always called it "taco", pronounced like the wonderful Mexican dish) system. However, it seems every time I hear more details about 2e there are more nuanced rules than I previously realized.
It was broadly very compatible with 1E, especially if you add in the late-1E things like non-weapon proficiencies and ideas like Weapon Specialization, etc.
I'd say for the most part, the biggest changes from 1E were:
* No Monk Class (there's a Kit in the Complete Priest's Handbook but it's nothing like the one presented 1E)
* No Assassin Class (again, this is handled by Kits)
* Revised Bard Class is a stand-alone class, not a proto-Prestige Class like the one from the 1E PHB
* No Half-Orcs in the base rules (added later as a PC option in the Complete Book of Humanoids)
Then there are other, smaller changes and there are quite a few, including low ability scores no longer pigeon-holing you into a class, differences in languages learned, maximum spells per level is an optional rule, different XP leveling for demi-humans, demi-human min/max ability scores changes, Ranger class re-designed, removal of Cavaliers and Barbarians from UA, no more Thief-Acrobat split-class, change in Thief abilities to make them more customizable (they start out with a set of points the player can allocate however they want to the skills), etc. Playing a 1E adventure using 2E rules, or vice-versa, works just fine and I wouldn't even bother making adjustments, but then again I also run 1E adventures in my B/X game without bothering to convert them!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
2nd edition is my favorite version of D&D. It has its warts and I love them all.
Thac0 wasnt that confusing..it wasall we knew
@FatalDevotee1 I hope you're enjoying the past few videos, then! (SPOILER: Another 2E video dropping this week!)
@@daddyrolleda1 I am looking forward to it.
Great vid! After Scanners, everyone wanted to have a psionic character...
Thanks!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you doing this. It means a lot. Cheers!
I really enjoyed the move from 1E to 2E, we played the Time of Troubles modules and it was a lot of fun.
It's stuck with me a lot better than 1E has as well. I still run it.
While I like most kits, I do think that there's room for more classes. Barbarians were more unique in 1E than what kits present, same with cavaliers. although the cavalier kit does gain more than barbarian kits do, in keeping with their 1e design. Subclasses offer something unique that isn't covered by proficiencies.
Man the ads in that Dragon take me back. I'd read my Dragon mag once, then turn back through it and take in what was being advertised. Thats how I tried the "Aftermath!" game.
I remember the Aftermath ads, but never picked it up. I remember the Call of Cthulhu ads in the very early 80s and eventually played it.
Although the friend I started playing with had 1e and BECMI, we started playing with 2e, particularly with the original Dark Sun box, so psionics has always been a part of 2e for me, even when playing other settings or with dms not into psionics. And of course, I still play 2e to this day. I have recently branched into PF, but the only d&d products I own with a WotC logo are the Japan physical release of bg3, and the cookbook. I do have the first Diablo 2 release (minus the box), but that still has the TSR logo and just mentions WotC in the fine print.
So Gary wanted to give players value for money? No wonder TSR kicked him out. At least we got the Buck Rogers game though. Totally worth it.
They kicked him out bc of his selfishness, his LA escapades, his drug use and womanizing, and his bad business sense. TSR was in serious trouble. Lorraine Williams kept it alive for 10 years longer than it would have survived. Listen to When We Were Wizards podcast. Many of TSR's employees preferred working for Lorraine Williams than Saint Gygax.
2nd edition is all i ever played. It was magical
Very cool! There's a lot of really great stuff in 2E, especially all the variety of campaign settings.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Yes forgotten realms and ravenloft were amazing back then
There's a surprising amount of stuff in the 2e DMG that's just verbatim from 1e.
Great video!! I thoroughly enjoyed it! Once again, great research on the background of development of AD&D 2nd edition. Like I mentioned in your previous post, I had an account on Enworld back in the day, really appreciate you mentioning Gary Gygax’s posts there.
I wonder what Frank Mentzer would have done with 2E. His Red Box was my introduction to D&D. I think he would have done a great job with it. I don’t know if Mr. Mentzer has ever commented about preliminary discussions about 2e. I would be very interested in hearing his take on what was planned originally.
AD&D 2e is the system I have played the most. I still have my books from 89 and the early 90s. When we first started playing we played it interchangeably with AD&D. We made a few minor adjustments to our Barbarians, Cavaliers, and Assassins. I had a Half-orc Fighter/thief before the Complete Book of Humanoids came out. Most of the modules we played were 1e modules. Of course, we primarily played our own adventures in our own campaign worlds. For that matter, we often used Basic and Expert Modules interchangeably with AD&D as well. I think I have mentioned to you before how we often “kit-bashed” multiple games together in our campaigns. Those were the days.
I have a slightly different take on Kits than you do. I was quite fond of kits back then. Not all of them were great, but there were a few which were more like subclasses than backgrounds. Although, agree a lot of them are more on par with 5e backgrounds. One example is the Militant Mage kit, it gave you proficiency in swords and access to fighter NWPs. I think it’s better than the War Mage Arcane Tradition in 5e. One of my favorite PCs was an Evoker Specialist Militant Mage. If you check out the Complete Druids Handbook, that book introduces Druidic Circles (called Branches) and the kits are much more like subclasses. Check out the Gray Druid and Hivemaster kit.
If you ever want to chat about 2e, hit me up. I’d love to discuss my experiences playing and Dming that edition.
Loved the bonus content as well. You know a lot about music history. I could listen to you talk about music all day. If you ever do video where you talk about music, musicians and classic albums, I’d be interested.
Have a great time at DaveCon!
Turns out the colored plates were a step backwards ironically.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I never got any of the various Compendium things, so I've not seen them in person, but why do you say that?
@@daddyrolleda1
Many, many people cite the black and white art style of 0E & 1E as a special flavoring that set the mood of the game. This is why the OSR Culture openly embraces it. While the color art itself was often more advanced, it lacks the sentiment and original style. Particularly when you think of dark, ominous, and fearsome monsters. The color artwork never quite translated the gruesomeness of the black and whites. This doesn't really apply to the artwork in general, just those of monsters.
@@kendiamond7852 Ah, I see what you were saying! Yes, I love a lot of the 1E era art. While I know it's polarizing, I'm quite fond of some of the work in the Fiend Folio, particularly Russ Nichols.
That said, I really do like Tony DiTerlizzi's art for the Monstrous Compendium.
7:08 But there was a D&D movie in the 80s... it's called Conan the Destroyer. ;-)
I believe Illusionist is part of the Wizards book
The comment amount investment and buying the books all over again I really related too. I bought all of the 1st & 2nd edition books (even after I stopped playing). I just wanted a complete set. 3rd came out and I was “nope”.
I've always loved First Edition AD&D. Interesting to see what EGG wanted to change with subsequent editions. Some of what he didn't like I actually liked, and vice versa. AD&D bolted on a level of complexity to D&D that 2nd expanded (and reduced some.) For example, Kits and non-weapon specialization increased the complexity with 2nd Ed, and eliminating weapon speed and to-hit bonuses vs AC reduced it. I liked this complexity feature of 1st Edition as it gave a good reason why carrying axes, hammers, maces, and daggers mattered. Great video, thanks for this.
I just ordered both of these Dragon Magazines since I don't have good copies anymore.
Oh, very cool! Did you buy them on Ebay or somewhere else? Enjoy!
I have been watching the Questing Beast episodes on Braunstein and the Story of Black Moor and it struck me that the combat mechanics where evolved but everything else seems to have developed through actual role play. Like just tell the DM what you want to do and they would talk it out. Like you could fight an orc or talk to the orc, but in order to talk to the orc you had to talk the conversation out without a dice roll.
That's how TSR era D&D was played. Now it's just a video game, where you push a skill button on your character sheet. Very little role playing in modern editions. I am finding this out more and more since I left 5e and have been dedicated to TSR editions of D&D. I'll never go back to WOTC D&D.
There was a table for reaction and morale rolls but you're mostly correct. Narrating what your character is doing like a novel was standard. Role play > roll play
I think a lot of that is up to the DM. I think if you tell your players to just narrate what they’re doing, and that all conversations between players are happening in game, etc. You can call for skill rolls only when there’s a question of whether your Persuasion, etc. will work. Kind of like call of Cthulhu social skills.
@@danielgoldberg5357 I prefer skill based games but there is something to be said for playing a role including conversation and motivations. But without a skill check there is no room for your character being better at something then the player.
@@martinbowman1993 There is a good alternative to skill checks with reaction rolls.
I'd been fascinated by Deathlok since the 90s and finally bought the TPB of the run a few years ago. The early stories with the three competing "voices" were really interesting and I was disappointed that they dropped that aspect of it.
Really enjoyed this video! It was so interesting to see what Gary's vision of what a 2e would have been.
I would love more videos about 2e as a whole, of course. It's probably my favorite version of old-school DnD just because it has so much customizability, so many optional rules to play with, it's so compatible with almost everything that came before so you can easily mine the past books for more content and convert it with very little issue, and the character kits add a lot of nuance to making a character without going overboard like Wizards-era DnD can get. It's just so unfortunate that 2e has so much bad vibes behind the curtain, being made almost entirely as a way to get Gary out of the game after they had already cut Dave out of the picture, thus making it the first edition totally divorced from its two creators, as well as being heavily affected by public perception of DnD as Satanic and evil, resulting in a lot of censorship and cut content, and the adventures are not nearly as good nor as classic. It's not all bad; giving the demons and devils new names was pretty cool, and almost all content that wasn't used in 2e can be easily ported in (and those excellent 1e adventures can all be played in 2e), but it's a bitter pill to swallow either way. Feels like a weird middle ground where it's not modern enough for the current fans but not old-school enough for the OSR fans. Unfortunately, there isn't a single "1e" thing that has everything I want and none of the stuff I don't while 2e gets pretty much as close as it can to my platonic ideal of DnD, so I'll stick with it as my baseline!
Wow when Gary said those people aren't going to buy our products anyway so why change something to appease them, it really hit me. He had future sight about how Hasbro was going to bend a knee in the 2020s.
29:12 After a quick search, couldn't find any info on the Ultisystem. Would've been nice to see what that was all about. I loved Ultima 3 but $35 for basically a hint guide is high in those days!
Did find Wizisystem and Wizinews information easily.
Actually psionics were not entirely abandoned in the base 2nd Ed game. In the monstrous compendium, several monsters had psionic stats.
True. So, it was mostly abandoned. Mostly. ?;- )
It was kind of abandoned and then reintroduced with the Psionics Handbook a few years later. There were earlier monsters in the MC with powers that replicated Psionics (notably Mind Flayers et al) but it was dropped as a concept from the initial core rules on first release, and brought back as an option. Apparently, it turned out that some people actually liked them.
Plus... Dark Sun came out around the same time as the Complete Psionics book, and Dark Sun really leant into Psionics more than any other product before.
I always liked psionics and wished more OSR games featured them. They will play a prominent role in my next campaign…
Ah, true! I've also heard really good things about the 2E Psionics Handbook, but I have never really used Psionics in my games, so I didn't really pay much attention to that one.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
The Armor class adjustments for certain kinds of weapons hitting certain kinds of armor really did make sense from a realistic perspective, but I get it. Who wants to play a Medieval-fantasy version of Phoenix Command? 😆
Hi I was thinking about the player classes from your previous videos. The Mystic and the Savant almost feel like they should be something like the Unearthed Arcana Druid expansion. If you think about the banishing extra planar space that is very high end. Maybe those were expansions of the top end it also would fit in with the Manual of the Planes.
I would say the true spiritual successor of kits would be pf1 archetypes.
Yeah, I can say that. I was always confused by people saying that Prestige Classes were like Kits. That never made sense to me. Kits gave you a small bonus and a small hindrance, and maybe a few examples of what weapons and non-weapon proficiencies you should have. Prestige Classes were full-blown classes that increased/changed your attack bonus, saves, etc. and gave you level based abilities.
I believe assassins were sub classes in the theives 2nd edition handbook..the brown covered supplement
Yes, Assassins were a Thief "Kit" so not quite a full subclass. Even though they said they were getting rid of them (mostly due to the moral panic at the time but under the excuse that "any class can be an assassin"), they did still appear on a watered-down form in the Complete Thief's Handbook.
Castle and Crusades may be that very edition, at least it's a spiritual successor.
Castles & Crusades is a fantastic game! It really is a clean modern mechanic take on 1st Ed.
@daves6220 Yes, Gary later said that Castles & Crusades was very close to his ideal version of a "2nd Edition." Of course, it's "retcon Gary" saying that - not that he didn't mean it at the time, but a lot of people misinterpret that as meaning that Gary was working on a system that mechanically would've looked like Castles & Crusades, which I don't believe is the case.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
45:28 It's not that big a deal. A) you only need to check when it's close B) Once you've used it a lot you basically have it down. C) It's actually remarkably well done and I would only quibble about Axes, which Gary vastly under-rates but with the data he had, it's an admirable job.
I always just thought it was interesting that Gygax himself didn't use it and considered discontinuing it (at least, as it was currently presented) in a future edition.
Once you're used to something, it definitely can run smoother and faster. For me, though, I just don't like the idea of having to stop during combat to refer to tables. At least, not how I play now. I prefer B/X D&D which doesn't have all those additional tables. I don't begrudge folks who like and/or use them, but they're not for me. 😀
Thank you so much for watching and for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it! Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Not using it makes damage die the only consideration in weapon choice and removes and important element. I also don't think it's fair to say Gary "never" used it. Gary notoriously gives different answers at different times because like most gamers his style and preferences change over time. Had he lived, he'd have come back around. More people are playing with it now than in the 80s. I never used it then, I use it now, it's made the game better. My AD&D game is in person and has 10 players and my combats are not slow. Try it.
Not sure if this is something you can cover, but I would be interested to hear your thoughts about the differences between AD&D as depicted in the SSR and Infonity Engine games versus table tops. Your conversation on kits got me thinking about this - my preferred Bhaalspawn was a Cavalier Paladin fighting the darkness within. Also, how did dual classing work? When not playing a Paladin, I liked to play a level 2 wizard dual classed to fighter or cleric.
I’ve always wanted to know, is there a story behind the cover pictures of PHB and DMG? PHB human characters look like they could be modelled on 1970s hipsters, Gygax’ friends maybe; while both books could have been actual played adventures.
Any ideas?
Tim Kask said he convinced Gary to put psionics in d&d to counter the mind flayer, and that Gary NEVER really liked it. they intended it to be extremely rare but of course players somehow rolled high enough to get psionics with a regularity that defies probabilities just as 18/00 strength was somehow very common.
I only played 2nd edition a couple of times, but for some reason I always thought is was just 1st edition, rewritten to sell more books and eliminate certain names which triggered the Satanic Panic... That, and, the THAC0 (I always called it the "taco" pronounced like the wonderful Mexican food) system.
Didn’t the cavalier use a d12 for hit points too? I don’t have access to my UA at the moment.
Yes, you are correct! I'd quite forgotten that!
The 0e supplements, and the 1e core book production process, and especially 1e UA, gave me an overall vibe. That is, everything was always in flux, nothing was really set in stone, they didn't have a holistic design for the whole edition, and often were just cramming in anything that seemed good. Almost like a monthly zine except in hardback. Then the new edition is expected to just compile and edit all these components, but probably not remove anything.
So when looking at the 1e core books (MM, DMG, PHB) as a compilation of everything they had before, it would make sense from Gygax's perspective to have 2e be just another wave of the same process.
Which I think might have really sucked.
Instead of a Mystic (Diviner-type) we instead got 2e's Specialty Wizards which was a great move. Admittedly, it would have been nice to have each of the specialists get school-specific special abilities to differentiate them, but that is easily houseruled or implemented with kits. As for the Jester and Mountebank, just UGH. They sound really underwhelming. The Hunter could have been interesting if they gave it some spell use at 7th or 8th with a trapping-specific spell list, give the Hunter the species enemy ability, and jack up the stealth / espionage aspect of Rangers to compensate.
I think the split of all the content with Europe as the core books and each cultural genre as an expansion is a great idea. But we got an Al-Qadim and a Horde that didn't contain a whole content replacement like we got with 1e Oriental Adventures. We got a Dragonlance Adventures and a Dark Sun setting that were rich enough in player options to feel like a whole different culture. We needed a seafaring / pirate / coastal / islander expansion book, one for Underdark, one for East Asia, one for Africa, one for the Arctic.
And then we could have gotten a great Gamma World / Metamorphosis Alpha, and a Boot Hill, etc. Of course at the time we didn't even have Planescape or Spelljammer on the horizon.
Lots of more interesting ideas to ponder! Thanks for all this. I quite liked the 2E Specialty Wizards and it obviously changed the class in a manner that's continued through to 5E and presumedly beyond. A seafaring book could've been fun if done right and full of fun fantasy tropes and not bogged down so much in real world cultures like "The Horde" was (at least, to me).
I "really" started with 2e, but I had the 1e books and felt they were way better written. I kind of really want to look at Castles & Crusades since that's more or less 2e if Gygax had written it.
Yes, that an interesting take on C&C. I agree C&C might have been the way Gary would have gone. Gygax definitely did a lot of good work -- with Troll Lord Games.
I agree to even as 3e Advance
The "schools of magic" destroyed the Illusionist. Literally. And I will never stop being salty about it.
I think that it is important, although not critical, for a party to have a diversity of expertise. The general four catagories of adventure expertise are fighter, thief, magic-user, and cleric. I think a lot sub-classes are differentiation without distinction in order to sell books. I think that I haven't seen a system that matches skills with expertise where a profession gives a person skills that only those in the profession can get.
I recently figured out from your video on Marvel Superheroes RPG that when a rpg says Heroic it means that they have added the feat mechanic in order to express a characters heroic ability. I used to think heroic meant something narrative - like a character was fighting for a heroic cause, like fighting for right against wrong. Althoguh I gues there alwasys been an element of both.
Kit is proto archetype in Pf1e
Yes, I thought the same thing when I first discovered archetype. I think there's a nice way to handle some variation without creating entirely new classes.
He predicted multiple new editions because he was aware that they had to publish new books to continue to make money. It's the problem of running a game company that publishes, for the most part, a single game: you hit a point where everyone who wants a copy owns a copy. Supplements and adventures don't sell as well as rules.
There is a game company that has been around a long time and never done multiple editions -- which is Troll Lord Games. Castles & Crusades (2004) is now on its 8th printing of the player's handbook -- but still the same edition - a few minor rule changes (like changing from a berserker-based barbarian to a wilderness-based barbarian - but note you can still play with the old berserker-based barbarian if you want) -- and the books are interchangeable, and you can still play with your 2004 books if you want. I think one reason Troll Lords has been able to do this -- is they just stayed super small and just a fantastic company. Pretty incredible achievement when you think about it -- and one of the things I love about Castles & Crusades.
There definitely were entries in the DMG that belonged in the earlier books. Aerial movement should've been in the MM, and a lot of the notes on spells should've been in the PHB. I can see not explicitly telling players that wall of stone can be cast horizontally to create a bridge, but who on Oerth is going to think of casting wall of iron at double size and half thickness? There are likely other examples. Edit: another was monster levels and xp amounts (in DMG, should've been in MM).
Also, the PHB had a tidbit that should've been in the MM, viz. the effects of getting a brownie as a familiar.
I wish we got his summoner and his elementalist. They seem like better wizard (or current sorcerer) subclasses or classes on their own.
I think they did a pretty good job with 2nd Edition. Nowadays, I think they should have actually turned the ranger into a fighter or fighter/thief kit, because it was kinda lame as a standoff class, but overall it was an improvement over 1st Edition.
About kits, the thing that most resembles them in how it works is Pathfinder 1st Edition's class archetypes. They give a class something, they take away something from it, and they give guidelines on what you should choose as skills, feats, spells and class features choices to complement the theme of the archetype. That's exactly how a kit worked back in the nineties.
Some subclasses from 5e too are developed from old 2nd Edition's kits, for example the bladesinger, from an elven fighter/mage kit.
Prestige classes were an extension of multiclass, much like the original bard class was, while 5e's backgrounds are something that replaces low-level playing, since all characters are supposed to start as full fledged heroes, not as newbies with a slightly better basic training than normal people. 5e's 1st level characters correspond to 3rd level characters from 3rd Edition or 5th level characters from 2nd Edition, so having a background to fill that empty space is kinda mandatory.
I originally bought the 3-ring binder style Monstrous Compendium when it came out, but I really disliked it. For one, the pages ripped at the holes easily, and because of having two monsters per page, it would occassionally mess up the alphabetical nature of how you would probably want to organize your pages. If a new monster landed alphabetically between the front and back pages of an older set, you just had it a bit messed up in your binder(s). Yeah... didn't love it. In the end, I traded away my copy for a Holmes Boxed Set that my friend had. I had no need for it, but it was just cool to have a Holmes set. ;-) I did eventually get the Monstrous Manual like you have there... along with some of the Appendix volumes; I definitely preferred that format to the loose pages format originally presented in 2e.
Complete Psionics Handbook has always had my vote for worst 2e artwork. I remember us gathered around before a session when it had just come out and just rolling about how bad it was. They appeared to be going for some new aged cult esthetic and really nailed that, complete with cheesy CG artwork all over the place. I loved all the "Complete" series books, but that one was just weird.
I wonder if Gary ever played 2nd Edition tsr or bought the books
You can tell by the public railing against the Legends & Lore change here that he had all but abandoned maintaining diplomatic relations with his enemies at the company. An omen in hindsight.
Yes, it is kind of hard to read that from him knowing that by the time that article is published, he was on his way out. Like you said, he wasn't going out of his way to ingratiate himself to anyone!
The problem for TSR was they never got a great handle on the continuing revenue issue. They tried to do it with the base game rules releasing waves of "new Improved editions" and then spend and hire with that sales bump thinking they got that every year but it would be four to six years to the next bump. Meanwhile Wotc was releasing card decks "every month". What TSR could have done is condensed the core rules and spent their resources on module and campaigns, not reprinting convention modules but new ones. Setting up a system like Wotc does of competitions every month at the game stores. The other angle they missed was simplifying new player engagement (and not a "Basic/Starter/Baby" edition either). A 'day zero' of just rolling characters and shopping for gear turns into a ten minute setup and they are rolling dice surviving against goblins already. Anyone I ever talked to "oh yeah I tried playing that once" the next thing they mention is they spent hours generating characters and never got into the dungeon. If you can't get new players to start and keep playing, you'll never sell them any of the books, figures, modules or anything.
Lots of reasons for their troubles in the 90s. But IMO the main thing was releasing too much stuff and collectible card gaming. Was rough for RPGs in the 90s because of Magic the Gathering -- and I guess there is a #3 poor company management in general during the 90s.
Yeah, I think people are finally starting to figure out "the first 10 minutes" angle - if you can't grab someone's attention in that time, you've lost them.
I run a 1981 Moldvay B/X game for my daughter and her friends. They're 15 now (started when they were 11). One of her friends joined a D&D club at school, and I thought that was super cool and just reminded her that it would be differently, mechanically, from what we play. She was cool with that. On the club sign-up day, after she and a few others signed up, a guy pulled them aside and just began running a scenario by talking. "Such as such happens... what do you do?" Based on their answers, they fleshed out their characters so now when they show up at the first session, they'll have a sense of who their PC is and character creation will be handled partly by the DM ahead of time. It sounded like a great way to get younger kids involved.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
What do you think of Adventures Dark and Deep?
I was just going to bring this up as I saw it has a kickstarter going
I mentioned it briefly in the previous video on the "Lost Gygax Classes" (but I couldn't remember the name, but it's what I was talking about) but although I'm aware of it, I've not read/played it before. The creator did mention to me on FB that he has a Kickstarter currently on for a revised edition and I may check it out then.
I think we do know quite a bit of what Gary was thinking based on two games: Castles & Crusades and his work in the early 200s with the Troll Lords (although most of his work was not C&C related) and his publishing of Dangerous Journeys through GDW in 1992. I've seen the rules for Dangerous Journeys and it's a very interesting rule set.
That said "Adventures Dark and Deep" does look interesting. Like that it's compatible with lots of old material. Love all the OSR variations out there. Great stuff! Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess are my three favorite OSR games.
Would Everyone who claims to know about this game PLEASE READ the texts! Martin, please look at the table of contents of the PHB and the DMG. There is an EXACT correspondence of the contents of each book. So, please stop repeating that the contents of the DMG is not organized well. Many people say it, they just repeat endlessly what they hear. It is also explained in the first sentence of the DMGs introduction. Gary explains in clear English why the material is presented as it is. I enjoy your videos and will keep watching until I'm ready for my own, and probably after too.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting.
I probably wasn't clear enough, but the 1E DMG is my favorite of all of the AD&D books, hands-down. I have a whole video about how it's one of my desert island books.
That said, for me, as a kid, I found it confusing. I have always understood the relationship between the table of contents of books the PHB and the DMG. The layout still confuses me to this day. Perhaps I am just dense and don't get it. But, as an example in the DMG: The first section is about creating a player character (after getting past the section on dice), and it all makes sense. That's fine. Then Alignment, which is of course related to how to play a Player Character. Then starting player character money. All fine. Then: Value and Reputed Properties of Gems and Jewelry. I guess you could make the case that it comes after money so it's "related" but it seems not to flow, to me. I would have thought it made more sense in the Treasure section.
Then it leans into a whole section on notes regarding magical properties of gems, herbs, etc.
Then armor and weapons. Then hirelings and henchmen, which makes sense because these are all things one would pay money for.
Then a discussion of Time in the campaign before we get to spells, then adventuring outdoors including adjudicating aerial/waterborn/etc. combat. Then it jumps to discussions on the planes, which could be an extension of outdoor adventures, so that does make sense, but then it jumps to mirrors, detecting evil and/or good, and listening at doors.
I get that Gary "had a system" and I'm sure the organization made sense to him. I find it very confusing why, for example, the Climate and Ecology section isn't closer to the section on "Adventures in the Outdoors.
But again, to reiterate, I love this book and part of what I love about it is that, due to the way it's organized, I am still finding little nuggets that I'd either forgotten or perhaps just skimmed over, all these years later, and that makes it a book I want to return to again and again. But I'm not just repeating what other folks have said.
Diety having domains similar to 3x/pf1
I keep hearing DungeonTubers commenting about the layout of the 1st Edition DMG being wrong. I don’t get it. You should do a video on what’s wrong with how it’s organized and how you think it should have been done.
I can certainly add that to the list of potential future topics!
They're minor things, but stuff like "Note regarding the magical properties of gems, herbs, et all" would seem to me to fit better in a whole section about magic, which would also include the parts on Magical Research and maybe the Use of Magic Items as well as Appendix J and K. Like you're talking about magical gems and herbs in the section on money, but not giving the value of said gems and herbs but instead listing some "reputed magical properties." And then right after that, you're back to discussing money with the value of "other rare commodities."
If I were ever picking up this book to figure out "what are some cool things that gems might do," I'd look in the magic section, not the money section.
Again, just one example. But it's one of the charms of this book. I might go looking to read about one thing, and then learn about something else.