still playing it. no reason to change as it has what i need. Tried 3.0 and never liked it, so just keep having a great time with 2e. My son plays 5e, but still likes the 2e campaign we have going. It's not the same, in significant ways...
I put these D&D retrospectives on when I'm cooking, chills me out after a shitty day at work, think I must have watched them all a few dozen times! Great summary of the history of D&D, thanks for making them man!
Great job, this was the edition I grew up playing and still relate to the most. The rules were a bit wonky like you mentioned, but the number of campaigns that spawned from this era of dnd were fantastic and still very useful to this date.
It is easy once you read it in the book, or have someone actually explain it properly. The problem was that there were counter-intuitive aspects to THAC0 such as bonuses to AC lowering the AC rather than increasing it. When you have a group of people with zero patience for new players (like what I went through) that expect you to know everything after a single session it creates frustration. There were also multiple ways to run THAC0 which led to conflicting information that became a jumbled mess. Once I bought my Player's Handbook and read their example (which was to Subtract the Opponents AC from your Weapon's THAC0 to determine what number or above needed to be rolled to successfully hit) it became infinitely easier to understand.
Because video games. Those who don't want to understand prefer everything to be worked out for them. Look at 5th edition. You cant get more dumbed down than that. Really, video games killed the RPG stars, even to the point that you now have to specify PNPRPG, or people think you're talking about Final Fantasy or something. Seriously, Dungeons and Dragons was the first RPG, so why do we now have to call it a PNPRPG???
In Germany we've got around the Millenium time, some re-release of AD&D2 stuff. It came in boxes ;) so you had different thematic boxes with books! And it was in german! My love is definitly with AD&D2 - once you understood you were addicted for sure ;)
Specialty Priests were wide open for Granted Powers, armor restrictions, Spheres of Power, etc. The Druid was actually just an example of a Specialty Priest. The Specialty Priest is what made 2nd Ed. one of the most interesting editions of the game, as it allowed the DM to really exercise dramatic creativity in building the Cleric class into something which could be radical, and fun. But it also required a very great deal of work by the DM, as each deity's priests had to be developed by the DM... It is a lot of work, but it is also a lot of fun. My god of thieves, for example, grants limited thief abilities, limited armor options, as well as limited spells -- no Turn Undead, no access to healing, period. Other deity's grant different armors, different spell Spheres (not everyone can heal, not everyone can Turn Undead; some can shape-shift, not always the same animal forms as the Druid...). This is what really makes 2nd Ed. really shine -- if the DM is willing to do the work... Cheers!
As I recall, monks were left out precisely because they were not seen to fit into the traditional medieval European-type setting (and those who liked the class were encouraged to buy the Kara-Tur/Oriental Adventures setting). Beyond that, I largely agree with your characterization of 2e re: bowing to the pressure of the religious right, the THAC0 system, the ambiguities and the lack of support, etc. But although I began a long hiatus from the game c. 1990, there were several features that I really liked, and that became seminal for later editions. First, the skill system was the first major mechanic for something other than combat, and it encouraged more role-playing, as well as orienting the game toward a more low-magic setting. Second - the splat books created a great deal of customization for each class, and provided a lot of good adventure tips for parties made up of the same character class. My favorite was the Priest book, because it began the (still uncompleted) move away from the plate mail and flail cleric toward less combat-oriented classes. The Rogue book was also quite good. Lastly, a major innovation of the 2e rules was the move toward a single experience progression for all classes. No longer would thieves be the easiest, and barbarians the toughest class to move up levels. To be honest, I'm still not sure abandoning the uneven progression was all that great. The notion of complete balance between classes is kind of an unattainable myth (one of the main conversations about 5e today is still the difference in power levels between the classes), but the attempt at compensating each class with features to achieve this balance often feels hokey (e.g. the idea of rogues being able to "hide" in combat to sneak attack, or unlimited cantrips for mages; I still kind of miss the day when you would cast your only spell, and then live by your wits, hoping that the fighters would protect you until you attained high level, and could crush anyone).
I accidently used the 1st ed monster manual and dungeon master's guide when I picked up the 2nd ed handbook, I didn't pay attention say advanced dungeons and dragons on the cover and assumed I needed the 1st ed stuff. I made it work and this might just be me, but I love the 1st ed monsters more.
I don't think I agree with this edition being "complicated" or wonky. To me, until now with the 5th edition, 2nd edition was the Cadillac of editions. THAC0 difficult? It could NOT be easier! You just subtract your d20 attack roll from your THAC0 and that's the armor class you hit. Eg. you have a THAC0 of 15 and you roll a 16, you hit AC -1. (16 from 15 is -1). It couldn't be easier than that. (although I DO like the new additive only system). 2nd edition made playing and running the game WAY easier than 1st edition and it had tons of great customization stuff. And, you didn't even really need the DMG except for the Treasure tables! Everything you needed to know really was in the PHB and the MM. The MM bad? For the first time you didn't have to "calculate" the XP for every single monster! All info was right there. What was bad about that? lol. Great and fantastic edition in my humble opinion. 8-) I do appreciate and did enjoy your retrospective though. It's great to hear all the different perspectives of people on the more open or freestyle versions of the game such as 1st, 2nd and 5th editions. Good job. 8-)
THAC0 is easy to understand once you read the Player's Handbook. The issue I had was when I first started I didn't have a PHB and no one in the group was willing to explain how it worked.
DravenSwiftbow Ya, I hear ya on that. When I first played, people tried to explain it to me, but they just couldn't articulate it very well. It was only when I went online and looked up what other people were saying about it, that I found some great, easy to understand explanations. I didn't have the PHB when I started either. Couldn't find any copies.
Guitar Muser Wizards of the coast massacred D&D. I can't stand the rule system but what has been Much, *Much* worse to me is what they've done with the background settings. I could live with the changes in the rule system by simply ignoring everything that came after 2nd edition. It's a lot more difficult to ignore existing stories and plot lines that are continuing to unfold. Spellplague.. That's all i really need to say. Well that and *Weak*
thAC0 expressed as a formula: Roll a d20 + Ability score mod + misc Modifiers. If result is > thAC0 express the difference as a negative result. If the result is < thAC0 express the result as a positive result to determine AC hit. Modern system: Roll a d20 + ability score mod + misc modifiers + proficiency = AC hit. thAC0 is a bunch of goofy, needless, inefficient mathematical gymnastics.
29.00 "...did not care for the role-playing game itself. They simply saw it as a source of revenue." Hmmm. There is another games company (that started up around the same time as TSR, and in a similar manner(two guys in a basement)) that is making exactly the same mistake.
Right and they created 4 editions which none were compatable with each other at all and every 6 to 7 years they come out with a new version and the rumor is there's a 6th edition on the way . Yet people love talking smack about AD&D when for over 20 years the game went through just 2 versions that were still somewhat compatable with only minor rules changes , a few addition rules and clarifications to the rules where someone with a 1st edition AD&D character could play in a 2nd edition game with only a few minor changes
I find curious that you feel 1st edition is so much more popular. Here in Brazil 2nd edition was the first Ad&D published, following the black box basic D&D a few years prior. We had no idea at the time of the circunstances around it, the big religious and media moral panic would only surface when 3rd edition came out in the early 2000s.
+MARC OSS I suppose it is a regional thing. Here in Canada we got the full line. Here there was kind of a backlash against 2nd Edition from a lot of the consumers since they didn't feel that there was a need to buy the re-purchase the books. There are also a fair number of people who play Retro Clones of AD&D 1st Edition and most of the people I game with were people who played 1st and did not like 2nd.
Oi Marcos, someone told me that D&D was as popular as another role playing game (forgot the name) due to difficulty finding a distributor for the D20 dice. I was wondering if this is true Also my wife is Brazilian and we will be down there in December and January. Been 5 years since I was there and can't wait!
I was a huge fan of the Skills & Powers, Combat & Tactics, Spells & Magic and High Level Campaigns books that expanded 2nd Gen (Generation, we didn’t call it edition) making characters very customizable.
I cut my teeth on 2E and I miss the challenge not presented in newer versions. The world seemed more significant, leading to a grittier game. Although I do enjoy a lot of aspects in 5e. Great video, I'd like to share the series on my website.
Removing the monk and the assassin was one of Gygax’ idea for 2nd edition before he left. He felt pretty much the same as you; that they were more suited for an Oriental supplement rather than the medieval-Europe-themed core books. I wouldn’t be surprised if removing the half-orcs was his idea too. He never liked how much focus players put on the non-human races and the rape issue could be worked around. (Either by just not mentioning it, or stating that Chaotic Evil humans might willingly reproduce with orcs or something.)
@@mudshrooze Takes place mainly in the city of Sigil, which has doors to different planes. Check out the videogame Planescape: Torment. It's one of the most beloved games of all time, and has been hailed as having the best writing in any game. It's set in Planescape and uses 2nd edition rules. Same style as Baldur's Gate.
@@mudshrooze It's the setting where teiflings came from that wizards made into a standard race which should have never happened because they just don't fit in with the regular races nor do dragonborn in my opinion
My favoured rule set....not without it's problems and necessity to tweak. Owing mainly to the so called 2.5ed features and related splat books. But many many choices all the same. I'm not an edition snob...just like 2ed is all. Great review.....liking this series. :)
+Mark Hyde To be honest I would really love to run 2nd Edition again. It's the version I first played so it will haves have a special place in my heart.
My only problem with later editions were related to the takeover by Wizards and in turn Wizards eventually by Hasbro. BUT I'm happy to play in any edition and on reading the basic rules for the 5thed and checking out a friends PHB it seems like a fresh attempt to revive some of the 2ed feel and polish if not OSR styling elements as well. Looks like D&D is on the right track again....
I suspect 2e and BECMI are in a somewhat similar boat, though 2e more so, in being seen as old be younger players but too new and rules heavy for many in the OSR crowd.
I started playing AD&D (1e) in the 1980's. I just recently started reading the AD&D 2e books. The majority of the game seems to have remained the same, especially after all the accessory books came out with basically all the same classes, races and monsters as the original edition plus new ones. In my opinion the second edition improved the organization of the material, the spell descriptions were refined and better explained, the Wizard's and Priest's spell compendiums are awesome.
I started as a kid with 2nd Edition. I was amongst a group of other kids getting an introduction to the game, arranged by a guy who wanted to DM and the lady who owned the game store. We didn't struggle with the rules at all. I guess our DM was just competent and patient.
They went with a "Rules Light" approach, which as I DM I love. I can't recall how many arguments use to break out back in 3rd/3.5 where they tried to have a rule (usually poorly worded) for everything
popechucky I have the dungeon master guide as well as many other supplements I would say some of the best supplements are the villains handbook the dungeon master guide and the necromancers guide. I especially love the villains handbook because it truly teaches you how to create a really believable and fleshed-out villain.
I find a lot of the criticisms comes from a modern consumers perspective... Each edition refined it's predecessor. At that time those rules were how the game was played and you'd simply learn them. There's so many modern RPGs all of which have refined their wording to be consistent and precise are what makes the old rule systems look prehistoric but at that time publishers were going off only their own experience of creating a new tabletop RPG. I think the old books are scrutinised too heavily and aren't giving a critique from a 1980's perspective
Love the series. I started out in 1979 with the blue box basic set and quickly moved up to AD&D. it was great through high school my friends and I played it. When 2nd edition came out after I finished high school and we couldn't quite get into it. It just didn't seem necessary. It wasn't until 1996 and the end of TSR that I finally picked it up. I liked the black cover re-prints, and the information was better arranged than the original printings. I ran a long campaign over 1996 and 1997 using 2nd edition. It was terribly flawed, elves and rangers were ridiculously over powered. I blame it on Drizzt, DAMN YOU BOB SALVATORE! It was so bad that in my campaign elves were a slave race. Humans had run them off the map back into hiding. Having a Humanocentric campaign world helped to balance things. I still had elven PCs but they were either run-away slaves or in danger of being captured. I know a lot of people did start with 2nd and have a nostalgic place for it in their heart, but it had problems galore. Way too many splat books with a stupid amount of power creep.
+Ed Stevens I've always like Elves and Rangers and to be fair even though I love Salvatore's books, I never played a Ranger until 3rd Edition, 3.0 to be precise and Rangers were terrible in 3.0
3.5 had better balance for sure, for all classes not just the Ranger. If I remember though in 3.0 Rangers still could both duel wield and specialize in archery rather than pick one fighting style like in 3.5. Being able to do both made them broken and over powered.
+Ed Stevens The 3.0 Ranger had the Two Weapon Fighting style, the received Ambidexterity and Two Weapon Fighting for free so long as they only wore light armour. They could take the Archery feats but they didn't automatically get them. 3.5 presented them with the choice, 3.0 Rangers were actually pretty underwhelming
DravenSwiftbow I never played 3.0, I had quit for a time after my children were born and didn't get back into it until my son turned 10 and I bought him the whole set of 3.5 books. Those were great, lots of customization and easy to get into rules. I loved it, he loved and we have been playing for years. I ran a long 3.5 campaign with him and his friends from 2003 through 2012. I did find that at higher levels, anything above 5th, skill checks and saving throws got out of hand. I had to come up with a set of house rules to keep things balanced. What I came up with is very similar to what Monte Cook did in his Numenera game using the cypher system. It was sliding difficulty scale. Check it out if you haven't it's pretty good design. I skipped 4th edition all together, when they said fireballs were square I was out. I'm interested in hearing your take on it. Now I am back into it with 5th edition. This is, imho, the best edition of the game. I have been playing it and running campaigns in it for almost 2 years now and I can't imagine going back to 3.5. It is just so much easier and simpler now, but not dumbed down. I am still playing with my son, who is in grad school now, my dad who is a really old gamer, and my brother who is over seas in China using Roll20. We are having a blast. I appreciate your videos, and can't wait to see the next installment.
+Ed Stevens It's awesome you got to run for you son and his friends, I'm hoping to be able to do that too. I ran 3rd and 3.5 from 2000 until 2012, but the end I was pretty well done with 3.5 and never really got into Pathfinder. Once I gave 4th a chance I really liked it, that said I totally agree that 5th Edition is their best work to date.
I never understood why TSR didn't come out to a talk show or something and be like: hello, we have demons and devils yes, but we fight them, see they have combat stats, also, we have holy warriors fighting evil.
+draakgast I believe that things like a press release or public statements were released pretty much along those lines, and I seem to recall there was the rare talk show like face off of the religious evangelicals saying it was satanic VS someone trying to explain it, but really no one wanted to hear it. Pretty much "Okay it's satanic, and the people who play it are weirdos who hold dark rituals in the basement" and didn't even want to hear from anyone saying otherwise. If the talk shows weren't asking them to come on, then there wasn't much they could do.
The main argue was that these holly worriors also use magic against evil and not as church says the power of Jesus. DnD says that there is evil magik but also good and church doen't accept any magic practices.
When I played, 2nd edition was just coming out. We played a mix of 1st and 2nd edition. I loved it. It just had a more adventurest feel to me. My son has started to play now under 5th edition rules and he has a pregenerated campaign he is making his mother and I play. I don't care for the new style of play. I don't know what it is, just seems to antiseptic or like something is missing. Oh well, it's just a game.
It is, and the beauty of it is that if you still have your books you can always revisit the early additions, if nothing else your son could learn how the game was played in your youth. I love 5th Edition but I am also looking really forward to running Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition this summer and also plan to run a game using the Rules Cyclopedia.
Hasbro has dumbed-down all the magic that made AD&D a, well, really magical kind of experience. it's more mainstream than ever and unfortunately it has suffered for it. but Hasbro is making record profits so it's working I guess...
@@leshtricity Doom Eternal had record sales too. Ever play it? Its garbage. Sometimes, you just want what made a great game great in the first place, but the developers want to reach a wider demographic, so the product you once loved suffers for it. WotC, IMO, ruined Dungeons and Dragons, in the same way they ruined MTG. Sure, the game may be more popular and mainstream, but maybe that's its problem. It used to be a niche hobby. Monopoly became so popular, it was hard to find a household in America that didn't have a Monopoly board in their closet. Problem is, nobody hardly plays Monopoly anymore. I hope Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have the same fate.
The whole thing about religious groups seems quite odd to me from when I was growing up it seemed to be the "concerned mother syndrome". I grew up in a Catholic community, we weren't too religious and would go to church like once every month or two. One of the priests who was also bishop said that he had no problem with people playing computer games like Doom since you were essentially killing demons and solving puzzles apparently. To me it just seems like mothers who have been watching too much news and hearing about satanic this and satanic that and not wanting their children to play because they might commit suicide or something like that.
It's one of those "Extremely Vocal Minority" situations. Sadly all it really took was a small group of Priests and one grieving mother to make D&D public enemy number one, then it just snowballed out of control from there.
I lived it. I remember playing advanced D&D, we also collected the lead figures and played that way as well. The church said it was satanic and we had to melt our figures, it killed me , I had lead dragons and berserkers, had to melt them.
That Players' Handbook and Monsterous Manual are NOT second edition proucts - they are either 2.5 or original third edition books. Yes, there was a 2.5 - a buddy of mine bought the core books. The Monsterous Compendium saw a second book too.
Those are actually true 2nd edition products. The content is the same as was released in 1989, except for the errata updates that occurred throughout the various printings. The only change is format and art. I know as I have many different printings of the PH, DMG, and MM and they all read the same. What your buddy calls 2.5 is also a fallacy as TSR never designated such a thing with the closest thing coming to a major rule shift being the character point system which only existed Player's Option: Skill & Powers, Player's Option: Spells & Magic, Dungeon Masters Option: High-Level Campaign, and the one adventure Gates of Firestorm Peak. Even so, the character point system was only in a few chapters of each book while the adventure included statistics for both systems. Player Option: Combat & Tactics contained nothing for the character point system, though it does mention its upcoming introduction. Most of the rules from that book could be found in earlier products like the Complete Fighter's Handbook, they were collated into one book and had the mechanics updated.
I started AD&D I guess about the time the Monster Manual for the 1st Edition came out. The DM Guide was a god send to us!! Began playing it in Northern California and continued thru a 3 year assignment to Germany, a 2 year assignment to Washington State, and even to just before I retired in my last assignment to California. We looked at the 2nd edition and decided we didn't really like it. So, we continued with our version of the 1st edition. In all that time I was a DM from about 6 months of learning it as the individual that taught us the game got reassigned. Loved it!! But, to me the 2nd edition was what made it less fun. I've been looking at it again with the 5th edition. But, a lot has changed and it'll take some more research before I commit to it again.
What I remember loving about 2nd Ed was the ability to specialize more as a Thief. I liked to play a Dwarven Fighter/Thief I called a Tunnel Fighter who put all his points into Find/Remove Traps. I would also go Ambidextrous to get Two Weapon Fighting. Saddens me how Thieves are so screwed these days with Traps skills just being skills, and you need all your stats to be high to survive.
Also most of the thief skills from ad&d became skills anyone could take . Now a wizard can pick pockets , hide in shadows , move silently and open locks causing the need for thief characters to become null and void and changing the thief class to rouge was one of the dumbest things wizards has done besides create that poor excuse for d&d which was nothing more then an mmo with its daily powers , at will powers and encounter powers just like the vast majority of mmo's have
You can. I actually ran 2nd Edition for a couple of years with no Monstrous Manual, though I did so by mainly making NPC's the same way you would create Player Characters so it was more work. I would highly recommend getting a Monstrous Manual if you do intend to run since it does make life easier.
@@DravenSwiftbow Thanks a lot but i would like to buy a hardcover which ,if im not mistaken, is not sold there. I also live in greece so the postage might be high.. Btw, which you think is better, ad&d 1e or 2e??
I appreciate the review but my recollection of second edition was much different. I had all of the first edition and the last two books (As Gygax left) fell apart due to poor quality. Second Edition allowed for character customisation that was never a part of ADaD and has remained a core component of character building. When WotC took over the quality issues got worse. Supplement guides were no longer hard cover. ADaD had entered an era of mass consumer production without a lot of substance. I felt at the time that the "Monstrous Compendium" was a poorly designed effort to compel me to replace it on a regular basis after I lost or destroyed monster sheets. I still think to this day that 2nd was the "Golden age" of ADaD. Character customisation took nine classes to fifty. Any given campaign destroyed the player expectation of what they would face as NPC customisation would quickly prove you wrong. Having said that I am very much enjoying your history... Also I am salivating over the fact that you have the original edition when I can only start at the "Red box". The one you didn't review because you don't have a copy. I'll trade your pristine copy of the original for my tattered red box copy:P... Ohhh, I still have the dice that came from the box if you want a pic of the poor quality. It came with a black crayon to fill in the number grooves on the dice.
+MrEiniweini I appreciate the offer, but I think I'll keep my Zero Edition books. A friend of mine had one of the Basic sets, his had Yellow Dice without the crayon so he had to use his pencil...good times
Nah bro, 2E wasn't suffering from an "identity crisis". Those optional rules were put there to encourage the use of "house rules", which made the game more personalized. This tradition is one started by Gaygax and is honoring his vision of what D&D was supposed to be, a game of looese rules adjusted to DMs on how they wanted to play. I have many house rules changing the 2E system to how I see it should work. Any player joining my game has to adjust to my house rules.
2nd edition still holds the record for outrageous numbers of splat books. And getting rid of devils and demons, albeit in name only, was just the height of political correctness. It hastened my departure from D&D and I never went back, at least not to anything after 1e, which I still play. But at least it was still TSR; everything after TSR is DINO (D&D in Name Only).
But AD&D lasted for over 20 years so it was kind of expected they would come up with new things during that time . Now wizards seem to pump out a $50 book every month or 2 adding more and more bloat to the game with more rules , more feats to make characters even more powerful and more classes that just bloat the game more . Now the rumor is that wizards us working on a newer version of d&d that mist likely won't be compatable at all with 5th edition causing players to spend more money on more books and it's because of corporate greed
That is incorrect. Illusionist is a specialist class under the wizard group. What TSR did in 2nd edition was create more specialists than just the illusionist. There was 20 different generic classes under the wizard group including the illusionist: -Mage -Abjurer -Conjurer -Diviner -Enchanter -Illusionist -Invoker -Necromancer -Transmuter -Chronmancer -Elementalist -Dimensionalist -Force Mage -Mentalist -Shadow Mage -Alchemist -Artificer -Geometer -Song Mage -Wild Mage
@@craigtucker1290 Yes but those specialists wernt additional classes but we're sub-classes still classified as magic users who just specialized in one type of magic . An illusionist from 1st edition AD&D had a diffrent experience table , had a diffrent spell table and even a diffrent HD table then magic users making them separate classes from one another
@@williamlee7482 No, you actually wrong. You are trying to use a 1st edition term to 2nd edition. 2nd edition did not have sub-classes, they had groups of which there were five (originally four, but psionicist was added later), warrior, wizard, priest, rogue, and psionicist. Then under each group were the classes, like fighter, paladin, and ranger or under wizard, mage and then the dozen or so specialist, including illusionist. The next level down is the kits if you chose to take one which could modify any group or class ability, further making a character fairly unique. Some kits could be looked at more like subclasses like the ones from The Complete Bard's Handbook or the various Al-Qadim kits that completely changed how one could use magic, like a clockwork mage. What 2nd edition did was reorganized the classes that were similar to each other under each group name with certain general characteristics like THAC0, hit dice, and saving throws to name a few, but then separate them again into classes under these groups into more specialized professions. Each class had different traits, like spell lists, including some spells only available to that class. Some even used different experience point tables, but not all of them while specialists like the illusionist actually had more spells than a standard mage, but this was not true of every specialist. "The character classes are divided into four groups according to general occupations: warrior, wizard, priest, and rogue. Within each group are several similar character classes. All classes within a group share the same Hit Dice, as well as combat and saving throw progressions. Each character class within a group has different special powers and abilities that are available only to that class. Each player must select a group for his character, then a specific class within that group." - Player's Handbook, page 34 This distinction actually made it into the TSR trivia game, but I do understand the confusion. A paladin uses a different category on the warrior experience table than a fighter, but the same one as a ranger, but all three of them are warriors. It was just reorganizing the of classes in 1st edition to something more sensible and organized for mechanics, rules, and effects. So if an item could only be used by only by a specific group or if a spell had different saving throws based on groups like feeblemind, one would know where they fell. 2nd edition would eventually even bring back some classes that were eliminated from 1st edition like the assassin and monk, though they would setting specific classes which there were quite a few of. The assassin was under the rogue group and the monk was placed under the priest group with both being for Greyhawk and the Scarlet Brotherhood, but not to be confused by the spellcasting monk class also under the priest group.
@@craigtucker1290 so I used the wrong term but I'm still right about what I said because AD&D 1st edition illusionist was it's own class with its own experience table and was NOT part of a grouping under magic user class at all . It wasn't untill 2nd edition that illusionists became a speciality of the magic user class and no longer had its own experience table for level progression . You are equating 1st edition illusionist with 2nd edition illusionist and saying they both are specialties of the magic user class which is not the case with 1st edition illusionists . It wasn't untill 2nd edition that the illusionist was no longer a single class but became a speciality of magic user class along with the rest
@@williamlee7482 No, you are trying to pretend that illusionist were all that different from magic-users when they really weren't. The same is true of paladins compared to fighters in 1st edition. Using a different experience table does not make them drastically different for they are both similar in ways. That is why they were grouped together in 2nd edition, because they are so similar. The groupings also limit how one could dual-class, only one choice from each grouping, something that Sage Advice struggled to resolve in 1st edition. Also, there is no magic-user class. That was renamed mage under the wizard group. There was no need to have a separate experience table for illusionists or any other specialist for the most part as that was one of the messy qualities of 1st edition that 2nd edition was trying to eliminate. An illusionist is not a subclass of mage in 2nd edition. Instead, it is its own class under the wizard group that has some advantages and some disadvantages that balance it out as a class compared to a mage. I am not sure why you think having a separate experience table means anything significant and how you feel about classes overrides the fact that mage and illusionists were separate classes in 2nd edition. One was not a mage who then decided to specialize in a particular school, one was a generalist mage or a specialist of some sort.
Oriental Adventures was released for 1st Edition AD&D, with an updated version put out for 3rd Edition. I've never read my 1st Edition book since the binding was notoriously shoddy and mine already has pages falling out even though it was rarely opened. I know the 3rd Edition book had the Kensai class in it. There was also Kara Tur which was an Asian themed setting in the Forgotten Realms.
There was a 1E Boxed Set produced called Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms for Forgotten Realms. It was compatible with AD&D 2E since it was published in 1988. AD&D 2E was being worked on at that time.
As far as I know there are some new additions to the revised books. I honestly haven't directly compared them as I would really like to have an original version of the PHB. I'll have to have a closer look at the DMG and let you know.
@@DravenSwiftbow There is no new material or rules in the revised books whatsoever. Most mistakenly believe the rules were somehow changed or that this is 2.5 edition when it is not. What these books did include was errata. For those who do not what that is, it is corrections made to the text between printings. In fact, there was errata corrections made with the original DMG and PH printings. The main difference is art and layout, not content or rule changes. The later release by WotC of these books was completely disappointing in that all they did was just put a modified cover on the book without doing an errata update as every other printing had done. I actually did compare them in all the sections that TSR had provided errata for before they changed editions, which is why I did not buy them as they had nothing to offer over the last printings of the revised printings I have. Most of the community incorrectly throws around 2nd edition versions without really knowing what, if anything was changed or even if there was a significant rule change. What most call 2.5 edition, with some referring to it as 2.75 edition is lumped as the revised editions/black covers. What most do not understand is that there are two systems represented in those books with only one of them being new and the other being an an ongoing evolution of the game. The character point system was a new version of the game supported only in 3 rule books and 1 adventure before that system was discontinued from any future products. The new psionic rules get lumped into this system, yet they are not part of the character point system but a reworking of the psionic rules that were somewhat broken. This is why the new psionic rules were released in both Players Options: Skills & Powers and the new Dark Sun Campaign Setting box set.
thats not the orginal edition of the players handbook and monster manual. the monster manual is white and the orginal 2nd edition of the players handbook was a redish brown cover. The dungeond and dragons symbol on the dm guide is what was on the monster manual and players handbook. thats the skills and powers books that he is looking at. There is also a computer program that was out called 'dungeons and dragons corerules and its expansion" it also had teh option to go online and download the brown books but now the site is gone. This program was an awesome program that allowed you to make gigantic maps and to link other maps to symbols on other maps. you could put text for wandering monster "which you could make with in the program and link to the map itself. you could make encounters new wandering moster table make new races classes monsters and pretty much anything you wanted. even had a monk class.
+Pelmen129 I began playing D&D in 1999, I got the DMG from a friend but I had to buy the Player's Handbook and the Monstrous Manual and the only ones available were the new prints. I'm always on the look out for a PHB.
I don't know what this guy's talking about it's not that he did a bad review but the optional rules and everything are never that confusing even when it comes to initiative. Any optional rule can be explained to an experience player within a second and if it's a new player then it really won't make a difference because they haven't gotten used to anything anyway. Again I appreciate this guy's review of 2nd edition but I really disagree with the fact that combat and all the other things were confusing.
It's about consistency within the rules set. With AD&D there are so many optional rules that it is very easy for different DM's to have different ways to run things. At one point I was playing in three different 2nd Edition AD&D games. In 2 out of the 3 the DM's freely gave enemy AC to make it easier to know if you hit or miss, while the 3rd insisted the players tell him which AC they hit which is not the most intuitive since most 2nd Edition AD&D character sheets didn't have a full chart to fill in the "To Hit" number for each Armour class. All three DM's had different rules for character death, one was dead at 0 HP, another used the -10 rule and the third allowed the downed player to make a Save vs Death Magic every round dying if they failed. In those three groups two used the optional non-weapon profs while the other didn't. One DM house rules Weapon proficiency by grouping like weapons together. The days each group played was also not consistent and there were lots of other differences in which rules each used. In the end I dropped out of two of the games because it was a mess trying to keep which DM used which rule straight, and since I was relatively experienced at the time, and the DM's knew that a couple of them would get rude if I referenced a rule they didn't use.
DravenSwiftbow Dungeons & Dragons has always had optional rules even if they aren't even the book the DM has complete control. I disagree with you and it seems a lot of other comments do as well but thank you for the video.
DravenSwiftbow plus all the optional rules actually make the game better it actually rounds out your character and gives you more to draw on from a role playing and improv perspective. That's why to me 2nd edition is the best it has so much depth that you can make it easy or as complex and immersive as you want it to be
That's completely fine, I based that off of my personal experience as I mentioned above. As time has gone on I find that I love 2nd Edition more and more and would talk about it differently if I made this video today, since at the time I recorded this I was still not the biggest fan of 2nd Edition (mainly because I kept remembering the nightmare I went through with those different groups). I might actually revisit this video based on my renewed interest in the system
I loved 2e system but BECMI or 1e modules or Dungeon mag FTW :) . First printing of 2e looked much better than the 2nd also. Ya I was meh on the binder idea though I could see how it was a good concept. I thought 2e was much easier to understand than 1e. Removal of Half-Orcs made sense to me. It didnt have much history in fantasy and its almost a monster, great to publish in a dragon mag or one of the many splat books but no need in the core books, same with Monk and Assassin. Actually assassins could be any class really was the logic and that made sense to me at the time. (Besides they didnt take poison out of the game). I agree with the Demons and Angels comment but I never liked them, they were boring to me. I preferred more classic monsters. What I loved about the down play of demons and angels, I noticed that classic monsters got to take their place. Dragons became fierce and Vampires became awesome etc... Really unfortunately I agree with the too much supplements. I liked them being out there but I played mostly 1e and dungeon mag stories, Id like to have seem better modules to be released under the 2e banner.
Angels made a comeback in AD&D 2e in the late 1990s with 'Warriors of Heaven' by Chris Perkins. The companion to that book also brought back demons to 2e.
@@RadRat1978 Everything made a comeback at the end of 2nd edition as monks and assassins were also available. The term devil(s) was used quite a bit in the 'Guide to Hell' also released around the same time as 'Warriors of Heaven'. I personally found nothing inspiring with the terms devils, daemons, or demons, especially when they were referred to as a type IV demon. What is terrifying about that? To me, the terms always seemed to be what was used by those backwater worlds that didn't know what they actually were. I can't say that I cared for all the names they ended up using, but it was better than what they had used before. Type IV demon, really?
If only it could . It seems every 6 to 7 years wizards changes the rules with a new version that you have to spend hundreds of dollars on just to keep up with the hobby . AD&D lasted over 20 years with only a few minor changes and rules clarifications yet wizards can't even keep to one rules set for longer then 8 years before they make a new set of rules all because of corporate greed
Horrifying that so many people don't understand: the WHOLE POINT of the 2nd Edition was to get Gygax' name off the front covers of all the books. Brian Blume was tired of paying giant royalties to the guy he elbowed out of the company, so he barfed up this ridiculous 2nd Edition nonsense -- a "derivative" work based on Gary's original books -- so they could legally pay him less. It had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with improving the game...
I began with 2nd Edition. The fact of the matter is where I lived very few people cared for 2nd Edition. Most people still played 1st edition until 3rd came out.
Didn't care for THACO. I didn't dig that at all. I never liked the idea that players should be privileged to know an opponents AC. Plus, there's enough mathematics in the game already when you take all the modifiers into consideration. The game didn't need even more math. It's not about "it wasn't that complicated" as much as it was about slowing games down to a crawl. The old matrix charts worked just fine. THACO just was a hinderence in the end. I used the optional d10 initiative system. That worked well.
3rd edition wasn't perfect, but it succeeded in part because of the d20 open gaming license and because it got rid of the bane of most gamers existence, THACO! Way more complicated than it had any right to be and when looking at it today, is an extremely clunky mechanic. First and second edition have not aged very well but they do offer a very different feel compared to the D&D released by WotC and because of that can be fun to go back to every so often if you're able to get around the dated mechanics.
thac0 is really the same rule as the d20 attack. d20 formula d20 + base stat vs AC. thac0 formula d20 + AC vs base stat. Base stat refers to base attack bonus and thac0 respectively. In 3rd you add your bab and compare the total to the AC, in 2nd you add the AC and compare to thac0.
Yeah sorry, I know that's not their name but I used to call them that to annoy a friend who liked playing them and now it just sticks whenever I talk about Illusionists
2nd edition was actually my favorite edition of D&D. I played it the longest and found it to be the most entertaining.
still playing it. no reason to change as it has what i need. Tried 3.0 and never liked it, so just keep having a great time with 2e. My son plays 5e, but still likes the 2e campaign we have going. It's not the same, in significant ways...
I put these D&D retrospectives on when I'm cooking, chills me out after a shitty day at work, think I must have watched them all a few dozen times! Great summary of the history of D&D, thanks for making them man!
Thank you very much for watching them!
2nd edition was very strong from where I live. Usually, when referring to AD&D, here we talk about 2nd ed.
Great video!
+JdrD30 Cool, I kind of wish it was more popular where I live.
I still have all of my 2nd edition stuff. Stored away. Good times.
Great job, this was the edition I grew up playing and still relate to the most. The rules were a bit wonky like you mentioned, but the number of campaigns that spawned from this era of dnd were fantastic and still very useful to this date.
Thanks for sharing. I still run a AD&D campaign regularly.
it's puzzling to me how so many people can't wrap their heads around THAC0. it's literally elementary-level math.
It is easy once you read it in the book, or have someone actually explain it properly. The problem was that there were counter-intuitive aspects to THAC0 such as bonuses to AC lowering the AC rather than increasing it. When you have a group of people with zero patience for new players (like what I went through) that expect you to know everything after a single session it creates frustration. There were also multiple ways to run THAC0 which led to conflicting information that became a jumbled mess. Once I bought my Player's Handbook and read their example (which was to Subtract the Opponents AC from your Weapon's THAC0 to determine what number or above needed to be rolled to successfully hit) it became infinitely easier to understand.
Because
video games.
Those who don't want to understand prefer everything to be worked out for them.
Look at 5th edition. You cant get more dumbed down than that.
Really, video games killed the RPG stars, even to the point that you now have to specify PNPRPG, or people think you're talking about Final Fantasy or something. Seriously, Dungeons and Dragons was the first RPG, so why do we now have to call it a PNPRPG???
@@aiden_macleod Because, mentally lazy.
In Germany we've got around the Millenium time, some re-release of AD&D2 stuff.
It came in boxes ;) so you had different thematic boxes with books!
And it was in german!
My love is definitly with AD&D2 - once you understood you were addicted for sure ;)
2nd edition is the best edition by a long mile
Specialty Priests were wide open for Granted Powers, armor restrictions, Spheres of Power, etc. The Druid was actually just an example of a Specialty Priest. The Specialty Priest is what made 2nd Ed. one of the most interesting editions of the game, as it allowed the DM to really exercise dramatic creativity in building the Cleric class into something which could be radical, and fun. But it also required a very great deal of work by the DM, as each deity's priests had to be developed by the DM... It is a lot of work, but it is also a lot of fun. My god of thieves, for example, grants limited thief abilities, limited armor options, as well as limited spells -- no Turn Undead, no access to healing, period. Other deity's grant different armors, different spell Spheres (not everyone can heal, not everyone can Turn Undead; some can shape-shift, not always the same animal forms as the Druid...). This is what really makes 2nd Ed. really shine -- if the DM is willing to do the work... Cheers!
2nd edition for the win!
As I recall, monks were left out precisely because they were not seen to fit into the traditional medieval European-type setting (and those who liked the class were encouraged to buy the Kara-Tur/Oriental Adventures setting).
Beyond that, I largely agree with your characterization of 2e re: bowing to the pressure of the religious right, the THAC0 system, the ambiguities and the lack of support, etc. But although I began a long hiatus from the game c. 1990, there were several features that I really liked, and that became seminal for later editions. First, the skill system was the first major mechanic for something other than combat, and it encouraged more role-playing, as well as orienting the game toward a more low-magic setting. Second - the splat books created a great deal of customization for each class, and provided a lot of good adventure tips for parties made up of the same character class. My favorite was the Priest book, because it began the (still uncompleted) move away from the plate mail and flail cleric toward less combat-oriented classes. The Rogue book was also quite good.
Lastly, a major innovation of the 2e rules was the move toward a single experience progression for all classes. No longer would thieves be the easiest, and barbarians the toughest class to move up levels. To be honest, I'm still not sure abandoning the uneven progression was all that great. The notion of complete balance between classes is kind of an unattainable myth (one of the main conversations about 5e today is still the difference in power levels between the classes), but the attempt at compensating each class with features to achieve this balance often feels hokey (e.g. the idea of rogues being able to "hide" in combat to sneak attack, or unlimited cantrips for mages; I still kind of miss the day when you would cast your only spell, and then live by your wits, hoping that the fighters would protect you until you attained high level, and could crush anyone).
A lot of the controversies surrounding 2nd edition is part of its charm.
bought myself the second edition player handbook recently, good stuff
I played in a group that mixed 2nd edition stuff with 1st edition. It was a fun campaign.
+Samwise Seven RPG The two were actually pretty compatible
Really, everything up to 2nd was fairly compatible.
Samwise Seven RPG we did this as well
I accidently used the 1st ed monster manual and dungeon master's guide when I picked up the 2nd ed handbook, I didn't pay attention say advanced dungeons and dragons on the cover and assumed I needed the 1st ed stuff. I made it work and this might just be me, but I love the 1st ed monsters more.
I did this on accident trying to run a game from memory
I don't think I agree with this edition being "complicated" or wonky. To me, until now with the 5th edition, 2nd edition was the Cadillac of editions. THAC0 difficult? It could NOT be easier! You just subtract your d20 attack roll from your THAC0 and that's the armor class you hit. Eg. you have a THAC0 of 15 and you roll a 16, you hit AC -1. (16 from 15 is -1). It couldn't be easier than that. (although I DO like the new additive only system).
2nd edition made playing and running the game WAY easier than 1st edition and it had tons of great customization stuff. And, you didn't even really need the DMG except for the Treasure tables! Everything you needed to know really was in the PHB and the MM. The MM bad? For the first time you didn't have to "calculate" the XP for every single monster! All info was right there. What was bad about that? lol. Great and fantastic edition in my humble opinion. 8-)
I do appreciate and did enjoy your retrospective though. It's great to hear all the different perspectives of people on the more open or freestyle versions of the game such as 1st, 2nd and 5th editions. Good job. 8-)
THAC0 is easy to understand once you read the Player's Handbook. The issue I had was when I first started I didn't have a PHB and no one in the group was willing to explain how it worked.
DravenSwiftbow
Ya, I hear ya on that. When I first played, people tried to explain it to me, but they just couldn't articulate it very well. It was only when I went online and looked up what other people were saying about it, that I found some great, easy to understand explanations. I didn't have the PHB when I started either. Couldn't find any copies.
I remember being confused by THAC0 at the time as well.
Guitar Muser
Wizards of the coast massacred D&D. I can't stand the rule system but what has been Much, *Much* worse to me is what they've done with the background settings. I could live with the changes in the rule system by simply ignoring everything that came after 2nd edition. It's a lot more difficult to ignore existing stories and plot lines that are continuing to unfold.
Spellplague.. That's all i really need to say. Well that and *Weak*
thAC0 expressed as a formula:
Roll a d20 + Ability score mod + misc Modifiers. If result is > thAC0 express the difference as a negative result. If the result is < thAC0 express the result as a positive result to determine AC hit.
Modern system: Roll a d20 + ability score mod + misc modifiers + proficiency = AC hit.
thAC0 is a bunch of goofy, needless, inefficient mathematical gymnastics.
i think Ad&d 2nd ed is the best edition. its not that hard to play and its Settings make gameplay MASSIVE
29.00 "...did not care for the role-playing game itself. They simply saw it as a source of revenue." Hmmm.
There is another games company (that started up around the same time as TSR, and in a similar manner(two guys in a basement)) that is making exactly the same mistake.
Right and they created 4 editions which none were compatable with each other at all and every 6 to 7 years they come out with a new version and the rumor is there's a 6th edition on the way .
Yet people love talking smack about AD&D when for over 20 years the game went through just 2 versions that were still somewhat compatable with only minor rules changes , a few addition rules and clarifications to the rules where someone with a 1st edition AD&D character could play in a 2nd edition game with only a few minor changes
I find curious that you feel 1st edition is so much more popular. Here in Brazil 2nd edition was the first Ad&D published, following the black box basic D&D a few years prior. We had no idea at the time of the circunstances around it, the big religious and media moral panic would only surface when 3rd edition came out in the early 2000s.
+MARC OSS I suppose it is a regional thing. Here in Canada we got the full line. Here there was kind of a backlash against 2nd Edition from a lot of the consumers since they didn't feel that there was a need to buy the re-purchase the books. There are also a fair number of people who play Retro Clones of AD&D 1st Edition and most of the people I game with were people who played 1st and did not like 2nd.
Oi Marcos, someone told me that D&D was as popular as another role playing game (forgot the name) due to difficulty finding a distributor for the D20 dice. I was wondering if this is true
Also my wife is Brazilian and we will be down there in December and January. Been 5 years since I was there and can't wait!
I was a huge fan of the Skills & Powers, Combat & Tactics, Spells & Magic and High Level Campaigns books that expanded 2nd Gen (Generation, we didn’t call it edition) making characters very customizable.
I’m a year into my first AD&D campaign. Having a blast with my Tiefling Mage11/Thief11.
That's awesome! I'm really happy that you are enjoying it!
I cut my teeth on 2E and I miss the challenge not presented in newer versions. The world seemed more significant, leading to a grittier game.
Although I do enjoy a lot of aspects in 5e.
Great video, I'd like to share the series on my website.
+T20s Grunt Thanks for the kind words. Feel free to share them
AD&D 2.0 definitely had a much grittier feel to it than the D&D presented by WotC with 3rd edition.
Removing the monk and the assassin was one of Gygax’ idea for 2nd edition before he left. He felt pretty much the same as you; that they were more suited for an Oriental supplement rather than the medieval-Europe-themed core books.
I wouldn’t be surprised if removing the half-orcs was his idea too. He never liked how much focus players put on the non-human races and the rape issue could be worked around. (Either by just not mentioning it, or stating that Chaotic Evil humans might willingly reproduce with orcs or something.)
Still play a modified 2nd addition game, and Planescape was the greatest campaign setting ever.
It sounds interesting what was it about
@@mudshrooze Takes place mainly in the city of Sigil, which has doors to different planes. Check out the videogame Planescape: Torment. It's one of the most beloved games of all time, and has been hailed as having the best writing in any game. It's set in Planescape and uses 2nd edition rules. Same style as Baldur's Gate.
@@mudshrooze It's the setting where teiflings came from that wizards made into a standard race which should have never happened because they just don't fit in with the regular races nor do dragonborn in my opinion
My favoured rule set....not without it's problems and necessity to tweak. Owing mainly to the so called 2.5ed features and related splat books. But many many choices all the same.
I'm not an edition snob...just like 2ed is all. Great review.....liking this series. :)
+Mark Hyde To be honest I would really love to run 2nd Edition again. It's the version I first played so it will haves have a special place in my heart.
My only problem with later editions were related to the takeover by Wizards and in turn Wizards eventually by Hasbro. BUT I'm happy to play in any edition and on reading the basic rules for the 5thed and checking out a friends PHB it seems like a fresh attempt to revive some of the 2ed feel and polish if not OSR styling elements as well. Looks like D&D is on the right track again....
I suspect 2e and BECMI are in a somewhat similar boat, though 2e more so, in being seen as old be younger players but too new and rules heavy for many in the OSR crowd.
This video was unendingly interesting. The more you know.
I started playing AD&D (1e) in the 1980's. I just recently started reading the AD&D 2e books. The majority of the game seems to have remained the same, especially after all the accessory books came out with basically all the same classes, races and monsters as the original edition plus new ones. In my opinion the second edition improved the organization of the material, the spell descriptions were refined and better explained, the Wizard's and Priest's spell compendiums are awesome.
I started as a kid with 2nd Edition. I was amongst a group of other kids getting an introduction to the game, arranged by a guy who wanted to DM and the lady who owned the game store. We didn't struggle with the rules at all. I guess our DM was just competent and patient.
It really makes all the difference!
One thing I like about 5 is that it seems to take things back to the simplicity of the box sets
They went with a "Rules Light" approach, which as I DM I love. I can't recall how many arguments use to break out back in 3rd/3.5 where they tried to have a rule (usually poorly worded) for everything
popechucky I have the dungeon master guide as well as many other supplements I would say some of the best supplements are the villains handbook the dungeon master guide and the necromancers guide. I especially love the villains handbook because it truly teaches you how to create a really believable and fleshed-out villain.
5th is just too cookie-cutter for me. d&d has gone seriously mainstream and it has suffered for it.
I find a lot of the criticisms comes from a modern consumers perspective... Each edition refined it's predecessor. At that time those rules were how the game was played and you'd simply learn them. There's so many modern RPGs all of which have refined their wording to be consistent and precise are what makes the old rule systems look prehistoric but at that time publishers were going off only their own experience of creating a new tabletop RPG. I think the old books are scrutinised too heavily and aren't giving a critique from a 1980's perspective
For me with 2nd Ed you had to have a copy of 1st Ed DMG for all the bit they left out of the newer book
Love the series. I started out in 1979 with the blue box basic set and quickly moved up to AD&D. it was great through high school my friends and I played it. When 2nd edition came out after I finished high school and we couldn't quite get into it. It just didn't seem necessary. It wasn't until 1996 and the end of TSR that I finally picked it up.
I liked the black cover re-prints, and the information was better arranged than the original printings. I ran a long campaign over 1996 and 1997 using 2nd edition. It was terribly flawed, elves and rangers were ridiculously over powered. I blame it on Drizzt, DAMN YOU BOB SALVATORE! It was so bad that in my campaign elves were a slave race. Humans had run them off the map back into hiding. Having a Humanocentric campaign world helped to balance things. I still had elven PCs but they were either run-away slaves or in danger of being captured.
I know a lot of people did start with 2nd and have a nostalgic place for it in their heart, but it had problems galore. Way too many splat books with a stupid amount of power creep.
+Ed Stevens I've always like Elves and Rangers and to be fair even though I love Salvatore's books, I never played a Ranger until 3rd Edition, 3.0 to be precise and Rangers were terrible in 3.0
3.5 had better balance for sure, for all classes not just the Ranger. If I remember though in 3.0 Rangers still could both duel wield and specialize in archery rather than pick one fighting style like in 3.5. Being able to do both made them broken and over powered.
+Ed Stevens The 3.0 Ranger had the Two Weapon Fighting style, the received Ambidexterity and Two Weapon Fighting for free so long as they only wore light armour. They could take the Archery feats but they didn't automatically get them. 3.5 presented them with the choice, 3.0 Rangers were actually pretty underwhelming
DravenSwiftbow I never played 3.0, I had quit for a time after my children were born and didn't get back into it until my son turned 10 and I bought him the whole set of 3.5 books. Those were great, lots of customization and easy to get into rules. I loved it, he loved and we have been playing for years.
I ran a long 3.5 campaign with him and his friends from 2003 through 2012. I did find that at higher levels, anything above 5th, skill checks and saving throws got out of hand. I had to come up with a set of house rules to keep things balanced. What I came up with is very similar to what Monte Cook did in his Numenera game using the cypher system. It was sliding difficulty scale. Check it out if you haven't it's pretty good design.
I skipped 4th edition all together, when they said fireballs were square I was out. I'm interested in hearing your take on it.
Now I am back into it with 5th edition. This is, imho, the best edition of the game. I have been playing it and running campaigns in it for almost 2 years now and I can't imagine going back to 3.5. It is just so much easier and simpler now, but not dumbed down.
I am still playing with my son, who is in grad school now, my dad who is a really old gamer, and my brother who is over seas in China using Roll20. We are having a blast.
I appreciate your videos, and can't wait to see the next installment.
+Ed Stevens It's awesome you got to run for you son and his friends, I'm hoping to be able to do that too. I ran 3rd and 3.5 from 2000 until 2012, but the end I was pretty well done with 3.5 and never really got into Pathfinder. Once I gave 4th a chance I really liked it, that said I totally agree that 5th Edition is their best work to date.
I never understood why TSR didn't come out to a talk show or something and be like:
hello, we have demons and devils yes, but we fight them, see they have combat stats,
also, we have holy warriors fighting evil.
+draakgast I believe that things like a press release or public statements were released pretty much along those lines, and I seem to recall there was the rare talk show like face off of the religious evangelicals saying it was satanic VS someone trying to explain it, but really no one wanted to hear it. Pretty much "Okay it's satanic, and the people who play it are weirdos who hold dark rituals in the basement" and didn't even want to hear from anyone saying otherwise. If the talk shows weren't asking them to come on, then there wasn't much they could do.
The main argue was that these holly worriors also use magic against evil and not as church says the power of Jesus. DnD says that there is evil magik but also good and church doen't accept any magic practices.
thare is no reasoning with those kind of people.
When I played, 2nd edition was just coming out. We played a mix of 1st and 2nd edition. I loved it. It just had a more adventurest feel to me.
My son has started to play now under 5th edition rules and he has a pregenerated campaign he is making his mother and I play. I don't care for the new style of play. I don't know what it is, just seems to antiseptic or like something is missing.
Oh well, it's just a game.
It is, and the beauty of it is that if you still have your books you can always revisit the early additions, if nothing else your son could learn how the game was played in your youth. I love 5th Edition but I am also looking really forward to running Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition this summer and also plan to run a game using the Rules Cyclopedia.
Hasbro has dumbed-down all the magic that made AD&D a, well, really magical kind of experience. it's more mainstream than ever and unfortunately it has suffered for it. but Hasbro is making record profits so it's working I guess...
@@leshtricity Doom Eternal had record sales too. Ever play it? Its garbage.
Sometimes, you just want what made a great game great in the first place, but the developers want to reach a wider demographic, so the product you once loved suffers for it. WotC, IMO, ruined Dungeons and Dragons, in the same way they ruined MTG. Sure, the game may be more popular and mainstream, but maybe that's its problem. It used to be a niche hobby. Monopoly became so popular, it was hard to find a household in America that didn't have a Monopoly board in their closet. Problem is, nobody hardly plays Monopoly anymore. I hope Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have the same fate.
The whole thing about religious groups seems quite odd to me from when I was growing up it seemed to be the "concerned mother syndrome". I grew up in a Catholic community, we weren't too religious and would go to church like once every month or two. One of the priests who was also bishop said that he had no problem with people playing computer games like Doom since you were essentially killing demons and solving puzzles apparently. To me it just seems like mothers who have been watching too much news and hearing about satanic this and satanic that and not wanting their children to play because they might commit suicide or something like that.
It's one of those "Extremely Vocal Minority" situations. Sadly all it really took was a small group of Priests and one grieving mother to make D&D public enemy number one, then it just snowballed out of control from there.
I lived it. I remember playing advanced D&D, we also collected the lead figures and played that way as well. The church said it was satanic and we had to melt our figures, it killed me , I had lead dragons and berserkers, had to melt them.
@@conanthebarbarian7853 That's terrible! Very sorry to hear about that.
great job with the vid - I enjoyed it
I still play dragon dice. I love that game
That Players' Handbook and Monsterous Manual are NOT second edition proucts - they are either 2.5 or original third edition books.
Yes, there was a 2.5 - a buddy of mine bought the core books.
The Monsterous Compendium saw a second book too.
Those are actually true 2nd edition products. The content is the same as was released in 1989, except for the errata updates that occurred throughout the various printings. The only change is format and art. I know as I have many different printings of the PH, DMG, and MM and they all read the same.
What your buddy calls 2.5 is also a fallacy as TSR never designated such a thing with the closest thing coming to a major rule shift being the character point system which only existed Player's Option: Skill & Powers, Player's Option: Spells & Magic, Dungeon Masters Option: High-Level Campaign, and the one adventure Gates of Firestorm Peak. Even so, the character point system was only in a few chapters of each book while the adventure included statistics for both systems. Player Option: Combat & Tactics contained nothing for the character point system, though it does mention its upcoming introduction. Most of the rules from that book could be found in earlier products like the Complete Fighter's Handbook, they were collated into one book and had the mechanics updated.
I started AD&D I guess about the time the Monster Manual for the 1st Edition came out. The DM Guide was a god send to us!! Began playing it in Northern California and continued thru a 3 year assignment to Germany, a 2 year assignment to Washington State, and even to just before I retired in my last assignment to California. We looked at the 2nd edition and decided we didn't really like it. So, we continued with our version of the 1st edition. In all that time I was a DM from about 6 months of learning it as the individual that taught us the game got reassigned. Loved it!! But, to me the 2nd edition was what made it less fun. I've been looking at it again with the 5th edition. But, a lot has changed and it'll take some more research before I commit to it again.
What I remember loving about 2nd Ed was the ability to specialize more as a Thief. I liked to play a Dwarven Fighter/Thief I called a Tunnel Fighter who put all his points into Find/Remove Traps. I would also go Ambidextrous to get Two Weapon Fighting. Saddens me how Thieves are so screwed these days with Traps skills just being skills, and you need all your stats to be high to survive.
Also most of the thief skills from ad&d became skills anyone could take .
Now a wizard can pick pockets , hide in shadows , move silently and open locks causing the need for thief characters to become null and void and changing the thief class to rouge was one of the dumbest things wizards has done besides create that poor excuse for d&d which was nothing more then an mmo with its daily powers , at will powers and encounter powers just like the vast majority of mmo's have
is the monstous manual essential? can i play with just the dm guide and player handbook??
You can. I actually ran 2nd Edition for a couple of years with no Monstrous Manual, though I did so by mainly making NPC's the same way you would create Player Characters so it was more work.
I would highly recommend getting a Monstrous Manual if you do intend to run since it does make life easier.
@@DravenSwiftbow Thanks for the response! I would buy it if the prices for it at ebay were not that high. Anyway, i will look through it!
They are available Print on Demand from DM's Guild and Drive Thru RPG if you are interested
@@DravenSwiftbow Thanks a lot but i would like to buy a hardcover which ,if im not mistaken, is not sold there. I also live in greece so the postage might be high.. Btw, which you think is better, ad&d 1e or 2e??
Still the best edition imho
I appreciate the review but my recollection of second edition was much different. I had all of the first edition and the last two books (As Gygax left) fell apart due to poor quality. Second Edition allowed for character customisation that was never a part of ADaD and has remained a core component of character building. When WotC took over the quality issues got worse. Supplement guides were no longer hard cover. ADaD had entered an era of mass consumer production without a lot of substance. I felt at the time that the "Monstrous Compendium" was a poorly designed effort to compel me to replace it on a regular basis after I lost or destroyed monster sheets. I still think to this day that 2nd was the "Golden age" of ADaD. Character customisation took nine classes to fifty. Any given campaign destroyed the player expectation of what they would face as NPC customisation would quickly prove you wrong.
Having said that I am very much enjoying your history... Also I am salivating over the fact that you have the original edition when I can only start at the "Red box". The one you didn't review because you don't have a copy. I'll trade your pristine copy of the original for my tattered red box copy:P... Ohhh, I still have the dice that came from the box if you want a pic of the poor quality. It came with a black crayon to fill in the number grooves on the dice.
+MrEiniweini I appreciate the offer, but I think I'll keep my Zero Edition books. A friend of mine had one of the Basic sets, his had Yellow Dice without the crayon so he had to use his pencil...good times
If i play Dungeons and Dragon's 2nd edition is the only one i play
Nah bro, 2E wasn't suffering from an "identity crisis". Those optional rules were put there to encourage the use of "house rules", which made the game more personalized. This tradition is one started by Gaygax and is honoring his vision of what D&D was supposed to be, a game of looese rules adjusted to DMs on how they wanted to play. I have many house rules changing the 2E system to how I see it should work. Any player joining my game has to adjust to my house rules.
2nd edition still holds the record for outrageous numbers of splat books. And getting rid of devils and demons, albeit in name only, was just the height of political correctness. It hastened my departure from D&D and I never went back, at least not to anything after 1e, which I still play. But at least it was still TSR; everything after TSR is DINO (D&D in Name Only).
But AD&D lasted for over 20 years so it was kind of expected they would come up with new things during that time .
Now wizards seem to pump out a $50 book every month or 2 adding more and more bloat to the game with more rules , more feats to make characters even more powerful and more classes that just bloat the game more .
Now the rumor is that wizards us working on a newer version of d&d that mist likely won't be compatable at all with 5th edition causing players to spend more money on more books and it's because of corporate greed
2nd edition also got rid of the illusionist as a separate class.
That is incorrect. Illusionist is a specialist class under the wizard group. What TSR did in 2nd edition was create more specialists than just the illusionist. There was 20 different generic classes under the wizard group including the illusionist:
-Mage
-Abjurer
-Conjurer
-Diviner
-Enchanter
-Illusionist
-Invoker
-Necromancer
-Transmuter
-Chronmancer
-Elementalist
-Dimensionalist
-Force Mage
-Mentalist
-Shadow Mage
-Alchemist
-Artificer
-Geometer
-Song Mage
-Wild Mage
@@craigtucker1290 Yes but those specialists wernt additional classes but we're sub-classes still classified as magic users who just specialized in one type of magic .
An illusionist from 1st edition AD&D had a diffrent experience table , had a diffrent spell table and even a diffrent HD table then magic users making them separate classes from one another
@@williamlee7482 No, you actually wrong. You are trying to use a 1st edition term to 2nd edition. 2nd edition did not have sub-classes, they had groups of which there were five (originally four, but psionicist was added later), warrior, wizard, priest, rogue, and psionicist. Then under each group were the classes, like fighter, paladin, and ranger or under wizard, mage and then the dozen or so specialist, including illusionist. The next level down is the kits if you chose to take one which could modify any group or class ability, further making a character fairly unique. Some kits could be looked at more like subclasses like the ones from The Complete Bard's Handbook or the various Al-Qadim kits that completely changed how one could use magic, like a clockwork mage.
What 2nd edition did was reorganized the classes that were similar to each other under each group name with certain general characteristics like THAC0, hit dice, and saving throws to name a few, but then separate them again into classes under these groups into more specialized professions. Each class had different traits, like spell lists, including some spells only available to that class. Some even used different experience point tables, but not all of them while specialists like the illusionist actually had more spells than a standard mage, but this was not true of every specialist.
"The character classes are divided into four groups according to general occupations: warrior, wizard, priest, and rogue. Within each group are several similar character classes. All classes within a group share the same Hit Dice, as well as combat and saving throw progressions. Each character class within a group has different special powers and abilities that are available only to that class. Each player must select a group for his character, then a specific class within that group." - Player's Handbook, page 34
This distinction actually made it into the TSR trivia game, but I do understand the confusion. A paladin uses a different category on the warrior experience table than a fighter, but the same one as a ranger, but all three of them are warriors. It was just reorganizing the of classes in 1st edition to something more sensible and organized for mechanics, rules, and effects. So if an item could only be used by only by a specific group or if a spell had different saving throws based on groups like feeblemind, one would know where they fell.
2nd edition would eventually even bring back some classes that were eliminated from 1st edition like the assassin and monk, though they would setting specific classes which there were quite a few of. The assassin was under the rogue group and the monk was placed under the priest group with both being for Greyhawk and the Scarlet Brotherhood, but not to be confused by the spellcasting monk class also under the priest group.
@@craigtucker1290 so I used the wrong term but I'm still right about what I said because AD&D 1st edition illusionist was it's own class with its own experience table and was NOT part of a grouping under magic user class at all .
It wasn't untill 2nd edition that illusionists became a speciality of the magic user class and no longer had its own experience table for level progression .
You are equating 1st edition illusionist with 2nd edition illusionist and saying they both are specialties of the magic user class which is not the case with 1st edition illusionists .
It wasn't untill 2nd edition that the illusionist was no longer a single class but became a speciality of magic user class along with the rest
@@williamlee7482 No, you are trying to pretend that illusionist were all that different from magic-users when they really weren't. The same is true of paladins compared to fighters in 1st edition. Using a different experience table does not make them drastically different for they are both similar in ways. That is why they were grouped together in 2nd edition, because they are so similar. The groupings also limit how one could dual-class, only one choice from each grouping, something that Sage Advice struggled to resolve in 1st edition. Also, there is no magic-user class. That was renamed mage under the wizard group.
There was no need to have a separate experience table for illusionists or any other specialist for the most part as that was one of the messy qualities of 1st edition that 2nd edition was trying to eliminate. An illusionist is not a subclass of mage in 2nd edition. Instead, it is its own class under the wizard group that has some advantages and some disadvantages that balance it out as a class compared to a mage.
I am not sure why you think having a separate experience table means anything significant and how you feel about classes overrides the fact that mage and illusionists were separate classes in 2nd edition. One was not a mage who then decided to specialize in a particular school, one was a generalist mage or a specialist of some sort.
What edition was the Asian adventures in? I used to have that book. Kensai was an interesting class I remember.
Oriental Adventures was released for 1st Edition AD&D, with an updated version put out for 3rd Edition. I've never read my 1st Edition book since the binding was notoriously shoddy and mine already has pages falling out even though it was rarely opened. I know the 3rd Edition book had the Kensai class in it.
There was also Kara Tur which was an Asian themed setting in the Forgotten Realms.
There was a 1E Boxed Set produced called Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms for Forgotten Realms. It was compatible with AD&D 2E since it was published in 1988. AD&D 2E was being worked on at that time.
@@DravenSwiftbow that's right, it was called Oriental Adventures, not Asian Adventures. Thanks for the correction.
Great video! So if someone ( me) has advanced, 3.5, and 5th edition DMGs, would 2nd edition DMG be a good addition to creating worlds?
+geeksonthemoon 1st edition has a mapmaking system you could use. it is really useful.
Really interesting stuff.
Are those MM and PH actually 2nd ed? They look nothing like mine and I thought the black books with the circular logo was 3rd ed?
They are yes. In 1995 TSR revised their 2nd Edition books to have the black covers.
Oh thanks, do you know if it is just a cover change or is there a change to the text as well?
As far as I know there are some new additions to the revised books. I honestly haven't directly compared them as I would really like to have an original version of the PHB. I'll have to have a closer look at the DMG and let you know.
@@DravenSwiftbow 2.5
@@DravenSwiftbow There is no new material or rules in the revised books whatsoever. Most mistakenly believe the rules were somehow changed or that this is 2.5 edition when it is not. What these books did include was errata. For those who do not what that is, it is corrections made to the text between printings. In fact, there was errata corrections made with the original DMG and PH printings. The main difference is art and layout, not content or rule changes.
The later release by WotC of these books was completely disappointing in that all they did was just put a modified cover on the book without doing an errata update as every other printing had done. I actually did compare them in all the sections that TSR had provided errata for before they changed editions, which is why I did not buy them as they had nothing to offer over the last printings of the revised printings I have.
Most of the community incorrectly throws around 2nd edition versions without really knowing what, if anything was changed or even if there was a significant rule change. What most call 2.5 edition, with some referring to it as 2.75 edition is lumped as the revised editions/black covers. What most do not understand is that there are two systems represented in those books with only one of them being new and the other being an an ongoing evolution of the game. The character point system was a new version of the game supported only in 3 rule books and 1 adventure before that system was discontinued from any future products. The new psionic rules get lumped into this system, yet they are not part of the character point system but a reworking of the psionic rules that were somewhat broken. This is why the new psionic rules were released in both Players Options: Skills & Powers and the new Dark Sun Campaign Setting box set.
thats not the orginal edition of the players handbook and monster manual. the monster manual is white and the orginal 2nd edition of the players handbook was a redish brown cover.
The dungeond and dragons symbol on the dm guide is what was on the monster manual and players handbook.
thats the skills and powers books that he is looking at.
There is also a computer program that was out called 'dungeons and dragons corerules and its expansion" it also had teh option to go online and download the brown books but now the site is gone. This program was an awesome program that allowed you to make gigantic maps and to link other maps to symbols on other maps. you could put text for wandering monster "which you could make with in the program and link to the map itself. you could make encounters new wandering moster table make new races classes monsters and pretty much anything you wanted. even had a monk class.
+Pelmen129 I began playing D&D in 1999, I got the DMG from a friend but I had to buy the Player's Handbook and the Monstrous Manual and the only ones available were the new prints. I'm always on the look out for a PHB.
Plate mail and shield would be 2. Unless you had defensive bonuses from your DEX score.
I don't know what this guy's talking about it's not that he did a bad review but the optional rules and everything are never that confusing even when it comes to initiative. Any optional rule can be explained to an experience player within a second and if it's a new player then it really won't make a difference because they haven't gotten used to anything anyway. Again I appreciate this guy's review of 2nd edition but I really disagree with the fact that combat and all the other things were confusing.
It's about consistency within the rules set. With AD&D there are so many optional rules that it is very easy for different DM's to have different ways to run things. At one point I was playing in three different 2nd Edition AD&D games. In 2 out of the 3 the DM's freely gave enemy AC to make it easier to know if you hit or miss, while the 3rd insisted the players tell him which AC they hit which is not the most intuitive since most 2nd Edition AD&D character sheets didn't have a full chart to fill in the "To Hit" number for each Armour class. All three DM's had different rules for character death, one was dead at 0 HP, another used the -10 rule and the third allowed the downed player to make a Save vs Death Magic every round dying if they failed.
In those three groups two used the optional non-weapon profs while the other didn't. One DM house rules Weapon proficiency by grouping like weapons together. The days each group played was also not consistent and there were lots of other differences in which rules each used. In the end I dropped out of two of the games because it was a mess trying to keep which DM used which rule straight, and since I was relatively experienced at the time, and the DM's knew that a couple of them would get rude if I referenced a rule they didn't use.
DravenSwiftbow Dungeons & Dragons has always had optional rules even if they aren't even the book the DM has complete control. I disagree with you and it seems a lot of other comments do as well but thank you for the video.
DravenSwiftbow plus all the optional rules actually make the game better it actually rounds out your character and gives you more to draw on from a role playing and improv perspective. That's why to me 2nd edition is the best it has so much depth that you can make it easy or as complex and immersive as you want it to be
That's completely fine, I based that off of my personal experience as I mentioned above. As time has gone on I find that I love 2nd Edition more and more and would talk about it differently if I made this video today, since at the time I recorded this I was still not the biggest fan of 2nd Edition (mainly because I kept remembering the nightmare I went through with those different groups). I might actually revisit this video based on my renewed interest in the system
Funny that you had to explain what "60 Minutes" was.
I loved 2e system but BECMI or 1e modules or Dungeon mag FTW :) . First printing of 2e looked much better than the 2nd also. Ya I was meh on the binder idea though I could see how it was a good concept. I thought 2e was much easier to understand than 1e. Removal of Half-Orcs made sense to me. It didnt have much history in fantasy and its almost a monster, great to publish in a dragon mag or one of the many splat books but no need in the core books, same with Monk and Assassin. Actually assassins could be any class really was the logic and that made sense to me at the time. (Besides they didnt take poison out of the game). I agree with the Demons and Angels comment but I never liked them, they were boring to me. I preferred more classic monsters. What I loved about the down play of demons and angels, I noticed that classic monsters got to take their place. Dragons became fierce and Vampires became awesome etc... Really unfortunately I agree with the too much supplements. I liked them being out there but I played mostly 1e and dungeon mag stories, Id like to have seem better modules to be released under the 2e banner.
Angels made a comeback in AD&D 2e in the late 1990s with 'Warriors of Heaven' by Chris Perkins. The companion to that book also brought back demons to 2e.
@@RadRat1978 Everything made a comeback at the end of 2nd edition as monks and assassins were also available. The term devil(s) was used quite a bit in the 'Guide to Hell' also released around the same time as 'Warriors of Heaven'. I personally found nothing inspiring with the terms devils, daemons, or demons, especially when they were referred to as a type IV demon. What is terrifying about that? To me, the terms always seemed to be what was used by those backwater worlds that didn't know what they actually were. I can't say that I cared for all the names they ended up using, but it was better than what they had used before.
Type IV demon, really?
Good video!
D&D - it's all about the odd numbered editions :-)
+JD McDonnell Do the editions with .5 count? :P
+Alifdin Samarista Yes! But only for half a point :-)
Hate 3e and 4e; so the Star Trek thing doesn't mesh for me on this topic.
JD McDonnell anything past 2nd edition is crap
BEST EDITION.
WotC once had a passion for the game, now only has a passion for money. Sad, really. Maybe TSR could somehow be resurrected?
If only it could .
It seems every 6 to 7 years wizards changes the rules with a new version that you have to spend hundreds of dollars on just to keep up with the hobby .
AD&D lasted over 20 years with only a few minor changes and rules clarifications yet wizards can't even keep to one rules set for longer then 8 years before they make a new set of rules all because of corporate greed
Horrifying that so many people don't understand: the WHOLE POINT of the 2nd Edition was to get Gygax' name off the front covers of all the books. Brian Blume was tired of paying giant royalties to the guy he elbowed out of the company, so he barfed up this ridiculous 2nd Edition nonsense -- a "derivative" work based on Gary's original books -- so they could legally pay him less.
It had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with improving the game...
ok, but the game was improved in many people's opinion.
"Monstrous" Manual. . . LOL.
I detect a Canadian
I am, born and raised in Nova Scotia
Lol. "Illusionalist"
There were no "rogues" in first edition, thank God. They were thieves, as it should be.
You are such a tool to say that 2E was looked down on compared to any other editions, sounds like you entered the D&D world at 3E
I began with 2nd Edition. The fact of the matter is where I lived very few people cared for 2nd Edition. Most people still played 1st edition until 3rd came out.
Didn't care for THACO. I didn't dig that at all. I never liked the idea that players should be privileged to know an opponents AC. Plus, there's enough mathematics in the game already when you take all the modifiers into consideration. The game didn't need even more math. It's not about "it wasn't that complicated" as much as it was about slowing games down to a crawl. The old matrix charts worked just fine. THACO just was a hinderence in the end. I used the optional d10 initiative system. That worked well.
Why does a PC need to know an opponents AC when using THAC0? As the DM, just tell the player character if they hit or miss. Simple.
Totally agree, Ballpark!
3rd edition wasn't perfect, but it succeeded in part because of the d20 open gaming license and because it got rid of the bane of most gamers existence, THACO! Way more complicated than it had any right to be and when looking at it today, is an extremely clunky mechanic. First and second edition have not aged very well but they do offer a very different feel compared to the D&D released by WotC and because of that can be fun to go back to every so often if you're able to get around the dated mechanics.
thac0 is really the same rule as the d20 attack. d20 formula d20 + base stat vs AC. thac0 formula d20 + AC vs base stat. Base stat refers to base attack bonus and thac0 respectively. In 3rd you add your bab and compare the total to the AC, in 2nd you add the AC and compare to thac0.
DOOMED ! THAC0 was very simple. I don't understand why people think Its so complicated.
i cringe everytime i hear you say "illusionalist".
Yeah sorry, I know that's not their name but I used to call them that to annoy a friend who liked playing them and now it just sticks whenever I talk about Illusionists
I really was excited when 2nd edition came out. We played the shit out of that edition. 😊
It had its issues but it was fun.