Snob LOL JK JK....The only version I honestly didn't like was 3.0 and 4'th. I can play pretty much all the others and enjoy them, but I'm with ya, between 1e and 2e, they just felt the most rewarding to play for me. Was made even better by all of the materials that were supplemented over the years back in the day.
Objectively - because there still wasn't a veritable cornucopia of classes, nothing was particularly overpowered, and none of the video game stuff had infected the hobby yet. In fact, this hobby was still being made by people who didn't play and in some cases hated video games. Once the splat books came along you can argue that was the beginning of the end, but thats a topic for another day.
If there is no THAC0 (long 'a', /THAY co/, for the folks I have played with... not /Thack oh/ or /Thack zero/ , to each their own, however) is it REALLY AD&D? [tongue firmly in cheek 🙂]
@@Winslow273why are you using the long ‘a’? As far as I know Gary introduced the term in the original DMG but I’m not sure if there’s any recordings with him actually pronouncing it.
3.6k views. Not bad for a system written 30+ years ago. Some games have staying power. I watched this video again today as it popped up and made me smile because I recall both the edition and your video retrospective as sources of enjoyment. Definitely worth the revisit. Cheers!
Member of the new dnd generation! I've been dming 5e since I was ~15 and now at 21 I'm taking some of my friends through 2e Undermountain. Thank you for this video! Great insights and general overview to help me get my bearings.
I enjoyed this commentary :) My fond memory of getting this book from the book store was met with mixed feelings. Like you mentioned, some of the coloring just felt "off", but that might have been subject to my other memories of the earlier darker themed books like like from the 1'st editions. However, what I did enjoy was the addition of color pictures that were really cool. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and memories :) Good times!
I always liked to think of gnomes as the embodiment of "They were so consumed with whether or not they could, that they never stopped to ask if they should."
I also like the idea (my own personal head canon) that gnomes tend to be obsessive. Like a lone mad hermit or tinker when alone, or that they do things like Lemmings when in groups. The obsess over a task or a goal until it's completed, like building a magical airship to the Moon, or trying to split the Dweomer Particle. Or building a massive burrowing city.
The thing I love about 1st and 2nd AD&D most is how the game is more focused on roleplaying rather than combat and number min/maxing. With 3rd addition and the introduction of feats I began to notice that players began min/maxing every time they would create a character. They would always pick the same classes with the same feats and it became a cookie cutter generator. With 2nd, players freedom came from the imagination, and not set in stone numbers.
I never noticed that! That's why this book is so readable compared to many other editions. I always wondered why I can read these books from front to back but that later editions cause my eyes to glaze over and I just use them for reference. No wonder I have such Nostalgia for these things
I find the art and the colour scheme of the original printing to be wonderful, just stunningly beautiful and stylish. Hopefully, soon I will get my hands on a copy of my own. And, hopefully, it will be without much wear and tear. Thank you for the flipthrough.
2E is best D&D. 3E-5E, IMHO, aren't D&D, not really. I am not hating, they are just different systems with little to do with OD&D, 1E, or 2E. 2E was the last real D&D.
2e is by far the best. It fixed all the quirks and absurdities of 1e. Just re-introduce the monk and the assassin, drop the silly baatezu and tanar'i, and you're all set to go.
We agree on so much, but I really like Tanar’ri and Ba’atezu; I thought the names had much more flavour than Demons and Devils. One of the few good things to come out of the Satanic Panic
Watched all the way through and i just wanted to say, this is a great overview of the edition! Also love how you called certain mechanics tools! Great video!
This is the edition i played extensively. I’d love to have a game that recreates it but with d20, roll-high mechanics & a bit more features for fighters, who always got short-changed.
Samish for me. Fed up with 5e‘s hand holding and power fantasy, fascinated by Dark Sun‘s setting and brutality (in part thanks to Runehammer). I giggled with glee, when I read the rules for character death in DS tonight. Not because I want to kill PCs but because fighting feels dangerous and thus a victory worth a damn. My player’s handbook is in the mail and I’m looking forward to diving into the silt sea properly.
4e added some interesting things to the lore and setting as well. I liked that they didn't retcon anything in 4e, and instead had the campaign take place just after Kalak was killed and overthrown. Also, eladrin and the Lands within the Wind was really cool way to present them in the setting. mechanically neither 2e nor 4e do a great job of capturing the feel of it though. I'd avoid d20 altogether if I wanted run Dark Sun
I wore the cover off mine after twenty (going on thirty) years and a few moves, but I managed to get another in good condition from Half-Price Books. I started with Basic but 2e's my favorite, and the PHB just helped cement that.
Haha, you and me both...Night Below on Fantasy Grounds was my Christmas present to myself (with the core rulebooks). So I am hoping to run the same as you in 2022. Very enjoyable to watch your overview, and I look forward to hearing how you get on with it in the months to come!
Compared to WOTC/Hasbro D&D, AD&D 1st and 2nd editions are practically the same game. 2nd really was just a reordering abs refining of the rules. You do lose some of the flavor of the spellcasting subclasses the way the spell lists work (especially the illusionist having unique spells) but I appreciate the effort to make specialist wizards and priests a core part of the game. I actually would have preferred the game dropping generic clerics and mages and only allowing specialists. I do wish the barbarian, assassin and half-orc had made it into the PHB but at least they were added back later in other material. I still prefer the B/X ability score table rather than the super arbitrary AD&D charts…especially exceptional strength. I know it’s been around forever but…it makes playing a warrior class without an 18 in strength just mediocre.
How dare that book to imply that a halfling, weighing 60 pounds tops, cannot be just as strong, if not stronger than a half-giant, weighing possibly 600!? I’m very glad, that you were courageous enough to take a stance in the matter. As long as we, the virtuous, are free to speak our mind, all is good.
The last real version of Dungeons & Dragons as far as I'm concerned.
Snob LOL JK JK....The only version I honestly didn't like was 3.0 and 4'th. I can play pretty much all the others and enjoy them, but I'm with ya, between 1e and 2e, they just felt the most rewarding to play for me. Was made even better by all of the materials that were supplemented over the years back in the day.
This is the best edition of AD&D.
Where I got my start 👍🏻
Objectively - because there still wasn't a veritable cornucopia of classes, nothing was particularly overpowered, and none of the video game stuff had infected the hobby yet. In fact, this hobby was still being made by people who didn't play and in some cases hated video games. Once the splat books came along you can argue that was the beginning of the end, but thats a topic for another day.
If there is no THAC0 (long 'a', /THAY co/, for the folks I have played with... not /Thack oh/ or /Thack zero/ , to each their own, however) is it REALLY AD&D? [tongue firmly in cheek 🙂]
Agrred
@@Winslow273why are you using the long ‘a’? As far as I know Gary introduced the term in the original DMG but I’m not sure if there’s any recordings with him actually pronouncing it.
3.6k views. Not bad for a system written 30+ years ago. Some games have staying power.
I watched this video again today as it popped up and made me smile because I recall both the edition and your video retrospective as sources of enjoyment.
Definitely worth the revisit.
Cheers!
Thanks and much appreciated for the extra bounce in my step today. 🤘🏻
20 - AC = Ascending AC
20 - THAC0 = Base To Hit Modifier
Member of the new dnd generation! I've been dming 5e since I was ~15 and now at 21 I'm taking some of my friends through 2e Undermountain. Thank you for this video! Great insights and general overview to help me get my bearings.
I enjoyed this commentary :) My fond memory of getting this book from the book store was met with mixed feelings. Like you mentioned, some of the coloring just felt "off", but that might have been subject to my other memories of the earlier darker themed books like like from the 1'st editions. However, what I did enjoy was the addition of color pictures that were really cool. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and memories :) Good times!
I always liked to think of gnomes as the embodiment of "They were so consumed with whether or not they could, that they never stopped to ask if they should."
I also like the idea (my own personal head canon) that gnomes tend to be obsessive. Like a lone mad hermit or tinker when alone, or that they do things like Lemmings when in groups. The obsess over a task or a goal until it's completed, like building a magical airship to the Moon, or trying to split the Dweomer Particle. Or building a massive burrowing city.
I liked the blue writing. Looks much more pretty than the 1st edition books.
The thing I love about 1st and 2nd AD&D most is how the game is more focused on roleplaying rather than combat and number min/maxing. With 3rd addition and the introduction of feats I began to notice that players began min/maxing every time they would create a character. They would always pick the same classes with the same feats and it became a cookie cutter generator.
With 2nd, players freedom came from the imagination, and not set in stone numbers.
Three column text was always appealing. It’s my fave version
I never noticed that! That's why this book is so readable compared to many other editions. I always wondered why I can read these books from front to back but that later editions cause my eyes to glaze over and I just use them for reference. No wonder I have such Nostalgia for these things
I find the art and the colour scheme of the original printing to be wonderful, just stunningly beautiful and stylish. Hopefully, soon I will get my hands on a copy of my own. And, hopefully, it will be without much wear and tear. Thank you for the flipthrough.
EBay prices are good if you are patient and smart.
2E is best D&D. 3E-5E, IMHO, aren't D&D, not really. I am not hating, they are just different systems with little to do with OD&D, 1E, or 2E.
2E was the last real D&D.
2e is by far the best. It fixed all the quirks and absurdities of 1e. Just re-introduce the monk and the assassin, drop the silly baatezu and tanar'i, and you're all set to go.
We agree on so much, but I really like Tanar’ri and Ba’atezu; I thought the names had much more flavour than Demons and Devils. One of the few good things to come out of the Satanic Panic
@@futureboy314 My favorite take on it is "It's what they call themselves".
Watched all the way through and i just wanted to say, this is a great overview of the edition! Also love how you called certain mechanics tools! Great video!
This was very helpful, walking us through the book and highlighting the main sections. Thank you for taking the time to do this, I learned a lot.
You are so welcome! 🤘🏻😊
This is the edition i played extensively. I’d love to have a game that recreates it but with d20, roll-high mechanics & a bit more features for fighters, who always got short-changed.
A return to Dark Sun brought me here. AD&D is the only way to run Dark Sun.
Samish for me. Fed up with 5e‘s hand holding and power fantasy, fascinated by Dark Sun‘s setting and brutality (in part thanks to Runehammer).
I giggled with glee, when I read the rules for character death in DS tonight. Not because I want to kill PCs but because fighting feels dangerous and thus a victory worth a damn.
My player’s handbook is in the mail and I’m looking forward to diving into the silt sea properly.
4e added some interesting things to the lore and setting as well. I liked that they didn't retcon anything in 4e, and instead had the campaign take place just after Kalak was killed and overthrown. Also, eladrin and the Lands within the Wind was really cool way to present them in the setting. mechanically neither 2e nor 4e do a great job of capturing the feel of it though. I'd avoid d20 altogether if I wanted run Dark Sun
I wore the cover off mine after twenty (going on thirty) years and a few moves, but I managed to get another in good condition from Half-Price Books. I started with Basic but 2e's my favorite, and the PHB just helped cement that.
Thank you for taking the time.
I just wanted to see what was i side the old book and your video was simple and to the point! ✌️
As of today I’m in my 40’s and I cut my teeth on 2nd ed. Miss the fun but hated THAC0 math lol. Good times.
Haha, you and me both...Night Below on Fantasy Grounds was my Christmas present to myself (with the core rulebooks). So I am hoping to run the same as you in 2022.
Very enjoyable to watch your overview, and I look forward to hearing how you get on with it in the months to come!
Sweet! We can share notes or vent the occasional frustrations with Fantasy Grounds. 😅
I enjoyed the video. I liked the few games i played. If you have the ravenloft red box, you can ramble on with that. :)
The best of the best. After 2nd edition, it all went down hill.
I enjoyed your comments
I wish I had my originals
I was able to obtain this for a decent price. It’s just playing the waiting game and avoiding the ridiculous collectors markups.
Ebay prices can be pretty good. I got the DMG and PHB for $40 a piece with very good condition.
Made it!
given the chance you've played or at least read some of the other editions, what is your most recommended edition
3.5e
Compared to WOTC/Hasbro D&D, AD&D 1st and 2nd editions are practically the same game. 2nd really was just a reordering abs refining of the rules. You do lose some of the flavor of the spellcasting subclasses the way the spell lists work (especially the illusionist having unique spells) but I appreciate the effort to make specialist wizards and priests a core part of the game. I actually would have preferred the game dropping generic clerics and mages and only allowing specialists. I do wish the barbarian, assassin and half-orc had made it into the PHB but at least they were added back later in other material.
I still prefer the B/X ability score table rather than the super arbitrary AD&D charts…especially exceptional strength. I know it’s been around forever but…it makes playing a warrior class without an 18 in strength just mediocre.
How dare that book to imply that a halfling, weighing 60 pounds tops, cannot be just as strong, if not stronger than a half-giant, weighing possibly 600!?
I’m very glad, that you were courageous enough to take a stance in the matter. As long as we, the virtuous, are free to speak our mind, all is good.